Lesson #9: Graters are good for more than just shaving the dead skin off your heels.

So this evening I made a very tasty beef and ale stew topped with dumplings. Fresh tomatoes, onions, carrots, beef, a beer from Jason's personal Spec's kitchen cupboard, simmered all together for a few hours...then I got to grate really cold butter into some flour, mix it all up into a dough, and plop the little doughballs into the simmering pot of yummy-smelling beer meat.

This one's a keeper.

For everyone but Mattie, who is still sitting at the kitchen table refusing to eat. I hear lots of clattering, so she may have figured out that we were serious about not letting her up till she tried the lovely dinner I made.

So easy meal for sure, but I had actually never used a grater for butter before. The only thing besides cheese that I've ever grated is the nasty hard dead skin on my heels. Don't worry; I didn't use the same grater. That was my between-pedicure-fix for my nasty heels until the ingenious Ped Egg was invented. Those are graters, too, just packaged all cute and ergonomically designed to fit in your hand to make dead-heel-skin scraping much easier than trying to twist up like a pretzel when using a traditional cheese grater.

Mattie's all done with her dinner. Though I think supervision will be required the next time she's ordered not to leave the table until she's tried the evening's offering. All three dogs were licking their lips when I went in to inspect her progress. Mighty suspicious. And given my kid's propensity towards fibs, I'm not buying that she only fed the dogs the carrots.

Until next time, may your food be real and your heels not need to be grated.

I'm tired and no one loved my curry, including me.

Jason warned me that he wasn't going to like the curry. I told him he had to at least try it. Not wanting to look like a hypocrite in front of the 2nd grader who had heard that phrase since she started eating solids, he did. But then he just gnawed on the naan and got a bowl of chili.

And I didn't love it. It was okay. I'm pretty sure it was as the recipe intended. It just wasn't my thing. I couldn't take a big whiff of it cooking on the stuff and go "yummmmmmmmm." It wasn't that kinda meal for me.

But I tried it, and so did Jason, and so did Mattie. Bless her heart, she even said she liked it. Not sure I'll be making another one of those anytime soon.

Tonight's menu calls for a beef and beer stew with dumplings but I'm really very tired and just want to order pizza. I tried to get back on my running track again today and it was a massive failure. These old legs just don't want to run. I tried to remind them that just 6 short months ago, they ran about 10 miles before the big crash, and routinely ran 5,6,7 miles without a horrible amount of effort. They didn't care. They didn't want to run. I came home and fell asleep on the couch.

And naps really don't help--they make me droopy all day. I'm so sleepy right now that I'd love to pull the curtains and hit the sack but that'd be a little sad, right? I mean, 4:30 p.m. is Old People dinner time, not Old People bed time. [BIG LONGING YAWN]. So back to the kitchen to start on the stew. Or to www.dominos.com to order the pizza. Hmmmm....

Until next time, I hope your food is real and I'm not still tired.

Lesson #8: It doesn't have to be pretty to taste good.

Wednesday's real-food supper menu was a ground beef wellington from Jamie Oliver's cookbook, and I have to say I felt like a real live cook making that one. I had to chop about a million different things, and I had to put my hands in this bowl of the million different things, ground turkey, and an egg and get it all good and mixed. Felt so gross.

I also had to make homemade pie crust to encase the meat-n-million-things mixture bc all the pre-made ones have trans-fat, among other non-Jillian approved additives. In all my years as a grown-up, I have never, ever made homemade pie crust, so I guess that means I've also never made homemade pie. I called my mom for her recipe, and the second ingredient she listed after flour was Crisco. Hello Mom...if I can't buy the pre-made stuff at the store, I certainly can't use petroleum jelly in my dough! Thank goodness for the internet, though, bc I found a handy-dandy blog full of all sorts of helpful information, including a recipe for organic/real pie crust!

Caveat: the crust was loaded with real butter--two sticks worth--so I know it wasn't low-cal but that is not the ultimate goal; eating real food is where we're headed here.

So I put the goo into the rolled out pie crust and was supposed to make it look like a Christmas cracker, which was lost in translation bc we don't eat crackers at Christmas on this side of the pond. Or maybe he was talking about those poppy things the Brits like to play with on holidays? Anyway, I'm glad he included a picture, which I won't be sharing with you because you'll just have more ammunition to criticize the appearance of my fine-looking ground beef wellington.

Swaddled up my really gooey meat-n-million things baby and popped it in the oven for an hour.

And I have to say it was yum. Really yum. But not so pretty as Jamie's. Again, not the point to make the most beautiful meals, but to make the most real meals. And I did.

