sustainable takeout

if i remember correctly, i've only made about two meals since last thursday, between going out of town, eating out for our anniversary last night, and tonight's time crunch. "hey! it's local food month! you're supposed to make more food yourself, you know!" that's true. and we'll get back to that shortly. but until then, here are some tips on how to eat out without causing too much pollution and waste. 1. eat at a locally-owned restaurant. they're more likely to use local ingredients, and like food producers, must be more responsive and responsible to local consumers. 2. ask what kind of to-go box is available before it's delivered. if it's styrofoam or plastic, ask if your leftovers can be wrapped in foil. tell your server why, too. (you can bring reusable containers from home, if you're not doing a fancy dinner. i wouldn't suggest you put a plastic tub in your little black clutch, ladies.) 3. bring your own supplies for to-go orders. napkins, silverware, even condiments if they're handy. 4. reuse what you can't avoid. every time i get plasticware, i clean it off and keep it in my trusty travel bag. fork tines suffer, but you can still get several good uses out of them. i've even pulled out my own plasticware at work functions. the styrofoam plate in my office has lasted for months, and is perfectly suited to catching muffin crumbs. 5. keep giving your business to restaurants that are environmentally friendly. tell them you noticed, and that you like it! 6. tell other businesses what they can do to regain your business. write a letter. send an e-mail. tell your friends who's responsive and who isn't. blog about it. speaking of which...we had burritos from *laughing planet tonight. man, what a tasty organic burrito, with local ingredients as possible! if only they didn't serve their salsa in plastic cups within the restaurant. i feel a letter coming on. *the orginal laughing planet is in bloomington, indiana. then the owner opened stores in portland and eugene, oregon. i think he sold the bloomington location, which is why it's not listed on this site, but it's very very similar to what you see there. the pdx nw 21st location used to be a garbonzo's, and that's where brian and i had our first date. awwww. love blooms over falafel. **edit: no impact man has a really great post this morning about not making trash. he makes it seem so easy. could it be that easy?

local eating kentucky style

when in kentucky, do as the kentuckians do: enjoy some bourbon! my sweetie and i spent just under 48 hours in louisville this weekend to celebrate our second wedding anniversary (love you, baby!) and packed a lot of activity (and bourbon) into that time. if you're going to slugger stadium, don't count on a meal. my choice was between onion rings, a soft pretzel, cotton candy, or papa john's pizza for dinner. i should've gone for the pretzel and called it good. so our luck wasn't in for the food. we lucked out instead on the seats, right on the 1st base line, which we got for free from some nice folks who couldn't use them. thanks, friendly louisvillians! the brave louisville bats battled down to 10 innings, but the triple-aaa yankees team from scranton (ha ha - scranton!) beat them out in the end. booo! saturday morning we visited the famous lynn's paradise cafe. i say famous because a quick look at the website tells me her macaroni and cheese recipe was on oprah. that's famous. they were also on the food network's "throwdown with bobby flay," which i didn't know beforehand, but convinced me to have the "as seen on" bourbon ball french toast. zoinks! food network nerds beware. in kelley's perfect world, this would be served without the chocolate sauce and whipped cream, with less custard, and more berries. that would cut down on the richness and really be delicious...not that this was BAD. no. no. it was really good. just a little much. just a lot much. but unique! brian had the mushroom scramble. maybe i'm just chasing a french toast dream offered by studio one cafe in eugene, oregon. if you're ever in eugene, go with a friend and get the french toast for two. ooooooh yeah. after stuffing our bellies, we drove out to the jim beam "outpost" for a little education and tasting. later on saturday, we needed to cool down during a stroll downtown, and stopped into bluegrass brewing company. we'd had their bourbon barrel stout the night before, which was very tasty, but stout wasn't in the cards for a hot july afternoon. i had the pale ale and brian had the wheat. he didn't like his first sip, but it grew on him. mine i liked very well. reminded me a lot of mirror pond. we also had hummus and pita, served with green and black olives and roasted red peppers. delicious. this morning we headed down to bardstown road for our coffee and spent some time at highland coffee for coffee and muffins. all the pastries are made there, with vegan selections. my coffee wasn't spectacular, but the french roast ran out and i made do with guatemalan, which isn't my favorite. my cranberry orange muffin was sweet very orange-y. the service was very friendly, and the to-go cups had biodegradable sleeves. thanks for being responsible, highland coffee! what a fun short trip. louisville seems like a fairly happening place, and we'll be back in a few months, we hope, for a concert. and maybe drink a little bourbon.

easy iced coffee

it's hot. you like coffee. here's how to brew some old with just some beans, a mason jar, and your regular, plain-old coffee maker. 1. at night, grind enough beans for 12 "cups." when i say "cups," i mean the 6-ounce cups marked on your coffee maker. 2. add grounds to a quart-sized mason jar. add water for 6 cups. this should just about fill the jar. 3. let sit on the counter overnight. assure your spouse/roommate/lover that this isn't a compost experiment, but a tasty delight. 4. in the morning, put a coffee filter in your coffee maker. pour contents of mason jar into the top, and let it filter into carafe. 5. add 6 cups' worth of water to dilute. less if you feel feisty. or not feisty enough. 6. add ice to your trusty travel mug, pour filtered cold-water extract coffee in, and run out the door. easy, high caffiene, and delicious! it doesn't taste exactly the same as hot-brewed coffee that's iced afterward, but to me, it's better. enjoy!

let's link!

there's a great post over at casaubon's book today about food preservation.

come on, people!

aren't you super impressed at the picture below? no? am i the only one who thought that was really weird and cool? oh well. maybe someday i'll cut into a blue potato, and an outline of virgin mother will appear within. that could go for some money on ebay. quick culinary tip: want to freak out your friends with apparitions on toast? try spray-on butter! i would never recommend purchasing spray-on butter (which really sullies the name of butter; i prefer "buttery spray."), but if it's around... the weather was beaaautiful today. a storm blew through yesterday, and took heat and humidity with it. low 80's, low humidity, a nice breeze...perfect for eating lunch outside in the shade. about halfway through my potatoes and vegetables, i realized that i was enjoying a meal comprised of completely local produce. and it was delicious. i especially enjoyed the spinach, knowing it came from my garden. good for me! that's one more successful (if small) harvest from my community garden plot. so far i've grown: lettuce, basil, spinach, and about 2 strawberries that the birds didn't get to first. soon to come: sweet peppers and tomatoes. a couple of the sweet peppers are already about 4 inches long, and i can't wait. red peppers are just too expensive out of season, so i really appreciate their short time here. you know there's going to be some grilling going on. mmmm. roasted red peppers and portobellos, anyone? i haven't done a local food month dinner rundown for a while, so let's do that. we had a green salad with blackberries, then potato and vegetable saute with fake chicken (seitan) potatoes, garlic, zucchini, blackberries, onion: farmer's market spinach, basil, lettuce: garden seitan: made from scratch from bob's red mill vital gluten flour, which would have been local for me 2 years ago. i admit: it's hard to walk around the grocery store and see wonderful, delicious things from oregon that are out of bounds for local food month. but who needs delicious nancy's yogurt when you have homemade yogurt with fresh, sweet, ripe blackberries? my last yogurt batch turned out with an almost firm texture, and it's really delicious. could it be the different brand i used for the culture, maybe? it was lowfat brown cow yogurt, and i used whole milk. really fantastic.

file under: strange but true!

this is what i found when i cut into a potato tonight.

what could be cuter?

puppies. that's what.

cajun monday

no, we didn't eat cajun for dinner - our neighbor just hosted a cajun music concert in his backyard. a peek out our kitchen window showed a bit of a potluck, people milling about, hot cajun fun in the summertime, etc. i don't love cajun music (indifferent, more like), but i love this neighborhood sometimes. so the other day i mentioned making a peach grunt, with absolutely no explanation. here you go. a grunt is like a cobbler, but its biscuit top is cooked on a stovetop. anything that doesn't require turning on the oven is aces in this house until september, but the grunt didn't turn out so well. my fruit-to-cobbler ratio was way low, and the biscuit part wasn't the peachy delight it should have been. the vanilla-bourbon ice cream was a bit of a bust as well. not sweet enough. we might have the rest with a caramel sauce to compensate. speaking of bourbon: honey and i are taking a short trip to louisville in the near future. any hot tips for travelers? especially food tips for vegetarian-friendly, budget-friendly fare? where should we get a mint julep if we don't want to go to churchhill downs?

food? who needs it?

between a little stomach bug and the heat, food doesn't sound particularly interesting to me this weekend. last night as i wallowed in mild self-pity (it's a mild bug), it occurred to me that, sick or not, i'd have to go water the garden in the morning, or my brandywine would never forgive me. at that moment, i was glad i'm not a farmer. can you imagine getting up at dawn and doing hours of chores with the flu, because if you didn't, no one else would? yikes. lucky for me i just had about 10 minutes of work to do, and the cool morning air probably did more good for me than anything else could. and my tomatoes are happy. i was recently inspired by animal, vegetable, miracle to pick up a book from the library by the "cheese queen," ricki carroll, and now i can't wait to make butter. unfortunately, i just bought butter, so a little self-restraint is in order. fairly soon after i picked up this book, this article showed up in the new york times. ricki's recipe calls for a vigorous shake in a mason jar; the other calls for a whip in the kitchenaid. both i could do. ricki's sounds more foolproof, if more difficult physically. anyone out there make butter? suggestions? this could be dangerous. really good butter is like ambrosia to me. i forsee a lot of toast in the future. as for the cheesemaking, that will have to wait as well. it'll take about $40 worth of supplies to get started, plus shipping, and that's written into august's budget. bummer, yes, but The Budget must stand. and we must stand firm behind the budget. then we'll make cheese!

