Many bloggers are listing their most popular posts of the previous year and I probably would not have followed suit but a reader asked me to, so here I go. In terms of traffic here are the most popular posts of the past year:

10 New Ways to Cook Quinoa - Over 20,000 people have visited this post and I didn’t write it until late summer. Wow! I hope it has provided Quinoa cooking ideas for lots of people.

Are You Eating the 30 Healthiest Foods? – I listed the healthiest foods selected by a popular magazine to see how many of them I was eating or not and why.

Six Benefits of Eating Locally Grown Foods – Why we should high tail it out of the chain grocery store and into the farmer’s market.

The Dangers of Soy – My horrendous experience with soy. I let my guard down and I started consuming a protein bar that had soy in it. It did devastating things to my health and it is the gift that just keeps on giving unfortunately.

Natural Sunburn Remedies – Tips and ideas for recovering from a sunburn.

Bringing Food Preservation Back To Our Kitchens – The lost art of food preservation.

Tips on Avoiding Food Waste – Most people in affluent countries waste food left and right but we can tame that beast with some creativity and planning.

Eco Friendly & Sustainable Dollhouses – Turning a classic toy and into a green toy.

Greener Tips for Healthy Skin – Reading this post again was a great reminder to break out the magnesium oil again. I need it!

Okabashi Recyclable Shoes and Flip-Flops – A greener shoe option that I reviewed.

Okay, so that is what drew the most readers in. My personal faves would include some of the above but I would also add:

Happy With What You Have – Feng Shui Tips for the Home – I am a big Feng Shui enthusiast.

Creating a Real Foods Kitchen – This was a very recent post but already gaining in popularity.

The Power of Reclaiming Domesticity

Living the Minimalist Lifestyle

Transitioning Kids to REAL Food

Here is to 2012!!

I got a great email question from a reader this week and decided to answer it on the blog. I think more and more people are wanting to transition from the Standard American Diet and easily available processed food to real, healthy, homemade goodness. The issue of course is that we find ourselves unprepared to cook real food because we are so used to heat and serve style meals. When we want to cook and bake from scratch we need the right tools so that we can stick with his new lifestyle and not decide that it is ultimately too much work. Our health will improve and so will our impact on the planet so it is important that we manage to set up our kitchen to make it easier to eat real food!

Here is what Danielle had to say:

Hello from Wisconsin. I have one daughter and trying for another. I have just recently become more aware of the choices I make for the my family and the impact it has on all of us. I started out by bringing my own bags to the grocery store, making my daughter her own baby food, getting rid of paper towels altogether, and a few other little changes. My goal for the new year is going to be making all our own food from scratch. Whether it’s snacks, dinner, smoothies, ect. With that being said, do you have any suggestions as to cookware and/or kitchen tools to help with doing so?

I have been trying to go back to a lot of your older posts and learning but as you probably know with having a little one I don’t get much time to do so. What are some of the best tips you could give me as to making my family and our house more green? As most of the people these days, we are on a budget. So I am hoping to make changes in small increments.

The following are some of the things I think a real food kitchen needs. As with anything you can start small and add things as you can. Also depending on what you are cooking some of these things may not apply to you but hopefully these ideas give you a place to start. Make sure to comment and add YOUR must have kitchen tool at the bottom of this page.

What You Need for a Real Foods Kitchen

Vita-Mix – My number #1 must have for the kitchen would have to be the Vita-Mix. I use mine literally all the time and have even joked that if the house were burning down I would run back inside to grab my camera and this amazing blender. We use it for making homemade nut butters, almond milk, butter, crackers, baby food (back in the day), popsicles, ice cream, sorbet, smoothies, mixed drinks, salsa, soup, raw cookies and desserts, and so much more. It is one of those gadgets that is always out on the counter because someone in the house will use it… at least 2 or 3 times each day. It is an expensive item but worth every penny and then some. If you have one you may not even need an immersion blender or a food processor plus you can buy a separate dry container for grinding your own flour.

I also have a Blendtec but I like the Vita-mix better.

