Farmish Momma

Real Food on a Real Budget blog series : : Episode 3, Front Forty Farm

By Tricia on February 14, 2014 in Real Food on a Real Budget, real food/real budget, Uncategorized

Hi, I’m Emily from Front Forty Farm, and I am honored to be a guest blogger here on Farmish Momma. Tricia is an amazing momma, and she and her beautiful family have been an inspiration to me. I was so excited when she contacted me asking if I would participate in her “Real Food on a Real Budget” series. As a mother of ten, I, too, am faced every day with the dilemma of how to feed my children healthy food on a tight budget.

I loved all of Tricia’s points in Episode 1 of the series. Buying in bulk, shopping locally and in season, not wasting, and drinking water are my favorites. Those four suggestions are probably the most important things in keeping our large family eating healthy foods within our budget. In addition to this, we do have a large vegetable garden that helps out tremendously in the summer, but I have noticed as our family has grown that I no longer have the abundance of produce to preserve for winter use as I used to. We are now eating almost everything that we harvest during the summer, which is great when it is available, but we really miss having the preserved food in the winter. Hubby and I are currently making plans to revamp our gardens and plant a summer eating garden and one that is strictly for freezing and canning. I’m excited to implement our plans and see how it works out. Having more home-grown, organic vegetables (some fresh, some preserved) through-out the year will greatly reduce our grocery bill.Having farm fresh eggs from both our chickens and guinea hens is also a big help. During the summer when eggs are in abundance, I always try to incorporate lots of eggs into the meal plan. When fresh berries are in season, we pick as many as we can through-out the season to make jam and freeze them for smoothies. In the fall when apples are in season, we go to the local orchard and ask to pick their drops (apples that have already fallen from the trees). The price of a bushel of drops is significantly lower than picking apples directly from the tree. We eat apples until we can’t look at another one, freeze them for future baking, and turn many into applesauce. Using what is available, in season, or in abundance is key to saving money on food.

As far as meat goes, we try to buy as natural and local as we can. We have found a local farmer that sells all-natural, grass-fed beef and pork for around $2.99/lb., some cuts being a bit more. Sometimes he has a “cleaning out the freezer” sale, and marks certain things down to $.99 to $1.99/lb. We then take advantage of the low prices and stock the freezer with the reduced meat. We otherwise stock up on the one pound packages of ground beef and sausage, making them part of a meal, rather than the main course of the meal. Feeding my family individual steaks or chops would be much more costly and not budget friendly.

Like Tricia, I buy as much as I can in bulk. We do not have a Whole Foods near us so I am limited to the local grocery store and a small health food store. Our health food store is locally owned, and I do like the fact that I can support a small, locally owned business. I mostly buy loose tea, spices, grains, beans, oatmeal, nuts, dried fruit and molasses in bulk from the health food store. I try to stick to fruits and veggies that are in season and most often the ones that are on sale.

I want to share a few of my family’s favorite, budget friendly recipes that utilize items I almost always have in my pantry and freezer, including the dried beans that I purchased in bulk.

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Lentil and Brown Rice Soup

Jane Brody’s Good Food Book

5 c. chicken or vegetable broth, or more

3 c. water, or more

1 1/2 c. lentils, rinsed

1 c. long-grain brown rice

1 qt. canned tomatoes (I use tomatoes that I have canned from my garden, but I have also used freshly chopped tomatoes)

3 carrots, sliced or chopped (whichever you prefer)

1 large onion, chopped (about 1 c.)

1 large stalk celery, chopped (about 1/2 cup)

3 large cloves garlic, minced (1 TBS)

1/2 tsp. dried basil

1/2 tsp dried oregano (of course, you can use fresh herbs if you have them on hand)

1 bay leaf (I omit this)

1/2 cup minced, fresh parsley

2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar

Salt and pepper, if desired, to taste

1. In a large sauce pan combine the broth, water, lentils, rice, tomatoes, carrots, onion, celery, garlic, basil, oregano, and bay leaf. Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat, cover, and simmer…stirring occasionally for 40-45 minutes or until lentils and rice are both tender. Remove and discard bay leaf. (I have also made this in my crock pot, cooking on medium for about 6 hours.)

2. Stir in the fresh parsley, vinegar, salt and pepper. If necessary, thin soup with additional hot water or broth.This lentil stew goes wonderfully with homemade popovers.

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Calico Beans

(The original recipe, when given to me, called for canned beans and a can of baked beans, but I have replaced both of these items with dried beans and tweaked the other ingredients a bit to accommodate the substitutions.)

1 lb. ground beef or sausage — browned (can be eliminated)

1 lb. dried beans of your choice (I use a mixture of dark kidney beans, light kidney beans, pinto beans, black beans, navy beans and/or great northern beans…anything I may have on hand.)

