Salad Dressing

What do you put on a salad?

This question is more complicated when you read the ingredient list on the back of the salad dressing bottles, and you only want to buy ingredients that you can pronounce!






Here are some good options that don't cost as much as the store-bought dressings:

• Sprinkle of Red Wine Vinegar or Balsamic Vinegar with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• Sprinkle of Lime or Lemon with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• Hummus

Our favorite salad dressing is one that my mom often made in the blender.   In Healthy Choices by Keepers at Home, I found a new recipe for it that uses real clean ingredients!  We love it, with these changes.  When I make it, the kids eat a lot more salad.  

Sweet and Sour Dressing
1/2 onion 
1/2 c. honey
1 tsp. sea salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 tsp. celery seed
3 tsp. yellow mustard
1/3 c. apple cider vinegar 
1 c. extra-virgin olive oil

 Put all the ingredients in the blender, in order, and blend slowly at first.  Then blend on full speed for about a minute until smooth.  Store in a glass mason jar or other glass container.  Keep in the refrigerator.

Lessons Learned From 21 Days of Clean Food

Lessons Learned from 21 Days of Clean Food:

1.  We are convinced that more organic, plant-based meals are important to health. We found that when we cut out meat, we substitute it with more vegetables.  We don't miss the meat as much as we thought we would.   Sources:  In Defense of Food, True Food, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, Forks Over Knives  (I found these at our local library)

2.  We learned more about combining foods to make complete proteins.  We also ate a lot more quinoa, buckwheat, and tofu, which are complete proteins.

3.  It was helpful to start with just a few simple meals that we rotated, so that it was not too hard, which was recommended by Jimmy Page.  I was pouring over cookbooks and added meals to the rotation, if we liked them.

Our favorites were:

Eggs in a basket

Breakfasts:  Egg sandwiches on Whole-wheat bread, Ezekiel 4:9 cereal, Oatmeal, Puffed Millet, Shredded Wheat from Trader Joe's or Aldies, Smoothies

Lunches:  Soups with Bread and Green Salad, Whole-grain pasta with homemade tomato sauce and spinach, Big Salads with other sides, whole-wheat pita pizzas

Dinners:
Vegetable and Tofu Stir-fry with Brown Rice and a Green Salad
Veggie Sandwich (avocado, cucumbers, kale, and hummus on homemade whole-wheat bread)
Roasted Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes with apples, quinoa salad or another side
Kale and Cannellinni Bean Soup with whole-wheat bread and a salad
Pizza with Homemade Whole-wheat crust and Salad
Re-fried Beans or Black beans with Brown rice, whole-wheat tortillas, avocados, salad

4.  Clean eating, without refined sugar and white flour is wonderful, once you get used to it.

5.  Having nourishing snacks available is important.  If there are unhealthy snacks around, someone will find them!

6.  Celebrate now and then (like we did on Day 19), but keep going in the right direction, toward health.

7.  Join in the journey with friends and family, for support and encouragement.  Thank you all for your kind encouragement and sharing your own recipes!  I am thankful for River Valley Ranch, where Jon Bisset invites Jimmy Page to encourage the staff toward health.  These meetings began our journey in reading and learning about clean whole food.

8.  This is only the beginning.  Each day we decide what we will eat and drink, promoting or eroding our health.  Simply one day at a time, for the glory of God.

Taking Bets?

If you were taking bets that we wouldn't make it through 21 days without eating meat and refined sugar, well, you won!  We celebrated on day 19.  We went to a friend's church who is Amish.  The service was meaningful, not that we could understand the German they were speaking, but because we were joining people that live so differently, but worship the same God.  We enjoyed getting to know our friends better and learning to know their family and friends, as well.  

They invited us to stay for lunch and supper, so we ate what they served.  We feasted!  For lunch we ate, white homemade bread with peanut butter (sweetened with pancake syrup) and white processed cheese, pickled red beets, pickled cucumbers, and apple snitz pie (an old recipe with dried apples, apple butter and apple sauce.  For supper, they served meat loaf (which we quietly skipped), noodles, yummy potatoes, salad with bacon, and wonderful desserts!  They even sent us home with white bread and another pie!  So, when we came home, what did we do?  We feasted again!

Today, we were back on track.  Sometimes, it is important to celebrate.  

Can I Afford Organic Produce? Days 14-16 Clean Food

This is the question we face every time we go in the grocery store.  When we see the produce, we're always looking for the lowest price.  So why buy the higher priced organic lettuce or apples?  Can we afford it?  Here are some tips about buying produce.

#1.  Know why organic is important.

In the past two years I have wavered between eating some organic produce, and then returning to the lower prices.  "Remembering our why" is important because otherwise we will just buy the low priced food.

In the book True Food, the authors say, "80% of commonly used pesticides today have been classified by NAS (National Academy of Sciences) researchers as potentially carcinogenic."  Pesticides are also linked to birth defects and human reproductive problems.  (Bond, Breyer, and Gordon, p. 93)

Here is a fun link from my friend, Jennifer.  It shows a girl's science experiment using organic and local sweet potatoes.  Click here.

