28 Day Real Food Challenge – Week 4 – Success!

First a little of what’s been happening in my kitchen this week!

Yogurt!

I cannot believe I made yogurt! I used the tutorial over at Kitchen Stewardship. It seems like a  lot of steps, but it really isn’t. Okay, so it was a major problem working around a cooler in the kitchen for the better part of a day (my kitchen floor is about 4′x4′ – no joke) but other than that it was very convenient. I will do it again for sure (like when it’s warm outside and I can stick the cooler out there with a big heavy weight on top so no animals try to make friends with my yogurt…) The kids loved it – I left one quart plain and the other I used a bit of sucanat and vanilla (pictured)

Muffins! How I have missed muffins this month! My kids are little muffin monsters and while they haven’t mentioned them at all lately they gobbled them up that made me believe they had missed them even more than me! I used the method detailed by GNOWFGLINS – doubled, and I used ginger and coconut in them. Everyone was thrilled, they were moist, tasty and much lighter than any whole wheat muffin I have ever made before – must be the soaking process! This recipe is a winner and I cannot wait to play around with it some more – especially blueberry and strawberry muffins this summer. I also plan to try the sprouted flour muffins on her blog once I get myself a wheat grinder! I *ahem* burnt out my little coffee grinder grinding wheat in it…oops!

Cultured drinks – kombucha (back) flavored with POM juice and water kefir (front) flavored with vanilla. Kombucha is still about 5 days away from being ready. The water kefir is *supposed* to be ready – but since I’ve never tasted water kefir before, I’m not sure. It’s got a teeny bit of bubble to it, but it still tastes pretty sweet – I let it ferment for 48 hours before bottling, and then another 12 after before putting it in the fridge… it does have a slight yeasty smell though. Help? As for the kombucha, I’m REALLY hoping it tastes good, because it looks good, and it would be such a waste of that POM juice if it came out yucky!

Stop searching! This is THE perfect soaked sandwich bread, I have been using this recipe for the whole challenge and it is soooooo good. Got the recipe from Inspired Homemaking. We all love this bread, it’s great for sandwiches, french toast, good ‘ol bread and butter and even just to munch on while waiting for dinner to be done *whistles*.

Fermented salsa! We had this last night for dinner over eggs and fried corn tortillas and it was very good – salty to the point where I was glad I didn’t salt the eggs! I’m hoping I can get past the salty because the taste is actually very good. I’m wondering if there is a way to ferment salsa without quite as much salt… I used the recipe from the Nourished Kitchen e-book Get Cultured.

And lastly, butter. Sweet yummy butter. Quite sure this is the easiest thing I have ever made. My husband could make this! Pour heavy cream into the KitchenAid. Turn it on full blast. Clean the kitchen until you hear a SLOSH (maybe 10-15 minutes). Dive for the switch and turn it off before it sloshes all over the kitchen. Grab the butter, rinse it under cold water and kneed in some salt. Seriously, why have I never done this before?! And the taste??? WOW! Yeah, who needs storebought? This is straight up neglect cooking – I’m all about things you turn on and walk away from… bread machine, rice cooker, crockpot…. yeah, butter making – super easy.

I also did a lot of bone broth making this week. Super yummy stuff and we NEVER seem to have enough! I’m going to have to start cooking more bone-in meats for sure!

Oh…. so you noticed, huh? Some missing stuff… like red meat, or offal…. well, I have excuses there. Red meat… something we can only afford grass-fed/finished and pastured in bulk – and we just haven’t quite saved enough up for 1/4 cow yet – but it’s a goal and we are getting there, even found a supplier. As for offal… how do I say this nicely? *runs screaming to the bathroom* I’m not “there” yet. I’ll get there – I’m good at hiding food on myself, I do it with veggies I don’t like all the time. Once I find a good source I’ll be grinding up some livers and hiding it in something. I do stand firm on one thing, I will never, ever, ever eat brains. Not gonna happen – we all have lines we won’t cross – mine are tapioca pudding and brains.

The 27th, and second to last day of the challenge was about giving back. Getting the word of REAL FOOD out there. Volunteering at a farmer’s market, donating real food to a food pantry – things like that. I’m not sure what I am going to do yet, but I’m all about go big or go home and biting off more than I can chew, so hopefully I’ll have something REALLY cool to blog about soon – well, as soon as I think of it!

This concludes my portion of week 4’s recap… As for a recap of the whole challenge… I thought I would do something different and interview my husband who got drug along on this little adventure…

Q. What was your favorite part of me taking on this challenge?

-My favorite part was trying new and different things – like kombucha.

Q. What part made you want to leave and eat somewhere else?

-When my ramen was taken from me!

Q. Did anything make you scratch your head? Anything you just didn’t understand?

-Not that I can think of.

Q. Is there any “food” you REALLY miss?

-Tortilla chips, salty snacks, junk food – like pop tarts (**allow me to insert here – I haven’t bought any of that stuff in a LONG time) hot tamales candy.

Q. Anything you want to say about the last 28 days?

-I feel a lot better, um, since we stopped eating crap. I feel healthier having not ingested any of that junk anymore. Sure it tastes good, but there is nothing else good about it.

On a slightly whiny note – I am SO SO SO bummed I didn’t win the GNOWFGLINS e-course given away by Jenny of Nourished Kitchen during this challenge. I could not swing the cost of the course and that was my only hope at going through it this round – I still feel like I need some hand holding to keep me on track…. maybe I’ll go through the challenge again day by day in March as a reminder to stay on track…. and I am going to find the money to take the course when it’s offered again in the fall!

So I guess this wraps it up… only one question left – Will we continue eating this way? YES! Absolutely.