HOORAY FOR A TABLE OF CONTENTS !!

**

I am so excited ... we FINALLY have a table of contents !!

**

Along the top of this blog you will see
About this Blog, Home, The Beans Blog Name, and Table of Contents

**

The Table of Contents used to be one that had a few things in it
that I was SLOWLY trying to update.

**

But this morning, I found a code that does it for us AUTOMATICALLY !

**

It looks like the titles of the posts are listed under their labels,
so if you want beef ... scroll down to beef,
and as long as that post is labeled correctly, you should find it !

**

I will now spend a bit of time working with the labels, making sure the main ingredients are listed on each post ... making this table of contents really really useful !

**

Go check it out ! It's very cool !

**

PS ... give it a minute to load, the page appears to come up blank but then all of a sudden,
there's a plethora of choices !!

**

do {you} subscribe ?

two things.

1. i was in google reader today and i noticed that we have hit 100 subscribers to the beans blog ! along with the 25 who follow in blogger ... we have 125 people who subscribe to this blog ! that is INSANE !! i mean ... it's not on par with the pioneer woman who has 62,331 subscribers but close enough ! i just find it hard to believe that there are that many people who like our little old blog enough to subscribe to it ! i wonder ... do you subscribe ? i'd love to know how many of those 125 subscribers actually read each post ? this is a little test ... if you read this, would you just say g'day in the comments ?! that would be cool !

2. today i went to the camera shop to buy a remote for my camera. i got one. a really cool one. i also asked about their photography classes. i got to talking with the guy who runs the classes and at one point mentioned that i love to take photos of food. he asked me for my card. i was like 'what?' he asked again and i said 'i'm not a professional' he asked me if i wanted to be. long story short, i'm sending him some photos of food to see what he thinks ... he told me to think about my hourly rate too ... BIZARRE !!

so ... would you please do me a favor ? i need to pick like 6 - 12 good photos to send to him. if you are reading this and you think ... 'oh, i love that one photo of .......' would you please let me know which one it is ? i'd love a bit of feedback before i make my final choice on which ones to send !

that is all !

thank you

and good night.

Gordon and {the} TOC

I'm not a fan of Gordon Ramsay ... but I saw this video and thought it was pretty funny. Mostly because I tried to chop my thumb off, while cutting spring onions, just the other night ! Don't worry ... he's very tame in this video ... even seems like a nice guy. Not an impression I've ever gotten from his show ...

In other news ... if you direct your eye to the top left hand corner ... just under the header photo, you will see some new links ! The one that I'm most excited about is the Table of Contents !

Why don't you click and see what happens ...

CRAZY BUSY

I want to post ... sooooo much ... but I've got so little time at the moment. I'll get myself sorted and be back to posting regularly soon !! Who knew having two children in school, swimming, tennis, working five days a week, organizing stuff for the missions month at church, taking on a new job, training and setting up a new system for checking people in, training people to help me, doing my current job, having a husband go overseas for a week and taking care of a home would leave so little time to blog !!!

Be back soon.

PS ... it's hard, very hard, to eat unprocessed at the moment. We're doing our best but have made some great realizations. I'll write about them soon !!

Does this make me a twit ?

The Beans Blog is on twitter !
I've tried Twitter before on a personal level and hated it !
Decided to do it again to try and promote the blog ...

If you are on Twitter, come follow The Beans Blog !

I'll follow you too ... just as soon as I learn how !

An Unprocessed Conversation

Adding my two cents to the conversation Bonnie started...

So, quite a few inspirations are bouncing around in my brain. For me, going unprocessed is mainly about health. And not just about getting skinny, although that is DEFINITELY part of the plan!! I also want to eat food as food was intended to be - to break my addiction to additives and weird chemicals that make food taste yummy, but make my butt plump alarmingly! And I'd like to eat food that could NOT survive a nuclear holocaust with little to no change in appearance or flavor.

Although my motives are similar to Bonnie's, my lifestyle is NOT. I'm not a mom, I'm a student, so my challenges are different. (Somehow, I doubt my professors will be as apt to join me in the kitchen as Jono and Alia!!) So how does this unprocessed thing look like for my context?

I'm kicking around some ideas.

I think my greatest ally will be the freezer.
In the summer, it's pretty easy to pick up some tasty looking fruits and veggies at the store and just go nuts. In winter, not so much. But things like black bean chili freeze really well. In talking with my personal advice guru, Aunt Kathy, we thought about making and canning chicken broth and using the cooked chicken to made casseroles to freeze or just a tupperware of protein to throw into a dish!

