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Monday’s Wanderings ~Time to Purge
A most important label
I told the huz, I’m purging the house of *toxic* foods. They’ll either be use up, donated, or tossed. I’ve been pretty diligent about HFCS, and to a point nitrites & nitrates. However, changes are coming in from all directions. I need to purge the toxic and bring in the ‘pure’ (aka healthy & safer). It’s not just food i’m doing this with, but also my dinnerware. For the last 11 years, I’ve consistently had plastic & melamine dishes. (for short stints of time I’ve had glass/ceramic but ended up giving them away as i didn’t like them)
I’ve soon to have on order a cool Fiesta ware set of multiple colors. Each family member chose a color. It’s bright, fun, funky, and totally me! I will also be buying matching Flatware as my oldest son has managed to lose 90% of my spoons. Not just the teaspoons, but the tablespoons as well! So, once the new dinnerware set comes in, it’s bye bye to all the plastic & melamine ware.
Since my kids were little, I’ve cooked from scratch about 75-80% of the time. In more recent years, that has increased to 85-90% of the time. Now, because of this, my kids will actually balk at most of the overly processed meals from a box, because they ‘taste funny’ or ‘have a weird texture’. I’m really glad for this, but Sometimes, mom needs a break KWIM? However, my frozen go-to meals will still be in my freezer, but they’ll be from the organic section now. Pizza, fish sticks, you know the stuff that involves almost no work but setting a timer and heating an oven?
Quite frankly the last few shopping trips I’ve made have been an educational experience (and a bit scary too). I learned that all regularly shelved canned soups have MSG in them. After seeing this I walked back to the organic section, read the label and found it was worth the 30 cents extra a box to know what i’m eating, to recognize all ingredients and to not further poison my family with MSG. I also learned that there’s a host of chemicals in my family’s favorite bacon product. So guess what i’m not buying from the regular grocery store anymore? yep bacon. Overall, I managed to only marginally spend more on fresh, non-processed foods, and a lot more organic purchases. I’ll be honest. The grocery bill hurt, but being healthy, less medicated, and feeling better all around is worth it.
It will also be made known to other care takers for my kids, that NO processed foods allowed, NO fast foods, and NO foods with HFCS or Nitrates/nitrites. All our bodies are gonna go through a slow detox. (and some of us will have to make it through some 4yo meltdowns) IF they have a hard time abiding then i’ll have to not let them visit much. They don’t and wont have to deal with the detox when they return home. The behaviors that have to be stopped & corrected.
I challenge you to educate yourself and begin the switch to GMO Free
GMO crops are scary, and in the long run are doing horrible things to the environment, food chain, and your body. Many of the world’s countries have banned crops & foods containing them. GMO = Genetically Modified Organism or perhaps you’ve seen it this way GE(O) = Genetically Engineered (Organism). These foods aren’t good for you. If you read a list of ingredients and you don’t recognize them, you can’t pronounce them, your body doesn’t need them. Food Dyes are just as toxic and those HAVE been proven to be carcinogenic. Many do cause children with learning disabilities to fare worse.
You may think “Well the FDA says it’s “Safe” to eat”. I would like to counter with this, Have you been paying attention AT ALL to the political news? I’ll be the first to say I don’t pay full attention, but where the health of my family is concerned I have been a whole lot more. Monsanto the biggest manufacturer of GMO foods is now holding a seat on the FDA. This should have you beyond pissed off. Money Talks. So of course they’re gonna buy the results and tell you it’s safe. It’s all a crock of shit. Years of exposure are causing higher and higher instances of disease & illness all around. 100 years ago, these issues didn’t exist. The taint in our food supply needs to stop. You have a voice. How you spend your money on food is your voice. What you tell other people about your food habits is your voice. Share well searched information. Make truly informed choices.
Change CAN HAPPEN. Remember the Disney story A Bug’s Life? Where the ants rose up against the grasshoppers at the end once they realized they were stronger? That’s the American People and what we can accomplish, when we band together against Big Ag, Big Business, and the Government. WE DECIDE not them. WE put them in office, we CAN take them out. YOU have to realize YOU DO have the power to affect change! Start Local. That’s where your changes will have the most impact. Support the farmer’s markets. Support local farms. Buy from local food co-ops. Literally put your money where your mouth is!
Share with me what you are doing to create a healthier family and local economy. I would like to know!