local links

want to see pictures of the new bloomingfoods? why, you can peruse quite a few right here. there's also a callout on isa chandra's blog (of vegan cookbook fame) for people in bloomington interested in vegan brunches. you into it?

oh-so-local

how sweet is local food month, now that the co-op has opened its new store one block away from my office? so sweet. that also makes it less than 15-minute walk from home, or a 3-minute drive if need be. yesterday i just walked around and enjoyed the opening-day atmosphere (free samples, lots of happy people), but today i had the great pleasure of running in for a loaf of oh-so-local bread. and maybe a cookie. bad thing: the bloomingfoods tollhouse cookie has entered a one-block radius of my office. and they're not encased in plastic wrap, so i have no moral compunction about grabbing one or two or three or four a week...no, not EVERY day. geez, i'm not a PIG. so, for dinner, it was sourdough toast points with tomato salad, and pan-fried potatoes and zucchini. all local except for the incidentals (olive oil, seasonings, balsamic), a little heavy on the carbs, but all delicious. i think i can wrap my brain around this local-eating thing now: you don't decide what you want and then go shopping; instead, you see what's available and then decide how to make it. speaking of tomatoes: my brandywine is looking a little worse for the wear. one side is wilted and yellowing, it was listing badly, and maybe half of the flowers have dried out. i read recently that that tomato starts can be planted up to the second tier of leaves, so i put a little mound of soil around the base to, hopefully, solidify its position and retain more water. we'll see how it goes. the cherry tomato seems very happy, so my brown thumb must have a green tinge to it. how's your first week of local eating coming along?

i have to work tomorrow?

it seems too much like saturday to go back to the office tomorrow. guess that also means i need to make lunches, huh? man. i'll tell you. we just went to see pirates 3, not being aware that this would take a 3-hour time committment. we still have dessert to eat! (don't tell brian, but it's a peach grunt with homemade vanilla-bourbon ice cream.) i have this things with secrets in the kitchen. maybe so he doesn't have time to form an opinion before we dig in? so, local food month. i'm trying to get into the mental swing of things. faithful readers know that chips and salsa are a requirement in this house. a quick perusal of the chip aisle told me that the brand we've been getting most often is the closest - made in chicago! not bad, not bad. that's within 250 miles. 240, to be exact, as google maps flies. tonight i made my first pico de gallo, which suffices as a salsa. why did i wait so long? why don't i make salsa all summer? there's no time like the present to start.

sure, the basil isn't really what anyone would call traditional, but it's fresh from the garden today, and basil + tomato = tasty in any combination. the pico de gallo ended up going really well with heavier flavors of grilled mushrooms and kidney beans in the burrito.

does anyone have any fantastic tips for cooking beans evenly? maybe i just need more than that one-inch covering of water. most of the beans turned out soft and delicious, but we found a few hard ones in the bunch. not inedible hard, but unpleasantly hard. tips?

get sprouted!

do you sprout? sprouts are a fantastic food to make at home. many have full proteins, and are easier to digest than beans. a few years ago there was an e-coli scare, but your risk is about as high as it is when you eat lettuce, so, take that as you will. i'm not scared of a little alfalfa seed. or mung bean, for that matter. my first attempt at sprouting mungs failed, but i think it's time to try again. i think i just crowded the sprouter, and not enough air got in. mm, fresh mung bean sprout stir-fry. i use a system of two tops like this, that fit over a wide-mouth mason jar. one has a fine mesh top that holds in small seeds like alfalfa, and one has a larger top that allows seed hulls to wash away once sprouting begins. this isn't the specific brand i have, i don't think. the one i got was from the seventh-day adventist grocery in portland. man, do they like their sprouts there. jars and jars of different seeds and beans to work with. now i'm feeling a little homesick for grocery stores (hey, it happens. i used to live in a very rich area for grocery options). however! tomorrow, the newest grocery addition to my current neighborhood, the westside bloomingfoods, is slated to open. whaa-hoo! i don't need any groceries, but maybe we'll stop by anyway! it merits a lot of exclamation points!

how silly of me.

whoops - forgot to blog last night. sat down at the computer, started looking up guitar tabs, and got a little absorbed with learning new chords, etc. my fingertips are feeling it this morning. maybe it's all for the best though. suffice to say that last night's dinner was in no way picture-worthy (unless you were looking for a laugh), and involved one very experimental technique that failed stupendously. there is, however, a lesson to be learned there in re-purposing your failed experiments. maybe we'll talk about it when i'm not at work, unless i decide i want to forget the whole thing.

local food month: it begins!

as i see it, there are basically two ways one can approach local eating. one: when doing one's normal shopping, choosing the most local selection when possible. i.e., eating from the farmer's market for your produce, and choosing the canned beans that were made 200 miles away rather than 1000 miles away. two: changing one's meal planning and diet to reflect only what's available within a given area. as the month goes on, i'd like to skew my shopping toward the latter. it's a whole new way of shopping, cooking, and eating, but i'm interested to see what we'd find and what we'd miss. it's hard to feel too deprived in july, so this is a great time to start. last night we did get somewhat decadent for dinner. first off, though, was a stop at the garden for a small harvest of basil and lettuce, and, of course, to weed. why didn't i think of growing sunflowers? they're beautiful, and the seeds are high in iron, fiber, and...fat. mmm, fat! maybe it's not to late to plant a few. these shot up like no one's business. my tomatoes are off and running as well. the brandywines' flowers hang down toward the ground, and fall off at the most gentle touch. one tomato seems to be coming along... come on, little guy! we can't wait to eat you! until then, it's farmer's market tomatoes for us. for dinner, we had a nice green salad, a puff pastry tomato tart with goat cheese, pasta, and seared basalmic baby squashes. oh yeah. the puff pastry was rich, delicious and decidedly non-local. the plan had been to make a tomato tart for an office party on friday, but, alas, that was not to be. (sigh. i lost my keys and couldn't get back to the office until after the party was over. that was a bad day.) it was lovely in larger portions for dinner. also, orzo with a lazy chef's pesto: chopped basil and grilled garlic with grated cheese. it didn't have that unctuous luxury of that pesto mouthfeel, but it was all for the better, anyway. there was plenty of fat in this meal without it. this morning, french toast with a brown sugar caramel peach sauce. really good. the trick is not to add too much sugar - that way, you're just enhancing the peaches, and infusing the sauce with a wholesome peachiness instead of a cloying sweetness. let's run down the localness of today's meal: bread: local (spring mill, indiana) milk: non-local. organic valley. eggs: local. last week's farmer's market. sugar, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon: decidedly un-local peaches: local butter: non-local. organic valley. coffee: we ran out today, and the local roaster wasn't at the market yesterday, so not local at all. not terrible, but we can do better.

a perfect day for banana peppers

local food month is nearly upon us, and it's caught me with an empty pantry! eek! better get cracking on the grocery front pretty soon. i seemed to be too late for eggs or berries at the farmer's market this morning, but was able to procure: peaches mushrooms mushroom patties tomatoes kerr's pink potaotoes fresh goat cheese baby crookneck squash AND banana peppers i already have an idea up my sleeve for the little squashes, courtesy of lolo over at veganyumyum. mmm, basalmic glaze. but what the heck do i do with banana peppers? they were totally an impulse score. my 3 minutes of googling tell me you can stuff them, or pickle them to make pepperoncinis. great. and all the recipes i found use sausage. huh. well, i've never been too shy about experimenting, but if you're bursting at the seams with great recipes for banana peppers, let's hear them! also, for those in the area, i'd love to hear any tips you might have for u-pick berries. i know they're out there, but where? i don't get out of bloomington too often, but would love to do so in order to score a lot of berries for a good price. anywhere between indianapolis and french lick would be fantastic, but within monroe county would be even better. thanks, pals!

bloomingfoods news

hey! the westside bloomingfoods is having their "soft" opening on july 4. dare brave the crowds? no, seriously. the parade will be right there. crowds are bound to be had. too bad i can't send you to the herald-times article about it. apparently, they're planning on putting outdoor fruit stands under the new awnings, and there's plenty of room to spread out and eat your blackened tofu sandwiches. pictures here. yay!

easy does it.

o, sweet siren song of convenience foods! i've fallen prey to your cursed lure. last night, with "nothing" in the house for dinner, i took a swing by the old sahara mart to pick up a few fixings to make up a nice tomato salad (tomatoes we had - thanks tuesday market!). boca chicken patties were on sale. mmm, fake chicken patties. a girl, after another 10-hour workday, will sometimes succomb to convenience foods lately abandoned. yes, they're encased in plastic. yes, they have food ingredients not found in nature. oh, well.

when i was a kid (before the age of 19 or 20, when i went vegetarian), my parents used to get chicken patties from costco and i would eat those suckers UP. with barbeque sauce. tonight i slathered a little barbeque sauce on and took a tasty, vegetarian, trip down memory lane.

potatoes are really starting to come back out. last weekend at the market, i found a potato vendor who just beamed with pride at his tubers. when i asked which of two varieties would be best for pan-frying, our favorite potato preparation, he said either one, so i chose the pink. the farmer himself said he preferred them "just steamed," but that seems like crazy talk to me. bring on the fat and the crispy brown bits!

had no idea they'd be pink in the middle, too. there's a lot to learn in the world of potatoes.

and a one and a two...