A Dutch Oven – You can buy many different types of Dutch Ovens from the posh and stylish Le Creuset to the uber affordable Lodge Logic. The latter option works swimmingly so unless looking at that French version will make you super happy you can just go with the cheaper option. I use my cast iron Lodge Logic oven for making soups and stews when I don’t have time for a crock-pot. And as you can see below I also use it to make whole wheat sourdough bread on occasion.

Pressure Cooker – Okay, so you planned things REALLY badly and you need to cook up something really fast but you want that slow cooked for hours taste. You need a pressure cooker. If you’re are a meat eater you can also turn out really tender and juicy dishes using traditionally tough cuts of meat and you can do it 20 minutes instead of 2 hours. Some units can be used as a canner as well. I have no personal experience with these but I hear I am getting one for Christmas!

Crock-pot – These are perfect for meals with long cooking times… think chicken noodle soup, meatloaf, or chili. You can use a dutch oven or pressure cooker to get the job done faster but you may not want to heat your oven (summer) or you may need to cook while away from home. Since crock-pots plug into the wall and don’t require a stove they are perfect for slow cooking meals while you are working. You can also put them on a timer and have them start cooking while you are sleeping… ala overnight oatmeal.

I use my crock-pot more often than my dutch oven simply because I like to do all the food prep while my kids are at school. It can get hectic in the evening to have to chop all the veggies and such. For meals that only need 30 minutes or so, like my Potato Leek Soup, I use the cast iron dutch oven. Can’t wait to see how the pressure cooker works itself into the equation.

Bean Pot – These awesome pots can be used to soak and also cook your beans. I have an antique one that I got as a gift but you can also buy them new.

Dehydrator – I have an Excalibur food dehydrator and it is almost essential if you enjoy raw foods. In mine I have made cookies, crackers, dried fruit, fruit rolls, almond flour from almond pulp, and many other raw food dishes. They are also great for campers and hikers because you can make home cooked meals and then dehydrate instead of buying those freeze dried packets at sporting goods stores. Being able to dry fruit is a great way to preserve foods for winter time consumption.

Rice Cooker – If you eat a lot of rice or quinoa (raising hand) then having one of these saves loads of time and you don’t have to worry about burning. Most of these have non-stick coatings though so I suggest clay or stainless steel. They are pricier than your $30 rice cookers at Walmart but you don’t have to worry about cooking your food in nasty chemicals.

Pizza Stone – In my mind there is no reason to order pizza out. It is super easy to make your own pizza and it is MUCH healthier. My kids eat pizza loaded with fresh basil and spinach and you won’t find that at Pizza Hut. If you do make pizza at home then having a good pizza stone is nice. You can use them in the oven in winter and on the grill in summer. Easy!! You can also use these for things like biscuits and cookies.

Waffle Maker and/or Griddle - If you like waffles ( I recommend sourdough waffles) then you will love a cast iron waffle maker. Don’t buy the conventional ones with a non-stick finish. Same goes for griddles. A cast iron griddle is perfect for cooking eggs, pancakes, and even homemade english muffins.

Cutting Boards – Nourished kitchens see lots of veggie action. As a result of this I seem to have a bit of a bamboo cutting board addiction. I have 2 regular ones, a cutting block style board, and one that has a nifty colander built in for cutting and rinsing over the sink. I also have a plastic one from my non-green days and I keep it around for cutting meat. I won’t let meat touch my wooden boards. I also have a glass cutting board.

Colander – Typical kitchens usually have one but just in case I love the metal ones that are designed to fit over the sink. Love, love, love them! Plus you can use them as baskets when not in use to hold potatoes, fruit, eggs, etc.

Mixers – I have wanted a good mixer with a dough hook for years. I cannot seem to rationalize the cost of a KitchenAid though when we don’t do that much baking or bread making. Maybe someday if we find an awesome deal I will finally get one.

Good Pots and Pans – I wrote an extensive post on healthy and green cookware already so you can refer to that for the ins and outs of cast iron, stainless, aluminum, copper, etc.

Yogurt Maker – You can make yogurt in a crock-pot if you make up large batches and you can even use a jar and a heating pad. I happen to prefer the ease of a yogurt maker and I use the same one today that my mom used when I was a kid. If you decide to get one look for ones that have glass containers, not plastic.