1 Tbs. dry mustard

3/4 c. ketchup or BBQ sauce (or both)

2 Tbs. apple cider vinegar

1/8 – 1/4 c. brown sugar, honey, molasses or sweetener of your choice

(I also like to add a couple pinches of red pepper flakes)

Rinse the dried beans and soak overnight, covering with plenty of water. Drain beans and cover with water again. Bring beans to a boil and let simmer on low until soft. Drain beans; pour into crock pot with browned meat, dry mustard, ketchup and or BBQ sauce, vinegar, and brown sugar or honey. I always add one to two cups of water as well. Set crock pot to whatever setting works best for you. I usually cook for four hours on medium heat. I do check it periodically. You can adjust any of the ingredients to your family’s liking…less sweet, spicier, saucier… My family likes the beans to be on the soupy/saucy side, so I add more water if I find the beans are absorbing too much liquid.

We enjoy eating our Calico Beans with sides of homemade bread and this kale salad.

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Cabbage and Sausage

This recipe came about when we had an abundance of cabbage from the garden and we needed more things to do with cabbage. It has become a favorite.

1 cabbage head (you may use less…I use the entire head, plus more since I am feeding 10 kids)

2 lbs sausage (I buy our sausage in 1 lb. packages that comes like ground beef…no casing)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 onion, chopped

1/4 tsp. celery seed

Salt and pepper to taste

Apple cider vinegar

I use a large enameled, cast iron Dutch oven for this recipe.

1. Wash and slice cabbage thinly, set aside.

2. Brown sausage along with garlic, onion, and celery seed in large pot or Dutch oven.

3. Add the cabbage, sprinkle with salt and pepper, place cover on pot, and turn heat to low. Cook until cabbage is soft, occasionally stirring and mixing the sausage into the cabbage.

4. When cabbage is cooked to your liking (we like ours to be a bit crunchy), remove from heat and serve. Sprinkle with a bit of apple cider vinegar if desired.

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It was a pleasure being here today. Thank-you, Tricia, for inviting me. I’m excited to see what else you and the other mamas have planned for this great “Real Food on a Real Budget” series.

**Tricia here: Thank you so much Emily for being my guest in this series. What an amazing tip on buying the drops (apples that have fallen to the ground). I would never had known to do that! I hope to try at least one of your recipes very soon.

I hope to see you all back here tomorrow for the Pinterest Pin-along. Mine is Valentine inspired. Can’t wait to see what you all have been up to. So finish up your posts, get your pictures done and I will see you tomorrow.

Comments { 13 }

my true love story

By Tricia on February 13, 2014 in being Catholic, Kids, Natural mothering, Uncategorized

It was the spring of 1996. I was working as a paralegal in Coral Gables. Poppa and I were raising our little Alexandra who was 4 and the princess of not only our home but that of every home she knew of since none of our friends had any children of their own. I was all of 24 years.

Poppa and I had a small but cute and cozy two story home in South Miami, very south. Our lives consisted of work, play, Alexandra and our ambitions. To think back now, it was a very simple time. Meals for three, walks in the park across the street from our house and lots of friends to party with when we wanted to escape the domestic life for a little while. We planned to work hard and upgrade homes, cars and lifestyles as time went by and we planned to have one child. Actually, planned would be a wrong term to use. We were told we would have one child as Poppa was told in the military that he could have no more children. We were OK with that. We had our perfect little blond haired, blue eyed baby and we could do whatever we liked in our life. To say that thoughts of all those babies we would never have haunted me, well no.

I worked. I loved to work. It seems though that my body did not love it as much as I did because earlier that year I began having terrible heartburn, and wrenching stomach pains quite often. After a few trips to the emergency room in the most pain I have ever experienced (and asking some poor doctor to marry me after having some opiates via an IV for the pain) I was told that I might have an ulcer and I should see a gastroenterologist. An ulcer at the ripe old age of 24. That would be me, of course because I was a Cuban coffee junky who did not eat well, partied a little too much and lived for the next big thing.

I went to the gastro and had a whole battery of tests done, meanwhile being given the instructions to stop drinking coffee, alcohol or anything spicy or with tomato. Ok, so I was going to eat mush for a living? I mean seriously, I’m Cuban, I like food! After a whole stomach x-ray panel, barium test and some other tests, I was told that I had a duodenal ulcer. Lovely! The pain though that I had been experiencing was enough to halt me in my tracks and so I was a good patient and followed orders.

A month later, Poppa and I were catching a plane the next morning to his cousins wedding in Tennessee. Sometime after Poppa had gone to bed, I had started up with some stomach flu symptoms which quite worried me as my ulcer could not handle any aggravation. After a night sleeping with my head practically in the toilet, I woke up Poppa and told him where I had spent the night. I remember asking him “we are sure that we can’t have any more babies aren’t we, because I kind of remember this feeling”. We both laughed it off and caught a plane. Another month went by and life was pretty much back to normal.

