How We Approach Real Food

I have been getting a lot of questions lately from friends and co-workers about how we do "real" food at our house and what our food looks like.  Let me start off by saying I am in no way an expert on real food, nor do I feed my family real food 100% of the time.  My goal is about 75% real and 25% close to real but with some grace built in :) I wanted to get all my thoughts on this topic organized so I thought a blog post might help me to do that.  Here are some of the top questions I get.

How did you get started making your own bread?
Two years ago when Trey was first starting into table food I realized I had quite the picky eater on my hands.  I was determined that what he was going to have an opportunity to eat was going to be healthy for him, even if it was whole grains and fruit instead of vegetables.  Thus began our journey. After a class at my church I learned about milling grains and baking bread.  The class was based around the teaching of Sue Becker.  She has some great articles at her website here http://info.breadbeckers.com/articles/  We purchased a grain mill and a new bread machine.  I grind grains and make from scratch all our bread products (muffins, sandwich bread, pancakes, etc.) and use the bread machine to make loaves of bread.

This is the grain mill we use.  Source

Where do you get your grains?
Originally I bought my grains through a Bread Beckers coop in Roanoke, but I found a much cheaper source at the Cheese Shop in Stuarts Draft, VA.  I used to get grains every 5-6 months, but now I am making bread for another family also so I go through about 40 lbs of grain in 2-3 months.  The Cheese Shop works great because if we are traveling to Richmond to see my family I can call the day before and place my order and pay for it over the phone, then it is ready when we drive by.  My parents sometimes even picked up an order for me when they come to visit.

This is the closest thing I could find to my bread machine.  I have used it at least once a week for 2 years and it is still going strong! Source

What kind of grains do you buy?
There are a ton of different grains available in natural food stores, but we mainly stick to hard red wheat, soft white wheat and hard white wheat.  Sometimes I buy both hard red wheat and soft white wheat.  Then I use the hard red for bread and yeast doughs and the soft white wheat for pancakes, tortillas, and anything that doesn't have to rise.  Lately though I have just been getting hard white wheat and using it for everything.  It has a less "nutty" flavor than hard red so it tastes good in pancakes and cookies, but it still works well with yeast for regular bread.  I think the hard white tastes more like the bread I was used to eating, but Jay likes the richer flavor of the hard red better.

Here is my bread machine in action tonight.  It was working hard to make a loaf of bread while I cleaned up dinner and went upstairs with the kids to get ready for bed. 

Do you buy all organic with your food? 
I try to stick to the outside of the grocery store when I shop.  I like to buy all organic produce, but sometimes my budget just doesn't allow it.  My kids eat a ton of fruit and organic fruit is expensive, so often I buy the regular stuff, rinse it really good, and tell myself it is good for them because it is fruit.  Some places have great farmer's markets and local sources for food, but where we live there isn't much close.  In Daleville there is a farmer's market on Saturdays from May-October, so I try to shop there for in season produce in the summer.  During the winter when there is no local source it is a lot harder to buy local/organic.

All my grains are stored in the big buckets with gamma seal lids in the corner pantry.  I use the red lid for hard red and white lid for soft white, that way I don't get confused.  Right now they both have hard white grains in them so that system isn't really working anymore.  You can also see part of my mill on the floor.  The other part is in the fridge with flour I just ground this evening when I make some bread.

How do you have time to do this?
Plan, plan, plan.  Usually on Friday evenings I make a meal plan for the next week (Sat.-Sat.) and then on Sat. I do my grocery shopping.  I like Saturday mornings early because the farmer's market is available.
Also, I often double recipes.  When I make pancakes on Saturdays I freeze half for later in the week.  I do a lot of make ahead when my kids nap on Sunday or Saturday.  That is usually when I make pizza dough or tortillas if we are having those during the week.  The making of the actual bread takes very little hands on time.  It takes about 10 minutes to get everything put in the bread machine, and it comes out all ready to slice at eat 2 1/2 hours later.  If I know I am going to be making pizza dough and bread in the next few days, I go ahead and grind the grains for the bread when I make my pizza dough and store in the fridge for a day or two until I need it.

These are some of my ingredients I keep on hand.  I went ahead and made up jars of Italian seasoning, taco seasoning, and other items I use regularly.  This saves times and means no preservatives because I made them myself!

Where do you shop? 
I already shared where I buy my grains.  I like to stock up on spices, honey, olive oil, ingredients for granola, and butter there also.  They sell amish butter for a good deal and so I buy about 8 lbs. at a time and freeze what I don't need for later.   My family goes through some cheese so I am looking into purchase cheese in bulk there and freezing it as well.  We usually do our regular grocery shoping at Kroger in Daleville and the farmer's market at Ikenberry's is right along the way for us.  I usually buy my eggs at Ikenberry's because they sell eggs from local farmers.  Something we haven't gotten into is buying local chicken to eat.  It is just really expensive, and while I usually make my chickens stretch 3-4 meals and make broth out of it, I just have a hard time justifying the cost.  I know it is better for us, but at the same time I have a pretty strict
 grocery budget to follow.

And just to keep it real, here is my kitchen sink after dinner.  I was waiting for the dishwasher to finish so I could unload it and then reload it with all these dirty dishes.  Ahh, the benefits of a huge sink :)

There are still more things I want to share, like my favorite real food blogs, recipes I use all the time, and how to deal with real food with kids and other people who don't share your ideas.  Those will be coming in a part 2 post soon!