Ramekins – Love these for reasonable portions of things like pudding and ice cream but also for cooking. I love to toss a egg in one and then top with a slice of fresh tomato, a sprinkling of herbs, some bread crumbs, and some cheese. Meat eaters like some crumpled bacon. Cook in the oven until the eggs set and voila, an easy an delicious breakfast for the whole house. Love these colored Rachael Ray ramekins!

Casserole Dishes – Speaking of Rachael Ray I am also loving her Stoneware bake sets that can be used for casseroles. Her cooking gear started out very cheesy (and plastics heavy) but it has taken a turn for the better in recent months. I can see making a veggie casserole or sweet potato casserole in these.

Juicer – I used to have a juicer but decided that I ultimately enjoy drinking the pulp and fiber of a fruit rather than just the juice. But if you are into raw foods or you need the extra healing that fresh juicing can provide, then a good juicer is essential.

Water Purification – We use Brita pitchers for filtering our water and an Alkamate for alkaline water.

Ball Jars – I use Ball jars for tons of things around the kitchen. We use small ones as drink cups for the kids and quart sized ones for protein shakes and green smoothies for adults. I also use them to store flour, grains, quinoa, beans, lentils, nuts, seeds, rice, dehydrated fruit, cereal, oats, etc. You can fill them from the bulk bin at your local grocer or you can buy packaged and then transfer it. It keeps things fresh, bug free, and I label the bottom of the jars so that I know what is in them. I put a sprouting lid on them and use them for sprouting seeds. The lid and jar combo can be used for sprinkling powdered cleaners, like my homemade scented scrubs to. I use them to make fermented foods like sourdough and kefir and store things in the fridge. They have a million uses!

Also, any glass jar will do. I just mostly use Ball jars because we don’t buy much food packaged in jars but I do have a couple Bubbies pickle jars in there to.

Below: Potato flakes, quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, coconut flour, quinoa flour, almond flour, flaxseed cereal, flaxseed meal, and some others I am likely forgetting.

Glass Refrigerator Dishes – As I mentioned above, I use Ball Jars for lots of my storage needs but when I have leftovers that won’t fit in jars I use glass refrigerator dishes. I have lots of vintage pyrex for this purpose as well as some Anchor Hocking glass dishes.

Storage Baskets – For food that stays outside the fridge like potatoes, onions, garlic, apples, bananas, lemons, bread, etc, we use baskets for easy storage and they go on a large metal shelving system that sits in our kitchen.

Chef’s Knives – Just like you need good cutting boards for all those fresh veggies you will be chopping, you need some good knives to.

Miscellaneous Stuff – An apple corer, wooden cooking utensils, wood and metal serving bowls, a hand crank mixer, a nut chopper (go vintage if you can!), spiral slicer, nut milk bags and cheesecloth, a kitchen scale, metal spatulas, a Tagine, and a fermenting crock.

Whew! Did I go a little crazy with this run down? What do you have to have in your kitchen?

Americans are notorious for wasting food. While over 1 billion people on our planet do not have enough to eat per day Americans throw away approximately 1,400 calories of food per person per day. Put another way, America throws out 40% of the food that it produces.

Not only is this fact about waste disturbing in relation to those around the globe who are starving to death, but when you consider the volatility of the economy and how expensive food is becoming at the grocery store you would think that it would make more sense for people to guard against waste.

Think about the last time you cleaned out your refrigerator. Did you throw out moldy cheese, produce bags gone gooey, or bowls of leftovers that now resemble some sort of science experiment? Did the leftovers even make it to the fridge or did you just toss them out right from the start?

The problem is, our society has become so immune to the concept of waste; so used to throwing things away, that perhaps part of the problem is in not understanding how to avoid food waste. When we throw out that bag of spinach that has gone bad we know that the next bag is only as far away as the nearest grocery store. We won’t go hungry because we bought too much and/or failed to eat what we had on hand. How can we re-train ourselves to be more conscious of food waste? Here are seven basic tips that can be followed which, when taken together, will significantly avoid the amount of food wasted in your household each day.

1. Only make what you need. One of the biggest problems with food waste is that we often make more food than you need for each meal. If you are in doubt as to how much constitutes a serving, check online. You should be able to gauge how much you will need to make for the number of people you will be cooking for. Cooking only what you need will cut down on leftovers and potential waste. And if you do decide to cook extras make it a family rule that lunch the next day is leftovers from the evening before.