One morning as I prepared for a big case that I was working on with my boss and a deposition that afternoon, one of the girls that answered the phone was looking a bit sad. Knowing her to be so peppy, I asked her what was wrong and she immediately fell apart into a puddle at my feet. She was engaged to be married and almost in law school… and she suspected she might be pregnant. Oh dear, we really didn’t have time for this and so I told her to quickly run across the street to the pharmacy and get a test. That way, if she was pregnant she could go home and figure out how to tell her fiance and if she was not we could get on with the rest of our day. She took the test and came back from the bathroom telling me it was negative but she was sure it was wrong. I was at this point, a bit aggravated. We had so much to do that day. I offered to take the second test so she could see that they work. As I type this, my heart is racing.

I went into the bathroom and did what you do with a pregnancy test. As I washed my hands, I could see the stick there on top of a tissue paper next to the sink area. Oh. my. goodness. What? But how could this be? I walked back in feeling my knees too weak and not really remembering what was going on with the receptionist, just feeling numb. She looked and me and looked at the stick in my hand and immediately, she forgot what she had been worrying about. I felt apart in my chair. Feeling full of despair, I thought of my life, my life with Poppa, our plans, Alexandra. I felt like I was spiraling. And oh, how to tell Poppa.

In what seemed like that very moment, he called. I could not speak to him and he picked up right away that something was wrong with me. My bosses had arrived, perfect timing. I told him that we had to talk, later. He asked me what was wrong but I couldn’t tell him, I just kept saying “we will talk later”. Filled with despair he said “Trish, please tell me what I have done, please, I love you”. What he had done? He went on, “Trish, we can fix whatever is wrong just give me a chance”. Did he think I wanted to leave him or something? I was so confused by his reaction that I just blurted it out, “no, I’m not leaving you… I’m pregnant!”

A second went by and he said “Ok, we will talk at home” and then he said “hey, I love you”. I was no good to anyone, my boss found out what was going on and sent me home. Just where I wanted to be… What was Poppa going to say to me? I drove home and honestly, I don’t remember how the heck I got there but I remember opening the door to find Poppa standing there holding a huge bouquet of roses and I fell apart in his arms. I remember feeling safe at that moment, scared but safe.

I called my Gastro to find our what kind of antacid I could take now that I was expecting and he asked me to come in to see him. The next day I went to see first the Ob/Gyn to find out that I was really pregnant and about 8 weeks and then to see the Gastro which was not as nice. He sat me down and explained to me that with all the stomach x-rays I had a few weeks earlier I would have a problem. Stomach x-rays??? That was when it all came back to me. Did no one even think to ask me if I could be pregnant? Would I have answered a resounding no either way?

The doctor told me he recommended an abortion. Um, excuse me? That was when I realized that I was in love. I was fully in love with this little person, even though it was a shock, even though we thought we could not afford it, even though this doctor was telling me to do something I could not possibly fathom.

This is where I should stop and tell you that I was raised as a Catholic but left the church and would not return until Alexandra was nearly 12, so my Catholic faith had little to do with my decision. How could this doctor possibly know what he was asking me to do? I flat out to him that I would not do it. He told me to go home and speak with my husband (Poppa and I did not believe in marriage at this point in our lives). I assured him there was nothing to discuss and that Poppa would feel the same was as I did. I called him from my 1 pound, bigger than my head cell phone on the way home.

We were both in agreement. Come what may, we would face it together. Our family was going to be a little bigger. The weeks went by and we began to plan all sorts of things, baby rooms, baby names, how to tell my mother in law. My parents were happy though we never told anyone about the xrays or the doctors and come to think about it, there may not be many people who have ever heard this whole story. My parents know now but back then we just wanted to be happy with our baby. The day we found out the baby was a boy was so exciting. Poppa would have a buddy to watch soccer with, someone to teach and play football with, a boy!

We decided on Nicholas. It was a good strong name and for a middle name we picked Rolando after Poppa’s grandfather who passed away during the whole x-ray and find out I was pregnant commotion. My belly grew each day and so did my heart. The day came that I went into labor and since we had not even told our OB that there might be a problem, we happily went along to the hospital. Me with Nicholas’ future god parents, who were much more nervous that I having never had any children yet of their own, and Poppa who met us after work at the hospital. After a grueling 19 hours, I met my boy.

He was perfect. In every way. He still is. Nicholas is probably one of my children who is most like me. He can make me laugh in a second and un-nerve me in the next. I would not want to live in a world that he never knew. We are intertwined him and I. He taught me to really love. A love that is bigger than ambition or fear. My true love.

And so you might already know the rest of the story. We went on to have many more babies and now Nicholas is all of 16 years old. I have not shared this story with many people but I think it is important to see that with God all things are possible and even though we didn’t consult with him at the time, he was holding our hands and carrying us through, just as he is today.