Some Green Changes

I'm getting started on my quest for a "greener" home/lifestyle. I got some great tips and ideas from that meeting I went to last week. I thought I'd list some of the things that were suggested that I am implementing this week:

• Replace light bulbs that are on for more than one hour a day with compact fluorescent bulbs. Target had some on sale (GE brand) and I picked up a few to replace some of the lights in our house.


• Switched to the NSTAR Green Program. I learned about this program that our electric company offers. You can opt for 50% or 100% of your electric energy to come from a wind farm. We are switching to 100%. There is a premium price for this option (estimated $4-10 more per month) but we are challenging ourselves to cut back energy to make up for this increase. Plus, there's a rumor that the price of the wind farm energy will be less starting in January 2009 than the "regular" energy we're signing up now before the rush. Visit http://www.nstar.com/ for more information.


• There was a suggestion made to not dry your clothes at the meeting. I like this idea but the thought of hanging my family's clothes all over, especially with baby stuff (do you know how many clothes we go through?!?!) seemd daunting. Another mom suggested just hang drying one load per week. That sounds doable for me right now.
  
• I bought a compost bin. I haven't received it and I'm not sure what to do with it after it arrives. :0 A friend of mine has offered to show me hers and give me some pointer. And thank goodness for Google. Any tips from you folks out there would be greatly appreciated!

Okay that's it for now. Ciao.

My First "Green" Mama Meeting

A couple weeks ago I learned that the town I live in has a "green moms" group (http://www.medfieldgreenmoms.org/). It was organized about 6 months ago by a small group of mamas who wanted to go green and be able to support and educate one another through this process. I was SO thriled to hear about it and joined the group last week. Tonight was my first meeting.

I found the group to be very welcoming, non-judgemental, and a mix of mamas at different places of the going green process. This was reassuring to me because although I feel proud of the few things I have done to be more green, I'm far from reaching green nirvana. And I didn't want to be judged because I'm not a vegetarian or driving the Toyota Prius or composting (yet). I didn't feel judged at all and I have to say that I was really happy to be among a group of other mamas really wanting to make things better for themselves and their families.

The topic for this evening's meeting was Climate Change and the guest speaker was Dan Ruben from Green Decade of Newton. He presented briefly on the overall climate change crisis and how it is related to energy use and global warming. This topic always overwhelms me. I felt similar to the way I felt when I saw "An Inconevnient Truth" - sad and defeated...but also informed, fascinated and empowered.

He went into further detail about how to "put your house in order." A great list of "to dos" to follow when considering how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. I found it really helpful and affirming. I realized we have done many of the items on this list. But I also found that there are many more ways we can make our home more eco-friendly.

Overall, I enjoyed the meeting. I'm really excited about this group and look forward to learning more about being green and meeting more green mamas. I'm very tired now (as you can probably tell by the writing of this entry) so I'm off to bed. Ciao for now.

I'm No Martha Stewart

So, remember how I mentioned in a previous post that I much prefer to cook than to bake? Well, here ya go......


POOF! Those suckers just totally fell. I was attempting to make cupcake cones for my youngest daughter's 1st birthday. I have made these things successfully a few times for a couple of my older daughter's birthdays. But something didn't work this time.

The sad thing is that I used a boxed cake mix and all I had to add was egg, water and oil. How did I mess that up? Was it because I used canola oil instead of vegetable oil? Real bakers feels free to comment.

So, tomorrow morning I'm off to the store to pick up something already made to serve at my little one's birthday celebration. Poor second child....

At least it's her first birthday so I doubt she'll remember it. Sigh.

I Blanched & Froze Tomatoes Today! Aren't You Jealous?

I know you're just green with envy. I bet you wanted to blanch and freeze tomatoes today, too.

Through this CSA membership I've learned (quickly) how to freeze and store veggies. The amount of food we've gotten in our share has been enormous and the thought of throwing the food away is out of the question. So, I've learned to freeze veggies and have them stocked for the winter (like the old colonial folks used to do).

It is really easy to do but does take some time. I find myself spending one day every week or two cooking and preparing veggies for freezing. Although, I have to admit, it's quite satisfying when it's all done - and you should see our freezer!

I use this site for learning how to store (specifically freeze) veggies (it's also on the sidebar under "'Oh Snap' Sites)". The font used for the website is IMO ugly but the information is great and always has photos with each step (BONUS!).

Some veggies need to be blanched before freezing in order to kill the enzymes that destroy the flavor in the veggies. For tomatoes, you can blanch but you don't have to. However, I prefer skinning my tomatoes before freezing and blanching them makes skinning MUCH easier.

So the process goes something like this:

• Get a big pot of water boiling and a big bowl of ice water next to it.
  
• Boil the tomatoes for 1 minute. Then place them in the ice water for another minute.


• Then core and peel. The skins come right off.
  