2. Prepare your food correctly. Many today are so used to pre-cooked and prepared food items that they don’t know how to prepare fresh food properly. They may buy up some fresh foods hoping to make some old family favorites they had as a child but since their cooking skills have fallen by the wayside in favor of boxed mac and cheese the foods may sit and go bad. Many times people waste large portions of these items because they don’t understand how to prepare them or they don’t have the confidence that they can do so. Now though, you can look up recipes online and get step by step pictures even. If you buy the food, put the effort into actually making it.

3. Cook your favorites. You know what you and your family members like so come up with a list of favorites that you can cook from scratch and cook well. Serve those meals once or twice a week and make a habit of buying the items you need to make them. When you see those familiar ingredients in the fridge you know what you need to make before things go bad. Occasionally I make a vegetarian version of chicken scallopini for instance and it uses white wine and cream (2 things I usually don’t buy or use). I will often make this meal 2-3 times in a single week until I use the wine and cream up. I do the same thing with Potato Leek soup when I have potatoes and leeks to use up.

4. Use your leftovers. Leftovers have a bad habit of sitting morosely in the refrigerator until they sprout mold and have to be thrown out. No one seems to want to take the time to put the items together to make a new dish. A key to avoiding waste is to devise new meals out of leftover items. There are lots of websites that give ideas for dishes that can be made out of common leftovers and if you get creative I’m sure that you’ll find a way to make something new out of something old. Produce that you know you won’t use in a meal can often be used in green smoothies too.

5. Get Creative – Freeze your cutting board scraps like onion skins, carrots, celery, garlic, mushroom stems, etc and reserve them to make your own veggie broth. Produce that is about to go bad can also be used for this purpose. Stale bread can be used for bread crumbs and coutons.

6. Do a pantry/fridge challenge once a month. This means you avoid going to the store and figure out what you can eat from what you have. Spending a week or more eating this way gets rid of older foods before they can go bad and it saves money too!

7. Compost. As a last resort, compost all the biodegradable items that you are not able to eat or use. While technically this IS waste, it is waste that is being reused for something productive; in this case fertilizer for your garden and is not entering the standard waste/recycling system. We had had great success with our Worm Factory Compost Bin.

By following these seven simple steps you can significantly reduce the amount of waste in your household and, hopefully, will serve as an example to your children about curbing food waste.

It is so easy to just walk into a grocery store and fill your cart with foods that look delicious.  Today’s grocery stores even have ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ foods for you to choose from.  For many the label makes it easy for them to feel that they are getting the best foods available, while still maintaining the convenience of purchasing all their food in one place.

But just because you can purchase all of your foods in one place does not necessarily mean that you should, and it is a fact that even the ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ foods in most grocery stores are not locally grown foods.  While they may be natural or organic, the benefits may be countermanded by the distance they had to travel.  Besides that, there is more to eating locally than simple freshness.

Six Benefits of Eating Locally

Local Foods Are Fresh and In Season. It’s a fact, if you purchase locally grown foods you know that they are in season.  They have to be in order to be grown and harvested. And fresher, in-season foods just taste better and they are better for you as well. Many nutritionists believe that eating with the seasons is the best way to keep our bodies healthy because nature has cycles and it knows exactly what we need to eat.

Locally Grown Foods Have Less Impact on the Environment. Shipping foods across country – even foods labeled organic – can have a negative impact on the environment.  By eating locally grown foods you are significantly lessening the carbon footprint you would otherwise leave by eating foods grown out of state or in another country. Most times you won’t even need to sacrifice organic standards either. More and more small farmers grow their food without chemicals, they just cannot afford expensive certification. Get to know your farmer and you may be pleasantly surprised.

Locally Grown Foods Maintain Farmland. Buying locally grown foods ensures not only that you keep the carbon footprint of your foods as small as possible, but ensures that there is plenty of green space and farmland maintained in your local community in order to sustain the locally grown market.  This is good for everyone who appreciates fresh air and a view of more than city streets and sidewalks.

Locally Grown Foods are Safer. By cutting out the middlemen; those individuals who process and package and ship the food, you cut down on the chance of your food getting contaminated – even inadvertently. Knowing where your food is grown and who grew it tells you something about the food itself, and knowledge, as they say, is power.