Canning also attracts me. I think it would be awesome to make a giant batch of sketti sauce, can it, and keep it in the cupboard. I remember my mom making apple butter and granola from scratch (the granola wasn't canned, obviously), and I want to follow in those footsteps! Something that just occurred to me... homemade granola over some homemade yogurt would be a fantastic breakfast!!

I realize all these things are almost impossible to create by myself. But how cool would it be to have a day (or even a weekend as Pammy suggested) to get a bunch of ladies together, cook in BULK, and everyone take home cans and containers full of healthy, easy, food! It would be cheaper and it's such fun to don and apron and cook with your favorite people. There's just something...primal and satisfying!

So those are my thoughts.
What are yours?

The Whole Unprocessed Thing

This morning when I checked my email there was one from Jill asking "...what does the whole unprocessed thing mean? i mean, olive oil and spices are processed, but it's hard to cook without them. and they aren't really bad for you ..." Good question Jilly ! I am still formulating what it will mean for us, I mean, I'm the one who decided my family was going to do it (I should mention that my husband is on board with the idea) so I'm the one who has to decide what the conditions are. I thought rather than just email Jill back, I'd respond as a post. Maybe I can get some feedback from everyone ...

There are a few motivating factors for me wanting to do this. The first one is our health. I've done a lot of reading over the years and have been gradually making changes to the way we eat as a family. I guess this is just the next step in that journey. We do eat pretty unprocessed already. Meaning, I make A LOT from scratch. I don't buy ready made meals. Or meals in a box. The only frozen stuff I buy is frozen veg, berries and ice cream. So ... what am I going to cut out ? Well ... white flour and white rice (with the exception of sushi rice from time to time - I just can't go brown in sushi !!) and all refined sugars. Trans fats ... gone. Anything that has additives ... which could be tricky because what about olives ? I'm still working on that one. Processed lunch meat. Gone. I'll miss you salami !

Basically we are going to try and eat as close to the natural state of food as possible. So ... things that don't need preservatives to make them live on a shelf for a long time, or added colors to make them look good enough for us to buy. We will be eating lots of fruit and veg. Whole grains. Nuts. Seeds. Beans. I'll be doing lots of experimenting ...

Oils, vinegars, spices ... all fine. Except, I'll be reading labels. I've already discovered that my balsamic vinegar has a coloring in it that is really bad for you so I'll be on the search for one without the coloring or just using my white balsamic vinegar.

I read a statement recently that made sense to me ... it said something to the effect of "why do we wait til we don't have a choice to make changes to our diet ?" It's true. If someone has a heart attack or gets cancer or some other horrible disease and then makes the changes ... well, that's good but I would like to make the changes now to try and avoid those and other diseases as much as is in my power to do so.

The second motivating factor is to try and get an appreciation for how valuable food is. I will only speak for myself but I know how easy it is to go into the grocery store, buy a bunch of food, eat some of it, not eat some of it, throw a bunch of it away and go get more. Rory and I have done pretty well cracking down on it this year but still ... I'll do it from time to time. It's wasteful and I think if I didn't come by the food so easily, I would not be so hasty in just tossing it away !

I'm going to try and limit what I buy at the grocery store. We have great fruit and veg stores, great butchers, great fresh fish markets, great general markets and a couple of great health food stores in our area. I'm going to make myself a regular at those stores this year ! I'm going to limit my big grocery store shopping to toiletries as much as possible ... and hopefully limit it to online shopping ! It will be a learning experience but I'm ready to learn !!

We are also planting lots of veg in our little back yard garden. I've got a great supply of fresh herbs and we're hoping the veggies we grow will supplement all that we are going to eat ! Again ... it's about appreciating the value. That there is a process to get the food from the field to the plate. One that I think shouldn't be taken for granted. My big dream is to grow enough to be able to trade with friends for fruit or eggs ... neither of which we have room to grow and raise !

The third motivating factor is my never ending desire for simplicity. Now, to some, this probably seems like I'm taking the simple out of it ! ha ha. I may be saying that too, a week into it ! But ... I have visions of having the kids in the kitchen with me more ... something they would love to do and continually ask but I haven't really embraced as much as I want to ! Saturday night will be the night we do things that involve a lengthier process. Like ... making pasta, making flour tortillas ... etc. We'll be making nut butters. Condiments. All of that stuff.