• You can go ahead and put them in freezer bags and freeze. TIP: If you don't have one of those fancy vaccuum sealer thingys (I don't), a way to suck as much air out of the freezer bags is to take a straw and stick it in the bag. Seal the bag up to the straw then suck in and seal quickly. Just be careful not to do too many times at once(no fainting please).

Another thing you can do before feezing is to squeeze the juice and seeds out then freeze them. I prefer this because most likely my tomatoes will be used for sauce. I also like to make my own tomato juice (bloody marys anyone?!?!?) from the tomatoes. I usually squeeze the tomatoes over a bowl with a sieve in it. Then, I take the juice and boil it in a small saucepan with a stalk of celery, some salt, oregano, a tad of garlic powder and dried minced onion. Bring it to a boil then let cool. Add some lemon juice. Drink solo or add some vodka. Delicious!

Cookie Dough Truffles

Ok, so something you may not know about me.... I LOVE TRUFFLES...especially of the chocolate variety. And something else you may not know about me....I love to cook but baking, not so much. I enjoy it every once it a while but I much prefer to cook a meal than bake a cake.

My friend recently sent me the recipe for making your own cookie dough truffles. She said they were easy and her kids loved participating. Sounded tempting, so I gave it a whirl.

Easy? Check. Fun for kiddos? Check. Yummy?!?!? Check!

The original recipe came from the Food Networks Paula Deen's Show and I've linked it under my "Yum Eats" section on the sidebar. You can also click here for the recipe.

I did make some slight adjustments and have noted some other things below:

• I realized that I was 1/2 cup short of the brown sugar so I had to improvise. I use this great sight for food substitutions. So, in place of brown sugar, I used regular sugar and a bit of molasses. Voila!
  
• I went out on a limb and substituted half of the white flour with whole wheat flour. I have nothing to compare it to but the truffles were still delicious.
  
• I didn't have chocolate bark candy coating so I used Nestle Tollhouse chocolate chips instead. They melted nicely but the coating was lumpy and not as pretty as the original recipe. Plus, I had to keep stirring and stirring to keep the chocolate from burning. Regardless, they turned out tasty...just not so pretty looking. Next time I will buy the coating chocolate.
  
• I recommend making them small. I ended up making mine too big so when the chocolate covered them they were like 2 inches. Granted, I don't mind extra large truffles, but to get more bang for the buck, next time I will make them smaller.
  
• Confession...I didn't really enjoy covering the balls in chocolate. Dropping and rolling 60+ balls into chocolate to me was a bit tedious. But hey, like I said, I'm not a baker.

Overall, a keeper but next time I will be better prepared. Here are the photos I took during the process.

The cookie dough balls.

Right after the dipping process.

See the photo at the top for the final product!

Photos

Yes, yes, yes....I want to add photos to my blog. If you didn't know this already, I am a photographer. SHAMELESS BUSINESS PLUG ALERT: I specialize in maternity, babies, children and families. I usually go to the home and shoot on location. I really love capturing my subjects in their natural environments, just being who they are (a bit cliche-ish but true). And of course I have a website: http://www.nicolelewisphotography.com/. Check it out.

Okay, commercial over. So, photos are necessary for this blog. Don't you want to see the food I make and the "green" stuff that I blog about?!?! Plus, I love to photograph flowers. I will do my best to post photos with my blog entries. Here's one from the Spring at the Boston Flower Show.

Trader Joe's

I'm sure you are already familiar with the store Trader Joe's. If you're not, well.....it's fabulous. I was hanging out with some playgroup mom friends this morning and we chatted about Trader Joe's. Specifically, there is one "possibly" opening up closer to the town we live in. I'm so excited!

So I guess you can submit location requests to TJs....and that's what I just did. I thought I'd share the link with you in case you want to cast your vote for the next TJs in your area.

http://www.traderjoes.com/location_requests_form.aspx

I love TJs because they carry good stuff cheap. And they do stock organic items at pretty decent prices.

BTW, I am in no way affilicated with this store nor do they pay me to promote them (but I certainly wouldn't decline $$$ if they offered...wink wink).

Alright, off to clean my house (ugh) and maybe make some chocolate chip truffles - oh don't you worry, I will be blogging this recipe if it's a success. Stay tuned and thanks for reading.

Kale Soup & Potato Chips

I spent part of my day cooking. I made potato chips and a kale soup (no, not mixed together). Both turned out delicious! I listed the recipes on the sidebar (under "Yum Eats") but I'm blogging my experience with these two recipes here.

