Beauty Out of Africa

How Does My Garden Grow?

Red Peppers, Tomatoes, Egg Plant

Rosemary, Basil & Thyme

Tolu rests after an afternoon of hardwork:)

Our Vegetable Garden Part 1

The rising cost of gas and food definitely added to my motivation to start a vegetable garden this Spring. Hubby and I have always done a few tomato plants every summer, but this year we decided to build a raised bed and really grow some serious veggies. The kids joined in on the fun this weekend. I am looking forward to a bumper crop of tomatoes, peppers, egg plants and lots of herbs this Summer

 

Put my 10 year old to work :)

He did a pretty good job too!

We're gonna have fun watching our food grow

Brown Rice vs White Rice

We eat a lot of rice in my house, I mean a lot. We buy it in bulk size 20 - 50 pound bags. Rice is a main staple in most African homes and ranks up there with fufu. I usually but two varieties of rice, the long grain parboiled and the Sweet Jasmine rice.

A few weeks ago I thought it would be a good idea if we replaced the long grain white rice with brown or wild rice. My darling husband was not having any of that. He loves his white rice and wants me to leave well enough alone.

Here is what I found out from Green Living Tips about the different processes Brown and White Rice go through.

Brown Rice
Rice goes through a variety of processes before it's ready for cooking. After harvesting, the seeds are run through a rice huller/husker for milling to remove the outer grain husks. After this process, you're left with brown rice. Nice and simple.

White Rice
white rice, has added steps. The germ and the inner husk (bran) is removed, the grain is then polished, usually using glucose or talc. These added steps to turn brown rice to white remove nutrients that are sometimes then introduced back in via synthetic sources - this is called fortified white rice.Plain white rice has far less Vitamin E, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, Vitamin B6, Folacin, Potassium, Magnesium, Iron and over dozen other nutrients.  Added to that, the dietary fiber contained in white rice is around a quarter of brown rice.

After sharing information with my husband, he was a little more open about making a gradual change. So the other night I simmered the brown rice in some Thai Seasoning from Trader Joe's and let it cook. Now I must warn you that brown rice takes forever and a day to cook. Ok I'm exaggerating a bit, but it does take a longer time than white rice.

What we are growing to love about brown rice is the full textured nutty taste of the rice. It is not bland and perfect looking like white rice but has some character to it and best of all, it is healthier for us.

Keeping Our Food Real Part 2

I am not a food purist by any stretch of the imagination, you can find chicken nuggets in my freezer and a few other decadent things from time to time. My kids love hot dogs and look forward to summer barbeques and picnics to chow down on them. What I do try to do is keep our regular meals real. I buy fresh fish from the fish market or the Asian store and have it cleaned, but you can definitely tell it's fish when I cook it. We prefer to buy fresh fowl (chicken) from the African grocery stores, because they have less fat and are a little tougher and so hold up really well in heavy sauces.

Cooking fresh foods can be a little time consuming, but well worth the benefit in terms of nutrition and taste

Lets's start re-introducing our kids to real food

Keeping Our Food Real Part 1

Is it possible that your kids will grow up not knowing what real food looks like? Most kids are fed so much processed food they don't know the taste, smell and feel of the real thing. Would your child be traumatized if you took him/her to a fish market where fish are in full display - head, fins, scales and all? Are they so used to eating processed, prefectly shaped breaded fish sticks that real fish becomes disgusting? Are your kids so happy eating other mystery meats like chicken nuggets, hot dogs and the like, that if you showed them fresh fowl, they would lose their appetite? 

Without being preachy, I want to encourage us to pay more attention to what we stock our refriderators and freezers with. How much processed and prepackaged food does your family eat. I know these packaged foods are convenient in our hectic and busy lives, but there is a cost to over indulging in these conveniences.
First there is the issue of the chemicals and preservatives that are used in these convenient foods. There is also the issue of salt and fat that is adding to our national problem with obesity. But most of all our kids especially are missing the opportunity to enjoy and relish real fresh foods.