Notice: I am in the process of moving all foodillusion.com posts over to 100daysofrealfood.com (my other food blog). Read more info here.

One of Michael Pollan’s many Food Rules that I love is “If you have the space, buy a freezer.” We took Pollan’s advice and bought a separate freezer (pictured below) that has allowed us to stock up on good sources of local meat as well as lots of other stuff. My three favorite things to store in our extra freezer are the following…

1. Ingredients that would otherwise go rancid

You see, just last year I was cooking with white flour (don’t remind me!) and that wonderful white, fluffy stuff could just sit on my pantry shelf for years and never spoil. In fact, that was one of the reasons so long ago that manufacturers started making white flour as opposed to the whole-wheat variety. It’s hard to beat that shelf life! It actually reminds me of one of Pollan’s other Food Rules “Eat only food that will eventually rot.” He also says “The more processed a food is, the longer the shelf life, and the less nutritious it typically is.” That just sounds so appetizing doesn’t it!?

So the moral of this story is that when you buy nutritious ingredients like whole-wheat flour and other whole grains it is best to store them in the freezer (or at least the fridge). The same goes for things like nuts and seeds. We even keep our unsweetened coconut, extra local goat cheese, homemade whole-wheat breadcrumbs, and extra loaves of sandwich bread in there, too.

2. Meat that we stock up on at the Farmer’s Market or our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm partnership

Anytime you find a good source for local, organic, grass-fed meat (you know, the whole nine yards) why not stock up?

3. Leftover homemade meals

Eating real food can sometimes require a lot of cooking, and who wants to spend hours in their kitchen making every last meal? That’s why I absolutely love the stock of homemade food I’ve worked to add to our freezer. Some of the things we’ve saved up include: whole-wheat pancakes, whole-wheat crepes, leftover soups, spaghetti sauce, cooked meat, homemade pasta dishes including ravioli, pesto, veggie burgers, applesauce, and pumpkin bread. Just tonight I was feeling a little lazy so I boiled some homemade whole-wheat butternut squash ravioli and 4 minutes later dinner was ready. Real food doesn’t get much easier than that!

Related posts:

A look inside a whole foods pantry

A look inside a whole foods fridge

Before I start with the post…I have one important administrative item I need to mention. I am going to be transitioning all of the content from this blog foodillusion.com (including recipes and other informative posts) over to my other blog 100daysofrealfood.com. All those that are subscribed to The Food Illusion site will automatically be added to the 100 Days site (if you aren’t already). So for the next week or so I will post The Food Illusion stuff in both places as I work to transition everything over. I will also continue to post the regular real food pledge posts on the 100 days site as well. Thank you for your patience with all of this! Hopefully this change will make it easier for you (and me) to keep track of everything…especially now that we have taken on another real food pledge.

Okay, so back to banana ice cream. I’ve mentioned this in a post before, but just in case someone missed it I thought it was important enough to dedicate an entire post to it today. This recipe somehow magically turns regular old bananas into delicious, creamy, cold, banana flavored ice cream without using any cream or an ice cream maker. I love it because it is good, good for you, incredibly simple to make, and (my new favorite reason) cheap!! I would venture to say that bananas are the cheapest fruit available in any grocery store…so bring it on!

There are also many different variations to this recipe. Feel free to play around and try adding in peanut butter, homemade chocolate sauce, a shot of chilled espresso, or even another type of frozen fruit. You can also top the ice cream with some granola sprinkles from the same yummy granola recipe that I made on the Charlotte Today Show this morning! No matter what extras you add in though, if you like bananas I guarantee you will be happy with the outcome of this recipe. So have fun with it and enjoy!

Recipe: Banana Ice Cream

Ingredients:

• 4 – 5 bananas (frozen – see below)
• Less than ½ cup milk
• Variations if desired: peanut butter, chocolate sauce, chilled espresso, or other frozen fruit…get creative!