Until next time, may your food be real even if it's not beautiful.

Lesson #7: Beans, beans really are a magical fruit...

Jillian loves beans. She loves them so much that they're actually listed in her book as "POWER NUTRIENT FOOD GROUP #1," with red beans being the "BEST CHOICE."Not the kind that squish out of a can still looking like the can, but the real kind. The kind you have to soak overnight so you can eat 'em without breaking a tooth. The kind I walked past in the store for going on two decades of being a grown-up and cooking for myself. The kind I always wondered about, who actually took the time to make things with those bags'o'beans. The kind I made my turkey chili out of for dinner tonight.

White beans and red beans, ground turkey and homemade tomato sauce (basically tomatoes, onions, and a red pepper blended all up in my food processor until the parts were unidentifiable) and some seasonings. Yummy fresh and good chili.

Along with some cornbread, which I admit was from a box, but it was an organic mix, so all is still right with the world.

Just a half-of-a-soup-bowl full, and I'm all-the-way full. Which makes sense bc according to Miss Michaels, beans are one of the richest sources of soluble fiber. And they also "increase your post-meal fat burn" and we all love that, right? So yes, beans are a magical fruit, but not for the reasons most kids like to eat 'em!

On an unrelated note, if Kate Gosselin makes it through another round of Dancing with the Stars, I think I'll have to stop watching it. ABC, we're onto you!!! Dirty little network, rigging the voting so you can keep your dance-impaired diva!!!

Until next time, may your food be real, and may all your meals be magical!!

Lesson #6: You shouldn't drink salad dressing right out of the bottle.;

I'm not a beerdrinker, but if I was, I certainly wouldn't have any problem drinking the stuff right out of the bottle. I'm not prissy like that. And chatting with friends the other day about a new super-sized wine glass that will hold an entire bottle of wine, we all wondered why someone would bother. It'd be much easier to just down the whole bottle without dirtying a mega-glass. I'm all about cutting back on dirty dishes.

So though I'm not usually bound by conventional rules of direct-from-the-bottle-drinking etiquette, I have to say I couldn't quite allow myself to chug this delicious new salad dressing I discovered today at Target: Seeds of Change Organic Italian Herb Vinaigrette. A great story behind a great dressing, so check it out at www.seedsofchange.com.

Two big helpings of salad and I still wanted to lick the plate when I was done. Not perfect by Jillian's standards bc it comes in a bottle, but all the ingredients make the cut, so it's a keeper.

Oh, and I picked up Jamie Oliver's newest cookbook today which, btw, is very pretty. It's got lovely pictures and pretty old wallpaper prints on some of the pages, and it's the first hardback cookbook I've ever bought for myself. I looked through the whole thing today and have to confess that it's a little intimidating, but if Julie Powell can murder lobster and bone a duck in the name of Julia Child, I can take a blind stab at Jamie's Paella, Posh Chopped Salad, and Vindaloo. I'll report back on the edibility. Not that I doubt Jamie's recipes--he's like a healthy cooking God around my house--I just doubt my ability to recreate his mad cooking skills. We shall see...

Until next time, may your food be real and your salad dressing so scrumptious that you want to drink it straight.

Lesson #5: Grains aren't blue.

Do you know how hard it is to find bread that is Jillian-approved, ie, doesn't have high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) or other unpronounceable additives that I've taken a blood oath not to feed to my family? HARD. REALLY, REALLY HARD. So I bought fresh stuff from the HEB bakery that had 3 ingredients, all JM approved. Problem is, it didn't taste very good. Like bread with rocks and sticks. My poor child actually choked it down at lunch yesterday. I felt so sorry for her that I tried a different grocery store and found some 100% whole wheat stuff that has some of the things JM despises (vegetable oil and a random processed soy product) but according to the label, the evil additives are "2% or less" of the makeup of the bread. Until I find a real bread that doesn't taste like it was dropped on the playground and collected gravel, dirt, and grass while it was down there, I'm gonna deal with the 2% evil.

In an effort to get rid of the rocks-n-sticks bread, I fed it to Jason for dinner because he likes that kind of stuff without even realizing that it had already molded. I confess I did see a couple of palish blue spots on the bread but I really, truly thought they were a type of grain. "Angie, grains aren't blue," Jason said as he scraped his dinner into the sink and started over with the 2% evil kind.

Oops. Well, the mold could have only improved on that awful bread's taste. Blech.

Until next time, may your food be real and may your bread taste like bread instead of a bird's nest.

