Moving to the Broccoli Forest

I may have been going at this a bit backwards, but I am joining in the quest to eat "real food" ala Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" and others. I love food, cooking, food blogs (keep meaning to have a food blog roll) and really want to give my family a healthy diet. I was fortunate to have been raised by parents who jumped on the organic food bandwagon when they moved to California. We used to have to go to three different grocery stores. The "health food store" was for jelly, tofu, bread, cereal, grains, all sorts of bulk items like whole wheat flower, soy sauce, etc. but now you can get those things everywhere. We had a huge garden, bought a half cow each year and had friends share their fresh fish. The rules were no white flour, sugar or rice, and no preservatives, nitrates or other artificial crap. She wasn't (too) crazy though, ice cream and chocolate were okay. My mom didn't care what we ate at other's houses, but strove to make this "healthy" stuff yummy at home. I craved fruit roll ups instead of fruit leather, fruit loops instead of granola, individually wrapped slices of american cheese and pop tarts, which we'd buy as soon as we were allowed to ride our bikes to the grocery. I now appreciate the education they gave me when it comes to choosing healthy foods.

Somewhere along the line I fell into catering to my kids whims and became lazy and cheap, not to mention jumping on the sugar-free, non-fat bandwagon (my mom is still immersed in that). My first goal was to expand my kids palates, but I'm taking on the second of getting real food into all our bodies, which is not just good for our organs, but also the environment, the health of everyone and the farmers. I heard this interview on NPR (scary and interesting stuff) although I haven't watched Food.Inc yet and it really got me thinking. I then started noticing some bloggers who were either already on this path, like Composter Mom, or were getting into it now, like Musings of a Housewife, who in turn led me to Kelly the Kitchen Kop, who's got oodles of awesome information. I've ordered some of the books I want from the library, but in the meantime I've switched to whole milk, pastured eggs (when I can find them), butter (been pushing this for years) and a heavily vegetarian diet.

I'd already started going to the farmer's market, and can't quite get my kids into that, but they are loving the tomato bounty in the garden. I then dragged out one of my favorite cookbooks. So far I've made cauliflower souffle (no photos as my souffles never rise :) which was a hit with three out of four. The kids skipped the vegetable remoulade (julienned veggies in a mayo-pickle-spice sauce), but did chow down the plain veggies. Last night was the broccoli forest (above), yum and taquito's from Trader Joes served with spicy salsa from a local market, since the boys in the house do want their meat. Donovan ate two small pieces of broccoli, he's my work in progress. Keegan was not a fan of the rice part, but like they say, you gotta serve something 16 times to know if they really like it.

I just signed up for a CSA, now am on a quest for a supply of pastured eggs, when I don't make it to the farmers market, and better milk and yogurt.