...just a short note here before i carry myself off to bed. we've been getting the sopranos from the library, so we watched an episode around 10, then i had to make a reasoned and measured comment on another blog, and time slips byyy so quickly when you have to get up eaarrly. see? i'm getting a little punchy anyway. we decided, after working with a $70/week budget for groceries for a few months now, to go to $80/week. it only makes sense. with the lower budget, if i'm not right on top of things, there's nothing in the house for quick lunches and snacks, and that means spending more money elsewhere. better to have something on hand, and to not worry about stretching that money for the last half of the week. it takes some work to feed two people on $70/week, and time is running short right now, with the 50-hour weeks i'll be putting in until mid-july. i love my work, and it's worth it, but i'm tired! and it's too hot to bake! wait, did i mention it's hot here? ah, yes. i believe i did. my participation in local food month shouldn't suffer too much from the workload, but it might include a lot of local bagels from the shop across the street. and, when it comes down to it, a little local-ish bourbon doesn't hurt, either. that's after i get home, of course. news to me: seagram's gin is located, partially, at least, in lawrenceburg, indiana. if only there was hoosier tonic...

pasta is easy.

my favorite comfort food, when i'm all alone with no one to judge the carb intake, is buttered noodles with a bunch of chopped garlic thrown in. mmm. and cheese. and maybe with some buttery garlic bread. or bread with pesto. fat + carbs = delicious! tonight we went a little above and beyond naked noodles. have to make up for our lack of veggies last night, after all. first, a green salad with lettuce from the garden. lettuce, we got. then, pasta with broccoli and grilled portobellos.

and garlic bread. mmm....garlic bread. the above would have been really delicious with a grilled red pepper as well, but the time for peppers has not yet arrived around these parts.

rotini with broccoli and grilled portobellos

1 big head broccoli

enough pasta to give you an acceptable broc:pasta ratio

a few cloves garlic

2-3 large portobello mushroom caps

1 cup grated hard cheese of your liking. or soft cheese. it's your dinner.

the usual: olive oil, salt, pepper, red pepper flake

chop broccoli into little trees and tree rings. chop 1-2 cloves of garlic. heat 1 tablespoon oil (i guess - i never measure) over medium-high heat. when hot, throw broccoli and garlic inside. season with salt, pepper, and pepper flake to taste. cook until crisp-tender, or just before. set aside.

put water on to boil. clean portobellos. heat grill to over medium heat. when water comes to a boil, salt and drop pasta. place portobellos on grill, and let cook 4-5 minutes on each side. your pasta should be done about the same time. place broccoli pan back on medium-high heat and add a small ladle of pasta water. add most of your cheese. drain pasta, toss with broccoli, and place sliced mushrooms over the top. mmm!

for the garlic bread, i just toasted up some slices and rubbed with a cut garlic clove. then buttered. you don't need to slather on the butter for this to really satisfy.

the garlic, broccoli, and mushrooms were from the farmer's market. the bread is local.

lovely lavender

it's been a long week. next week will be a longer one. i perked myself up from a nap, however, to make a little dinner.

readying potatoes and turnips for the pot

smashed with tofu

i did the laziest tofu preparation ever, and it turned out good. first, i cut it into 8 fillets, and put in a hot skillet to remove some moisture. then, cubed and thrown into a pot with soy, hot sauce, maple syrup, sesame oil, nutritional yeast and a little water. just before the potatoes/turnips were done, i drained it in a sieve and tossed in breadcrumbs right over the top. then, back into the skillet with hot peanut oil. mmm. simple, but good. we love tofu and mashed potatoes with caramelized onions, greens, and/or mushrooms. inspired by the farm cafe, in portland. i love that on their website, the picture on the very top is of someone holding a couple palmfuls of dirt. soil. you know. where food comes from. i (heart) the farm. next time you're in pdx, check it out. or the next time i'm in portland, we can go together!

it's the newest game sensation!

here are the rules: you have a group of ingredients and half an hour to make dinner. you don't have to use them all, but the leftovers MUST be used soon! standard pantry items apply. you have: leftover cooked quinoa 4 egg whites (cracked a few days ago) leftover cooked zucchini turnips cauliflower romano cheese cheddar cheese orzo whole eggs sourdough bread leaf lettuce my entry is submitted below.

a time to bake

thought i'd take advantage of the forecasted lows in the low 50's tonight and make a loaf of bread. this whole wild yeast thing is mystifying. after the second rise, everything got all sticky and weird, and it hardly rose after that. now it's in a hot oven and will end up as food of some kind or other, i suppose. we're not picky about homemade bread around here. i finished animal, vegetable, miracle, and really enjoyed it. it's a good and different perspective on local eating. the longish section on the merits of meat-eating were valid, if a little off-putting for this vegetarian. still, this family is pasture-raised-itarian, which is something i can get behind. though i decide not to eat meat, for my own varied reasons, the rhetoric of "meat is murder" doesn't ring true to me. how can you tell an inuit not to eat animal flesh during the winter? are you going to ask tibetans in the himalaya to give up their yaks? nope. but we don't need to eat cheap chickens raised in misery, either. *edit the next day: what i really mean is that i don't get the moral absolutism that says that using an animal for food (flesh or byproduct) is always wrong.

hooray for tuesday market!

last night, i started out feeling kind of badly about our evening meal. i got home at 6 after a rousing 10-hour day of work (3 hours of which i spent walking around rapidly, in heels), and it seemed like we had "nothing to eat." after a quick perusal of the cupboard and fridge, i made quesadillas and big salads. about halfway through the salad i wished were a little smaller, it dawned on me that if salad and quesadillas were our lazy route, that we weren't doing too badly overall. you can't beat yourself up over little things like this, people. kelley says: enjoy your cheese.

today, a boon to the crisper drawer with the tuesday market:

no turnip greens because these are the last turnips of the season, and according to the farmer, turnips greens and hot sun don't mix too well. these crayola-yellow zucchini seem new to me - they're the color of a patty pan, maybe. the flavor is a little different than green, though it's hard to say how. maybe a little more refined?

and i got a big bag of peaches. oh, peaches. so far this season, i'm running on ignorance when it comes to fruits. this big freeze we had late in the season killed a lot of stone fruit and berries, so a lot of what's left may be sprayed or trucked in for all i know. because i haven't asked. i just scoop them up and eat them with homemade yogurt, and it doesn't get much better than that. what to do with this big bag? that remains to be seen. peach sorbet? some sort of baked peach dessert? if all else fails, i'll just freeze them. or eat them all. a girl can't be blamed.

but sooner or later, questions will need to be asked.

i'm hot.

well, it's cooled down in the house from 87 to 86 at 11:30pm. the house is normally cool in the mornings, and traps heat in the late afternoon. we put our little window air conditioner in the bedroom, and i was loathe to leave that comfort. indiana summers and portland summers (you can't really lump all of oregon together, climate-wise) are two completely different seasons. in portland, you get a few muggy days thrown in, wherein everyone walks around with wrinkled-up noses: man! it's MUGgy today! here, you get about three months straight of heat and humidity that would send the average portlander straight to the air-conditioned movie theater. likely an air-conditioned movie theater that serves beer.

excuse me while i feel homesick for a moment.

...okay, thanks.

gee, what can a girl do to beat the heat?

chocolate-covered cherry ice cream? don't mind if i do!

i skipped the cream with this one, and made a custard with 2% milk. there's enough of a difference that you can tell the texture is more coarse, even in this picture here. full-cream is definitely a lovely and decadent thing, but you can't eat that stuff all summer long. especially if you feel the need to break out the ice cream maker twice a week or so.

for dinner, i made fake fried chicken from scratch (vital wheat gluten, mixed with water, kneaded, and simmered in broth, breaded, pan-fried, voila!) from la dolce vegan. served it with a spicy portobello gravy and couscous. baking powder biscuits would have been perfect.

maybe we'll have a break in the weather so i can bake. come on, thunderstorms! do your stuff!

what else?

what did the vegetarian bring to the barbeque?

salad, of course! here you see bulk orzo, imported pecorino romano, local basil, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and peas, and stupidly un-local carrots. oh, well. still, it should be pretty tasty!

just a tip to you practicing omnivores out there: when we say don't go to any trouble for us, we mean it! all we really need to know before coming over for a meal at your house is if we should bring anything. really. it's fine. and tell us if there's bacon in the baked beans.

at the market this morning, i got a chinese cabbage that's a lot like bok choi, but i can't for the life of me remember the name. it was similar. tok choi? there are about 2 references to tok choi when googled. anyways, it's spread wide, with smaller leaves in the center. the seller told me it has more nutrients. well, all right! looks like bugs got to it before i did, but that's never really deterred me before.

a couple quotes for you from animal, vegetable, miracle:

In a country where 5 percent of the world's population glugs down a quarter of all the fuel, also belching out much of the world's waste and pollution, we've apparently made big choices about consumption. They could be up for review.

AND!