Ode to Jenni

Being a military brat, you collect a lot of friends along the way in life. A handful have managed to keep the title BFF despite the many, many years that have passed. One of my favorite friends in the whole world is my friend Jenni. Today is her birthday, and she's a person whose birthday it is a real pleasure to celebrate. I'm very glad she was born. And I'm glad she lived on my street. And I'm glad we became friends. And I'm glad we stayed friends. And I'm glad she moved down the street again, this time to Austin (just a longer street) so we can hang out and be silly and eat Adobo and laugh. We laugh a lot. Not many folks know how dorky we really were/are. We taped the "You can call me Al" and "Walk Like An Egyptian" videos from MTV and watched them in slo-mo so we could learn the words to them. Words I can still recite to this day. And it's on this day, my friend Jenni's day, that I feel like singing some "You can call me Al" right about now.

Happy birthday Jenni! Love you!!

Lesson #4: Bacon cooks faster than I can shower

Before you attack me for being a hypocrite, the bacon was organic turkey bacon, so there!

One of my favorite presents of all time from my husband is my electric griddle. It's a running joke in my family that I always get movies for every holiday and special occasion from him, and until this past Christmas, they were movies HE wanted to see. Really. I once got for a birthday or maybe a Mother's day a copy of Alien v. Predator. Seems like that's a punchline to a really bad joke, but I did. It hasn't been that bad since. Probably because I cried. Now I just buy myself stuff and tell him and that seems to work out best for both of us. Anyway, one year I asked for an electric griddle and he, understandably, worried that it was the kind of gift women ask for and then get mad if their husbands actually buy. Like a vacuum. (Is that spelled right? That doesn't look like it's spelled right). But I really wanted one. I love to make big breakfasts and you just can't pull them off without a big electric skillet.

So on tonight's menu--stuffed spuds (Jillian says it's okay to eat potatoes, yes it is, just not all the time, so don't yell at me), with organic turkey bacon, real butter, and cheese. Not the healthiest of meals, calorie-wise, but all real I tell ya.

And I thought I'd manage my time wisely by starting the bacon while I took my shower since I was still stinky from my morning at the gym, but it turns out that bacon cooks a lot faster, or I shower a lot slower, than I thought. Because I came out sporting my towel turban to a cloud of greasy-smelling smoke in my kitchen.

Down the garbage disposal went the black bacon. Luckily, there was enough to still stuff our spuds, and I stuck around to make sure the rest didn't catch fire on my griddle.

Until next time, may your food be real and your showers be long unless you're cooking bacon.

Lesson #3: cooking everything makes a big mess in the kitchen

Pretty self-explanatory, that title. I have a messy kitchen. I keep washing and dirtying and washing and dirtying every pot, knife, cutting board, and wooden spoon, so there's just a permanent pile of dishes littering the counter and sink.

Messy.I.am. Care.I.Don't.

May your food be real and may you find a man who likes to do dishes.

...and just a note about Kate Gosselin & Bachelor Jake

There are really great people who happen to be really horrible dancers, and there are really horrible people who are really great dancers, but Kate Gosselin is a really horrible person who also happens to be a really horrible dancer.

I wish we could call in and vote AGAINST people. I think the only reason she's still there is she has all of her kids calling in for her. Poor, poor Tony.

And Bachelor Jake. I must say I always thought he was a dorky dull dud, but ABC did some magical editing to make him appear as though he had a personality on The Bachelor. They must not care about that on DWTS bc he's just a grade A control freak jerk. Poor Chelsea. And I retract all the things I said about Jake and Vienna not being a good match; they're PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER.

My money's on Derek and the Pussycat Doll.

Lesson #2: my family would rather go hungry than eat real food

I guess that's not entirely true...the roast got gobbled up. But because I added red peppers, red onions and black beans to the salad, I pushed their healthy food tolerance to its breaking point. Mattie ate all the croutons, spinach and lettuce. She actually did better than her dad who wouldn't touch the salad because he doesn't like red pepper. Really? You can't suck it up and eat the wittle bitty bites of pepper and be a good example for your daughter?

I'm gonna have to stock up on mouthwash though with all the extra onions and garlic I'm eating. Oh man, I never thought about checking the label of my Scope. Chances are, Jillian won't approve. But seriously, does mouthwash made of dandelions and lemon zest REALLY freshen your breath? And while we're on the subject of my chemical-free limits, I'm not buying recycled toilet paper. No.Thank.You.

Until next time, may your food be real and your mouthwash make it possible for your friends to still talk to you after eating all that real food.

Lesson #1: Real food goes bad, fast.

