Meatless Mondays

As many of you might have heard in the past year or two is the growing movement of Meatless Monday. The aim of this program is to start your week on the right step by eating all day without meat. Now for everyone that is already a vegetarian and a vegan, this might not be a big deal. There are still plenty of us that love meat, and I am one, and I will probably never give it up in my lifetime. I can help out the best I can towards the strained food system and reduce my carbon footprint by making sure that there is at least one day a week where I do not eat any meat. This is the idea that meatless monday was born under.

The origins of Meatless Monday comes from as a public health awareness program started by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for a Livable Future. In the past year, and even maybe the year before, Meatless Monday has really taken off through out the country. I figured to help with my goals to reduce my carbon footprints (and possibly eating healthier), it was time for my family to go meatless on Monday.

Obvious health benefits of Meatless Mondays include: limiting cancer risks, reducing heart disease, helping fight obesity, and fighting diabetes. Which in turn, can give you a better chance to live a longer and healthier life. Now, how does this help environmental issues? It is well known the the production of livestock and fowl has lead severe environmental degradation in places that it occurs, and that the pure transit and processing of the meat and food for the livestock leads to enormous amounts of energy being used and carbon being put into the air. Meat is responsible for one-fifth of green-house gas emissions worldwide. As for water usage from 1,800 to 2,500 gallons of water goes into a single pound of beef, versus Soy based tofu which on average is 220 gallons of water per pound. On average we need 20 times the amount of fossil fuels that go into every calorie of feed on a beef farm compared to the amount of fossil fuels that is used for one calorie of a plant-based protein.

  With these arguments, one might say, "Justin, why don't you just go vegetarian?". The truth is, like I said before, I can't. I adore hamburgers and steak. I can't pass up BBQ ribs or brisket. So, in turn what I can do is make a conscious effort to eat less meat, and Meatless Monday is a great way to begin. From here on out every Monday I will be telling you what I had on Monday, and tell you my recipe, and hopefully you can use them, and share recipes with  me!

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 13th, 2010

For my first meatless Monday, I missed breakfast. Which makes things no easier than usually, since I probably would have just had toast for breakfast anyways. For lunch is where I had my first challenge, since I usually have a salami sandwich everyday for lunch. Today, I went with Grilled Cheese on Mountain Bread.

Grilled Cheese with fresh Watermelon JuiceNow, with my grilled cheese, I also had freshly juiced watermelon juice, which was amazing. As for the grilled cheese, well, it was grilled cheese. It was a fine lunch, but nothing to get too excited about. Now what was up next though was exciting. I would be making both Baba Ghanoush from some freshly picked eggplant, and attempt to make Dam Aloo (or maybe Dum Aloo, the internet seems to have both ways of spelling it). Let's start with the Baba Ghanoush. Baba Ghanoush is a dip that is fairly popular in middle-eastern and meditarian cuisine. It is based on eggplant, and is usually prepared with Tahini, which is also found in Hummus, making Baba Ghonoush a sibling to Hummus. I love them both and was excited to try the recipe. I found a recipe on allrecipes.com. This is the recipe that I followed:

Ingredients

• 1 eggplant
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup tahini
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with  salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl, and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.
2. Place eggplant on baking sheet, and make holes in the skin with a fork. Roast it for 30 to 40 minutes, turning occasionally, or until soft. Remove from oven, and place into a large bowl of cold water. Remove from water, and peel skin off.
3. Place eggplant, lemon juice, tahini, sesame seeds, and garlic in an electric blender, and puree. Season with  salt and pepper to taste. Transfer eggplant mixture to a medium size mixing bowl, and slowly mix in olive oil. Refrigerate for 3 hours before serving.

I was pretty proud of this and it looked like it was going to taste pretty good, and from early indications it looks like it is going to be awesome!

