Fresh veggie storage ideas!

This is a topic that has been hot on my internet feed this morning, so I thought it would nice to share the links that I have been receiving with all of you. I am not quite sure why, maybe because Labor Day means that summer days are starting to wane, your garden is in top form with harvests getting out of control, and you have to start thinking about how to preserve your harvest before it goes bad. Now, if you want to truly enjoy your healthy harvest while continuing to be friendly towards the environment.

Once you get your organic local veggies with in your house, the first thing you might do is put them into plastic. Plastic continues to drain valuable oil sources from the planet, and all though plastic has been a semi-success in recycling programs, it is still one of those items that if you don't need to use you shouldn't. One of the biggest problems we have environmentally right now is over-packaging, and that goes for our home life as well. Reducing plastic and packaging from your house is just one more way to reduce your overall energy and carbon footprint. Also, in the past decade there has been a growing concern with Bisphenol-A, aka BPA, leeching into their food through plastic containers. Removing plastic storage containers would be the most logical and easiest step to this problem.

Here are the two articles that list everything from Eggplant to Corn to Berries, to Zucchini and how to store them safely. Both articles talk about close to the same techniques but cover things that the other doesn't. One comes from Whole Living and one from Nature's Path Organic.

And here are the links:

How to Store Summer Produce

How to: Store Fruit & Vegetables without plastic

---Justin

Tribulations and Local Food

It has been a long long time. Sometimes in life, you get bogged down in unexpected events of sorrow and joy, and projects and pledges take a back seat. I have just went through one of the periods. Loss of a father, supporting my wife finishing grad school, and a multi-state move, brings us to this moment now. It has been a long year, and life has thrown us lemons, oranges, grapes, and whatever other fruit life can throw at you, and we made a lot of "lemonade". Now after everything was said and done, it is time, and there is time to pick-up with conservation and getting Slay Energy Vampires! Moving in the right direction. With all of that said...

...welcome back, I am glad you are still following me. Now, on to some brief information.

A few days ago, the city of Tempe in Arizona, added to their city web page a page dedicated to all of their locally crafted food. Everything from Pasta, to Beer, to Popcorn. It is a long and informative list with direct links and locations to where you can purchase this local food. Local food is still the best and most effective way to cut down on your food's carbon footprint. So, if you are in the Tempe, Arizona area, check out this list. They proudly advertised this list on their Facebook page as well.

Right here for great local food!

---Justin

In.gredients a new way to shop, and new way to think

There is a new grocery store that is opening up soon in Austin, Texas, it is called in.gredients. It has already started getting plenty of buzz in the mainstream media so I thought it would state a few words about it. In.gredients is offering all local, all organic food to the customers. That is nothing new at all, right? Not really, but it is what else they aren't offering that is new. In.gredients is striving to be the first non-waste food store in America right now. Non-waste? What do you mean? Well, there will be no packaging for their food. You will have to bring in your own containers, weigh your food, and then pay for your food. Only buying what you really need, with no packaging to deal with. According to their video:

Americans throw away 1.4 billion pounds of waste every day, and 40% of it comes from one-time packaging. But it's hard trying to be a conscious recycler after a while because of the double or triple wrappings for every product.

Wow! That's a lot of waste! One of the biggest challenges we have in America right now is over-packaging. Unfortunately, where we get our supplies to live on (i.e. food), is one of the worst culprits in this problem (in my mind shipping, especially for big business seems to be the worse, but I have no states, just personal observations). In.gredients is slated to open this year, and is already getting a lot of attention. I am hoping other companies start paying attention to this new delivery method, which almost ensures that we have to start thinking about slow food (something I will talk about soon in a later article).

Let's see what they have to say for themselves:

Wow, I will have to check this out when it opens!

---Justin J. Stewart

Double Meatless Monday!!!

Well, it has been awhile but we are back, and on track now! To make up for the lack of posting last week, today we will have a double Meatless Monday, from last week and this week. Both Mondays had very creative things and exciting food and both were delicious. I can tell you for lunch and breakfast both weeks I had Cheerios and Grilled Cheese. I do not think anyone needs recipes for either one of those, but just to let you know we did add homegrown tomatoes to our grilled cheese both weeks, and yeah, only I am eating the Cheerios, Laura is eating Peanut Butter Cap'n Crunch!

Monday 10.11.2010

Veggies getting ready for ratatouille!So for this day we had some Eggplant that needed to be picked from the garden, and we also had some zucchini that needed to be cooked. As I racked my brain trying to figure out that to do about this situation of combining both of these veggies. Well, after some recipe searching! I found it! Ratatouille!

Now the recipe was fairly easy, and it tasted great! It took a little bit of time, with all of the simmering, but it was absolutely delicious. We served the Rataouille over some farfalle pasta, and it worked great! The recipe can be found here, or here it is written out for everyone:

Ratatouille With Eggplant and Zucchini

By Diana Rattray, About.com Guide

Ratatouille

This delicious combination of vegetables is easy to prepare. Serve this fabulous side dish with grilled, roasted, or broiled meat, fish, or poultry.