From the Kitchen of Gypsie
Sausage & Summer Squash recipe
1/3 – 1/2 cup bottled Italian dressing
2 cloves garlic minced
12 oz polish sausage halved length wise then diagonally cut
3 small yellow summer squash or zucchini (I used both ;D)
4 wedges of Italian flatbread [such as Boboli] (I just used a whole loaf italian bread and sliced it in half)
2 green onions sliced (1/4 cup)
1/4 c. coarsely shredded Parmesan cheese
1. Preheat broiler (I used the oven @350) In a small bowl combine salad dressing and garlic. In an extra-large skillet, heat 2 tbsp of the salad dressing mixture over medium heat. add sausage and squash. Cook for 8-10 minutes or until sausage is heated through and the squash is almost tender, stirring occasionally.
2. Meanwhile,place bread pieces on broiler pan; brush with 1 tbsp of the salad dressing mixture. broil 3-4 inches (or bake about 20 mins) for 1-2 minutes or until lightly toasted.
3. Drizzle the remaining salad dressing mixture over sausage and squash. Serve with toasted bread. Garnish with Green onions & parmesan cheese.
Makes 4 servings.
*note* if you have to double this, you’ll not have to double the dressing – found this out when I made it
Each serving: 412 cals, 31g fat (10g sat. fat), 62 mg chol., 1182mg sodium, 19g carb, 1g fiber, 15g protein.
(you may be able to reduce the sodium by looking at Italian dressing labels and not using much cheese. also by possibly finding a lower sodium kilbasa/polish sausage)
enjoy! it was a super big hit here 
Please share around I’ll love you forever if you do!
Day 2: 7/23/12 (with the Huz’s notes)
He got quite the chuckle out of my posting, but felt he needed to add his two cents.. afterall, he is the one doing a good chunk of the work along with A. So, here’s my recap of Sunday/Monday, with his notes. Enjoy! (**ps** sorry the pics don’t exactly match up. it was too much to try and duplicate it exactly..)
sorry it’s kinda dark. but that’s the engine on top of the jack.
Ok, so Sunday night, the huz went out and started the process of removing the engine. He removed the tires, and disconnected a bunch of stuff. (gee, sorry for sounding so ‘technical’ but I was gone to the store while he did this so I don’t know everything that was done). I disconnected the electricals, the clutch linkage, throttle linkage and shifter linkage and fuel line. Next, he propped up the engine with the jack, and a couple of pieces of wood. Which I can only think it was to not ‘injure’ the engine, but also to have evenly distributed weight. Yup that’s it mostly, I didn’t want to put too much strain on just 3 bolts. I think he then told me he unbolted it – all that held in the engine? (well for the most part) 3 bolts.
This was the extent of it on Sunday – 4 hours at most (actually less than that, this car is really easy to work on). Like I said, I was gone to the grocery store, we gotta eat too ya know *wink*
As it turned out, the huz had to take a day off of work monday, because the repair to his universal joint didn’t go as well as he’d hoped on sunday, so after getting the Volvo squared away, The huz & A. went to work on the massive chore of actually completely removing the engine from Roxie. As you can see, we’re quite resourceful around here. Using what we have to get the job done. Those are cedar logs helping to hold up the engine. Redneck engineering at it’s best! *chuckle* I prefer to call it Yankee ingenuity.
they realized almost too late that the muffler was still attached. out came the leatherman to saw it off.
Huz is on the left, A is on the right – both working diligently (cussing ensued i’m sure) to completely detach the engine.
As the afternoon wore on, I had food duty. Not that I minded. I got to play with fire! *grin* I’m quite a good little fire faerie when it comes to grilling. Kinda jealous of that, I love playing with fire too, but you are so good at it also, I love my fire faerie. Monday night’s dinner was grilled lemon pepper chicken & hot dogs over a cedar wood fire! OMG! It smelled wonderful! I can still smell it in the house – the windows were open, and the wood was still kinda green, thus causing a bit more smoke than normal. We could smell it in the garage, the smell of wood burning, 2 fire fighters, you do the math. (it’d been cut 2 weeks ago)
Anyway – yes this is important to the story – The guys would call me out to take pictures of the process while I was making dinner. (see told ya)
grill fodder! lemon pepper chicken legs and hot dogs..did i tell ya the cedar smelled AWESOME?!
I’m quite good at multi-tasking and because the cedar wood was still somewhat new, and none was split smaller than quarters, it took a while for the grill to get really going, so taking pictures of progress was a cinch!