But sticking it to the Man (whoever he is) may not be the most inspired principle around which to organize one's life....Food is the rare moral arena in which the ethical choice is generally the one more likely to make you groan with pleasure. Why resist that?

in other words (by kelley): wait! the tomatoes will come!

local food challenge

so! our friend over at crunchy chicken has double-dared her readers and low impact week-ers to another challenge: local food month. here's the official blurb: During the month of July you're going to increase your consumption of locally and sustainably grown food and decrease your consumption of imported and packaged food. You choose the level of participation you want to do. cool! this comes just as animal, vegetable, miracle came up in my library hold queue. it should prove to be a great inspiration as my busiest time of the year comes up at work, and leaves me with a little less willpower, i'm sure, than usual. this book is a non-fiction work by barbara kingsolver (author of the poisonwood bible, notably) about a year their family spent in touch with their own food, eating locally, producing as much of it as possible, and...i guess i'll find out what else. i've only finished the introductory chapters. next? "march: waiting for asparagus." my new vegetarian times came in the mail today, and i threw it on the table and went for this book. that's saying something. what level of "local" will i be shooting for within the challenge? let's see. the "100-mile" provision is kind of out for me, because i have no idea where these small towns in indiana are. i'll do my best to research a little when i get home from the farmer's market, though. let's make a list! excellent: monroe county. counties immediately surrounding or at least close: lawrence, brown, martin, morgan, greene, owen. see how good i'm getting at counties? all right, i totally google imaged a map. but i'm getting better. good: surrounding states: anywhere in indiana, illinois, kentucky, or western ohio. pushing it: great lake states. naughty: the eastern united states outside a day's drive. no way: anything from outside these united states. how's that for local? i may not be completely strict on all of these points. right now, i will absolutely NOT commit to skipping coffee. nooooo. we will buy fair trade, locally-roasted beans. if all else fails, we'll buy from local businesses. and we'll do it all on $70/week. and the new bloomingfoods will be open! oh, be still, my beating stomach! i can't wait to see the bulk section! yeah, i'm a nerd.

sports are terrible.

if you like sports, you're really in for heartache about 99% of the time. luckilly, my number one team, the portland trailblazers, is in for a heckuva year coming up with the first draft pick in a few weeks. that doesn't have anything to do with food, but i'm just saying. my heart is heavy right now. poor lebron. he, and his team, just aren't there yet. stupid lousy spurs. i got la dolce vegan from the library today and should be testing a few recipes soon. but, alas, for now, my dear husband is waiting for me to get ready for bed. and i won't disapoint. because i am ti-red. or ti-erd. love and smooches, kelley

another bloomington coffee roasters update

before i forget... they were at the tuesday market today, so i asked if they would be coming each week. answer: yes next week, no to the next two weeks after that, and yes after that point. follow? same thing for the big market on saturday. in other words, seems she won't be around the last week of june or first week of july, but will be at tuesday and saturday markets other than that. yay for coffee!

now we know they work.

i was just sitting down to my special blog time, without much knowing what i was going to blog about, when my dear husband called from the other room. it's garbage/recycling night, and he was doing his trash-gathering thing, including the removal of our very first biobag. (yes, we have chores divided up very much along traditional gender roles. he takes out the trash. i do the laundry. we're okay with it.) fortunately or unfortunately, the biobag was already partially disintegrated inside the trash can. we had to double-bag. now, that's a troubling thought: we either have to double bag, or take the trash out twice as often. if the bag is disintegrating before a week is out, the raccoons are just going to have a field day with what they knock over. we only put the garbage out for pickup every 3 weeks or so. hm. well, it's better than plastic entombing our garbage forevermore. biobags are still pretty cool in my book. just be forewarned. now that the oven is back in action, i've been trying out a few new things i've seen on the internets in the meantime. case in point: oreo-esque cookies from smitten kitchen.

note the spot where a "trial" cookie came from. sometimes a girl can't wait to perform a quality check.

mmm.

there are really no beauty shots of these, because i wasn't really paying much attention to aesthetics while frosting. it was halftime of the cavs-spurs game, and i had heavy thoughts hanging over my head. then i ate cookies, and life was a little better!

these didn't add up to my ideal due to a pre-heating snafu, but, heck. they taste good. actually, i might go have one right now. maybe. i. will.

another update for local folks

check out this event promoting local food in bloomington june 16th. it includes a sneak peek of the new westside bloomingfoods, which i am VERY excited to see. here's the body of the e-mail i just got: The City of bloomington commission on sustainabilitypresents the innaugural LOCAL FOODS TOUR! Saturday, June 161:00 pm - 5:00 pm The Bloomington Commission on Sustainability promotes sustainable economic development, environmental health, and social equity in our community for present and future generations. We are organizing a series of "Sustainability Tours" modeled after the popular Garden Walks to educate and illustrate sustainable practices and policies. The goal of this event is to educate, demonstrate and raise awareness that growing, consuming and supporting local food contributes to the sustainability of Bloomington. What are some of the benefits of local food production? Local food production provides income: purchase supports local business with money retained within the community with people you know. Growing your own food is cheap, or free, even if you don’t own land (e.g. community gardens). Gardening and farming provides exercise, relaxation and recreation. You can more easily know where your food comes from and how it is produced, increasing your connection to the land and your community. Local foods provide a connection to local history, local crops and the human experience. Locally produced foods are fresher, more nutritious, flavorful and healthy. Since many foods don’t ship or store well, you can often find a greater variety of foods when you buy goods grown and sold locally. Production and transport of local foods require less energy and fertilizer inputs, and produce fewer carbon emissions. Local foods help mitigate the social, economic and environmental costs of industrial farming. The inaugural tour (Saturday June 16, 1:00 - 5:00 pm) showcases 10 community sites and focuses on Local Foods. Our goal is to increase the production, demand and consumption of local foods, producing economic, environmental and social equity benefits for the our community. Click here for the flyer (pdf) and map of the Local Foods Tour. More information on Local Food sites: 1. Bloomingfoods Near West Market & Deli (New Store, Pre-opening Tour!). 316 W. 6th St. (former Encore Café near Farmers Market). Contact: George Huntington (339-4442, gm@bloomingfoods.coop). 2. Butler Winery (Vineyards and Winemaking Operation). 6200 E. Robinson Rd. (Take Walnut North to light near Griffy Dam/Lower Cascades Park. Turn right on Old 37. Go 3.2 miles, turn right on E. Robinson Rd. Go 2.8 miles to Butler Winery). Contact: Jim Butler (332-6660, vineyard@butlerwinery.com) 3. Chickens in the City (Urban Chicken Coop). 1001 S. Washington Street. Contact: Judith Sylvester (333-9223, jlsylves@indiana.edu). 4. Complex Urban Polycultures (Permaculture). 5421 Kings Road (take first left heading east on 46 (just past Long’s Landing) and it is the 3rd house on left. Garden in front is obvious). Contact Peter Bane or Keith Johnson (335-0383). See www.permacultureactivist.net 5. Crestmont Community Gardens (Local Community Garden). Crestmont Park, W. 16th St. (head W on 17th St. from Walnut, pass Tri-North on left and take next left on Monroe St. Turn Rt. On 16th St. in Crestmont Park and wind around uphill and gardens will be on left parallel to gravel road). Contact: Michael Simmons (349-3737, simmonsm@bloomington.in.gov). 6. MiddleWay Food Works (New and Old Kitchens, USDA grant). At First United Methodist Church, 219 E. 4th St. Contact: Donna Storm (320-9217). 7. Musgrave Orchards (Community Supported Agriculture). 8820 Old State Road 37 (From intersection of Old 37 and Robinson Rd. (see Butler Winery), go north on Old 37. Orchards are on right. Contact: Andy Hamilton (360-3328). See www.musgraveorchard.com 8. Solar Powered Energy Efficient Home Greenhouse. 134 N. Overhill Dr. (Take East 3rd past High St., left on Overhill (across from Cheeseburger in Paradise) and several blocks in on right, in Green Acres). Contact: Ann Kreilkamp (334-1987 or 337-0192). 9. SPROUTS (IU Campus Community Gardens). SE corner 8th and Fess (just South of IU Memorial Union). Contact Danny Atlas (219-5761, datlas@indiana.edu). 10. Wylie House (Heirloom Gardens and Seed Saving Project). 307 E. 2nd St. (just east of Lincoln). Contact: Sherry Wise (855-6224). See www.indiana.ed/~linwylie

bloomington roasters update

hi bloomington coffee fans. i know you're out there! the bloomington roasters girl was back at the market on saturday. she was busy talking to someone else, so i didn't think to ask her about the hiatus. also requested her beans at bloomingfoods, so maybe they'll make room for her if she can keep up with demand.

sourdough woes

what am i doing wrong with my sourdough? i've been trying to use just my wild culture, which seems to have some bubbly get-up-and-go to it. should i not put the sponge in the fridge? does slow-rising not apply here? i figure, if you're supposed to let the sponge hang out for 8-24 hours, what harm does it do if part of it is in the fridge? maybe i already have an answer. i just hate to leave things out unattended during bug season. the oven is back in commission after more than two weeks (!), and i was raring to bake. last night, i did the long-awaited seitan of greatness. it was good, but not exactly exuding greatness. a little bland. it may be true that i didn't follow the recipe to the letter, however, and i'll definitely try again. if you can handle gluten, seitan is a great option to have in your back pocket. next time i try making bread, i'll put a few tablespoons of vital wheat in the mix as well. ...speaking of the post punk kitchen, (kind of), i made a completly un-veganized version of their vegan soy ice cream recipe last night. tofu was involved. but instead of soy milk, i used regular milk. organic milk, though, vegan friends! that's better than nothing, right? um, yes. so anyways. tofu, milk, sugar , strawberries, (milk) chocolate, and graham crackers. good in theory. not that good with tofu. sorry. it's just not in the cards. tofutti cuties i absolutely love, though, so maybe there's a secret i need to unlock to make it taste like delicious, not like delicious with a tofu aftertaste. until then, i have other flavor delights to try.