Directions

• Peel the bananas, break them into thirds, enclose them into a Tupperwear container, and stick them in the freezer overnight (or longer). I usually throw bananas in the freezer whenever they are about to go bad, and I’ve left them in there for weeks before so there is no rush.
• When you are ready for the ice cream just put the bananas in a blender with 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup milk. I don’t have a fancy, expensive VitaMix so I have to shake my little cheapo Target blender around a bit to get it all to blend properly. Just keep adding small amounts of milk until the consistency resembles ice cream.

It is that easy.

Yield: 4 – 6 servings

Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour (I used King Arthur’s white whole-wheat flour)
• 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• ½ oil (canola or vegetable will do)
• ½ cup honey
• ½ teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• ½ cup chopped tree nuts (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl whisk together the dry ingredients (from the flour down to the salt).
3. Make a well (hole) in the center and throw in the eggs, oil, honey, and vanilla. Stir together thoroughly with a fork, but do not overmix.
4. Fold in the pumpkin puree and nuts (if using).
5. Generously coat a large loaf pan with cooking spray and then pour in the batter.
6. Bake for approximately 30 – 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Yield: 10 – 12 servings

I know I can’t just sit here and complain and not do attempt to do anything about it. I am definitely going to do something…not necessarily overrule the nut-free aspect of it all, but something to hopefully encourage the school to put more of an emphasis on healthy “approved” snacks! We are only a few weeks into our first stint at the Elementary School so I feel like I want to spend a little more time observing first though. Certainly if you have any ideas or experience or suggestions in regards to healthy foods in schools or healthy food PTA/PTO committees…please share!

In the meantime, let’s talk about what I have been sending in my daughter’s lunchbox. I was at first giving her separate little items like a sandwich in foil, some pretzels in a small snack container, an apple in a plastic bag, and at the end of the day she was coming home with hardly any of her lunch missing! Then one day I went to school to have lunch with her. I got to witness first-hand the limited amount of time they have to actually eat in a cafeteria that naturally provides a massive amount of distraction. By the time she got the last little container open it was practically time to start packing everything back up.

So I knew I had to do something different, and I’d heard about all of the lunchbox/bento box/laptop lunch systems out there. While I liked the idea, I decided that I certainly didn’t need anything fancy or expensive (or that required me to pay an additional 5 or 10 bucks in shipping). So rather than ordering some overpriced “lunch system” off the Internet I just drove my car down to Target and spent a few bucks on a divided plastic Ziploc container. My 5-year-old now has to only take one lid off of one container and voila, her entire lunch is displayed in front of her. She has started coming home with almost everything gone since we made this change…and I am of course thrilled about that!

Here are some examples (pictured) of what I have been sending to school with her so far this year…

• Hummus, cheddar, and carrot shavings on whole-wheat bread, popcorn, grapes and little organic carrot sticks
• Celery with cream cheese and raisins on top, cheese, applesauce, peaches, and Triscuit crackers
• Hummus and cheese on a homemade whole-wheat tortilla, grapes/raspberries, mango (her favorite), and a big whole-wheat pretzel
• Cream cheese and jelly sandwich on whole-wheat bread, half of a banana, some apple slices, and a whole-wheat pretzel/pumpkin seed/dried fruit mix

I am also occasionally sending warm items in her little thermos as well. I will do a follow up post soon on those ideas and other options for snack time, too. Please also feel free to leave a comment with your school lunch ideas and suggestions if you have any!

Some recipes request that you scoop out most of the cooked potato before pan-frying them, but we do not think that is necessary. In our opinion the more potato there is, the better things are balanced out between the rich toppings and buttery, crispy crust. They turn out best with small to medium sized potatoes (which are currently in season here in N.C.!) although any size will work.

Potato Skins

Ingredients

• 5 – 6 small to medium sized potatoes
• 2 – 3 tablespoons butter
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Other toppings as desired: cheese, sour cream, bacon/proscuitto, onions, etc.