Buying Locally Grown Foods Boosts the Local Economy. You were going to buy the lettuce (or spinach or apples) anyway, why give your money to some big chain store or huge agri-business company?  Why not keep that money in the neighborhood where you know it will do some good? If I have a choice between padding the pockets of a big corporation that may use my money to lobby against environmental issues or giving my money directly to a family that needs it.. I know which I would prefer. Purchasing food locally also cuts down on the amount of taxes and red tape involved in purchasing the food; money that would probably come out of your pocket anyway due to price hikes.

Purchasing Locally Grown Foods Create a Sense of Community. When you purchase food from a local grower it connects you to that person; through their land and the attention they have given to their produce, and how many of us want a connection to some big uncaring chain store?  Making local connections instills a feeling of belonging and of community.  People get talking, they share themselves with you, and with others, and everyone is better off.

If you are interested in more healthful living, in sustainability for your local farms, and in creating a sense of true community between yourself and those with whom you share your area, eating locally grown produce is definitely the right decision to make.

Recommends Reads for Local Eating:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (My Review)

The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (My Review)

The 100-Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating

My daughter is going to be just like me I suspect when it comes to reading and writing… very passionate about both. Learning to read was her idea and every day she works on building her list of words she can spell, write, and read. In the car she spells random words, in the grocery store she tells the clerk about her spelling homework. She takes advantage of every opportunity she has to learn this whole reading and spelling thing and she finds it very fun to do. I wish it were that way for all my kids, but so far it is just her that finds excitement in writing and spelling.

I have reviewed a couple Natural Toys from Down to Earth Toys over the past year and when they contacted me to see what I might be interested in reviewing now, it was easy to choose the Spellmaster. It is a very unique educational toy that I knew my daughter would enjoy and I was not disappointed. She pulls her Spellmaster out 2-3 times daily to work with it for 30-60 minutes at a time and it has really helped her reach her learning goals.

Basically it is a platform for developing sequential memory skills, increasing memory span, improving letter recognition, and spelling simple to complex words.

When she uses her Spellmaster, she chooses a flash card with a word and picture first. She works through the word phonetically to find out what it is as the picture isn’t always a dead giveaway. Then she selects all the wooden letter tiles she needs, saying the letters out loud. Next she spells the word on the chalkboard panel below the tiles and then says the letters aloud again after she has written them, followed by the word. She also usually covers the tiles with the wooden flaps so that she can try to write the word from memory. Afterwards she moves on to the next card and she usually doesn’t stop until she has completed them all. It came with eight recommended steps in the instructions but she developed her own system of steps so we go with that. I knew she would like it but just how much she would like it surprised even me.

My nine year old son likes to use it for his spelling words as well and it is a fun, visual way to work on them rather than just having him write them over and over like the school suggests. Going through all the words on his spelling list 2-3 times is not to repetitive for him and using the Spellmaster makes it just a bit more interesting. The fact that they can hide the tiles and work from memory means they are more likely to learn from mistakes as well.

My three year old has taken a liking to the flashcards so we use those for some speech therapy at home. He was recently “upgraded” by his preschool teachers and therapists from a mere speech delay to a developmental delay. After going through the IEP with them I have to agree with much of their assessment so I am doing more to help him at home. I will have to write up a post about that whole issue later.

Anyway… I love that the Spellmaster is something my kids can pull out and use on their own or work through with me if they want. We make it a bit more challenging at times when I come up with a word there is no card for. You can use many variations to make it harder or easier depending on their spelling prowess. All the letter tiles are capital letters but you can order lowercase letters as well. You could probably come up with some small sentences if you had more tiles… aka See Jane Run. I looked for info on ordering different flash cards but didn’t see that info. I guess any flash cards would work though. There was no eraser for the chalkboard so my kids just grab a sherpa cloth to clean up with, easy peasy.

The actual unit is made of wood so it is MUCH more sustainable than comparable plastic toys and it is made by TAG and is just one of many Toys Made in the USA. It gets two enthusiastic thumbs up here.

Thanks Carrin and Down to Earth Toys for sending the Spellmaster our way!!