cook them burgers real good

enjoying a barbeque this weekend? check your ground beef. it may be recalled. and tahini. i hear tahini burgers are real big right now.

low impact week day seven: somewhat bummed.

okay, this has nothing to do with low impact week, but the cleveland cavaliers just lost. that's all right. they'll get the next one. but i'm still a little bummed. tonight we went to our favorite pizza place for dinner. they normally serve their salads with a side of dressing in a little lidded plastic cup, which just won't do when you're shooting for NO NEW PLASTIC. i was all ready to explain that a little dollop of dressing on top would be fine, because i'm trying not to use plastic, sorry to bother you, all this business. i really was. then, after we sat down, the waiter swung by to make a confession. "i have to tell you. it's my last day, and i'm hammered." and he was. then he tried to figure out which one of us gets diet coke (neither) (we're regulars.) he remembered our salad orders, though. "one ranch, one blue cheese?" "yep!" after your waiter confesses to being drunk, you just don't make him go out of his way for any reason. you just hope he remembers to bring you your pizza, and with the correct toppings. you don't make a fuss out of how your dressing is served. i asked for a cardboard box, specifically, for the leftovers, and he brought two styrofoam boxes. "oh, sorry, i'm a hippie, i need cardboard," i self-depreciated. "i'll just leave one here," drunk waiter said. that's nice. split the middle. a minute later, he delivered cardboard. good luck in chicago, drunk waiter!

low impact week day six: plastic-free!

hooray! you know, it's not so hard. you just bring bags with you to the store and shop in bulk. seems simple enough. why can't i do it all the time? it's cheap, too. i got 8 oz. of organic lotion from the bulk section for $2. come on. that's very reasonable. also got a smoothie from a shop that usually only gives out styrofoam cups by asking for a cup "for here." the girl thought i was weird, but that didn't bother me. what bothered me was paying four bucks for 16 oz. of overly-sweet smoothie, when i'd rather just have 8-12 oz. too big! a chatty fellow gardener invited me to a potluck for the center for sustainable living this saturday. if i can remember, i'll try to make it and learn a little more about what they do. apparently, it's an umbrella organization. one of those organizations is BTOP, or, bloomington transportation options for people, which is smack dab in the middle of the biggest bloomington controversy right now. it involves a parking garage. i can't get that excited about parking garages, but the BTOP people are very nice! we had a conversation at the step it up! event about asking for sidewalks. girl can't walk in a ditch.

cupcakes rule.

i would be remiss in my duties if i didn't direct you to click over to my favorite vegan blog (linked at right) to check out her latest entry. wow.

low impact week day five: progress.

no new plastic today. whew. that meant not getting as many items as we needed at the store, which just translates into another lunchtime walk tomorrow. unless it's pouring. tomorrow i also have to make an unpleasant trip to a local bakery to complain to a manager about the day-old loaf that was sold to me at the market today. $2.50 for a day-old baguette? no thanks! and if they tell me it's not a day old, they'll just be telling me their bread is worse than i thought. so i thought it would be good with some fresh tomatoes. the tomatoes were great. also got some yellow cauliflower. wish i could remember what word the farmer used to describe it. he was very proud of himself for disseminating the word, too. "it means they stay the same color when you cook 'em!" tuesday afternoon farmer's market is a much smaller affair than the saturday market, but i appreciate it. got a beautiful quart of strawberries. the strawberries have been out for a few weeks, so they ought to be gone soon. goodbye strawberries. i ate you while i could. you were tasty. we're using our first biobag for kitchen trash, which gives me vague and troubled warm fuzzies. so, is plastic made from corn any better than plastic made from anything else? who cares if it theoretically can be composted if i'm using it for my non-compostable trash? does anything decompose anymore? now i'm off to have a little positive impact on my poor husband, who's been weathering my crazy moods ever since i got off work. work's a little crazy. did i mention that? it makes me a little crazy in return.

low impact week day four: victory!

the arrival of the electric bill is not normally awaited with bated breath around here, but i was very excited to see it in the mail today. how did we do with conserving last month? we saved 6 dollars off the previous month. that's 86% of the energy used in april. hooray! and hooray for google, with its built-in calculator! we can sure do a lot better, but that's a start. i don't forsee that total dropping during the summer, however, because the air conditioner will need to go in the bedroom window before long. all things considered, one window unit isn't too bad, for the midwest. we'll use it sparingly. work was too crazy today to accidentally buy plastic during my lunchbreak, or to take anything more than a lunch-chomping break. i'm never too busy to skip lunch entirely. just pressed the "forward to voice mail" button and took 10 minutes to stuff some leftovers. so now we're about halfway through low impact week. how am i doing on those goals? line dry your clothes instead of using the dryer check. we actually need to do another load, but i'm not sure that's happening this late in the evening, considering that i need to wash dishes and make lunches as well. take shorter showers and/or use a water saving showerhead shorter showers are happening, to the best of my knowledge. it's hard to judge, as we only have one clock. i'm not timing myself. minimize pre-packaged foods and make more of your own from scratch (NO NEW PLASTIC.) i've had my troubles with the plastic issue, but have thwarted plastic as well. keeping strong for the rest of the week. scratch really isn't an issue in this house, because scratch is cheap. compost your food waste and soiled paper products i'll wave the white flag on this. the compost bin at the garden is making progress on...garden time. in other words, there has not been any progress that i can tell since i heard the bins would be done by the end of last week. when they're done, and the buckets are available to take home, i will do so. not buying a bucket for this purpose when communal ones are coming "soon." take the bus or other public transportation to work and on errands hmmm...haven't done well on this, but not terrible, either. i need a scooter. sign up for an alternative energy plan if available in your area haven't brought this up yet. good thing we saved $6 this month. that's leverage to spend $5 a month on green power. don't use paper towels; when you can, use cloth napkins or towels instead we've discussed this, too, below. we've used kitchen towels for napkins, which is a good start. once again, i don't want to buy a lot, but maybe i'll look around for napkins. so, um, halfway through, i'm doing about half the things i should be doing. that's okay. i'll just do better from now on. noimpactman blogged about plastic today. it really can be nasty stuff. let's try to use less of it, all right? cool!

low impact week day 3: lazy sundays

lazy sundays. don't you love them? the NO NEW PLASTIC pledge took a couple of hits today - the cap on the glass milk jars i get are plastic, for one thing. for another, i needed provisions for a morning meeting. mostly, hand-eating fruits aren't appropriate for meetings. who's going to wolf down a peach while making notes on the agenda? so i got a few bananas, caved and got grapes in a plastic (reusable!) bag, and resigned myself to paper plates wrapped in plastic. non-coated paper plates. no plastic utensils should be necessary. also bought a sweet pepper plant and two basils, both in plastic containers. geez. should be able to reuse those, too. i've gotten a few comments down below about paper vs. cloth for hand-drying in the bathroom. we're not going to get into paper vs. cloth for any other bathroom purposes (imagine trying to talk your partner into THAT). this leads me to another paper towel question i'd love to get an opinion on: what about using paper vs. cloth for oily cleanup jobs, i.e., spills or wiping up a cast iron cooking implement. you aren't supposed to put oily things in the washer/dryer, correct? or is it just the dryer? (i could just take 5 steps into the kitchen and look. let's see.) my washer says not to put any flammable liquids in the washer or dryer, and no oils at all in the dryer, including cooking oils. so if you don't use paper towels, how do you clean off your cast iron pot? just don't dry those towels? another question: if i can buy a quart of local indiana milk, or a half-gallon of iowa milk, what's the most eco-friendly option? with the half-gallon, it's traveling farther, but i'll use half as many containers. the local company does not take its bottles back. speaking of dairy. check out the successful product of my first ice cream making session yesterday! it was as good as it looks. i tend to be a little dramatic about my cooking, so i waited until we were done to tell brian that it was homemade. he was impressed, then said, "that explains why you were taking pictures of it." he thought i was just being especially weird. i don't blame him.

low impact week day two: not too shabby.

soon after arriving at the farmer's market and punting a plan of attack for the week's produce around my brain, i had the lovely revelation that i didn't need to buy absolutely everything for the week, because the tuesday market is starting next week! hoooray! and i work, literally, overlooking it! hooray! i'll tell you: when the tuesday market is running and the new co-op opens between my office and my house, which it should be before july, i will be in food shopping heaven. so i putzed around, and was completely at leisure to choose greens that weren't in plastic bags. most of the places i stopped, the seller pre-emptively pulled out a plastic bag. "i brought my own bag," i say. they say, "you're prepared!" yes. i AM prepared. also announced my NO NEW PLASTIC pledge to a few of the growers, and thanked them for not having everything pre-bagged. they appreciated my appreciation. got some green garlic tops thrown in for saving the grower a bag. i chopped part of one up very small, and served it like one would chives on scrambled eggs and tomatoes. yum. haven't driven today, though tomorrow i'll need to drive to the garden. in this heat there's no way i can walk the hour roundtrip and do any gardening besides. maybe in the dark, but this girl is not walking over there in the dark all alone. oh! geez! almost forgot that i made ice cream for the first time today! the only problem with making ice cream, other than the time it takes, it that you can't lick the bowl. you can, however, lick the beater. and it is good. tonight we might have a couple people over to watch basketball, and there should be enough homemade organic strawberry ice cream for everyone. mmmmmmm. ice cream. if i find a less time-intensive method, i'll be making it all the time.

