Sunday photos: unprocessed

With the first week of October Unprocessed behind us, we wanted to let you know how we’re doing!

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I (Xan) was already pretty unprocessed, but I confess that since last year I’ve slacked off quite a bit, mostly on the label-reading front.  So I made the discovery that you cannot buy unprocessed pasta at chain grocery stores. I’ll try the mercado, but I’m not holding out much hope, since pasta isn’t really a biggie in hispanic cuisine. But you never know. Suzy thinks I should make my own, but I’m not there yet. Will try the specialty shops.  The good news is our favorite tortilla chips, El Ranchero, unexpectedly have the following ingredients list: corn, lime, corn oil, salt. Here are the things I made this week, to keep me unprocessed:

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I have a terrible thing to admit. We ate out last night. Living here in town I find it increasingly difficult to avoid dining out on occasion. We ate at a Mexican style restaurant and I chose a real chicken breast topped with chorizo and real cheese. Sure, I could’ve avoided the processed chips … and the margaritas…, but I feel I could’ve made a far worse decision. At least it wasn’t typical fast food.

For the most part, meals around our house are pretty unprocessed. We make our own butter, breads, and even cheeses. Meat is purchased at the local butcher instead of the meat department of the grocery store, and our milk is from a local farm – and it’s raw. But that doesn’t mean that all of my meals are gourmet works of art or some Foodie delight. Lunch the other day was simply some rolled out dough from the bread that was rising, baked into a pita and topped with ground peanut butter and homemade jam.

Experimenting is fundamental at our house too. We get bored easily eating the same things over and over. This week I came up with a recipe for Shepard’s Pie. It needs some refining, but it was sooo much better than the mashed potato and canned veggie casserole I grew up with.

And as a special treat this week, Hubby and my daughter made dinner for our Sunday guests! It’s one of our favorite meals from our restaurant days. I adore that she loves food as much as we do. It makes it simple to teach her how to eat healthy and gets her thinking about where and who her food comes from.

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Here at Chiot’s Run we were 98% unprocessed as usually. Last month (before the challenge started) her purchased a few of his favorite cookies at the health food store (Newman’s Own Organics Ginger-O’s) and he finished off that pack. At the beginning of the week I made a big batch of beef stew that we’ve been enjoying eating on, and a pot of chicken soup. When I’m busy, I like to make a few big pots of soup each week and we rotate between for quick meals.

This afternoon we went to the Algonquin Mill Festival. We enjoyed some pancakes made from flour they grind right there at the the steam powered mill (we took some of our homemade maple syrup in a jar so we didn’t have to eat the fake stuff) and Mr Chiots enjoyed some pumpkin pecan ice cream, it was also made by steam engine and contains only: milk, sugar, pumpkin, eggs, spices, nuts and vanilla. It’s really nice when you can find something to buy while out and about that’s not highly processed and full of chemicals & preservatives!

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How is your October: Unprocessed coming along? Have you learned anything or experimented with new foods?

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