Directions

1. Bake (or microwave) the potatoes until tender when pierced with a fork.
2. Slice them in half lengthwise.
3. Mash the cut sides with a fork to break up and flatten out the potato a little. Add salt and pepper along with any other desired toppings.
4. Melt 2 – 3 tablespoons butter in a large sauté pan over medium-high heat. Stick the potatoes in (skin side down) and fry until bottoms are brown and crispy. It should take 5 – 10 minutes.
5. Enjoy!

Yield: 4 – 5 servings (depending on the size of the potatoes)

Pictured are two good brands of matzos I’ve found…and in addition to using them for this recipe, both are great as plain crackers, too. While there are lots of versions of matzos available (which can usually be found in the “international” aisle of the grocery store), you can see that these are both clearly marked as “whole-wheat”. It is always a good idea to double-check the ingredient list as well (this is a 1-ingredient product!) because these same brands also sell refined matzos in similar looking boxes. Another key piece to this recipe is the jelly. I buy an all-fruit type spread that is sweetened with fruit juice instead of sugar. So be sure to look for that as well.

Fried Matzos

Ingredients

• 4 to 5 full sheets of whole-wheat matzos
• 2 eggs
• Water
• About ½ tablespoon butter for cooking
• Jelly for serving (grape flavor is good with this dish although any type will work)
  

  

Directions

1. Break the matzos up into chunks that are a few inches in size.
2. Put all of them into a shallow dish and cover with water (pictured). Let it sit for a couple of minutes.
3. Drain out the water and crack the two eggs onto the wet matzos. Stir together with a fork until evenly mixed.
4. Heat a sauté pan over medium heat and melt the butter. Add the matzos/egg mixture in an even layer. Cook until lightly browned on each side. Add more butter during cooking if necessary.
5. Serve with jelly and enjoy! Leftovers can be stored in the fridge.

Yield: 2 – 3 servings

So let me break down the picture starting at the top…

• A few half-gallon bottles of milk (that we get delivered locally from Lakeview Farms)…we normally order about 7 or 8 bottles at a time and are due for another delivery on Thursday morning. There is also a half-gallon of some local apple cider that we bought on impulse at a little fruit stand up in the N.C. Mountains last weekend.
• Next shelf down there is a container of homemade applesauce, a couple of figs that are leftover from the farmer’s market, some jars of organic jellies and olives (from Earthfare), a partially eaten apple, and last, but certainly not least…the chocolate torte recipe which I like to turn into little chocolate powerballs. I can barely go a day or two without eating a couple of these!
• Next, homemade hummus, some 6-ingredient mayo I found (we are still assessing if we like it), organic heavy cream, a couple of containers of organic sour cream and plain yogurt. I also put a container of some mozzarella cheese balls on this shelf only because the cheese spot was too full!
• On the bottom shelf there is a bag of homemade flour tortillas (yum!), leftover homemade whole-wheat noodles from dinner last night (planning to send some of these in my daughter’s lunch this week), leftover apple/sweet potato side item from dinner tonight, and the start of my kindergartner’s lunch for tomorrow (in the little container with the grapes and carrots).
• The top drawer, which is lovingly known as the “fruit drawer”, has green grapes, a lemon and lime, some local grape tomatoes (yes, tomatoes are actually a fruit not a vegetable), and blueberries. We actually keep most of our fruit in a bowl on the kitchen table, which at the moment happens to be overflowing with bananas, apples, more tomatoes, pears, a mango, and avocado.
• The next drawer is the vegetable drawer and contains some celery, carrots, herbs, and peppers from our garden and the farmer’s market. We will get another CSA box from Poplar Ridge Farm on Wednesday so I didn’t want to stock up on veggies too much.
• The bottom drawer is the meat drawer, which remains fairly empty these days. I am actually considering making that the new cheese drawer or something. Anyway, at the moment it has some leftover local Italian sausage from dinner last night and some gumbo that is defrosting from our freezer (for dinner tomorrow).
• The door contains a variety of things including butter, local eggs, tahini (for making hummus), pimentos, pure maple syrup, orange juice (which I buy in small containers because we can never drink enough before it spoils), cheese!…we love some cheese, mustard, sesame seed butter (which I unsuccessfully tried on my daughter who goes to the nut-free school), capers, red curry paste (which I think might be pretty old because I don’t even remember what it is from), some more jelly (clearly I need to consolidate the jelly jars), fish sauce, and some organic ketchup from before our 100-day pledge.

