And Then There Was Joy. | Category Archive

Rice and Beans Month

By Miriam ⋅ March 5, 2012 ⋅ 5 comments

We are eating rice and beans this month in support of Lahash International. Rice and Beans month is a way for us to stand in solidarity with the poor by simplifying our diet and financially giving to those who are hungry in East Africa. As we make meals based around beans and rice, we attempt [...]

Introducing Ada and Bea.

By Miriam ⋅ July 28, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

We’ve added the first non-feline animals to our little homestead. These two little half sisters are Nigerian Dwarf goats. We’ve had them for over two weeks now, but they just now are officially named. Naming in our house usually goes like this. For days or weeks I and the kids start throwing out all sorts [...]

A Few Exceptions.

By Miriam ⋅ June 21, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

I know I haven’t posted anything about our June food challenge lately. We are still “technically” doing the challenge. I say “technically” because we’ve made plenty of exceptions over the month. But I just had to come to the realization that this was supposed to be a fun learning project, one in which I make [...]

Make your own yogurt.

By Miriam ⋅ June 16, 2011 ⋅ One comment

I have finally found a process for making yogurt that takes very little time and turns out great tasting yogurt. I bought an actual yogurt culture, rather than using store-bought yogurt, so that I’d have a little more control on the results. The website I ended up using to order my starters was Cultures for [...]

Homemade Spaghetti

By Miriam ⋅ June 4, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Lately when I tell John we are having something homemade or made from scratch, he invariably finds an ingredient I didn’t make. For example, the other day we had homemade chicken noodle soup. “Did you make the noodles?” he asked. And of course, I hadn’t. I don’t know whether to feel complimented that he thinks [...]

Great Finds Online.

By Miriam ⋅ June 3, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Today our our order came in from Nuts Online. I found the website while doing a search for unsweetened dried fruit. We ordered cranberries that are just dried cranberries, nothing added, bananas that are just dried bananas, nothing added, unsweetened coconut (that unfortunately does have a preservative added), and raw cocoa beans (thought they’d be [...]

Failures in the Creamery Department

By Miriam ⋅ June 2, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

So far the only dairy related homemade product I’ve shared about has been butter. That’s because the butter is the only thing that worked well. We made yogurt from goat milk, which did work, it just was very thin and didn’t taste all that great. I know, I know, it’s plain yogurt and not sweetened [...]

Day 1 of June Challenge

By Miriam ⋅ June 1, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Well, it is now June. I spent yesterday shopping for some more needed items for this month’s menus. I had put in my first order to Azure Standard, which is a bulk organic food website. Yesterday was the pick up day in Fayettville. So, in the morning, we headed out to the Farmer’s Market here [...]

Finding healthy ingredients

By Miriam ⋅ May 25, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

I’ve been doing more internet “research” over the last few days on ingredients that I was unsure if we would use or not. I hate to call it research because I am just barely scraping the surface of knowledge that is out there, and I realize that internet knowledge often contains quite a bit of [...]

Little Butter Churners

By Miriam ⋅ May 23, 2011 ⋅ 2 comments

Sunday, we decided to try our hands at making butter. I’ve decided that as I experiment with making things, it is important to include the kids in the process. This doesn’t come very naturally to me. I love cooking . . . by myself. Cooking with three extra pairs of hands . . . not [...]

Healthy Living