low impact week: day one

sooooo...no one's perfect, right? i bounded out of bed, and right as my hand went up to turn on the kitchen light on my way to shower, thought, "nope, it's low impact week. i can see just fine." good for me. pat pat. congratulations. i put my face wash on while letting the water heat up, and realized at the end that i was just enjoying the shower and not getting cleaner, so i got out. walked to work. got my lunch out of my bag to put in the fridge. spilled tomato juice from leftovers all over my leg. decided to throw out the tomato-sauced plastic bag i'd used to protect my bag from potential leaks (smart, huh?). plastic wasted before 8:15. not great. at lunchtime, i walked on over to the small downtown co-op and got some whole-wheat flour for tonight and a lovely organic cookie. got five steps out the door and groaned at the realization that i'd just blown my "NO NEW PLASTIC" pledge with my bulk bag and plastic-wrapped treat. just wasn't thinking. must atone. but how? that's the problem with plastic. once it's made, there's no going back. we can only move forward. luckilly, i had one plastic bag stashed in my bag so i didn't need TWO bags to double-bag the flour. flour ruptures are unhappy incidents. made it through the rest of the workday without accidentally clubbing any seals or spraying pesticides on my co-workers. went out for a cocktail with my sweetie, and didn't think to ask for my vodka-cran without the stupid stirry sticks. two stirry sticks are now on my conscience as well. but we didn't drive! and i didn't use the dryer! my newly-washed jeans kind of smell like a damp towel on its 4th use, but, hey. it's humid today. things just don't dry that quickly. i can live with this. tomorrow: farmer's market PLASTIC-FREE. for reals. and trying not to drive.

love me, love my budget.

a few months ago, i was having a meeting with a man who teaches money management classes. he was telling me all about how people just don't keep track of their money, how it creates stress in marriage, how people could save if they just paid attention, etc. this was work-related, but hit pretty close to home. very close to home. i'd been in denial that our financial issues (none major, but normal. and normal in america isn't healthy) were our own fault - we were both used to managing our own money; how do you keep track when one person does mostly freelance work; we HAVE to fly home to portland every 3 months for our own mental well-being; i NEED new clothes, and this is just how much people spend, right? so you charge things as needed and dip into the savings, and spend money when you have it, then pull back when the account gets low, right? not anymore. that meeting inspired The Budget. and, friends, The Budget is one of the smartest things we've ever done. just staying in the kitchen here for blogging purposes: when i first started tracking how much we spent, in january, i think, i spent more than $400 a month on groceries, and together more than $200 eating out. now we spend $70 a week on groceries, and $100 a month on eating out. and we still eat mostly organic, as locally as possible, and almost exclusively from the farmer's market and co-op. good, huh? to be honest, $70 a week is fairly low to keep up the pantry. once every few months, i'll blow some more cash when deals are good. this month, for instance, was the "truckload sale" at the co-op, and i put a little more in the budget to take advantage and stock up. every few months, i'll go to indianapolis for work and use that opportunity to stop in at trader joe's. budget food shopping tips: 1. use cash. when the cash is gone for the week, you're done shopping. 2. get needs first. my first stop with the grocery money is the farmer's market. then, i wait for the 5% discount day at the co-op to do the majority of the shopping. (granted, there's usually a trip in the middle as well. my planning skills aren't THAT great.) at the grocery, put your grains, proteins, etc. in the cart before moving to the chocolate chips, cheese, and various delicious non-neccessities. no one needs capers. buy capers last. 3. look at sales ahead of time online if possible. 4. make your own (bread, yogurt, frozen burritos, ice cream, granola, trail mix, muffins) if you have the time and inclination. 5. love the food you're with. tonight, we had a kind-of chili with no onions, and no cornbread to go with it because the oven's out. so i fried an egg for each of us, put it on top of the tomato-bean-kale stew, and served it with a toasted english muffin. not exactly cookbook material, but it was completely tasty, satisfying, organic, and with a salad, nutrionally sound. so it's doable, i swear. we eat three squares on this amount, with $20/each a week spending money to augment. for me, this means afternoon cookies more often than it should. for my dearest huband, it means frequent afternoon coffees. morning coffee is covered. alcohol is in a separate line item that includes going out for drinks. so that's The Budget. it's a real spreadsheet and everything. and i love it.

low impact anxiety

first, hello to new friends clicking over from crunchy chicken (also linked on the right there, for your surfing convenience). if you haven't read her, she makes you think about what you're doing or not doing to be more eco-friendly, but doesn't make you feel like a jerk. don't we all need a little more of that in our lives? more nudging, less judging? so, low impact week. i won't lie to you: the choices i decided to make won't exactly be easy. this is why i have a blog! support and accountability for this kind of thing. let's review my choices, shall we? line dry your clothes instead of using the dryer* is it cheating if we just don't wash towels that week? i normally toss the bath towels in every week, but we have plenty in the rotation. their drying rate (indoors, at least) just can't outpace the moldy smell that can take hold in wet towels. oh well. outside of sharing the neighbor's clothesline, we'll just trade towels out. take shorter showers and/or use a water saving showerhead hm, that's fine. except in the morning, when i'm too tired to remember things like conservation. a girl can only do her best. and maybe make a case for leg waxing? (this is a good question for our friend at crunchy chicken) minimize pre-packaged foods and make more of your own from scratch on my honor, i will do my best to use NO NEW PLASTIC. (yes, i WAS a girl scout.) this may become an issue at the farmer's market, where they like to pre-bag your greens, but i'll weasel around it. is this a midwest thing? in portland and eugene (oregon), they would normally just have bins of produce, and weigh everything after the fact. here, everything is pre-measured. lots of it is, anyway. compost your food waste and soiled paper products* as soon as we get the 5-gallon buckets from the community garden, this is in effect. can't wait! will it keep raccoons out of the garbage? that remains to be seen. take the bus or other public transportation to work and on errands* ooh, this is tough. i will have to wake up - get this - an extra ten minutes earlier. it's harder in practice than on paper. confession: i can get to work whenever i want between 8 and 9. before 8:30 is just my chosen timeframe. this is an office "best boss ever" situation which i appreciate every day. sign up for an alternative energy plan if available in your area the budget can handle it, but can the husband? i left this one out on my earlier post: don't use paper towels; when you can, use cloth napkins or towels instead (e.g. public restrooms)* public restrooms, huh? like, at work? oooh, friends. will this go over? my reading on the office quirky scale is already quivering in the orange zone, what with my refusal to use a styrofoam bowl that one time, and the vegetarianism and all. and i don't like to wear shoes when i'm not with a client. sue me. cloth napkins will be procured for home use. i will look into reusable towels for the bathroom at work. the community garden supervisor razed all the weeds in the plot next to mine, and now mine is officially the saddest-looking plot in the place. this weekend, if it's not too rainy, some serious food is going into that plot. i envision carrots. i envision marigolds next to my tomatoes. i envision whatever they're selling at the market on saturday. it's going to be a beautiful thing pretty soon, strawberries or no.

i love my grill pan.

oh, grill pan. you're so useful, and so enticing this time of year, especially for a girl without an outdoor grill. i'm in good company, too. the grill pan is great for vegetarians because nothing falls (ahem: vegetables?) through the grate, and if your tofu sticks, not all is lost. my tofu didn't stick tonight, probably due to having a healthy dose of oil in the marinade. we also had some coconut rice, spinach, and peas. coconut rice from deborah madison. i think i skimped a bit on the salt - it was a little bland, if satisfying otherwise. there's plenty of rice and tofu left over for lunches tomorrow if i cook up a couple broccoli branches to go with it. pictures that had yet to make it online:

salad with strawberries, blue cheese, and basalmic vinegrette. very very good. i just stepped aside and let the strawberries and cheese do the work.

chips and salsa are a must at our house. really. as a matter of fact, our wedding vows should have gone, "to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, as long as there are chips and salsa in the house." i'm vegetarian, he's not, etc., but we work through this as long as tortilla chips are on the scene. the problem? plastic packaging. my brother suggests making my own, and, while i haven't ruled that out, homemade supplies would be quickly exhausted. comprimise? el milagro, with the girl on the front, and just a small plastic window to show you, i suppose, that there are indeed tortilla chips inside. *Eedit: there's a layer of plastic on the inside of the bag. maybe i just didn't want to see this before. the paper, sadly enough, seems to be just a little more packaging.

until garden of eatin' goes paper, it's all el milagro all the way. the ingredients? stone ground corn, water, corn oil, salt, trace of calcium hydroxide. works for me! (edit: sad face at confronting the truth of so much plastic.)

