Captains Logs - 17 January 2010

Monday 9:10 pm ...

Well, I'm pooped ! Seriously ... I get to the end of the day and I'm thinking to myself "how will I do this for a full 12 months ?" I'm hoping that I will get into a good groove soon ! Some sort of routine. Tonight, after cooking dinner, I packed lunches, made yogurt, yummo apple oats, and almond milk. Good thing Rory cleans the kitchen or I might not have made it ! I am shopping around and have been finding some good products that fit our specifications too. That's good. We now have two variety of crackers we can eat out of a box. And a few pastas. And I'm trying lots of different whole grain flours. I made bread today too. It worked ok. It tasted good ... it just looked funny. The top sunk in. But ... it was 100% whole wheat and had no sugar. Anyway ... I am going to go have a shower. It's been hot today ! I think I'll read my book for a bit ... if I last that long !!

Tuesday ...

(Click on photo to go to recipe)

ENOUGH SAID !

Sunday 7:42am ...

I haven't been very good about writing my captains log this week. I really want to get better about it. I need to get into a good routine. I keep saying that to Rory ! About a lot of things !! I have been spending a lot of time in the kitchen though and shopping takes me so much longer. So many of our meals are first times or even experiments to see if they will work so I find myself miscalculating how long things will take. It's frustrating but I know it's not something that will last forever.

Rory said to me the other day "this isn't really that bad, you know ? I think we've been eating pretty well." I think he must have been worried ... :)

He also said, just last night, that the worst part about this whole unprocessed thing is that he rarely feels satisfied after a meal. Even when he eats til he is full, he just doesn't feel satisfied. I'll be interested to see if that feeling goes away eventually, as he gets more used to eating this way. I don't have that feeling anymore, I did in the beginning but only for a couple of days. In fact, I get full much quicker now and find I'm not able to finish everything on my plate. I'm having to reduce portion sizes. Which is such a good thing !

Rory and I didn't buy each other Christmas presents this year. Instead, we make a couple big ticket purchases that we've been considering for years. A Weber BBQ was one of them. Rory got it put together and we fired it up for the first time Monday night. And then again last night. And we're using it again tonight !! I think there will be some great BBQ recipes coming out of The Beans Blog soon ...

I know it's morning, and I normally post this in the evening but I'm going to post this now ... Rory built some shelves into the office closet yesterday and I know I'll be spending the day organizing those. I've got some cookin' to do to get ready for the week. Plus, there's talk of us taking the kids to the beach later this afternoon. All that by way of saying ... I may not have the energy to come back and write tonight !!!

Hasta Luego,
Bon

Captains Log - 10 January 2010

Monday 7:42pm ...

Four days in and I'm tired. Don't worry, I'm not giving up, I'm just being honest. We had salad for dinner tonight and I baked some potato chips for a treat. They were wonderful ! We all liked them. Lots. I think in future, I need to try new and interesting salads rather than just throw one together like I did tonight. I mean, it was good. But ... nothing flash. Anyway ... it's a tortilla night tomorrow night and I need to put the tortillas into the bread machine. I'm hoping they work better this time. I'm going to halve the recipe again but this time I'm going to leave out the baking powder. I'll let you know how they go ...

Tuesday 8:00pm ...

Well ... the tortillas were better tonight ! They were no where near as sticky. And I've worked out a good system now. I roll them out onto baking paper to make them easy to get into the frying pan. One day, maybe, I'll look for a tortilla press ! I was thinking tonight, as I was making dinner, when it was 30 minutes past our desired sit down time of 6:30, that I need to give myself much more time to prepare the evening meal !! I'll get that worked out ! Lunches seem to be the biggest issue, though. I haven't started making bread yet so it's really leftovers for lunches but if we don't have leftovers then I'm a bit stuck. Salad won't hold Rory all day. I will set myself the task of figuring out some good lunch options.

Rory just set up the double hammock that he got for Christmas. I'm going to go join him !!

Wednesday 7:31pm ...

Wow ! The hammock is fantastic ! Nothing else really to report today.

