On Food

I swear, most days, we would not eat if I didn't have a crockpot.  It is my friend.  It makes providing food for my always-hungry, super-athletic husband unbelievably easy.  So, many recipes claim to be "easy" - and are so totally not easy.  I hate those.

Plus, most of those are junky, and I want our food be highly nutritious.  As my mom says, "You want your food to be 100% useable.  White pasta is not very usable - your body can only use a small portion.  So, your body will say, 'Awesome, thanks for all this unnecessary extra; I'll store it as fat for later, in case you start starving me.'  And serial dieting perpetuates the cycle; your body will always fear the next starvation period."

(My mom is smart about food.  I love nutrition because of her.)

She also is a bit of a cheapskate.  She loves saving money.  So do I.  Coupons combined with clearance prices delight my very soul.  And I resent fake sales.  10% off?  Really?  A whole $0.09182 cents off?  Oh, you're so generous, Mr. Grocery Man!

No, I wait for real deals, (50-70% off is my usual threshold) and I try to use alot of cheap ingredients - fillers, you might say.  Rice and beans and potatoes and onions and carrots and so on.  I also love store brand products (within reason), and whatever is on the clearance rack  =) 

This focus on saving money also helps us accomplish our secondary goal of eating as many natural, organic, local, hormone-and-chemical-free products as possible.  We used to eat all organic, but we lived in a city then, where my couponing ability actually benefitted us, because there were options.  Now?  Fewer options.  Alot fewer.

But, after a few adjustments, I like the balance we've found recently.  And friends keep asking for my recipes, knowing that they are (a) easy (b) super-nutritious (c) cheap (d) delicious.  We don't believe in nasty-tasting food.  Healthy food should taste BETTER than cruddy food.  We don't eat things that taste like weeds-just-sprayed-with-roundup.  That's gross.  And when we buy a box of "healthy" crackers, if it tastes like sawdust, we throw it out.  Even tho' we're cheapskates.  Seriously.  It must be yummy.

So, every Thursday, I will post a recipe here. 

I decided to do this on Thursday because, if you're like us, by then any and all weekend leftovers are gone, you're fatigued and uninspired and tempted just to order pizza.

But, don't!  My recipes are better than pizza.  *wink*