My home made rant.....

How far we've come in this world from back to basic goodness knowing where food comes from and working the land to secure our own bounty.  How did that even happen?  Processed foods? Artificial ingredients that we ingest into our bodies? Food like substances? Seriously boggles my mind.  And we are all so uninformed.  I have learned so much over the years and believe whole heartily the need to return to basic goodness.  REAL FOOD. so simple.   And still at times ( ALOT lately ) I  allow such things as genetically modified corn processed into a chip with cancer causing monosodium glutamate flavor enhanced spices " food?" to pass through my lips and crunched into my body where it lies undigested and confused. Sigh......... why do I keep doing that?

However, when living in a 3rd world country necessity causes you to learn and live and experience the effort and satisfaction of being responsible for making your own foods from real ingredients. I fully realize there are scores out there who never needed a 3rd world country to teach them this but I did.
 My prime example is a simple plate of tortilla chips and salsa. So let's do a comparison:

Craving chips and salsa......what is one to do?
My current life in a 1st world country with a billion shops on every corner:  
Choose and buy a bag of tortilla chips from a variety of shapes and sizes,
Choose and buy a jar of salsa from a variety of heat levels and flavors.....open chips, open salsa, DIP. EAT !  All in all takes about 5 mins.
Instant gratification and yum !

3rd world experience........with no shops that sell tortilla chips or salsa.
Mix flour, water, oil and salt into a dough.  Form into a ball and let rest 15 mins.
While resting go outside and pick avocados from your tree, tomatoes and onions, spinach and chili from your garden and some cilantro from herb pots by the kitchen door.  Feed a handful of cilantro to the guinea pigs for a treat !
Heat up a decent sturdy pan on quite hot heat. Dry.  No oils or fats.
Get back to the dough.  Pinch off a chunk of dough and use rolling pin or empty glass bottle to roll roll roll at different angles to form a thin roundish flat tortilla.
Drop into heated dry pan until a few browned baked spots form. Flip. Done. Repeat with next one
When finished with all the tortillas, get a pizza cutter or knife and cut each into strips or triangleish shapes.
Rub the tortilla pieces with olive oil, and salt.
Lay out on a baking pan and bake in a hot oven until crisp !

While baking......

Chop salsa veggies, mix, season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle cilantro in and mix together.  Let sit so flavors can work their magic.

THEN.......about 2 to 3 hours later.  Sit down and enjoy Chips and Salsa.
NOT instant.......yet utterly satisfying.  Home grown goodness worked with my own hands and created into a masterpiece of delicious flavors beyond what any sealed for freshness bag could ever compare.
Worth it?  In my opinion......yes.  Every time !

So the other weekend when we were craving hot fudge sauce I sent my kids on a journey throughout the grocery store.  They came running with a variety of products.....all sent back to their dreary shelflife because their ingredient list included high fructose corn syrup among others.

Back at home.....we found the following ingredients:
cocoa powder
unprocessed sucanant sugar ( dehydrated cane syrup)
pinch of salt
butter
cream - scooped from the cream line out of our local bought raw milk
vanilla ( not the artificial flavored "vanilla like" substance but real vanilla pods soaked in vodka kind)

Mix, heat slowly, stir.......yummy on top of home made ice cream or at least ice cream made with milk whose cows haven't been given artificial growth hormones !

Home made!  Is this your way of life?  I dream of it being mine......baby steps ! Try something small and easy.  Like hot fudge sauce.  You can use whatever cocoa sugar salt and cream ya got.  Still better than artificially flavored with genetically modified corn syrup.
End of rant.