#2.  Start small, begin with the most harmful produce.

Foods to buy organic and some that are okay not to buy organic:

Environmental Working Group's Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen  (These lists help if you can remember them when you are in the grocery store.  I had to write them down when I first learned them.)

ABC News

#3.  Know what is in season, and what you can buy local.  

I love to buy apples at the nearby orchards because they taste so much better than even the organic apples.  Local produce does not have to be shipped far, so we are decreasing energy consumption.  It is also important to support growers in our area.  Usually it will cost less, too.

Farmer's Markets are wonderful options, and they are popping up everywhere.  Buy when it is in season and freeze or can for the winter.  It costs less when it is in season, and it tastes so much better.  We like to freeze fruit when it is in season, then we have it all winter to enjoy.  There is nothing like pulling out frozen blueberries or peaches to enjoy in January!

Simple steps: Lists food that are in season in your area

#4  Grow your own food.  (This is my favorite, but hard to do in January)
We love digging up our own potatoes and going out to the garden to pick all we need for a beautiful salad!  Seeds and starter plants are very inexpensive.  Start with a container or a small plot of ground.

#5  Save money in other areas.
a.  Buy only fresh whole real food.  (You will save money because it will narrow down what you can buy.)

b.  Go plant-based.  You can make many simple meals with organic produce.  Eating lower on the food chain should cost less, so switch some meals from meat to plant-based meals.
Watch Forks over Knives or Planeat documentaries.

c.  Buy in bulk.  I like to go to Miller's Country Market that has bulk grains, flours, beans, nuts, honey, and coconut oil.  I stock up, so that I don't need to pay the higher prices at the grocery store.
Here is a bulk store you can order from online.  (I haven't tried it yet.)  Country Life Natural Foods

d.  Pretend the other harmful options don't exist.

#6  Pay now or Pay Later 
Paying for organic or local food now, will save you later in trips to the doctor, prescriptions, and health problems. Keeping the goal of good health in front of us will help when we are paying a little more now for food.

21 Days of Clean Food:  Days 14-16

Day 14  Dinner:  Veg/Tofu stir-fry with brown rice 

Salad with oranges, golden raisins, walnuts, and cranberries

Day 15 Lunch veggies:  My mom came and cooked us a plant-based meal!

Sorry, we were hungry, and ate it too fast for a picture.  It was boiled potatoes with a wonderful homemade tomato sauce on top, and a side of sweet corn.  The recipe was from Extending the Table Cookbook by Joetta Schlabach.

This is Blane's plate.

Elena and Slade made the homemade whole-wheat tortillas for Dinner.

Refried beans cooked in the crockpot.

Green salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, and yellow peppers.

Evening snack:  Kale and mango smoothie:  Yogurt, mango, kale, bananas, chia seeds, ice

John Deere Green Smoothie:  Just the way Blane loves it!

Day 16:  Breakfast:  Cereal, Lunch:  Refried beans and rice made into burritos, Dinner:  Whole-wheat pita pizza, with fresh garlic, diced tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese/ Salad/ Kale and white bean soup (from the freezer)
Easy Day!

Special Friday Dessert:  Molasses Cookies 

 Molasses Cookies Recipe with Better Ingredients

Cream together:
1 c. butter
1 1/2 c. black-strap molasses
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. flax meal (optional)

Add:
2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
1/3 c. almond milk

Stir in:
4 1/2 c. whole-wheat flour

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes
Enjoy!

Balance

Balance in life is important.  Post after post on this blog is about eating real unprocessed food.  Today, I want us to remember other important things in life:  our personal relationship with Jesus, the relationships with people, and lower on the list, exercise.

Today, I ate well, but my mind was spinning with the stress of the day.  "I need help," is a common line in my house when the kids are working independently, but run into questions.  When a few of them need help all at once, that is when I go into overload.  So, after I taught my third grader spelling, and the boys were working on math, I put on my running shoes and exercised.  Just a half hour of getting my blood pumping is a great stress relief and I know it is good physically as well.  

It is hard for me to get motivated, but I'm trying harder to get going lately.  My friend, Mrs. Miller, says that starting at age 30, people usually gain 10 pounds a decade.  I don't want to!  So, I've been putting on music and jumping around for about 30 minutes or getting outside, when I can brave the cold.  Michael says you just have to embrace the cold, but I have trouble, so inside I stay, jumping around and kicking at the air.

Then this afternoon, all the tasks of the day were swimming around in my mind.  Which thing should I do first?  So, after my youngest was sleeping, I sat down to read my Bible.  The words in 1 John 3:16 say, "This is how we know what love is:  Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.  And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers." 1 John 4:10 says, "This is love:  not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (NIV).  God gives me peace as I read the Bible.  

Other days, as I fold wash, I fill my mind with truth by listening to a sermon.  John Piper and Tim Keller are two of my favorite preachers.  As I read or listen to the Bible being explained, I can rest in God's love and know that He calls me His child.  Putting God first in our lives and also loving the people in our lives is even more important than food.  As I often say on this blog:  Jesus is the Bread of Life.  So without Him, we cannot have real life, now or in eternity.  

