Electric Wok



Aroma Electric Wok

A couple of months ago we went looking for a wok. We'd looked at Walmart first but had no luck. We tried Bed, Bath and Beyond but also no luck. So in a last ditch effort (to avoid ordering online) we tried the Target next to Bed, Bath and Beyond. They had only one wok but it would do the trick. So we bought an Aroma Electric Wok. We saute a lot of our veggies and we were getting tired of having to drag out the big heavy frying pan and clear off our stove. In an RV the stove top also doubles as counter top space. We've been using this pretty often. It cleans up real easy and gets stored on our loft.

One of our favorite things to use it for is stir fry. You can put pretty much any veggie in a stir fry. I've done bean sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, snap peas, green beans, onions, celery, etc. We buy most of our groceries at Whole Foods, Sprouts or Mother's Market and Kitchen. If you have an opportunity to go into one of those stores, you should. Doug loves the buffets at Whole Foods and Mother's Market and Kitchen. Anyway, the point is that you can find a lot more low-sodium items there. I love soy sauce with my stir fry. But the sodium count in them is extremely high. At Mother's Market and Kitchen I found a bottle of low-sodium soy sauce. I'll get you the name later on. Below is a picture of one of the stir fry dishes we've done. You could serve it over rice or noodles but we eat it by itself.

Stir fry with low-sodium soy sauce



Jack LaLane Power Juicer

Jack LaLane Power Juicer

It's always a risk taking Doug into Bed, Bath and Beyond (well that and Home Depot). He always finds something we should have. And this time he found our Jack LaLane Power Juicer. We paid $99 for it. We've certainly gotten our money's worth from it. Here's the link to the power juicer's blog: http://blog.powerjuicer.com/

Doug's only complaint is that it's a little tough to clean since we don't have a dishwasher. But he says it's well worth it. You can't juice bananas, rhubarb or avocados. You do have to peel the citrus fruit. But there's a lot of things you can put in it besides fruit like kale, spinach, celery or carrots.

The first photo is the juicer. We keep it in a plastic tub on the loft. The second photo is one of my favorite recipes for juice. It has:

• 4 pears
• 2 lemons

• 2 limes

We've juiced pineapple, apples, apricots, pears, lemons, oranges, grapefruit, grapes, celery, carrots, honeydew melons, limes, tangerines, peaches, mangos, strawberries, blueberries, papays, raspberries, watermelons and much more.

One suggestion is if you aren't going to drink it up right away, store it in a glass container with an air tight lid. We bought a half gallon one at Bed, Bath and Beyond because we couldn't find one at Walmart or Target. And don't be surprised when the juice turns colors after storage. Apple juice is brown for a reason. We've found that the juice will keep for a couple of days despite what the instructions say.

Last night's Tanaka Farms veggie and fruit box

Every two weeks we pick up an organic veggie and fruit box on campus where I work. We pay $30 for the large box and in exchange we get 11 to 12 items. The box comes from Tanaka Farms in Irvine, CA. We've been twice now to the farm. They grow things locally and also participate with other farms to provide things they don't grow. This picture doesn't show everything. We got:

• kale
• green beans
• snap peas
• radishes
• garlic
• 3 squash
• large maui onion
• spring lettuce mixture in a plastic container
• kohlrabi
• 4 oranges
• plastic container of strawberries
• plastic container of blueberries

Each time we get something different, but usually we always get some type of lettuce and onions. We always get at least 3 or 4 fruit items.

I'm posting pictures of previous boxes as well.

In the 2nd photo to the right, in a previous box we had:

• the world's largest cauliflower
• apples
• carrots
• oranges
• radishes
• bok choy
• tangerines
• broccoli
• green onions
• strawberries
• Swiss chard
• lettuce

I love the carrots with the stems on because they stay fresher longer. They are so sweet.

In the last picture we have the world's largest cauliflower. And a couple of other pictures of the huge maui onions we've gotten.





Maui Onion




Red Maui Onion



World's Largest cauliflower

Tonight we will use the kale, some onions and some of the garlic in a kale and goat cheese bake. I'll post the recipe and photo later.

Why we started this blog.

About four years I was told by my doctor that I had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He told me I needed to eat a low-sodium diet, less red meat, and more fruit and veggies. He suggested I read a book called the Dash Diet. I bought that book and a couple of others. I must admit that for a variety of reasons, we had very bad eating habits. I feel bad now looking back. If I had known what I know now, there is no way I would have been feeding my family all the crap that we ate. But meals were always done in a hurry. We ate a lot of Hamburger Helper and a lot of bagged meals. I did, on occasion cook things that didn't come from a box or a bag, but not as often as I should have. Veggies for us was to open a can of something. Fruit for us was to open a can of something. Unless we got corn-on-the-cobb or I made a salad, we rarely ate fresh veggies or fruit. And we sure didn't eat anything organic. Why back then, organic was something health food nuts ate.

Another bad habit that we had developed over the years, was the fast food craze. We had Big Mac Mondays. We ate at place like Burger King, McDonalds, Wendys and the likes. And this was before they had all the healthy salad options. Even if we ate out at a nice place, we usually ordered red meat.

Now I'll admit that even though I cut down my sodium intake, I still didn't heed my doctor's advice. So he started putting me on medications that had side effects. The turning point came when we left San Luis Obispo and moved to Orange, CA. We decided that since we had so many food options here, that there was no need to eat at the fast food chains we had previously frequented. The second change occurred when we bought our steamer. The third change came when we bought our Jack LaLane Juicer and a blender. We started eating more veggies and drinking more smoothies and fruit juice. The fourth and biggest change came when we signed up for the CSA program from Tanaka Farms. I have Chapman University to thank for that. They started the program in 2011 and I immediately signed us up. Every two weeks we get a box with 11 or 12 varieties of organic fruits and veggies. That led to us learning to eat things we've never eaten before.

So I decided that I would start a blog with the recipes I've found and pictures we took. I was sharing these on Facebook but that's kind of a pain when you're limited on space. So I'll start posting some of the old things from Facebook and mix in some of the newer things we are doing.