Yes, I actually made potato chips. They turned out tasty and no oil or frying was used so I'd say they're pretty decent for you. Click on "Potato Chips" on the list of recipes (sidebar) for the original recipe I started from but below is what I did:

Ingredients:

• Potatoes
• Water
• White vinegar (other types of vinegar would be fine)
• Kosher salt
• Olive oil or PAM
• Parchment paper

Directions:

• Wash the potatoes. You can peel them but I kept the skins on.
• Slice the potatoes. I use my wonderful food processor with the slicing blade attachment. If you don't have this, slice the potato about 1/16".
• The original recipe says to sprinkle salt on the potatoes then soak them in water for 10 minutes. I did this with half my batch. The other batch I salted, then soaked in white vinegar (I was going for a salt and vinegar flavor chip). I did soak the vinegar ones for about 10 minutes but next ime I will soak them longer for a stronger flavor.
• Dry the potatoes on paper towels, patting them dry.
• Single layer the potatoes onto parchment paper that has been sprayed/rubbed with a little olive oil or PAM.
• Sprinkle with salt or other seasoning (you could get really creative here: garlic powder, parsley, cajun seasoning, etc).
• Place another layer of parchment paper on top of the potatoes.
• Place in the microwave (yes, the microwave!!) and nuke for about 5 minutes. You want the chips to curl and become a very light golden color (if they're too golden, they'll have a burnt taste. You may have to play around with your first batch or two to get it right).
• Cool and eat!

Okay now onto the Kale soup. What is Kale? It's a leafy green related to the cabbage family and it's super duper good for you (loaded with Vitamins K, A & C). It's also thought to help in preventing the body from various cancers. To learn more about kale and it's health benefits click here.

So, raw kale is kind of pretty but when you cook it (in this case boil) it loses it's "prettiness." Don't let this fool you....it really is quite tasty. I made a delicious soup today and we had it for dinner. It is one that we will be doing over again. The original recipe calls it "Tuscan Kale Soup" but I think it's more of a Portuguese style that a Tuscan one.

I'm not going to write out this recipe. Instead, click on the link, "Kale, Chorizo & Potato Soup" on the sidebar (under "Yum Eats") and note the following additions/changes below:

• I didn't measure anything, except the liquid.
• I used 4 C of chicken broth & 4 C of water instead of the 8 C of water the recipe called for.
• I added about 3 large cloves of garlic (minced)
• I added some salt (but go easy because the chorizo is salty)....maybe add at the end.
• I chopped up the kale more than the original recipe called for.
• I diced the potatoes instead of slicing them and I didn't mash them....I left them diced. I also used purple potatoes and left the skins on.
• Next time I will serve some type of dense bread (French or Portuguese) with it.

The Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Kick

So one of my latest "kicks" is joining a CSA farm. What is a CSA farm you ask? My short explanation: you buy shares into a farm, you get farm fresh food. But here's a better detailed explanation by Local Harvest: What is a CSA?.

We joined two CSA farms this past Spring. One for produce (Powissett Farm) and one for meat (Chestnut Farm). I signed us up because I liked the idea of knowing exactly where the food we eat comes from and also to expose our family to the expereince of where food comes from. The farms we joined use organic practices which is also important to me. And, supporting local farming and saving land and wildlife are also bonuses! Here are a couple of articles that go into a little more detail to the benefits of joining a CSA farm: Article One & Article Two.

We've discovered some really wonderful things about being part of a CSA aside from the aforementioned benefits. Here is a list of just some of the the rewards we've encountered (in no particular order):

• Additional vegetables to our diet - healthy!
• Re-trying vegetables we thought we'd never like (i.e. kale, eggplant, and beets - although Steven still refuses to eat the beets).
• Introduction to new vegetables we've never even heard of: spaceship squash, tatsoi, garlic scapes & kohlrabi (I'll blog about these in more detail later - all are fabulous).
• Harvesting veggies, which is educational and fun (SIDENOTE: our share of veggies is usually already harvested for us by the farm, but there is a small portion of that is "pick your own" - i.e. cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, strings beans, herbs, hot peppers, strawberries).
• Getting creative in the kitchen! I've discovered some really interesting and delicious recipes along this journey.

Our experience with being a part of CSAs has obviously been very much a positive experience. Not only has the food been so fresh and so delicious but it is healthy and organic, too. Of course, there have been some challenges along the way to becoming CSA eating folk. Keeping up with the amount of food and eating it before it goes bad are two things I've had to figure out. But I have found a good rythym and system that has helped us (will blog more about this later).

Another "surprise" has been dealing with the occasional "little friend" in our food (usually the corn). By "little friend" I mean worm or some other bug-like creature of the earth. I'll admit finding a worm in your food is weird and quite gross. I used to be all squirmy wormy (no pun intended) over stuff like this. But I have gotten over the squimishness of it and now just toss away the little friends and cut off the portion of the food that has been eaten. The farm manager explained that the reason we find little friends in the farm food is because there are no pesticides used....so it is inevitable that this happnes. Luckily, it is just an occasional nuisance.

I'm sure I will blog more about our CSA experience. For now, I'm good. Until next time...eat well and be well.

Starting This Blog

I'm officially starting this blog to write about my thoughts and experiences of my latest "kick." Right now that includes going green and staying healthy. I'm also a mama and wife and I'm sure things related to that will come up, too. Thanks for reading, feel free to comment (although please be kind...hateful comments may hurt my feelings), and stay tuned for more entries.