oven-free pizza recipe

i've been reading a little about grilled pizzas this weekend, and strangely enough, my friend mari posted about the same thing. so it was kismet, right? we had to have grilled pizza tonight, or something along those lines. the finished product was de-li-ci-OUS, in my opinion. brian didn't seem to mind eating it at all. market pizza ingredients: half pound oyster mushrooms handful of arugula (cleaned, stemmed if needed) ball fresh mozzarella tomato sauce of your liking (we used a can of fire-roasted crushed tomatoes, doctored with the usual suspects) loaf french bread olive oil salt, pepper, crushed red pepper flake clean the mushrooms, and chop into toothsome pieces. sautee, season, and pour off extra moisture if needed. tear arugula. when mushrooms start to brown, add arugula. as soon as arugula starts to wilt, take pan off heat and cover. heat tomato sauce. slice a 6-inch portion of french bread in half. heat grill pan to high, and brush on olive oil. place bread cut-side down until just starting to toast. cut mozzarella into small pieces. when bread is toasted, take off grill pan, slather with a little tomato sauce, cover about half the surface area with mozz, and fill in the gaps with mushroom/arugula mixture. return to grill pan (cut-side up now, i hope you realize), cover, and turn pan off. when cheese just barely starts to melt and everything is hot, remove, cut, and serve. mmm, fancy french bread pizza! delicious! other mushrooms should work just as well, but the oyster/arugula combo was really doing it for me tonight. i apologize if you're more exact in your cooking than i am. let me know if you have questions.

hey! those are MY strawberries!

when we had our start-up pick-a-plot meeting at the community garden in march, the garden guy told us that they'd never had much trouble with rabbits, deer, or people getting in and eating up the goods, though there wasn't much to deter anyone/thing determined to get in. well, the latter is true, at least this year. a deer came in and chomped my strawberries down to stalks. another gardener and i compared notes - she lost some of her peppers. i imagine she meant bell peppers, because, after my cursory research, i've learned that hot peppers are one way to deter deer from the garden. guess i need to get a new spray bottle for hot pepper sauce/water, and fill some old stockings with soap. maybe i'll hang the soap and some aluminum foil from the drumstick i fished out of the trash. scare the adorable buggers off. there's plenty of greenery for the deer to enjoy outside the fence. really! they don't need my strawberries! this weekend, we made some chocolate-covered strawberries with dark dagoba chocolate and small, local strawberries. wow. so good and so simple. perfect strawberry-to-chocolate ratio. delicious!

lettuce: great success!

red leaf lettuce is invading every plot of the garden. lettuce alert! i thinned out a little more today to add to the too-spicy "spicy salad mix" from the market. whoo, that stuff is strong. i like a little interest to my salad mix, but it's a little much. does anyone have advice on starting seeds? mine are just growing straight up, and not developing leaves the way i think they should. what am i missing? maybe i'll just start more in the ground... to liz: i don't know what happened to the nice coffee girl from the market. i liked her beans, and would love to buy them if i could find them. just went to bloomingfoods to pick up a pound of french roast, and i forgot to leave a co-op comment to that effect. the comment board is one of my favorite things about bloomingfoods, or co-ops in general. you really do get a say, even if you just can't seem to make the board meetings...

summer market bounty

i know it's only may, but to me, when school is out, and you're sweating at 10:00am in your tank top, it's summer. bounty procured: arugula strawberries siberian kale baby spinach turnips mixed salad greens broccoli eggs oyster mushrooms heirloom cherry tomato plant peas! is that all? it seemed like a lot more while i was carrying it. they also had: tomatoes kohlrabi new potatoes stone-ground pastry and bread flour onions garlic (which i should have gotten) zukes cukes lots and lots of greens. my problem lately has been not buying enough greens, because i don't want to leave them unused. this week, we ought to have plenty (!). the spinach and kale will last until the end of the week, no problem, as long as i can keep out of the spinach until then. we're having arugula with our customary saturday morning eggs today. arugula has that great quality that spinach shares - fresh, wilted, sauteed - don't matter! just toss it in whatever, and you're set. we'll see if brian loves it, too.

rockin' low impact week

heard of it? no? here's the explanation in its original state. enviro-bloggers of all shapes and sizes are taking part the first week of june to reduce our net (there must be a net/internet pun in there somewhere) impact on the environment. want to do it, too? cool! you don't have to be an enviro-anything in particular. just try reducing your impact for a week. it's probably cheaper, anyway. to take part, try to do at least one thing in each category. the starred suggestions might make the most difference. 1. Reduce energy consumption - don't turn the heat above 65 during the day and 60 at night (put on a sweater and dig out those blankies!); for our southern friends, set the A/C to above 90 unplug appliances when not in use that still draw energy when off (like your cell phone charger) turn off the TV unless you are actually watching something use the air dry on your dishwasher instead of heat dry use only cold water in your washing machine line dry your clothes instead of using the dryer* turn off the TV for the week and do something else instead (read a book, visit with friends/family)* 2. Reduce water usage - take shorter showers and/or use a water saving showerhead turn off the water when you're brushing your teeth be aware of water usage when at the kitchen sink - turn it off in between tasks save the water in a bucket that is discharged while warming up the shower and use it to water plants or for other things* 3. Change your food habits - try to buy organic and/or locally grown food minimize pre-packaged foods and make more of your own from scratch use cloth bags at the grocery store instead of getting paper or plastic* don't get take-out if it means non-recyclable packaging* try eating vegetarian or vegan for the week (choose your level from egg/dairy acceptable to no animals products at all)* 4. Reduce your dependence on paper products - print out only what is necessary try out a a 100% recycled TP and tissue brand don't use paper towels; when you can, use cloth napkins or towels instead (e.g. public restrooms)* 5. Reduce your garbage output - recycle everything you can (for your area) donate used items to a charity (many have pick ups and drop off locations) instead of throwing them out or taking them to the dump compost your food waste and soiled paper products* 6. Reduce Single Occupancy Vehicle usage - carpool when taking trips or going out to eat with friends take the bus or other public transportation to work and on errands* 7. Do something that lasts more than a week - replace one bulb per day with a Compact Fluorescent light bulb take your name off of junk mail and mailing lists for catalogs you don't want sign up for an alternative energy plan if available in your area set up a compost bin for your food scraps* set up a rain barrel to capture water for watering your yard* okay. so what am *I* going to do? line dry your clothes instead of using the dryer* we've already cut our dryer usage in about half, but that week, no dryer at all. no putting the sheets in the wash at dinnertime! take shorter showers and/or use a water saving showerhead i love long, hot showers. that week, i'll pop in and out. really! wash my face after i get out, even, maybe. minimize pre-packaged foods and make more of your own from scratch this is my almost-sustainable pledge: no new plastic. that entire week. just watch me...it should be interesting. compost your food waste and soiled paper products* that's a gimme, because the compost bins at the community garden should be about ready by then. next! take the bus or other public transportation to work and on errands* no driving to work unless i have some work-related driving to do. which, unfortunately, i will about 2 days that week. at least i do good work. sign up for an alternative energy plan if available in your area duke energy is kind of evil, but with all that money we'll save on garbage and electricity, we can sign up for the $5-a-month green extra. what will you do? really? make your own yogurt? not a bad idea! make your own yogurt cheese and try to make frozen yogurt out of it? mmm. i'm not so sure that'll work out for you.

compost - check!

oh, yeah! the compost bins are going up at the garden, so by the end of next week, our food waste don't be going to waste. better yet, there's going to be a 5-gallon bucket "take one, leave one" system, so i won't have to buy anything to store materials before taking them over. seems like we'll be tossing things until that time comes, but, hey. let's be honest. i've been tossing most of my life. this is a good step in the right direction! the yogurt cheese isn't going so well. i lost a lot of volume. should i have used more than a double thickness of cheesecloth, i wonder? maybe i'll head down to sahara mart to see if they have yogurt cheese, because i am GOING to make frozen yogurt this weekend. it is GOING to HAPPEN!

yogurt update

there's another pot of hot milk on the stove, because i am Bound and Determined to get a batch of frozen yogurt going before the weekend. i ate about a cup of my first batch this morning with blueberries and a waffle. good, but could be better. to be honest, i'm not crazy about the texture of the yogurt. it's okay, but a little runny and, surprisingly, stringy. kind of like a very thin yeast dough. i strained a little through a coffee strainer, and that texture seems nicer. i have yet to try it. tomorrow morning, maybe. googling "yogurt agar" gets you some soy yogurt recipes, but i wonder how adding agar agar could effect the procress. i guess you need cheesecloth to make serious yogurt cheese, so it's off to the cheesecloth store tomorrow. (let's see: if i strain it tomorrow night, we can have frozen yogurt friday night...) hooray! brother john, who, along with wife michelle, gifted us the dead microwave, reminded me in comment form that maybe a toaster oven might be the way to go. it uses a lot less energy than the conventional, and could probably go in the same spot that the microwave is in now. i can see my pitch to brian involving a near-constant supply of fresh cookies. mmm, cookies. now, excuse me. i have to stick my finger in some milk.

plastic be gone!

well, i just tried my first bite of homemade yogurt, and i'm still alive. i used this recipe, and it turned out, even with no amount of milk given. i'm thinking that maybe tonight i'll strain most of it and make yogurt cheese, which is supposed to be nice for your bagels and such. if you've ever had it, i'll be glad to read about your experiences. i'm also chomping at next week's budget bit to buy another half gallon of milk so we can try this recipe for frozen yogurt. oooh, yeah. i've had an ice cream attachment for my kitchenaid mixer in the freezer, standing at the ready, for months. it's frozen treat time! the yogurt experiment is great, because if it works out, i'm free of the guilt of plastic cuplets. plastic cuplets be gone! the grill pan has been getting a lot of use lately, as our microwave died, conveniently enough, just after the oven went out. think i've convinced my dear, sweet husband that before jumping the gun on buying a new microwave, maybe we ought to just wait it out to see how much we miss it. he called me today from home to inquire as to the best way to re-heat his beans and rice lunch...if that went well, maybe that's a point toward going without. the landlord will be on my "unhappy" list until the oven gets fixed. lucky for them, it's been too hot to bake the last few days anyway. but, yes, there is another recipe i want to try: the famous and much-blogged baked seitan. tasty meat substitute from scratch? count me in! garden news: tonight, the first harvest! baby red lettuce. thinned out a row, and got enough to round out salads for lunches tomorrow. the little guys are taking a little swim in the salad spinner right now. hey, i did it! food from seed to kitchen, for my first time! if i hadn't gotten so eaten up by bugs walking there and back, i'd be even more excited, but the itching is very distracting!