Like I said earlier ... I haven't completely formulated my plan. But, I'm very determined to do it and I've been giving it a lot of thought, doing a lot of research and planning for at least a month, maybe two now ... I'll have my plan and lists of yes and no's before the 1st of January. We're already eating through things on the no list. Last night I made poppy seed bread ... used a lot of the while flour and most of the white sugar. Those won't be replaced once they're gone.

I'm excited. I'm excited to take on a new challenge. I'm excited to increase the level of health in my family. I'm excited to see what other things happen in our bodies. Do we have more/less energy ? What changes might I notice in the children ? What changes might they notice in me ? I'm excited to slow down. Intentionally. We live a full life. We love it. But we also need slow. Simple. If our life is too busy to slow down ... then maybe it's too busy. This will be a good test. I, of course, will keep you all posted on the progress. The trails. The errors. The triumphs. The excitements. All of it ...

Does that answer your question Jill ? Maybe a little bit ?

Side Bar Cook Book

Have you noticed the two little linked photo buttons in the side bar ? -------------->

I'm adding them there one at a time ....
as I add the recipes to the cookbook I'm compiling !!!

I'm super duper excited about it !!

such a {slack}er

I've been cooking up some amazingly yummy dishes these past few weeks. I am so going to share but between me, Jono and Alia being sick, school holidays being on, birthdays, parties, art exhibits, weddings, and LIFE in general, I just haven't been able to post.

I did get a menu planned this week. I'll try to post it tomorrow and hopefully get back on track with posting recipes.

I've got a prosciutto pizza ready to go into the oven now. Should be ready just in time for Rory to get home !! It's a new one. I have no doubt that it will be good. Seriously, how can you go wrong with homemade dough, basil, prosciutto, kalamatas ... oh man, I'm salivating ! HURRY UP RORY !!!

Can anyone tell me what is in the photo ? Rory and Alia made them last week. It was so hard, I'm quite certain they won't be making them again any time soon !

Something New ...

Ok ... I'm going to progressively set up a page like this for each of our major foods.

Check it out !

Go to the side bar and click on the quinoa photo ...

Go on !

Do it !

Just for fun ...

Foods of The World - March 2009

Ok people. India was not a huge success. I don't know why. Maybe we can just keep posting Indian recipes as we make them and label them using the 'Foods of the World - India 'label so we can find them easily. Speaking of which, I've added buttons to the side bar for each of the Foods of the World countries. If you click on them it will show you all of the recipes labeled with that country. Keep 'em coming, even if that month is finished !! I will still be posting recipes from Spain ... I can't believe I've taken so long to post them ! I've just been a total slacker when it comes to this food blog. I've been cooking some amazing food ... and so want to share the recipes with you ... and I will ... soon ... I promise hope.

How about the rest of you ? What have you been cooking ? I'm sure that you've all been cooking heaps worth sharing ...

I thought I might do something a bit easier. Maybe Indian food was a bit labor intensive ! I don't know ... but let's move on ! Let's cook ITALIAN FOOD this month !! Woo Hoo !!!

I'm going to let you all in on a little secret. Ok, it's not a secret. Who cares ? It sounds better to say it is ! My sister, Ellie, one of the authors of this blog is ITALIAN ! I'm serious. She was born in Italy. Yep ! My brother and I were born in Spain. She was born in Italy and our youngest sister Hannah was born in DC. My parents love to tell people that none of their children were born in any of the 50 States ...

Anyway ... I'm hoping to see some great Italian posts from my great Italian sister ! That's her in the photo above ( it's not in Italy though ... it's in Spain) ... isn't she cute ?

I know I said this last month, and I didn't do it, but I'm going to try and cook one Italian meal a week and post the recipe !! My first one this week is an experiment, in the crock pot, I'll tell you how it turns out !

OK ... get cooking ! Get posting ! Get linking !! (in the comments section)

See you tomorrow for Menu Plan Monday ...
Anyone else planning menus ?
I'd love to know what you're cooking ...

Home again !

Did you miss me ? Did you notice I was gone ? Nov 22nd was my last post ... Since then, I've been visiting family in the States for six weeks !! Having a blast !! We did lots of great cooking but this is one of the few photos I took of the food !! I've planned the menu for this week though and I'm excited about what's cookin' !! Monday I'll start back posting my weekly menus ! How about some of you other ladies ? Are you planning menus ? I'd love to see what's cookin' in your homes !!

Tomorrow I'll share the recipe for the photo above ...

Bloggers Choice Awards ...

This is Michelle, my friend that I've only maybe met when we swam on the same swim team, in Spain, as kids. Remember when she posted the review of this blog on my highschool's alumni blog ? The one she started, maintains and does such a great job with ...

