Food Food and more Food

When I first moved in with my new husband he had recently been to one of those self help seminars.  You know the big personality guy up on the stage telling how to fix your life so you will be happy!  He came back a different person as far as his food preferences were concerned.  Up until that point we were a struggling family of 6, yes we had 4 children at the time, and one of the cheapest meals we could come up with was a whole roasted chicken.  We had two very hungry boys!  Upon returning from this seminar for some reason my loving husband could not bear to eat chicken, pork, even hamburger!!  What had happened to him?  Several months went by and he stuck his nose up at all the meat I was continuing to cook for the children and I still thought he was nuts; until he directed me to a website showing the living conditions of some of the animals living in "farms".  Well then and there I changed my mind about what I was going to put in my mouth.  How awful!!  Now five years later we are still mostly vegetarian although our kids do eat meat when they want most of the time.  I even have chicken nuggets in my freezer for them! 

You never fully realize that what you eat affects you until you have a health problem that was likely manifested because of what you have put in your body over many years of eating unhealthy.  No, contrary to popular belief, fast food is not healthy no matter what their nutrition guidelines say!  My husband was diagnosed with gout over a year ago and guess what they recommend?  Stop eating meat!! Wow!  What a blow to someone who eats meat several times a day!!  So over the past year or so I have began to experiment with food, recipes and trying to make sure our kids eat as little processed food as possible. Not an easy task when you have teenagers that could exist off of pizza!  A couple of nights ago we had something like a Vegetable Gumbo.  Oh my goodness was it yummy!!  Even the kids liked it and they usually groan and moan about soup.  I am going to include the recipe at the bottom of this post! 

Our family does still eat meat on occasion but we are now very picky about the meat we purchase.  We will only eat beef if it is the free range, antibiotic free, grass fed, yes more expensive but well worth it cuts of beef.  We have made the change to this type of beef recently because my husband has had back to back gout attacks since our youngest was born five months ago and he seems to deal better with the organic beef.  We have also been eating more vegetables; according to my son more than he would require in a lifetime!  The good news is we have not had any flu in our house this year and the colds have been limited to the bigger children except for one so far.  I truly believe this is in part due to our eating habits as well as making the children almost bathe in hand sanitizer, probably not a good thing but better than the alternative!  I will continue to keep you updated with our newest recipes and some of our old favorites as we have them.  We have enough almost to compile a cookbook, something I will be continuing to work on!


Vegetable Gumbo

1/2 onion chopped, 1 tbs sunflower oil, 4 tbs butter, 3 tbs flour, 2 cups veggie broth, 2 14 oz. cans italian chopped tomatoes, 2 cups frozen mixed vegetables, 1 cup frozen corn, 1 cup water, 1 cup macaroni, 2 tsp basil, 2 tsp thyme

Saute onion in hot oil over med to low heat until almost translucent.  Add butter and flour stirring constantly until mixture turns light brown, about 10 minutes.  Pour the broth in slowly whisking after each addition to ensure the roux stays smooth with no lumps.  Add tomatoes, vegetables, macaronit and water.  Raise heat to med-high and simmer for 20 minutes or so, or until vegetables are tender and macaroni is done.  Add basil and thyme.  Serve hot with biscuits.