the list.

the grocery list, as it reads now: vanilla toilet paper pretty much everything. aahh, but no longer, friends! it's such a relief to get out of squeaking-by-on-the-budget mode, then no-fresh-stuff-because-we're-going-out-of-town mode, then no-anything-because-we've-been-squeaking-and-we-just-got-back-into-town mode. today was the semi-annual bloomingfoods truck sale, which is a tent sale in the parking lot with good prices and case discounts if you need that much food. we don't, but i spent just over $40 on three grocery sacks. not bad! beans, canned tomatoes, apple cider vinnegar, frozen food, bread, etc. i'm starting to think that maybe i should take out a larger chunk of grocery budget the first week of each month, and just stock up on whatever's on sale that month at the co-op. then, each week, i just re-stock what we run out of and get fresh produce. speaking of which. today, at the market, there were strawberries. small, red, organic, local strawberries. tonight, we're having a salad with strawberries, oregon blue cheese (see below), red lettuce, red romaine, and basalmic vinnegrette. are you jealous? you're so jealous. also new this week at the market: new potatoes. the (mennonite?) woman who sold them to me was a little put out that i wanted to put them in my own bag. luckilly, she didn't take it on herself to be "helpful" and bag it for me anyway. like at the coffee people stand at the portland airport. i ask for my iced coffee in a paper cup. the cashier asks why. i explain it's to avoid the plastic. he thinks this makes me cool. the barista then hands me my double-cupped, plastic-capped iced coffee, which pretty much defeats the purpose. oh well. it's really hard to be exact about what you want in service situations without coming off as a jerk.

i love bloomingfoods...

...but maybe i would love them more if they had an updated produce page on their website like new seasons. new seasons is a lovely kind of grocery store, and i reccomend it to anyone popping through the portland area. you can get organic deli macaroni and cheese and speghetti-o's, it's local, and they have lots and lots of fresh samples. for example. on our visit, they had garlic romano bread with butter, french bread, two types of guacamole with chips (soooo good), and whole apricots. and something else like apricots? but not pluots? on saturdays, forget about it with the samples. they do themed tastings. good stuff. my other old neighborhood favorite is uncle paul's, an open-air produce market. they had a heck of a time getting the permits to do it, but perservered, and i miss it dearly. this visit, they had big bags of local frozen fruit. didn't have much time to poke around, but uncle paul himself is a good resource if you're in there with questions. brought home some oregon blue cheese from the rogue creamery, too. if only we had some nice cheese makers or cheese shops in southern indiana...

i'm back!

we had a lovely trip to portland, albeit with not much internet access. probably for the best. now we're home safely, and ready to get back in the kitchen!

the horror!

as i was just sitting here, clicking and tapping away, it occurred to me. earlier, while working in the garden, i whipped a plastic bag out and used it to kneel on while weeding. but now i can't remember picking it up and putting it away. did i unleash a plastic bag upon the organic community garden? i MUST have put it away. it wouldn't be the first plastic bag to float around the garden, but still. today i fished a well-rototilled pen out of an unplanted bed. my confessions and celebrations for the day: good: bringing a homemade muffin for a morning snack good: walking to work and lunch. good: bringing a cloth napkin to lunch. a little paper napkin never hold up to a falafel, anyway. good: forgoing the free bag of fritos that comes with the falafel baaaad: buying a plastic-wrapped cookie a couple of hours later. bad on another level: eating the whole stupidly big thing. okay, but not great: rockits pizza for dinner. cardboard boxes are recyclable, sure, but that's a lot of material for two slices of pizza. my next step is to move to cloth napkins at home. right now, i usually use a kitchen towel or just flip my apron up, but there aren't always kitchen towels to go around. reduce! i just got a book on composting from the library today, too, but i'm extremely hung up on attracting pests. as in rodents. the very thought of it makes me a little sick. this means we'd need something a self-contained fancy-type compost bin (as in expensive. as in not in the budget.). well, i'll just read up, and we'll see.

mushroom man

tonight we tried the mushroom patties from the mushroom man for the first time. tasty! i could have used a little more mushroom and a little less filler, but, really, if i'm going to be so picky maybe i should just make my own stupid mushroom patties, right? they tasted good, and the marketing is right up my alley: Localfolks Foods Good food, made for local folks, by local folks MUSHROOM PATTY Every effort has been made to use natural, fresh, local ingredients. they're a fantastic local alternative to a gardenburger, and they come in a reusable zippy bag. i'd like to thank the exploring not-so-big living blog for the shout-out. hi not-so-big living friends! i added a link over at the side over there. see? yes, there. i weaved my way over there from the popular no impact man, who also now lives at the side of my blog, and is really completely fascinating. go over there and check it out.

may market bounty

shot from the tool shack at the community garden each week, i'm able to get more and more at the market. but why do i always buy like i'm still a single person with no time to cook? it's better to use it all up in 2 days than to let things go to waste, i suppose. and i have let plenty of produce go to waste in its time. but this is almost half gone: 1 bag mixed salad greens 1 bag spinach 1 bunch asparagus 2 mushroom patties 1 dozen eggs 1 bunch kale 3 tomatoes 1 cheddar-rosemary scone 9 oz. raw gouda hey, the tomatoes were $3.29 a pound, and they were greenhouse tomatoes, and not organic. a girl has to be careful. this was our lunch directly after the market. yum. i put too much nutmeg in the eggs, which is a common problem now that we have whole nutmeg. grating it makes me feel very culinary and proud. that just feels too good to stop after half a teaspoon. sometime this week i'm going to have to buy some bird netting so i can get away with some strawberries. these are perennials, and i had no hand in putting them in, but they're the most healthy and hale plants in the plot. yesterday, i scared about half a dozen birds out of the garden with my arrival, so i imagine netting is necessary. mmm, berries. portland summers are wonderful for many reasons, and berries are a big one. the cold snap we had in the less-temperate parts of the country in march killed lots of berries and stone fruit, so i'll have to eat my fill on vacation. i can't wait.

"tings are cool mon."

okay. this is me: tonight, i ate a piece of flatbread rubbed with garlic and butter around 5:30. now i'm having a strawberry/blueberry smoothie with flaxseed meal. at 11. this is actually good for me when i'm alone (and no grocery shopping has been done for 3-4 days). when brian gets home, i hope he'll want to join me for beer and popcorn. actually, if he doesn't want popcorn, that's just for for me! ha HA! popcorn is my new snack sensation. faithful readers of my other blog know that i have a deep-seated love for tings. that love has not died. my acceptance of foil bags has. lovely popcorn - you can make as much or as little as you want, it comes in bulk, it's easy to adjust the fat and salt content, and it's good with nutritional yeast. a few months ago, i was on those 100-calorie microwave bags. bad news. here's a choice quote from wikipedia: In 2006, concerns were raised about the levels of perfluorooctanoic acid in popcorn bags. The high temperatures used in popping popcorn may facilitate the transfer of the chemical, which is carcinogenic in animals, into the popcorn oil. DuPont has agreed to eliminate almost all use of the chemical by 2015. um, if i were you, i wouldn't wait. just make it in a regular paper bag (thanks, mari!), or on the stovetop. lately, i've been partial to the stovetop method. no burnt kernels if you shake it. shake it.

What would Al Gore do?

click post title for link. what's one big thing we can do to reduce greenhouse emissions? buy local. this summer, that's what I'll concentrate on. okay, we'll still have our locally-roasted coffee which has to be shipped long distances, but NO South American fruit. none from California, either, if we can help it (unless we're in Oregon). i'll try to stick with southern indiana first, then, if that fails, the great lakes states for food sources. any bloomingtonians know where i can buy local cream? maybe amish? i want to start making my own ice cream and butter. you might have noticed, on the little blurb to the right there, that i'm trying to feed my family sustainably, sure, but also "on a budget." that doesn't just mean that i'm doing my best not to buy asparagus out of season - we have a real, live, kicking budget with a set line item of $70/week for groceries. that's all our food, non-alcoholic drink, and household goods. every week, i alternate taking $80 or $60 out of the bank, and that's it for the week. guess how much i have left until friday? $0. oh crap. this is the way of the budget. last week was an $80 week, but with houseguests, it went fast. all right, confession: $20 of the non-alchoholic budget went to booze. we have to be gracious hosts, after all. so, after two weeks of buying on $60, things are tight. we're set for breakfasts. husband will only be here for one more dinner this week because he's working (and eating on a different line item while on the road). my dinners will be long on the cheap starches this week - such is the way of the budget. $70 a week is hard, so in may, i added a little on top to spend at the bloomingfoods truck sale. a girl's got to stock up when she can! the budget can be a cruel mistress, but we still love her. she seems restrictive, but really, grants us more freedom. we don't spend as much, and when we do spend, it's with a clear conscience.