It is especially quick and easy to make this dish at home if you have one of these handy dandy apple slicers. You can find these inexpensive tools at most grocery stores (or Target), and they will easily cut your prep time in half. Not to mention they come in handy for just slicing apples for a snack (or even pears too!).

Easy Peasy Applesauce

Ingredients

• 3 pounds cooking apples (a variety is good), cut into ½ inch or 1 inch slices…no need to peel them unless you have an extra hour you want to kill
• ½ cup apple juice or cider
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1 large cinnamon stick (optional)
• 1 – 2 tablespoons honey (optional)
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions

1. Combine the apples, apple juice/cider, lemon juice, and cinnamon stick (if using) into a large pot. Cover and simmer for 20 – 25 minutes or until tender (but not mushy).
2. Transfer warm apple mixture to a food processor (or you can mash by hand with a potato masher) and add honey (if using) and nutmeg. Puree to desired chunkiness.
3. Serve, refrigerate, or freeze the leftovers!

Pros:

• It was organic (although just because something is organic does not mean it is okay…there are a lot of highly processed organic foods out there)
• It contained whole grain oats
• It contained whole grain barley flour
• Salt was the last ingredient on the list, which means it was what they used the least of

Cons:

• The first ingredient (and what it contained the most of) was the strawberry filling which lists cane juice (a sweetener similar to sugar) as its top ingredient
• The strawberry filling also contained rice starch and pretty much anything with the word starch (like corn starch) is highly processed/refined
• The strawberry filling also contained citric acid (a preservative)
• In addition to the cane juice in the strawberry filling these bars also had two other forms of sweeteners listed – agave and more evaporated cane juice

And in summary I said they were probably better than a Fig Newton or Nutrigrain bar (which I think must be similar from looking at the picture), but they don’t look fabulous mainly because of the sweetener issue. I suggested they try to find something with whole-grains as the first ingredient (instead of the sweet filling) and not having any sweeteners listed in the top three ingredients.

So after our discussion I decided it would be a fun challenge to try to find as many prepackaged “real food” snacks as I could. I’ve done a few posts on snacks in the past, but never before using “individually wrapped” as the main criteria. So there may be a little bit of overlap with some of my previous snack posts. But without further ado, here is what I came up with (and also shipped to my niece and nephew!)…

• Small packages of pecan pieces that I found in the baking section of the store…unfortunately this is one of the things on the list that is not organic, but again that was not my main criteria
• Little boxes of organic raisins
• Individual bags of almonds
• Fruit leathers (found at both our main grocery store and Target)
• Packages of sunflower seeds (still in the shell)
• Funky Monkey freeze dried fruit (they have this brand at both Earthfare and Target)
• Organic mandarin oranges that are actually preserved in orange juice instead of another type of sugary syrup
• Lara bars which are fruit and nut bars with a very small list of ingredients (found at Earthfare, Harris Teeter, and Target)
• Individually wrapped bags of popcorn, which I wish weren’t cheese flavored and I also wish were organic, but this was all I could find (and it is hard to ignore the fact that popcorn is 100% whole grain!)
• Bananas…obviously everyone knows about bananas, but they do conveniently come in their own little individually wrapped package (made by nature of course) so I sent these to sort of just make a point. And I sent two little packets of peanut butter that could be sent to school with the bananas since they do not go to nut-free schools.
• Applesauce in little squeeze packets
• Package of pumpkin seeds
• Another brand of freeze dried fruit

So from what I heard the package arrived, and the kids “tore” into it…which was good to know! And when I spoke to my 8-year-old niece on the phone, she said that she was already familiar with some of the things I sent, and excited about trying the new stuff. The only thing she said she would not eat are the raisins because she already knows she doesn’t like them. Starting next week they will pull from that box for their school snacks each day, and I certainly look forward to hearing the outcome!