Sunday 11:06 pm ...

I'm pretty tired so we'll see how much of this I get written tonight ! I missed a couple of days writing ... LIFE happened and I just didn't have time to write. And then we were out of town Saturday and Sunday so I am up late, cooking something for Rory's lunch tomorrow and writing this log !!

This was our first weekend away since we started this whole unprocessed thing and it was pretty hard. We have said from the beginning that we would eat what we are served when we go to other peoples houses but we still found it hard. We didn't want to just jump back in and eat whatever so we tried to make wise choices over the weekend. We did ok. The hardest part was the kids. One night we didn't let them have ice cream. They survived. And they didn't get to eat most of the candy from the party bags. Again, they survived. They did get to eat out twice though. Pizza. Calamari. Chips. And McDonald's on the way home ... about as preserved as you can get !! I felt sick giving it to them ( and eating some myself ) We had actually planned to eat at home but ended up being delayed way past dinner time ... I'll plan better next time. I'm not beating myself up though. It was one (planned exclusion) day and tomorrow we are right back on the wagon.

I can tell you one thing. I got a TERRIBLE headache after eating the birthday cake. Sugar really does bad things to my head ... especially after I go off it. I won't make that mistake again.

Financially, this week was crazy. I don't know how I spent so much but I did. I went way over budget ... like, almost double what we have allocated for a week. I didn't even realize. I need to do better. I will reign it in. We may just need to eat A LOT more beans !

I can hardly think of what else to write tonight. I think the pasta (whole wheat ...first time trying it !) should be cooled enough that I can pack it up and put it in the fridge for Rory to take to work tomorrow. So ... I'll go do that and then head to bed.

Do any of you have any thoughts ? questions ? ideas ? great blogs I should visit or books I should read ? I'd love to hear 'em if you do ...

'til next time ... Bon

Captains Log - 3 January 2010

I've always wanted to write a "captains log" or a "doogie howser" journal ... Does everyone know what I'm talking about or am I showing my age ?

My plan is to write a little bit every night and then post my "captains log" on Sundays. This first one will only have a couple of days. Two, in fact, since tomorrow is Sunday ! I plan to talk about how things are going. Just a little re-cap of each day.

Saturday Night ...

Today went well. One thing I will need to be really careful of is planning ahead for lunches. We went on a bush walk this morning and then needed to stop at the shops on the way home. While we had all eaten breakfast, we were STARVING by the time we finished our 2 hour walk. It all was fine, we just grabbed some fruit at the shops for the car ride and then did Salad Sandwiches once we were home. But ... I could have been much more prepared. It probably doesn't help that we are all still in holiday mode ...

Sunday Afternoon ...

(a simple spinach salad ... spinach, mushrooms, carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, hard boiled egg and a soy vinaigrette.)

I did the grocery shopping today. Phew. Big job ! I had my book with me and had to check a few products out. I'm bummed that olives are out for the year. Well ... not ALL olives but they will become quite occasional as the ones with no colors are EXPENSIVE ! Not out of the question expensive, just out of the everyday menu expensive ! Bread ... same thing. I need to find a good recipe for making whole meal grain bread in my bread maker. I wonder how it would work if I just added grains to the whole meal recipe I've used before ?

And gum. I can't find any gum or mints that meet our guidelines for the year. We might have to grow fresh mint and chew on that !

A few other things we've decided after today. We need to keep some nuts or dried fruit on us. Probably both. When eating so many veggies as the main part of our diet, when they are digested, we are HUNGRY ! Ravenously ! It's crazy. I barely made it out of the health food store and had to pop some almonds in my mouth before I ate my own arm ! I know our bodies will get used to this new way of eating but at the moment I think we might all be going through a bit of withdrawal symptoms ! It's weird.

Rory goes back to work tomorrow and that may be a bit of a challenge. I pack his lunches and I'll need to make sure he has plenty of food. I'll let you know how it goes. I'm looking forward to our first week of 'normal' ... well, semi-normal, the kids are still home for a few more weeks before school starts up again.

All for this week ... Bon