Taking Betty Crocker To A Whole New Level!

Remember when I said I don't really cook? Haven't because I didn't need to, with boxed pasta and frozen stuff and all. Well, the last couple of weeks have been a major turnaround. These are some of the things I've made for the first time in my life:

• homemade pasta sauce
• variation of veggie lasagna using homemade pasta sauce, raw cheddar cheese instead of mozzarella, and throwing in spinach and turnip greens (the latter of which I have never even eaten before this experiment)
• roasted chicken with potatoes and carrots
  
• chicken stock (from the roasted chicken carcass)
  
• vegetable soup with kidney beans
• baked oatmeal
• banana molasses muffins
• pineapple corn muffins
• whole grain waffles (from scratch!!!)
• bread, bread, and more bread ... even have a sourdough starter bubbling away on my counter, almost ready for my first batch of non-breadmachine bread!
• sweet brown rice soaked overnight in yogurt water, with banana, real flaked coconut, and coconut oil added after it was cooked (this was for Maggie's breakfast this morning - I'm honestly not this adventurous, though it smelled delicious!)
• spinach nuggets
• cottage potatoes (a new favorite in our home!)
• ...and this evening's adventure, homemade lara-type-bars

Tonight's experiment has to be one of my favorites because it's a huge money saver, too. Not that I even knew what a Larabar was up until recently. Well, I had seen them in the store, but I don't usually buy energy-type bars. It was pretty cool when I accidentally found out that these are whole foods bars. Or as they say on their website, "NO ADDED SUGAR * UNPROCESSED * RAW * NON- GMO * GLUTEN FREE * DAIRY FREE * SOY FREE * VEGAN * KOSHER" Pretty cool, huh? So I bought the first one a week ago... and quickly fell in love. But Larabars are expensive. And that's where the cool part came in. The recipe I tried saves you at least half, if not more, over buying them retail. And you control the ingredients. I like that a lot. Plus it gave me an excuse to try out the new food processor. :)

I've also been dabbling in soaking nuts and grains to unlock the untapped nutrients that we usually can't get from them otherwise. So the flour for all my baked goods were soaked overnight in raw milk (like the waffles) and they have come out so tasty! The nuts haven't been so easy. For them to technically be raw and unspoiled (since oils in them go rancid at high temps) after soaking in sea-salted water for 6-12 hours, you then have to dry them out slowly. Like dehydrator slowly. Which I do not have. I tried doing the cashews in the oven (which cashews are okay up to 170 degrees or so because they're technically already heated before you get them, no matter what) but I didn't dry them out long enough. They got moldy 2 days later and some time after tossing them, I found Margaret helping herself to the garbage buffet. Ugh! So I guess I need to get some more started. The almonds were trickier. Those aren't supposed to go above 150 degrees, and our oven doesn't go that low. It was quite the ballet of me turning the oven on and off again to try to get the right temp for proper drying. After that, I convinced hubby to let me get an inexpensive dehydrator. I need it for our new lifestyle, especially since Maggie and I love to eat nuts. (And don't get all dirty on me about that! That's my daughter I'm talking about!)

In all this cooking/baking frenzy, though, some things have been forgotten. Guess I better get some laundry done instead of hanging around on here. :)

ETA: BTW, you would think with all this cooking (and butter and coconut oil) that I would be packing on the pounds, right? I'm still at 3 lbs under where I was a month ago, maybe a little more. So at nearly 24 weeks of pregnancy, I've only gained 10 pounds so far (which I was the same at this point with Maggie, though in the end, I gained over 30 pounds with her!).