Soon I’d gotten a nickname.. “the documentarian” or something like that. “A” thought I was nuts to be taking so many photos, but, I want to see where the journey started and watch the progress, and when Roxie is “done” (meaning drive-able and then some), I’d like to look back and see the progress. Right now, it’s still too early for me to be able to do much, other than order parts and get the guys tools or parts necessary, but I suspect very soon, my hands will be working on her too!
For now, however, I’m happy enough preparing nomtastic food to feed the guys doing the grunt work *wink*.
grilling is fun! i got to play soot sprite 
Ok, while I’m playing soot sprite & kitchen witch, I get called out again to go look at what they’ve done.. I swear y’all aren’t gonna believe some of this stuff.
A was like, so “Mz Documentarian wanna see your engine removed from your car?” So I went with camera in hand to watch them “drop the engine” this process took about 10 mins because they couldn’t find what was keeping the engine from, well, dropping. They tried a few different things – accidentally broke the speedometer cable, Stupid me, I was looking at it the night before and just forgot to disconnect it. and then finally realized the axle was the “block” so the set out to remove the right side of the wheel & axle to get the engine out. I snapped a few more photos, gave them a hand with moving some parts/tools and then by this point, had to go back to KP because the grill was just about ready for the food. As i was putting the chicken on the pan to bring to the grill, i’m summoned yet again to the garage. Again, the resourcefulness of redneck engineering never ceases to amaze me. I kid you not, they made an engine hoist – out of a chain, padlock, and a ‘come along’. –Resourcefulness + engineer mentality.
makes me wanna say “Hey y’all hold my beer and watch this!”
I was wearing my fire helmet because of the age of the come-along, if the cable broke, well, ya, that plus with all that weight being suspended from above, just rather be safe.
I got several photos but only a couple came out, as I didn’t have a lot of room to take photos in the area they were working. They successfully got the engine hoisted up and onto the stand that’s going to be a temporary holding spot for it. (It’s actually the huz’s homemade staff display rack he made out of piping used for commercial sprinkler work).
350+ pounds of engine sitting on top of the homemade staff display.
I helped in this process as well. After the engine was put on the rack, we had to move it back. the guys pulled and if a leg got ‘off kilter’ I had to kick it back into place to keep the rack even.
The whole purpose of pulling the engine was to pull the gearbox/differential to see what broke, and remove, so that it can be swapped with the some from the Corvair Spyder ( parts donor, soon to be here). With such a simple drive system as this, this is the easiest way to do it.
This was the last thing done before dinner.
It doesn’t seem like much, however it took several hours.. I dare say about 4 hours? give or take a few minutes. *wink* I’m pretty sure we had dinner around 7:30pm – which left approximately 30 mins for eating, then dessert was s’mores! which the kids thoroughly enjoyed.
The evening wrapped up with all 3 minions getting showers then off to bed, i put my feet up and watched “The Princess Diaries 2″ , then the huz and i snagged our clean up showers and went to bed.
I’d say it was a pretty darn productive day two right? If you’re interested in seeing all the photos from day two, check out my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/thewanderinggypsie
So, if you’re liking the journey so far, share it with your friends and make sure to follow me to keep updated on my latest wanderings!
Until next time,
~Gypsie
Day 2: 7/23/12
sorry it’s kinda dark. but that’s the engine on top of the jack.
Ok, so Sunday night, the huz went out and started the process of removing the engine. He removed the tires, and disconnected a bunch of stuff. (gee, sorry for sounding so ‘technical’ but I was gone to the store while he did this so I don’t know everything that was done). Next, he propped up the engine with the jack, and a couple of pieces of wood. Which I can only think it was to not ‘injure’ the engine, but also to have evenly distributed weight. I think he then told me he unbolted it – all that held in the engine? (well for the most part) 3 bolts.
this was the extent of it on sunday – 4 hours at most. Like I said, I was gone to the grocery store, we gotta eat too ya know *wink*
Huz is on the left, A is on the right – both working diligently (cussing ensued I’m sure) to completely detach the engine.
As it turned out, the huz had to take a day off of work monday, because the repair to his universal joint didn’t go as well as he’d hoped on sunday, so after getting the Volvo squared away, The huz & A. went to work on the massive chore of actually completely removing the engine from Roxie. As you can see, we’re quite resourceful around here. Using what we have to get the job done. Those are cedar logs helping to hold up the engine. Redneck engineering at it’s best! *chuckle*
they almost forgot to take off the muffler. out came the leatherman to saw it off.
