Real Food Wednesday

{So this will be my first Real Food Wednesday posting… We’ll see if I can keep it up! :)}

Kelly’s question this week was:
“What does your Real Food routine look like?  How do you pull it all off?”

First of all, I’m new to this whole Nourishing Traditions lifestyle. As in less than 6 months new.
And coming from a vegan/vegetarian background.

So when I say that I’m still getting the hang of a LOT of things, I’m serious.
But I’m also very committed to eating better, feeling better, and living better.

My best method to handle all the preparation that comes with eating a NT diet,
is to PREPARE.

Yeah, shocking, I know.
But while menu planning has always been a hobby of sorts, I never “got into it” until we started eating the NT diet.
Now, I plan with a PURPOSE.

(there is a method to my madness…)

I have two young children, and they are hungry.
OFTEN.

So each week, on Saturday night, I pull out my cookbooks, a nice pad of paper, and a pencil, and plan the week ahead.
Menu, prep schedule, grocery list, refrigerator/freezer evaluation list, budget list…
And for the next 2 hours, I plan.

And then, each night, before I sit in front of the computer, before the television goes on, before the apron comes off, before I put my “comfy” clothes on,
I prepare.

Now, I don’t work outside the home,
nor do I have a huge amount of house to take care of
(our home is 400 sq. feet)
but I am busy during the day.

We play.
We do “work”
We garden.
We have animals that need care.
We have poopy diapers.

Life happens for all of us.
But my best remedy is to simply prepare.
On the weeks when I don’t feel “up to it”,
it’s nice to realize that I’ve made such a habit of nourishing food
that I actually don’t have any other choice but to make it the “right way”

We buy raw milk to drink;  flour and yeast to make bread, cultured butter to smear on bread,
fresh vegetables from the garden or market…

I have to make my sneaky snack food myself because we simply don’t buy anything like that anymore.
My real food routine is just that,
a routine.

I soak grains when I have time – if it’s two days in advance, in the bowl they go, and if they have a chance of an extra day, well… break down those phytates!
(I recently soaked [not on purpose] a bowl of beans for almost a week… but they cooked up SO great! :))
The crispy nuts and cultured dairy happen on the weekends, when I’m most likely to have another pair of hands around to help with the little monsters kids.
The stock gets started in the crockpot the night before, so I don’t have to worry about it again until the next evening.
Ditto on beans, usually, and often I’ll soak two different kinds of beans in two separate cheesecloths in the same bowl to save on space.

My best recommendation is to wait for a really, really busy week.
Try to do as much as possible in the preparation area (planning menu, planning what food do prepare the night before, etc)
and then see how much actually gets done!

“… because really, at the the end of the day, what ELSE are you going to do with that glop sitting in a bowl on your counter?”

Join Kelly for more Real Food Wednesdays!