Why I Don’t Buy Organic

why I don't buy organic owning the stars

I come from a farming family. In fact, my family’s farm has been around for close to 150 years. I didn’t grow up on the farm, but that heritage is vitally important to me, and I have a lot of respect for what farmers do. It also means that I get a little testy when activist groups try to vilify certain farmers for not meeting their (often unreasonable) “health” demands. This is especially true with organic products (and non-GMO labels, but I’m not even going to touch that can of worms today). But with that background, and having a deep personal connection to agriculture–one that is supported with plenty of my own research–I don’t buy organic.  Continue reading “Why I Don’t Buy Organic”

Weekly Update: Meal Prepping and Gratitude

The last two weeks, since getting back from Peru, have been difficult. I was sick for a good portion of them and exhausted constantly. It’s also been stressful applying for jobs and not feeling like I’m getting anywhere. All of these factors meant that I wasn’t being very diligent about cooking at home and eating healthy. In an effort to prevent that this week, I did some massive meal prepping today!

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Delaying Gratification and the Art of Sourdough Bread

In case you haven’t been closely reading all of my past blog posts, you should know: I really like to bake. I spend money on good flour, and I’ve collected far too much of my mom’s hand-me-down baking equipment over the years. I like baking sweet things, and I love cake decorating, but what I’ve enjoyed most in the past year is experimenting with sourdough.

Snow White baking pie

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Simple Rituals and Throwing Out my Keurig

Senior year of college, I became the proud owner of a secondhand Keurig coffee maker (courtesy of my mother, who decided to upgrade). It was red and shiny and glorious. I was convinced that it would earn me eternal goodwill from my five roommates, which was something I definitely needed since I was always experimenting with cooking weird things in the kitchen and, if we’re being honest, cut corners when it was my turn to vacuum. But I barely used the coffee maker. Sure, I made the occasional cup, but when I really needed a caffeine boost, I much preferred an espresso drink at the college coffee shop (frugality wasn’t fully on my radar at that point…). I also typically needed that caffeine boost halfway through the day when I was on campus between classes, and I definitely didn’t have my shit together enough to make coffee that morning for later in the afternoon—I was lucky if I had a clean mug in the kitchen at all. So the Keurig sat under-utilized all year. When I graduated, I moved it with me, convinced that as a real-life adult, I’d need to up my coffee intake. I even bought a cute drawer to put underneath it and store the K-cups. But again, I barely used it. I didn’t particularly like the coffee when I did make it (I’ve never been a huge coffee drinker), and the machine had a habit of leaking water and under-filling my cup. So when I moved to a new apartment, I decided to get rid of the machine, and I gave the K-cup drawer to my mom. But in my new apartment, with the Keurig gone, a funny thing happened… Continue reading “Simple Rituals and Throwing Out my Keurig”

The Joy of Cooking at Home

Something I decided to do when I got serious about eating healthier and spending less money was relying less on convenience foods. Last year I did a pretty good job cutting out delivery and eating out, but I was still such a sucker for higher priced items at the grocery store—the “oven ready” kits, the fresh sushi in the prepared foods section, the artisan bread loaves that always smell so tempting…the list goes on. In January, I resolved to cut back on these and make as much from scratch as possible.  Continue reading “The Joy of Cooking at Home”

Welcome Winter!

I absolutely love when the weather turns cold. I spent most of the weekend running both my dryer and my oven in a futile attempt to delay turning on my heat. I had to finally cave Saturday evening, but the effort was worth it! All my laundry is done, and my house is full of baked goods and roasted vegetables. Sounds like a win to me.

(Also, in an attempt to find an awesome winter photo for this post, this one below was one of the first that showed up in my search. And nothing can possibly beat a chipmunk in a knitted hat, so I decided to roll with it. Isn’t it cute??)

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