Healthy Recipe Tuesday

I really want everyone to check out this bill that is trying to be passed. The lawmakers want you to believe that it will make your food safe, but what they won't tell you is that it will severely hurt your local small farms. This affects everyone. If you grow veggies in your back yard and sell them at a farmer's market, this affects you. In fact you will be held to the same standards as a huge conventional grower. It is a government-controlled one-size-fits-all law that could put many small farms out of business.

The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009, H.R. 2749, would treat family farms the same a multinational corporations, giving the FDA power to :

*Quarantine and halt all movement of food in a geographic area

*Oversee on-farm production activities

*Search business records without a warrant

*Force farmers to establish a costly tracing system

*Impose criminal and civil penalties and a $500 annual registration fee

*regulate how crops are raised and harvested

This is fine for huge conventional growers, since they are the ones that have had all the E. Coli and Salmonella recalls, but not for small farms. The way my Organic Gardening teacher puts it is,"If this bill passes, it will make it so if a duck decides to fly onto our farm and take a crap on a tomato plant, I will have to destroy the entire row of crops." Can you imagine what this would do to small farmers? So here is a link that will take you to a petition to send to your Senator and ask them to vote no. There is also a FAQ page to find out more info about the bill.

http://ftcldf.org/petitions_new.htm

Please check it out and sign the petition.

On to the cookbook:

Today's cookbook is "The Vegetarian Family Cookbook" by Nava Atlas. I think I have said before that Riley refuses to eat meat or cheese. I swear he is gonna be a vegan when he grows up. He has never liked these. So I have to be very creative in trying to make sure that he gets enough protein and B vitamins. And I go to vegetarian cookbooks for my ideas. This book surprisingly has some amazing recipes and she makes all of her baked goods with yogurt. It's all low fat and I have made quite a bit from this book. I think if I could actually get Jesse to like things such as beans and mushrooms I would switch us to a vegetarian diet. But don't think that is gonna happen in this lifetime. I don't really care for chicken or beef that much so it really wouldn't bother me.

And today's recipe is :

Pumpkin Pancakes
This is my grandma's recipe and Riley and I make these all the time.

2 c of pancake mix(preferably a whole grain or Bisquick Healthy Heart mix)

2 tsp brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp allspice

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1/2 c organic canned pumpkin(not pumpkin pie mix)

1 1/2 c fat free organic milk

2 tbsp safflower oil or canola oil ( if using canola buy organic, otherwise it is made from GMO canola)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla ext

Combine dry ingredients and wet ingredients in separate bowls, then add the dry to the wet and mix together. ladle on a griddle sprayed with nonstick spray and turn when bubbles appear. Enjoy with a drizzle of honey on top. These are so sweet you hardly need anything on top.

Tip of the day:

I add 1/4 cup of wheat germ to all of my pancake recipes.

Wheat germ is one of the top 10 healthiest foods. These are the health benefits of wheat germ:

*B vitamins such as folate, niacin, thiamin, and B6

*calcium

*fiber

*iron

*Omega 3

*magnesium

*manganese

*phosphorus

*potassium

*protein

*selenium

*Vit E

*Zinc

It is also a source of phytoesterols which have been shown to lower cholesterol.

I add it to everything including all baked goods, peanut butter, oatmeal, and even into crunchy toppings on top of mac and cheese.

I'm so hungry for pumpkin now I think we're gonna have to make these tomorrow morning. Yum!