Made From Scratch

Everyone who knows me knows I think about food a lot.  Even now that I'm back in school, cooking is a huge part of my life. So the fact that I was thinking about food at some point last Saturday night is no big surprise.  But the fact that a random little thought is kind of snowballing into something bigger is a little bit of a surprise.  The thought was simply that less than 100 years ago, everyone made just about everything they ate from scratch. There were no super-mega grocery chains with 500 different types of bread, drive through restaurants. People made food from raw ingredients, and generally ate healthier, and weight a whole lot less.  Given that I've pretty much struggled with my weight for my entire adult  (And teenage, for that matter) life, something about only eating stuff I made entirely from scratch totally appeals to me. I get to control what goes into it, and, thus, what goes into me.  Plus, I think it'll be fun.  So here goes--- Cooking from scratch. Or, as I've heard certain small children say, "cooking by scratching."

Of course there are going to be some ground rules. I have to be a realist.

1. I'm allowed to go out for dinner every now and then. I'm going to do my best to keep it healthy, but if an when I go out, I get to order off the menu, without worrying if every last ingredient is made from scratch.
2. The first couple weeks are going to be transitional. I'm going to do my best in cooking everything from scratch, but I'm also going to use up what's left in my fridge.  They're also going to be the weeks where I do stuff like make big stashes of granola and yogurt, stuff I eat all the time. 
3. While it's my goal to make everything from scratch, realistically there are a couple things I'm not going to make from scratch.

• Dairy products- I'm not gonna be out milking cows. I will make my own butter and yogurt. I rarely eat cheese, but when a recipe calls for something like Parmesan, I'm buying that. I'll make soft cheeses like ricotta though. 
• Meat products-  I'm not gonna be butchering anything larger than a chicken. Why? I live in a 1 bedroom apartment in an urban area.  I'm entirely OK with purchasing meats.   I will make my own sausages.  I'm on the fence about bacon and other seriously cured meats.  Realistically I can't cure bacon in my apartment. Do I give it up? Do I occasionally buy bacon?  I don't eat a ton of bacon, but it's  not necessarily something I want to give up entirely.
• Alcohol- I'm not a big drinker. Occasionally I enjoy a glass of wine, a beer, or a cocktail. I'm not ready to be a home-brewer.  I don't have the set up for a winery.  If I want to mix a cocktail, everything except the booze has to be from scratch. 

For now, that's it.  Now I'm going to get cooking. I'm making bread.