It’s The Simple Things That Make You Crazy

I read in a gardening book that many people are making (this was 1970s) an attempt at living a simpler life – which inevitably leads to growing your own food, sometimes raising your own animals, making things by scratch. The book points out that this attempt at living a “simpler” way is, in fact, more complicated.

I’m a stay-at-home mom. I am so blessed that we have made this a priority for our family! It would be easy to think that we need more, therefore mummy has to go work to get it. I take my “job” seriously. Jonny and I have two wonderful boys that God has given to us – no one else – and we take it to heart to “bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4).

Part of my job as the stay-at-homer is to make it my duty to find us ways to save money – to make a one income home a bit easier on the ole wallet.

I don’t know who in the world would think it is “simpler” to make all of your food by scratch, but that is what I am doing. I have resolved to be making our salad dressings, our bread, dinners, desserts (occassionally!), and anything else I can think of. A benefit of doing this is definitely financial: flour, yeast, bran, salt, grains, they cost pennies. But I also have the benefit of knowing exactly what goes into our bellies. A bottle of salad dressing will have 20 different ingredients (including sugar), but a homemade dressing can have anywhere from 1-5 ingredients. It is also more expensive and difficult to find any desserts made with all or partial whole wheat, breads without corn syrup, cereals without a sugar coating. We have eaten a lot of beans and brown rice lately (and oh man, if you think yuck when you hear “beans and rice”, you haven’t tried Brazilian Beans from More-With-Less!).

Anyway, I’m kind of rambling here, I know. I am in that odd mood of being very proud with what I have done around our home, and being so tired from doing it and wishing I could run out and get a pizza!

But why would I want pizza when we are having asparagus strata made with:

•fresh asparagus and bulb onions (thanks to the produce co-op I am now a member of I can use twice the veggies for a healthier casserole without breaking the bank – see the pic above to see what I picked up last Saturday – thanks goes out to Carly for spreading the news!)
•homemade English muffins (from a weight watchers cookbook – super easy microwave baked),
•a healthy (that means meager) helping of bacon, chicken and cheese
•eggs from our chickens

Plus a rare treat of dessert: lemon bars, made from scratch, with a diminished amount of sugar and a half-whole-wheat crust.

Bet you wish you had something so simple for your dinner, eh?

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