Whole Foods: A Journey Part II

What I Learned About Cooking Whole Foods Today

1. The first thing that I learned was that eating healthier doesn’t mean bland. I followed Sue’s recipe and created some of the lightest, fluffiest pancakes that I’ve ever eaten.
2. The second thing I learned is that pancakes don’t have to be made of flour! Who’d have believed it after growing up with box pancake mix all of these years?
3. The third thing that I learned is just because a recipe has milk in it there isn’t always a need to refrigerate it. This recipe called for buttermilk and after the primary ingredients were mixed it was left out (in a sealed container of course) overnight to allow the nutrients to breakdown into its easily digestible form.
4. The fourth thing I learned is that it’s going to be hard to teach old dogs new tricks.

My two daughters (the “old dogs”) are nine and six years old. The nine year old burst into tears at the first forkful (which wasn’t even a full forkful) because “I don’t like it!” What I find so amusing about her is that you have fight to even put new foods into her mouth, let alone touch her tongue so how does she know if she likes it or not? But she ate her half a pancake, downed it with orange juice and shot me dirty looks for about 10 minutes.

Now, the six year old, after watching her sister act like a nut decided to be the mature one. She tasted the pancake without syrup and then with syrup. Her complaint was “It’s a little bitter, but really fluffy. It’s not that bad with the syrup.” She finished her offering and went back to take care of her Webkinz. After her performance, the nine year old informs me “It tasted sour and had an aftertaste, but the orange juice helped.” Between the two of them they consumed about one and a half pancakes. An amazing achievement for them!

It was now my turn. I tasted the pancakes/waffles and found that they did have a little bitterness, but not enough to stop me from enjoying my breakfast. The syrup definitely helped and I had at least four pancakes (which is a lot for me). Now my two year old son (my only non-picky eater) happily joined me for pancakes. He finished three pancakes all by his little self. He did seem to enjoy dipping them into the syrup, but I don’t know if that’s because he was having fun dipping or because the syrup made them taste better; maybe both. So for my next batch (and yes Dear Daughters there will be a next batch!) I’ll be substituting apple juice for the buttermilk and see if that takes care of the slight bitterness.

The best lesson that I learned from this experience was that creating the batter for the pancakes took roughly the same amount of time (excluding the overnight portion) as making pancakes from a box. And was a lot less messy!

And when you consider the difference in nutritional density Sue’s pancakes win hands down. I look forward to experimenting more with this recipe and moving on to making some home-made cornbread. You can check out more of her free recipe samples by visiting www.suegregg.com. And please, let me know what you think about the Blender Batter Waffles or other recipes that you’ve tried.

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Whole Foods: A Journey to a Healthier Lifestyle

Until a couple of months ago I didn’t really “get” the “Whole Foods” spin on nutrition. I consider myself a survivor of the rice cakes (a.k.a. expensive paper that someone convinced the masses is food) and a few other health food enthusiasms. Now, don’t get me wrong. I prepare healthy meals for my family (usually) and I’m very diligent about taking vitamins and all the things we’re supposed to do to live to be 102. But to be honest, I don’t consider myself to be much of a cook. I’m envious of those people who can walk into a kitchen, do a quick survey and prepare meals out of thin air. I hold in awe people who can make cakes from scratch.

I’ve always wanted to learn, but since most of the people I know don’t know much about the subject either, it’s been kind of low on my To-Do-List. That is until my son started scratching himself bloody and all the doctors wanted to do was to put him on steroids and expensive lotions. That activated my “Mommy Research Brain” and I found a website called “The Yeast Infection Advisor” and learned about candida. The author provided some nutritional guidelines (what to avoid, what to eat, what to drink, etc.) and some supplement suggestions. I followed all of these suggestions and my son is now doing well.

The information I learned wet my appetite to learn more about keeping, not only my son, but the rest of us healthy. Around this same time I was tapped to do a review on a cookbook by Sue Gregg. While I’m waiting for my cookbook to arrive I decided to check out her website to learn more about what I was getting myself into. You see, I live with some of the pickiest people on the planet (or so it seems at times) and I didn’t want to fail on my assignment by having a total lack of cooperation from the family. So, I picked the Blender Batter Waffles recipe as my first experiment.

Well, I didn’t learn this in the actual cooking portion of the experiment, but in the preparation. I was pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive it was to get the ingredients from the local health food store. The oats, flax seed, etc. cost little more than buying a box of premade pancake mix. Since I was totally ignorant about how to measure what I was getting, I am happy to report that I have enough for at least two more batters. In my case, the batter created 4 large waffles and 8 pancakes which is more than enough for my crew.

Be sure to check out the results tomorrow!

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