Eating Green

We have been saving up christmas and birthday money for a wheat grinder. Once we got it my husband found a recipe for refried beans, made by grinding pinto beans, instead of soaking. It only took 20 minutes, and tasted way better than the store bought cans, plus we didn't have to mix it with chili.
Here is the recipe Brent found from Allrecipes:
Ingredients

• 3/4 cup dried pinto beans
  
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 2 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/2 cup salsa

1. Grind pinto beans until fine using a food grinder. Place in a saucepan, and whisk in salt, cumin, chili powder, and warm water. Bring to a boil over medium heat, and cook until thick, about 15 minutes.
2. When the mixture has thickened, stir and cook for 4 more minutes. Remove from heat and stir in salsa. Serve as a dip, or use as filling for burritos.

Our green eating didn't end there.
After my husband spent $100 on stainless steel thermos, we had cooked wheat for breakfast. I never had any interested in this breakfast I was just trying to be a supportive wife. We actually really liked it. J liked it so much he had 3 bowls, and kept asking for more oatmeal. I liked it too, which is surprising, because I'm not a fan of most breakfast. I like pancakes or waffles once a week, I also like muffins but other than that I don't like breakfast. Oatmeal is palatable as long as it isn't mixed with milk, but every other type of hot cereal I haven't liked. Plus I don't like cold cereal, all the healthy stuff tastes like cardboard, and all the sugar stuff is not where I want to waste my daily sugar intake, not to mention all cold cereal is SO expensive! But I actually like the cooked wheat with brown sugar. Its great to like something other than toast for breakfast. Plus its so dang cheap! And when we have to bust open our food storage it won't make us sick.
I am actually so happy and excited to feed my family cooked wheat for breakfast a few times a week. I hate feeding J sugar cereal and I hate spending $5+ on healthy cereal. I can buy a 20 gallon of wheat bucket at sam's for $18.
By the way you don't have to buy expensive thermos to eat cooked wheat, it just makes cooking it super easy. Even though its also easy, it just doesn't cook while you sleep.
We finished off our green eating by eating sandwiches, with homemade bread--we love our bread maker, and homegrown sprouts.
Plus I love that we are teaching my son how food is created. I don't want children that think all food comes in prepackaged containers from the store.

Sprouts

We grow sprouts in my house. My husband started doing it in the beginning of December. I was cautious, I thought he was crazy. I've converted. We stopped buying soggy store bought lettuce, we use sprouts instead. It makes burritos that much more delicious, improves sandwiches, they are crisp unlike store bought. We love them, and they're cheap! I feel like I'm saving so much money, being thrifty and resourceful.

We bought a sprout grower but it didn't work as well as our Mason Jar, with cheese cloth on the top. It is so easy to do.

I bought the sprout mix at a health food store, I don't know where all you get it. For this huge container I spent $15. I want to branch out and get a bean sprout mix to add some more protein to our lives. But this is all we have now. It has a few radishes seeds in them. Which is nice, it gives it a little tang. Plus J and I have fun picking out the purple clover sprouts and eating them. My kid eats sprouts too! He even sometimes asks for them!

So this is how we do it. We pour enough seeds to cover the bottom of the mason jar, let them soak in room temperature over night (12-24 hours). Then drain all the water through the cheese cloth. Then every twelve hours we rinse them, basically at breakfast and while I'm cooking dinner. Just turn on the faucet until all the seeds are covered, then pour the water back out. Then sort of shake the seeds around the jar so they aren't all in a big lump. Although they usually stay in a lump even after the shaking. They sort of need sun, but our kitchen is pretty dark and they do fine. Just keep rinsing for a few days, and then put them in the fridge when the are done. If you don't rinse they get fuzzy, but we found out, if you just miss one or two rinsing then just rinse them and the fuzz washes off. Gross sounding I know. But I'm sure even with rinsing the fuzz the home grown sprouts are 10 times healthier than any store bought vegetable. Not to mention I don't have to worry about the salmonella and e coli stuff that keeps happening. We love our sprouts. Plus it makes Brent happy, because now I'm looking forward to growing vegetables in a garden. I never have wanted to before. But I think wow, if it will taste this good.
(Yes, my mom did grow her own vegetables, but she never really could convince me to eat them. I only started because of my love for my husband. Plus I didn't want to look too picky in front of my inlaws. The first time I met them I eat more asparagus than I had previously in my entire life. I still don't eat tomatoes, I don't like them, and Brent's uncle always catches me giving them to my husband. I also started eating vegetables because of my son. He won't eat them unless both my husband and I eat them.)

Not Candy Canes but Valentine Js

Lets not forget the cookies. Is there anything so pretty as a shinny cookie sheet covered in cut out cookie dough.

This was J's first real experience frosting cookies. We cooked the cookies before we frosted them.

In case you are wondering, that platter says, "Smart Women crave good company", the back says, something to the effect of children make good company. Some how its all tied to the boys and girls club, I don't quite now how, ask my sister it was my Christmas present last year. And well its great advice, plus it came in a huge box, with stickers with the same picture plastered all over it. Not only that its very useful, its my only light weight platter.

Love is not over

I have more valentine's fun to post. It was just so fun the pictures, and treats never end.

Boy were those cupcakes tasty!

Cake updated

Here is a shot of the cake the correct direction. My son though the feet were very exciting.

He was so happy to get to celebrate his birthday. He loved that he had birthday plates and such.

This is why it was a full morning. Cell phones, cookies, other birthday cupcakes. Seriously the top of the cupcakes took me two plus hours. It was insane, I don't think I'm cut out of this cake decorating business. But yet, I'm sure all my children will have equally time consuming disasters.

He was so happy to have his Uncle Daniel come, he talked for weeks about Uncle Daniel coming to his birthday. And he was also glad to have his cousin from down the street come, so he had someone to play with.