As the afternoon wore on, I had food duty. Not that i minded. I got to play with fire! *grin* I’m quite a good little fire faerie when it comes to grilling. Monday night’s dinner was grilled lemon pepper chicken & hot dogs over a cedar wood fire! OMG! It smelled wonderful! I can still smell it in the house – the windows were open, and the wood was still kinda green, thus causing a bit more smoke than normal. (it’d been cut 2 weeks ago)
grill fodder! lemon pepper chicken legs and hot dogs..did i tell ya the cedar smelled AWESOME?!
Anyway – yes this is important to the story – The guys would call me out to take pictures of the process while I was making dinner. (see told ya) I’m quite good at multi-tasking and because the cedar wood was still somewhat new, and none was split smaller than quarters, it took a while for the grill to get really going, so taking pictures of progress was a cinch!
Soon I’d gotten a nickname.. “the documentarian” or something like that. “A” thought I was nuts to be taking so many photos, but, I want to see where the journey started and watch the progress, and when Roxie is “done” (meaning drive-able and then some), I’d like to look back and see the progress. Right now, it’s still too early for me to be able to do much, other than order parts and get the guys tools or parts necessary, but I suspect very soon, my hands will be working on her too!
grilling is fun! I got to play soot sprite
For now, however, I’m happy enough preparing nomtastic food to feed the guys doing the grunt work *wink*.
Ok, while I’m playing soot sprite & kitchen witch, I get called out again to go look at what they’ve done.. I swear y’all aren’t gonna believe some of this stuff.
A was like, so “Mz Documentarian wanna see your engine removed from your car?” So I went with camera in hand to watch them “drop the engine” this process took about 10 mins because they couldn’t find what was keeping the engine from, well, dropping. They tried a few different things – accidentally broke the speedometer cable, and then finally realized the axle was the “block” so the set out to remove the right side of the wheel & axle to get the engine out. I snapped a few more photos, gave them a hand with moving some parts/tools and then by this point, had to go back to KP because the grill was just about ready for the food. As i was putting the chicken on the pan to bring to the grill, i’m summoned yet again to the garage. Again, the resourcefulness of redneck engineering never ceases to amaze me. I kid you not, they made an engine hoist – out of a chain, padlock, and a ‘come along’.
makes me wanna say “Hey y’all hold my beer and watch this!”
I got several photos but only a couple came out, as I didn’t have a lot of room to take photos in the area they were working. They successfully got the engine hoisted up and onto the stand that’s going to be a temporary holding spot for it. (It’s actually the huz’s homemade staff display rack he made out of piping used for commercial sprinkler work). I helped in this process as well. After the engine was put on the rack, we had to move it back. the guys pulled and if a leg got ‘off kilter’ I had to kick it back into place to keep the rack even.
350+ pounds of engine sitting on top of the homemade staff display.
This was the last thing done before dinner.
It doesn’t seem like much, however it took several hours.. i dare say about 4 hours? give or take a few minutes. *wink* I’m pretty sure we had dinner around 7:30pm – which left approximately 30 mins for eating, then dessert was s’mores! which the kids thoroughly enjoyed.
The evening wrapped up with all 3 minions getting showers then off to bed, i put my feet up and watched “The Princess Diaries 2″ , then the huz and i snagged our clean up showers and went to bed.
I’d say it was a pretty darn productive day two right? If you’re interested in seeing all the photos from day two, check out my Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/thewanderinggypsie
So, if you’re liking the journey so far, share it with your friends and make sure to follow me to keep updated on my latest wanderings!
Until next time,
~Gypsie
From the Kitchen of Gypsie
Just made this for dinner last night. It’s always a great hit! So, here you go.
One awesome recipe for Spinach Tortellini Soup.
Ingredients:
4 cups Vegetable broth (i used chicken because it’s what i had on hand)
1/4 tsp garlic powder or 1 clove minced garlic
1/4 tsp black pepper
3/4 cup frozen or shelf-stable cheese filled tortellini
2 cups coarsely chopped fresh spinach leaves
Directions:
1. Heat the broth, garlic powder, and pepper in a 3-quart saucepan over high heat to a boil.
2. Reduce the heat to medium. Stir in the tortellini. Cook for 10 minutes. Stir in the spinach. Cook for 5 minutes or until tender but still firm.
*after this i turned off the heat and let it “set” for another 5 minutes so that the spinach would sink. I also like to top this with fresh shredded Parmesan or romano cheese.
Also good served with a slice of bread with butter. I used some of the french bread I’d made earlier in the day.
The notes on this recipe says it makes 6 servings, but i always have to double the recipe to have enough for everyone.
Prep time: 5 minutes Cook time 20 mins.
D5 Creation