From the outside, you may think I have it all together, but as the old song goes, "It's me, it's me, it's me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer.  It's me, it's me, it's me O Lord, standing in the need of prayer."  Like all of us, I need to keep putting truth in front of me and make good choices everyday.  We can choose to eat well, exercise, and put our relationships with God and others first.  

Day 12 in our 21 days of clean plant-based meals 

(no refined sugar, no white flour, plus no meat, no fun (just kidding))

Breakfast:  Organic cereal with almond milk

Lunch:  Leftover Wild Rice and Vegetable Soup/ Salad/ Cornmeal

Dinner:  Baked Potatoes with Arugula Cream Sauce/ Corn/ Banana Nut Cookies

This was delicious!  

Next time, I will add spinach instead of arugula.  It had a strong taste.  I made a cream sauce with 4 Tbsp. butter, 2 Tbsp. whole-wheat flour, and 2 cups almond milk,  then added 2 cups of cauliflower puree from the freezer.  

Banana Cookies (Easy and delicious)
3 mashed ripe bananas
1/3 c. applesauce
2 c. rolled oats
1/4 c. almond milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. chopped walnuts (optional)
Bake 350 degrees for 15-20 min.

Day 13

Breakfast:  Shredded Wheat (from Trader Joe's) with almond milk, Mike had 3 eggs and Ezekiel 4:9 toast

Lunch:  Quinoa with vegetables and tofu, rice cakes with peanut butter and black strap molasses, kale chips

Dinner:  Whole-grain pasta with tomato sauce and white beans, green beans, Greek yogurt with pineapple, and pineapple smoothie (pineapple, yogurt, rice milk, ice, a small amount of frozen cranberries)

For tomato sauce, I sauteed garlic, onion, and green peppers, then added frozen tomatoes (you could use diced tomatoes), then added some frozen white beans.  This is one of the ways that I save time:  make extra and freeze for later use.  It was a simple and good meal.  Even Blane ate it:)

Way to know you are eating plant-based meals:  You have no more greens in the fridge, even though you bought 10 organic containers of kale, arugula, spinach, and lettuce at the grocery store last week.  (Aldies has some great prices on organic food)

Quick Meals: Half Way Through our 21 Days of Clean Plant-based Food Challenge

Day 8-11 The past four days I've made simple, quick, and clean meals.  This doesn't have to be hard.

Day 8: Stir-fry veggies with left-over brown rice/ Kale and White Bean Soup/ Salad/ carrots and celery/ pineapple

Kale and White Bean Soup

Dark Chocolate

Berry Smoothie:
1/2 c. Greek yogurt
2 leaves Kale
1 c. blueberries
5 ice cubes
1 Tbsp. chia seeds
Place all ingredients in the blender and process until smooth.  

Veggie Sandwiches with Home-made Whole-Wheat Bread (made in the bread machine)

Blane's lunch:  natural peanut butter on Whole-wheat bread, no sugar applesauce, cucumber, and cheese

My biggest encourager, Michael

Day 9

Quick lunch:  100% Whole-wheat pitas from Trader Joes, with organic salsa, and cheese

Dinner:  Sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced, with sliced apples on top, drizzle of honey and sprinkle of cinnamon.  I put a little olive oil and a couple of tablespoons of water on the bottom.  Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour.  I covered it with aluminum foil until the last 15 min.

My plate for dinner:  Roasted potatoes, sweet potatoes, whole-wheat noodles with arugula, salad
I don't recommend the noodles.  I tried to make them with a cauliflower puree, but it wasn't good.  

Day 10 was spent with Grandma and Grandpa.  We went to the farm show, along with 1/2 the population of PA, at least it felt like it! My big highlight of the farm show when I was a little girl was eating cotton candy.  Not this year!  We ate baked sweet potatoes or white potatoes.  They were so yummy, and it felt good to be strong in the midst of donuts, fries, and funnel cakes.  I'm okay with celebrating sometimes, but not during our 21 days:)

Dinner:  Stir-fry veggies and tofu with brown rice/salad
(I put some chicken in Grandma and Grandpa's stir-fry)

Dessert:  pineapple with Greek yogurt

Day 11
Breakfast:  Eggs/ Whole-wheat bread (easy to make in the bread machine) / pineapple
Lunch:  Veggie Sandwiches with Whole-wheat bread or pitas (hummus makes these yummy)

Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup (from Trader Joes)

I think Mike likes avocados!

Wild Rice and Lentil Soup (Recipe on day 12 and 13)

Final thought from Michael Pollan's Food Rules book:

"There are scores of studies demonstrating that a diet rich in vegetables and fruits reduces the risk of dying from all the Western diseases; in countries where people eat a pound or more of vegetables and fruits a day, the rate of cancer is half what it is in the United States" (Pollan, 2009).

Our goal is to increase our vegetable intake.  Cutting our meat, has helped because we fill our plates with more and more veggies.  We are learning, making good choices one day at a time.  I would love to hear about any plant-based meals you will share in the comments below!  Eat well!