Well, now she has nominated us for the Best Food Blog on the blogger's choice awards website !! How cool is that !?!

If you think this is the Best Food Blog ... click on the button above and cast your vote !! I just did ! That give us two votes ... me and Michelle !! ha ha. Have a look around while you are there. I saw Pioneer Woman Cooks is in the top three. One of my favorite food blogs that I've been reading for ages now ! Tried some great recipes from there too !! Not that I'm gonna vote for her ... I think she's popular enough already !!

Thanks Michelle for your nomination and vote !

An idea ....

I really should be vacuuming my house, I do have people coming for dinner tonight, but I am so excited about this idea I've had that I just had to do a quick post so I can get some feedback !

I was thinking it would be fun to do a "foods of the world" thing ... what should I call it ? We would all cook, photograph, and post a recipe of a certain country and post it here. I would open it up to other food bloggers to link to as well. And we could invite "guest bloggers" to the beans blog to post for certain meals ... (but that is really just a scam to get Ally to take photos of Stephan making his famous Paella so I can get the recipe !!!) ha ha

I need a bit of input though so here's my questions ...

1. Are you interested ?

2. How often would we do it ? Like, would we do one country per month ? or every two weeks ? Each person could cook as few or as many dishes as they like in that time ... but I'm just wondering how often is good ? I'm leaning towards once a month, as that gives plenty of time to decide what recipe to do and plan it into our menus ... we'd get through 12 countries in a year ... but if we did every two weeks we'd double that ! Let me know what you think.

3. Which countries do you think would be fun to do first ? Maybe give me your top five and I'll pick the most popular ones to start with ...

I really do need to go !! Company is coming in two hours and I just made gyoza (from scratch !) for me and Jono. That's what happens when I don't eat lunch ... I go gourmet at 3:00 pm !! But, I did do a little video tutorial on how to make it ... that's coming soon ... but not before my company !!! Aaagggg !! ( face on hands like home alone kid )

Leave me some feedback !! I can barely contain my excitement at the plethora of recipes from different countries that may soon be linked to the beans blog ...

A Cool Beans Blog Review ...

CLICK HERE to read a great review on my high school Alumni website !

The author, Michelle, and I went to the same High School in Spain. Just not at the same time. We have only met recently through facebook and the various Alumni sites she has run over the years ! Although, it seems we were on the swim team at the same time when I was in elementary school. We don't remember each other but the years match up. Neat, eh ?

Anyway ... I love the review she wrote and wanted to share it with you all ...

I'll be posting my menu plan for this week later in the day and have a few recipes to share later in the week, so be sure to check back !!

Posting Old and Not Necessarily Extrememly Healthy Recipes ...

Since I don't have my simple beauty blog open to the public anymore, I thought it might be a good idea to re-post the recipes from there to here. I know they do not necessarily comply with the "EXTREMELY HEALTHY" part of this blog but they definitely comply with the "DELICIOUS" part so let's call it good ! I'll be posting over the next couple of days and I am hoping to start up my MENU PLAN MONDAY posts again starting on Monday !!! How 'bout you, Khris ? You ready to start that up again !? I've missed seeing what is on the menu at your place ... Ok ... I was going to post the first recipe in this post but I think I'll give it it's own ...

Links in Side Bar

Hey Everyone ...

I've added "Links to Some Favorite Recipes" in the side bar for easier access to old recipes. Eventually I will have every recipe on here linked but I got tired of linking today !! So ... I'll finish that up later ... Just wanted to let you know so you could make use of my eye crossing work ! ha ha.

Bon

PS ... I've got three recipes coming this week. A Risotto, A Wrap and A YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY Potato and Leek Soup ! So ... check back soon !!

Beans Buttons

I've been meaning to put this buttons up for you guys for ages !!
Khrista made them to be used in sidebars on our personal blogs ... you may have seen mine.
If you know how to do links in your side bar, then use this button to link back to the beans blog.
If you don' t know how, and you want it to link, email me and I'll send you the code.

Foodie Blog Roll

Have you noticed this in the side bar ?

We are part of the Foodie BlogRoll now. Scroll down in the list to the "P" section and you will see us listed !!!

Labels

Hello blog authors,

I've added "labels" to the side bar. If you wouldn't mind giving your post a "label" when you do it, I think it will make searching for recipes easier when we have them by the hundreds and thousands !! :) You can give more than one label ... for example, I gave the Artichoke and Cumin dip the labels Artichoke and Dip. Just separate them by a comma. Easy. If you don't know how to label, just let me know !

Bon