Good Idea #5: Healthy Eating

In a recent development, The Hubs has become terrified of diabetes. He is strong and fit and healthy as a horse, but all of a sudden he wants to take steps to ensure that he doesn't become diabetic and have to have his feet amputated. A worthy goal, undoubtedly. However, I'm not sure why the sudden worry. Maybe it has to do with the fact that he is turning 25 in June (yay car insurance discounts!).

Anyway, we are cutting way back on the sugar (I have always had a very insistant sweet tooth) and upping our intake of fruits and veggies. I am also trying to eat more whole grains and use less processed food in my cooking. On that note, I am proud to announce that last week, I made my own butter. It is fabulous. It is creamy and delicious and contains only two ingredients: cream and salt. No monohydroxyunsaturated anything in my butter.

If you'd like to try making your own butter, take heavy cream and put it into a large bowl. I started with a gallon of cream and ended up with what looks like about 5 lbs of butter. You can use a stand mixer with the whisk attachment, or if you are like me and do not have the counterspace for a stand mixer, (*sulks bitterly*) you can use a hand mixer with the whisk attachment. Just beat it! First it will form thick strands off of the whisk, then soft peaks, then stiff peaks, then something a little firmer and then all of a sudden the cream siezes and buttermilk floods out, leaving butter behind. Now, since you didn't start out with cultured cream, the buttermilk isn't cultured which means its basically like unhomogonized 1% milk. It is delicious over cereal. Anyway, once your butter gets to that point, drain out the buttermilk and knead the butter in a bowl of cold water. Once the water becomes cloudy, dump it out and fill it again with fresh water. Repeat until the water stays clear. It is important to wash all of the buttermilk out because if you don't, the butter will spoil much more quickly. Incidentally, I am in the market for a French Butter Crock. If anyone knows where I can buy one locally, please enlighten me in the comments.

I am really excited about our foray into healthy eating. I have tried to make this change on my own before, but without the support of a spouse, it is infinitely more difficult. The Hubs, for most of our marriage, has worked at fairly labor-intensive jobs, during which a dinner of Chicken Ceasar Salad was completely insufficient. Now he is behind a desk a lot of the time and his caloric needs are much closer to my own so that, in order for me to eat healthy, I don't have to cook 2 dinners. Yay desk.

On a less healthy note, we ate a freezer dinner last night that made all of the other freezer dinners we muscled through completely worth it: Bacon Wrapped Chicken.


It was divine. Not something you'd want to make often because there isn't much that's healthy about it, but wow. It was good. It would be a great dish to take to a party because its easy (albeit time-consuming) to make but looks and tastes tre gourmet. I served it with fresh broccoli to up the healthiness factor and what a meal.

Hopefully the healthy changes to my diet and the regular (I can't yet say daily...) walking will make for a more energetic me that can keep up with full-time employment, part-time scholarship, and all-the-time wife-ing. Go me.