I can hardly believe that October is over, but I’m happy to meet November again, nonetheless.  It’s the month of important birthdays, Thanksgiving, and days finally cool enough to wear big hooded sweatshirts and fuzzy slippers.  It’s also National Blog Posting Month where I force my writing, photos, or recipes on you every single day until we’re all sick of me.  Ah, November.

The last time you heard from me, I had just pledged to avoid unprocessed foods for the month of October along with the thousands of other people who signed up for October Unprocessed this year.  What you don’t know is that Phil and I decided to take it a step further and attempt the Whole30 Challenge, where you remove all sugars (even natural ones like honey), alcohol, dairy, grains, legumes, and processed vegetable oils for 30 days.  The Whole30 is basically 30 days of following a very strict Paleo-style diet, which is more restrictive than I ever plan to be on a regular basis, but I have to admit is a very healthy way to eat if you can manage it.  We decided to try the Whole30 for a few reasons.  First, we are both trying to get as healthy as possible to increase our chances of having a healthy pregnancy and we thought this would be a great way to jump start a new healthy eating plan.  But we’ve also been wondering if Phil has a sensitivity to either dairy, wheat, or both.  By stripping down his diet completely then adding things back in carefully, we’re hoping to be able to figure that out.  And finally, I’m going to be wearing a wedding dress in January and I’d like to lose some weight. Continue reading →

First of all, thank you so much for all of the support that poured in after I published my previous post about our struggles this past year with recurrent miscarriage.  Of course I was extremely nervous to open up and share something so personal in such a public way, but the positive response was immediate and really helped to me put me at ease.  You guys are wonderful.

I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to commit to October Unprocessed again this year.  We both signed the pledge in 2011 and it was a lot of fun, although I think we may have given in to a tempting bag of Halloween candy on the last day of that year’s challenge.  Because we enjoyed the challenge so much in 2011 and because I like to support Andrew in his mission to help people learn more about what they are eating and make healthier choices, we signed up for the challenge last year as well.  But I was recovering from my first miscarriage last October, not to mention completely gutting and remodeling a house we had purchased, and the October Unprocessed challenge didn’t work out so well.  In fact, my diet was pretty terrible last October and it’s pretty terrible now as well. Continue reading →

Today my guest post on Maple Butternut Pudding is being featured at Eating Rules as part of the October Unprocessed Challenge.  I revamped one of my favorite Fall desserts, Butternut Squash Pudding, to make it suitable for the challenge.  Head over to Eating Rules to see how it turned out.

If you’re participating in October Unprocessed this month or are just looking to cut some processed foods out of your diet, you might be wondering how to replace some of your favorite store-bought condiments.  One condiment that I had never made myself was ketchup, so I decided to give it a try with a little help from a fellow food blogger. Continue reading →

I’m taking a break from writing about sourdough today to talk about something that’s equally important in life.  Coffee.  I know that many of you love it as much as I do.  And in addition to coffee, I bet lots of you are addicted to those flavored creamers.  I’m not judging – I used to be a fan of the hazelnut variety myself.  But those colorful plastic bottles that promise to turn your cup of coffee into a candy bar are trouble – especially if you’re one of the 2000+ participating in October Unprocessed this month.  Have you looked at the list of ingredients?  Notice how “cream” is not one of them?  If you haven’t bothered to look for yourself, here’s what you can expect to find: Continue reading →