What eggplants can do!Next was on to the Dam Aloo (Dum Aloo), which is an Indian dish that is centered around Garam Masala seasoning mix and potatoes. I am a big fan of Indian food and was pretty excited to try out this recipe as well, which came from ifood.tv. Here is the recipe that I used:

Ingredients 

• 450g small potatoes, preferably new
• 1 medium onion
• 4 tbl spn oil
• About 1 tpn chilli powder
• 1/2 tspn turmeric
• 25g root ginger, peeled and ground to a paste, or 1 tspn ground ginger
• 1/2 tspn sugar
• Salt
• 150 ml water
• 1 1/2 tspn garam masala
• Chopped corainder leaves, to garnish

How to make Dam Aloo

1. Scrub or peel the potatoes and cut them into even sized pieces.
2. Boil them until just tender.
3. Grind the onion to a fine paste.
4. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onion paste and fry until lightly browned.
5. Stir in the chilli powder, turmeric, ginger, sugar ad salt.
6. Fry for 1-2 minutes without letting the mixture burn, then add the water.
7. When the water begins to simmer, stir in the potatoes, cover and cook until the sauce has thickened.
8. Sprinkle with  the garam masala and remove from the heat.
9. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve.

It was pretty tasty, next time there are a few other recipies that call for yogurt to be added into the sauce, which I think I am willing to try to get a more and thicker sauce. That is just my personal preference though. Here are some photos of what it looked like:

 Dam Aloo (dum aloo) in the pan, chillin'!

The Dam/Dum Aloo in the process of being eaten by me!

In the future I would probably use a recipe that calls for yougurt in the sauce, which would make more sauce and and thicken it up a bit. I hope that you learned a lot from this, and start to share your own Meatless Monday recipies with me!

---Justin J. Stewart

The Stone House, a new wine and cheese bar, looks at retail and food service sustainability

...link via Angie Fretz

I like to eat. Those that know me, you know I like to eat. I also like to drink a plethora of beverages. I like fresh squeezed juice, I have a passion for coffee, I like cheap shwag beer and non-cheap micro-brews, and I love wine. So when I see a new cool place opening up around the country, I get excited. Especially when it's cheese (which I love), and Wine (which I have already stated my previous mention of love for). Now, you are saying, "Justin! What does this have to do with home energy usage or sustainability at all?".

Great question...

I have journeyed to many coffee houses. One of my biggest complaints about coffee houses are how they are not taking proper steps to reassure a sustainable practice. For some examples: non-recycling offered on the premise (even though their cups are #1s or #2s, yes, I'm looking at your Starbucks), thrown away coffee grounds, and preferred disposable containers offered to in-house purchases instead of washable cups and dishes.  I am singling out coffee shops because it is easy to assess all the waste that takes place in one. Fine sit down dining is a little harder, because you don't know what goes on in the kitchen. Coffee shops, fast food restaurants, and other in and out type locals, its a lot easier, and you know what I see? I see a lot of waste! There are some great independent local coffee shops that I've seen, one of them being The Cartel Coffee Lab in Tempe, AZ, that deals great with waste. But it is rare when a new bar lets you see what helped them make some responsible decisions.

The Stone House, a new wine and cheese bar in Eureka Springs, AR has designed a restaurant based around sustainable practices. The owners renovated an old 1800s stone built house in Eurka Springs, and given it a new chance for a new life. This is sustainable urban planning at it's finest, true cradle to cradle usage. They use locally grown organic produce in their meals. The best part of all, which was inspired by Jay Fretz, is the use off biodegradable and compostable food service products that would normally being thrown in the trash. The Stone House went looking for a supplier of these materials and found a company called World Centric. World Centric states on their sustainability page:

"Sustainability is the idea that civilization as a whole can act in a way that supports not only social equality but also protects the earth’s ecosystems and natural resources for generations to come. At World Centric we try our best to do our part - in the products we sell, how we run our business, what we do with our profits and the values we hold. We list the things we are currently doing to be a sustainable company..."

This a great news for entrepreneurs like The Stone House, and other upstart restaurants that want to be environmentally responsible. It also gives us as consumers, choices of where we want our spending dollars to go and in what directions we want to see new businesses develop. Also, another great thing for us at home is World Centric products are available for home use at Whole Foods, and Cost Plus World Market.

So here I am raising a glass of wine to the success of The Stone House! We need more businesses like you and your vision of how to run a business! If you know of any other sustainable run food service businesses, let us know, we would love to share!

The Stone House on Facebook

The Stone House while being renovated.The inside of The Stone House near the end of renovation.

--- Justin J. Stewart (link Via Angie Fretz).