On the menu for tonight is a tasty Beer-basted Beef Mexicana. Basically, roast simmering in beer and salsa all day. (Jillian won't object bc the alcohol gets cooked right off). My house smells like a real cook lives here. Anyway, popped into the pantry to get my sweet potatoes to chop and add to the yummy-smelling stew, and blech--they'd morphed into purple mushy versions of themselves. Very much like I'd expect alien innards to appear in an Area 51 autopsy. They went right into the pre-compost-pile pile. (That's the place under the sink where all our fruit and veggie scraps go that my dear husband chops into bitty bits to add to one of our four composters so they'll break down eventually into something scrumptious called "compost tea"). So now to the business of finding something real and healthy to go with our roast in place of the sweet potatoes that are no more.

I wonder if you can freeze sweet potatoes until you're ready to use them? Wait, isn't that EXACTLY what our grandparents and parents did since they didn't have access to 24-7 in-season fruits and veggies? So it is, and so I will chop and freeze the fresh goodies on grocery shopping day and toss them in the freezer where they will stay safe and alien-goo free until time to add them to a recipe.

Until next time, may all your food be real, and may your real food not resemble alien guts.

Don't hate me for making homemade croutons.

For Easter, I knew I would be responsible for filling up my own Easter basket, so I wandered through Target and tossed things in the buggy that I'd been wanting for awhile but wouldn't buy, like this great brown glass soap pump for my bathroom. I couldn't rationalize spending $14.99 on a soap dispenser when I could just wash my hands with one of Jason's bars of Ivory soap that come 50 to a pack for five bucks. I'd also walked past Julie and Julia about a thousand times but left in the shelf despite really wanting to see it and having received many gleaming reviews from good friends. So that, plus a few gossip rags and a 2-for-1 deal on fish oil supplements, and I had a pretty great candy-free Easter basket.

And as I sat down at my desk to do some work today, I decided to throw J&J on the big screen in the mancave so I could watch while I work (I'm convinced that I have a mild form of ADD when it comes to work bc I can't do it in silence. My brain's gotta focus on work plus something else or I just drift off into daydreamland).

Paused this completely delightful movie to get a water refill and walked past the leftover ciabatta bread we had Friday night, the pieces I'd set aside to use in homemade croutons after reading the ingredients on the store-bought ones we always toss in our salads and I had a thought.

I started reading Jillian Michaels' "Master you Metabolism" book a couple of weeks ago, and the stuff in there has scared me off of processed foods for good. Well, mostly. But she is who put the little voice in my head that says "ick--don't feed THAT to you family!" So between Jillian, the movie Food, Inc., the supersized garden Jason has planted in our backyard, and Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution, the Truitts are fully committed to eating real food. Food with ingredients you can pronounce and food that has never seen the inside of a box or traveled down a conveyor belt. (An exception to the conveyor belt rule exists for this fun sushi place that actually puts its food on conveyor belts where it scoots past all the folks sitting around the restaurant who then can grab what they want--pretty neat way to eat!).

I have had more than my share of entertaining and enlightening and scary moments since embarking on the real food journey a couple of weeks ago, and I thought that maybe I didn't buy Julie and Julia all those times I walked by it in Target (and I'm in Target A LOT) because it wasn't time.

But now it is, because now I have something to write about other than Gerard Butler--I'm going to document my own personal food revolution right here. Not expecting anyone will follow it, but it's the 2000s, and everyone has a blog, so there you go. If Julie can write about cooking with Julia, I can write about cooking with Jillian (and shopping, and reading labels, and all of Jason's adventures in the backyard vegetable aisle). I don't expect a Hollywood movie deal a book deal, or frankly, even anyone to read it, but it's fun. So here I go.

Today, I made homemade croutons. Out of fresh-baked bread from HEB's bakery (I read the label; not a fake thing in there!), some olive oil, and some fresh garlic. Real food. And they'll be fabulous on top of a big salad tonight at supper. I'm quite proud of them, actually.

But I can hear the voices of my working-mom friends in my head as I type these lines: "Wish I had time to EAT croutons, let alone make them from scratch." Yes, I get it. It seems a bit self-indulgent to blog about taking two and a half hours to grocery shop because I had to read all the labels trying to find real food when most of my friends don't have time to grocery shop PERIOD, but maybe the stars have aligned this way for a reason, and I'm going to use the time I'm so blessed to have as a work-from-home/stay-at-home wife/mom to feed my family real food. So there, working mom friends--don't hate me for making homemade croutons.

Until next time, may your food be real!