My first Organic Garden

Well I've decided to try my hand at gardening. No, I don't feel that confident... but I'm definitely motivated and excited by this challenge.
When I started making changes in my diet I realized I needed to not just change the amount of fat, calories, etc. but I needed to know where it came from and how it was made. Organics have begun to play a larger part in my life and while I can't always afford everything organic, I try as much as I can to fit it in the budget. Afterall, if I didn't plan for it ahead of time I'd spend that extra money on an US Weekly and really... I'd rather have less pesticides in my body. Although I do love a trashy magazine from time to time.
Yesterday I bought a badass digging shovel, a ton of seeds, starter mix and a bin for composting. The seeds I bought were Ferry-Morse organic seeds. I even stood at Home Depot googling on my iPhone to make sure these were non GMO and truly organic. Turns out they are, which is why they were $2.25 a pack instead of $1.25. Again, it's all about planning for the expense in my mind. I still believe that growing these herbs and vegetables in my own backyard will be exponentially less expensive and so much more rewarding. It's worth a dollar extra per pack to me.
This is my first try at gardening so I might fail. But I'm really excited about the opportunity to succeed and grow an organic green thumb. A few weeks ago I realized I needed some education on the topic (besides my poor friend Alex who I will be bugging & questioning often) so I went to the library, finally paid my overdue fines and checked out an awesome book. It's called Grow Organic: over 250 tips and ideas for growing flowers, veggies, lawns and more by Doug Oster & Jessica Walliser. I love the library. Here's the book:

So today I'm going to go outside and dig up some earth. It's gonna be great and if nothing else I'm making a readymade mud pit for my lab, Bama. She's gonna love it! I'll test my soil and figure out what I need to add over the next few weeks before I can plant in April. I'm also hoping to get out to a new gardening shop in East Nashville soon with my friend. I'd much rather shop local.
Lots to do! I'm gonna get off the computer and get outside!

Trader Joe's old school Mac and Cheese

I love eating healthy. But sometimes you need that good ole staple from childhood to make you happy. Trader Joes has a boxed mac and cheese that rivals Kraft. Both are overly cheesy, salty and freakishly orange but satisfy your craving. Trader Joe's uses small elbow rice noodles and they worked really well!
The only thing I'd watch is how long you boil the noodles. It took mine about 3 extra minutes to get to the right tenderness. And if you cook rice noodles often, you know to watch the amount of water because if you don't use enough, you'll have a thick pasty rice mess on your hands.
I love Trader Joe's!

Looks like birdseed... but oh so good. It's Quinoa.

I've heard so much about quinoa lately as I learn about GF diets. I've always thought it looked like birdseed or couscous. Surely it doesn't taste like birdseed right? Do I even know what birdseed tastes like? Thankfully no... but if it tastes as good as Quinoa I'd cook it too.

Turns out it's the "complete protein". Unlike wheat and rice, it is rich in Lysine which is an essential nutrient in muscle and tissue health. It's also high in magnesium and iron. Lately I've noticed a 4lb bag of it at Costco for $9.99... so why not try it? It's organic too!

We were having dinner with good friends and luckily they're always gracious enough to let us experiment. We cooked Salmon with a BBQ honey glaze, boiled and then sauteed kale with garlic & olive oil, and made the quinoa with sun dried tomatoes, carrots, onion & garlic.

I cooked the quinoa as directed for 4 servings. Boil water, let simmer for 15 minutes and voila! your done. Be careful to rinse the quinoa before you cook it. It has a natural coating called saponin that repels insects and birds and can create a bitter taste. Rinsing with warm water removes the saponin. I did have a hard time rinsing it because my colander let the seeds go right through it. I ended up rinsing them several times in a bowl by carefully letting the water out without losing too many seeds. I'm sure there's a better way - if you have suggestions please comment!

In a small skillet with olive oil, I sauteed:
1 C shredded organic carrot
1/2 of a small yellow organic onion (diced)
2 cloves of minced organic garlic
sea salt to taste
My friends and I love garlic so feel free to adjust that for your taste. I sauteed until everything was tender and then threw in about 10-15 small sun dried tomatoes from Trader Joe's. You want to wait to throw these in because they don't need to be cooked, just heated through.

Now I combined everything together with the quinoa and mixed it up. In hindsight I think I'd rather have plated the quinoa and topped it with the veggies. But either way you do it... it's delicious! Definitely healthy & everything was organic except the sun dried tomatoes.

For more recipes you can go to the Quinoa cookbook here:  http://ow.ly/1aJZG
They're also on Twitter @quinoacookbook. They've asked me to submit this recipe and you can find lots of really awesome ideas on their homepage or twitter feed! If you have a favorite Quinoa recipe they're asking that you share it with them. There's a link on their site!

Homemade Pizza night

This weekend was awesome! I had a date night at home with the husband and we made our own pizzas. Thanks to everything Glutino makes being awesome, we got four personal sized crusts at Whole Foods (for $5.99) and a bunch of veggies. We used purple onion, green pepper, grape tomatoes & plenty of organic mozzarella cheese. You can make the pizzas with frozen crust and cook them straight on the oven rack for 15-20 minutes. I didn't need a pizza stone since the crusts were already cooked but I'm sure you could use it if you prefer.

These were so good my friends and I made them again on Sunday when I went to visit them in Atlanta! We sauteed some mushrooms & onion with olive oil and then added chopped basil, peppers & tomato. It was economical and perfect for my friends who were also vegetarian. They never even tasted the difference in the crusts. They thought they were great and we only spent $28 to feed all 5 of us. The trick was to use the cold salad bar at Whole Foods and just get a container full of whatever ingredients you want for your pizza. It's $8 for a pound so we got plenty of mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers and spinach for only $7-8. The only other purchases were the crusts, basil and cheese!

I've finally found an awesome GF beer!

I would have called my husband and I connoisseurs of good beer, until I couldn't drink it anymore. The night we got engaged he even planned ahead to surprise me with my friends and growlers of local Yazoo Pale Ale and Dos Perros. Sadly, when I went GF I knew that pale ale was never going to be an option again. I tried Redbridge and New Grist. Redbridge didn't taste right to me and New Grist was better... but still didn't make me feel like I'm drinking a real beer instead of pure liquid sorghum.
Last night we had plans with some friends to watch Lost and eat Gumbo for Fat Tuesday. Since beer is usually a staple at our get togethers I went to Whole Foods and thought - maybe they'll have a beer I haven't tried yet! And they did :-)
Bard's has upped the bar on the taste of Gluten Free beers! It's definitely a darker variety but tastes great. The aftertaste is still a little sorghum-ish (it is, afterall, a sorghum beer) but it's much better than Redbridge or New Grist. Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

You can find more info here: http://www.bardsbeer.com/#/gluten_free_beer_home/