I am completely fed up with Congress. Not sure how to constructively put those feelings to action, but venting to unsuspecting blog readers who just want to hear how my family is doing is probably not it.
Since I don't work until evening today, I am using the day to clean my house in anticipation of my in-laws' upcoming visit. This is most likely a fruitless activity, but in preparation of the likely event that the week sweeps by me too fast to get another chance, it will be cleaner than it was, anyway. At lunch break I pulled out the leftover dahl from my birthday celebration and some trusty cookbooks to give me more ideas about what to do with the kale I bought to be ultra-healthy but that my family is turning up their noses at. Do you ever wonder about our ancestors deciding to make certain things "food?" They had kind of a minefield to pick through - there's some poisonous stuff in the wild. I wonder what person said, "Hmmm, I am going to eat these enormous tough, smelly, green leaves." Obviously that person took on god-like physical qualities while the person who tried out poison ivy got miserably itchy.
I digress.
Anyway, I have a set of Mennonite cookbooks that always, always gets pulled out when I need something except for when I want a fancy, fussy, expensive company dish and then I go to America's Test Kitchen. The Simply In Season book was the one that offered many ideas for kale, still none of which are worth the effort to make for myself and none of which my family will try. But, great effort, Simply In Season! I am sure a more kale-loving family would appreciate your offering. Since there was more dahl leftover than I thought, and since it is a sin to let good Indian food go to waste, I plowed through the rest and reached for More With Less to supply more lunch-time reading material.
There is always a little rush of fondness that is elicited by this cookbook. It got us through grad school. It re-made me, and that's really not an understatement. As I flipped through the pages I came across recipes I haven't made in years because, well, I don't have to any more. But this move has been a time of re-evaluation. What parts of me that have been discarded are worth salvaging? Which have had their time and need to move on? More With Less is still priceless because even the act of just picking it up immediately causes me to think about things like waste and frugality, excess and gratitude, health and extravagance. Many of the things I gleaned from this book were not even really "recipes", though there were lots of those, but ideas and concepts and guidelines. I think the first publication happened before I was born, but it revolutionized the way I think about cooking, grocery shopping, food selection, food prep and storage, cooking, and eating. I give you the top 20 things I have learned from More With Less (and Simply in Season and Extending the Table).
1. The sugar in most things can be cut and not make a noticeable difference.
2.Pretty much half of the flour in any recipe can be whole wheat.
3. A balanced soup and good bread make a perfect meal.
4. Throw less away - freezing stuff and saving it for later dishes like "Vietnamese Fried Rice" and "Vegetables Au Gratin."
5. The best pancake mix ever.
6. 101 ways to eat beans.
7. To cook whole chicken instead of just buying the breasts - usually good for 2 meals at least and the carcass can be boiled with spices and veggies scraps to make your own broth.
8. Kids are better off the more they know about where food comes from - grow stuff sometimes, make stuff from scratch sometimes, go fruit picking, and involve them. But beware: they might decide to become vegetarian!
9. Eating seasonally: things taste better and you appreciate them more.
10. Trans-fat and artificial ingredients and preservatives decrease the more you prepare foods from whole ingredients/from scratch.
11. A budget can become noticeably skinnier when you examine what you can do without. Can you stretch the meat, for example? Do you need 3 sides?
12. Homemade granola. 'Nuff said.
13. A quick tomato sauce is infinitely better than anything from a jar and barely takes longer. Wait - actually that is amazingly from ATK. Normally I learn stuff from them like "that easy simple way you were doing it does not taste nearly as good as this way with 10 times more steps and ingredients. So much so that you will never go back to that old way now that you know what heaven tastes like."
14. Pasta and rice, like beans, have infinite possibility. And eggs.
15. You don't need 50 million pots,kitchen gadgets, and containers. Cue the yogurt cup jokes.
16. Try the thrift store first. Or your friends Goodwill pile.Yep, it's all part of the MWL doctrine.
17. It's ok to eat breakfast for dinner, and vice versa. You do realize what I am doing, right? Just as people do with any religion, I can take anything from any context to justify my actions.
18. Try it. It might be the next big hit. It might be a fail, but you still learn from it and you will graciously provide your family with ammo to ridicule you in years to come. You're welcome, family. And beware of hidden kale.
19. Other cultures have amazing things to offer, of the culinary and non-culinary variety.
20. Even on a "bad pantry and fridge day," we have so, so much. Creativity and gratitude cover a multitude of sins.
I have less time and more money (though I swear it doesn't feel like it sometimes) than I did when I first became a MWL believer, so I don't roast as many chickens as I used to, or make as many pancake breakfasts as I used to. I have crept back to buying more beverages again, because I do so love seltzer water and my husband swears he sticks to his diet better when he has diet pop. But I think it is so good to periodically adjust my thinking every once in awhile, to counteract some of the unhelpful messages of popular culture, and to be honest, my own tendencies. I recently came across a blog called "Oh She Glows", written by a lovely young woman who used to struggle with an eating disorder and found health through being vegan. Her blog is one I have been visiting recently to help readjust my thinking about all of the processed food and non-vegetable eating I have so quickly drifted back towards now that I am working again. (Hence the appearance of kale in my fridge). Even though I won't go full-on vegan, it's valuable to consume more raw veggies and jolt back the realization that flavored coffee creamer is not a necessity. It's good to think about the choices I make and how they effect other beings around me and influence other systems in the world.
Perhaps every member of Congress should buy a copy of More With Less. How will they pay for it? Well, they are being paid while other federal employees are not. And allowing drilling on national park land to continue though recreational activities of tax-paying citizens are forbidden.The taxpayers who pay their salaries.
Sorry.
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