Ingredients:

• 1 medium eggplant
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 to 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
• 1 medium onion, halved and thinly sliced
• 2 cans (14.5 ounces each) diced tomatoes with juice
• Red, yellow, and green bell pepper, cut in 1-inch pieces, about 1 to 1 1/2 cups
• 1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh basil, about 12 large leaves
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Dash dried leaf oregano
• 3 small zucchini, halved lengthwise then sliced
• Fresh shredded Parmesan cheese, optional

Preparation:

Peel eggplant and cut in 1-inch cubes; put in a colander and sprinkle with the salt. Let stand in the sink for about 20 to 30 minutes to drain.

In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté until onion is tender. Add the tomatoes, bell peppers, basil, pepper, and oregano. Cover and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 20 minutes. Add zucchini and eggplant; cover and continue simmering for 10 to 15 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Taste and add salt, if needed. Serve with fresh shredded Parmesan cheese, if desired.
Serves 4 to 6.

Here are some photo's of how it turned out for us!                                                                                                

  Ratatouille simmering, with fresh picked basil and oregano getting ready to go inLet the simmering begin!

Finished product!

Monday 10.18.2010

Ingredient Volcano!Laura with a ball of doughCutting the dough log.   Noodles unrolled and ready to cook!

So, Laura and I have always talked about making our own pasta. We have been talking about this for about five years now. Well, about a month or two ago, we finally did it! It was pretty easy and very delicious! So we thought that it would only be appropriate to use this for an excellent meatless Monday.

We Used:

2 1/2 Cups of Flour
3 Eggs
1 tablespoon of butter
and milk for consistency

You mix all of the ingredients together and kneed them until you get an even consistency and get a nice large ball of dough. Then you quarter you ball of dough into four balls of dough. You take each ball individually and with a rolling pin, flatten as thin as you can. From there you roll up your dough into a log type shape. Cut your dough into slice of desired with of the pasta. Then unroll your slices, and you have a noodle! This pasta when fresh takes about 4 minutes to cook in boiling water!

We also added an Alfredo sauce to the pasta. To make the sauce, start with 1 table spoon of butter and melt it in a saucepan, add in 4 oz of heavy whipping cream, let them cream and butter get hot and intermingle, then add 3 to 4 oz of shredded parmesan cheese, until desired consistency. We then added in some fresh cut broccoli and then you add the sauce into the pasta.

For this meal we also had a side of grilled Eggplant, and grilled crooked neck squash. These were left over from the other night, but I will tell you really fast how to make it, since it is super easy and super yummy.

Take a whole eggplant, or desired amount or desired amount of squash. Cut into 1/2 inch slices length wise. Brush both sides with olive oil, and salt and pepper. The on just the eggplant brush both sides also with balsamic vinegar. You throw those on the grill, cook each side for 10 minutes, only flip once, and your done, and it's delicious! 

Sorry about the long delay of your Meatless Monday fix, but I hope some homemade pasta and some Ratatouille made up for it! If you have any suggestions let me know, or energy saving ideas!

Pictures of the complete product below!grilled eggplant and crooked-neck squash

---Justin J. Stewart

complete homemade broccoli Alfredo.

Pools and Plants...enter the GardenPool a whole new way for backyard gardening

...link via GayLee Fretz

WOW! I don't even know where to start with this new technique in backyard gardening. I am blown away and overly jealous. Who and how do you get a garden in an old pool?! Well the people over at GardenPool.org have found a way to do it, and it is truly a work of amazement.

Swimming pools to being with are a pool of energy waste and excess, if you ask me at look at the numbers (yet, I am not down at all on anyone who wishes to take a dip in their backyard pool on scorching days, especially in the Southwest). This family from Mesa, Arizona took an empty, run-down pool in a new house that they just purchased, and instead of pouring money into it to continue pouring more money and energy into it for recreation, they put money into an investment. The investment was food grown in your backyard (from crops to chickens, to fish!), in one of the most difficult growing regions in the United States.

The garden pool uses solar power to power the self-sustaining garden (farm?!). They are using hydroponics gardening to reduce soil use, aquaponics to grow their fish, and are using naturally grown insects and plants (duckweed to filer and purify the water) to feed and combat nasties from their crops and fertilize their crops. Did I mention they have a chicken coop?!!

This is the empty pool that they started with!They use SPIN (Small Plot Intensive) gardening techniques, which we also have seen in the more common term, square foot gardening. They are promoting this as a way to get as much as what little room you have. Which I have fully supported, I have been saying since my own organic gardening experiences this year (article coming soon!), that if everyone planted a one foot by one foot or two foot by two foot garden we could take a huge strain off of the American food system. They are using gutter planting techniques as 5 gallon buckets as planters and appear to be getting quite the harvest, 365 days a year. DID I MENTION THEY HAVE CHICKENS?! I can't get over the the chicken thing. Even though some people would probably be more impressed that they literally have a Tilapia farm in their back yard. The family also gives tours of their pool, and offers a volunteer program so you can get some hands on experience and think about how you can build one of your own in your desert backyard.

I see this The inside of the GardenPoolas a step, even though a huge step, that we can all work towards. Maybe not at this scale at first, but something we can look at and think about. I am super impressed with these guys, and if you are in the Phoenix area, I would suggest checking this out. If not, please visit their website and read all about it. The information that they have places on their website about this project is so  in depth and fascinating, yet simple reading. I applaud the family for their outreach on this project. Also, check out their facebook page while your at it. Big props to this family for their dedication and demonstration of showing us that you, yes you, can own your own food supply!I will now leave you with a video of their GardenPool!

---Justin J. Stewart (link via GayLee Fretz, all pictures and videos from GardenPool.org)