ontheroadtogreenness

Spreading the Word About the DDG

2019-10-12T18:56:00.002-04:00

The Downsizing Donation Guide, funded by a grant I received from Recycle CT , has been posted online since early in May. The Downsizing Donation Guide. It has been shared and posted on a number of sites, including the home page of HomeHaven, the agency that served as grant sponsor (www.homehavenvillages.org.).

I am in the process of trying to determine its impact thus far, but I am also hard at work at promoting it in person.

If you are in the New Haven area, I cordially invite you to the next edition of New Haven Green Drinks: Wednesday, October 23, from 6:00 PM to 8 PM at Nolo, a brewery restaurant on the former site of Jet Cleaners, 687 State Street, New Haven. Come to learn more about the The Downsizing Donation Guide and enjoy some friendly conversation. Hope to see you there.

Ready to Go!

2019-06-04T15:39:00.001-04:00

It’s online! The Downsizing Donation Guide was funded by a grant I received from Recycle CT one year ago. The Downsizing Donation Guide is available on the home page of the HomeHaven website for all to read and download (www.homehavenvillages.org.).

The goal of The Downsizing Donation Guide is to keep useful items being removed from people’s homes or businesses as they downsize out of the waste stream and out of recycling bins. Its broader mission is to help residents of New Haven County find a new life for these items with groups that will use them.

Forty-three organizations from across New Haven County participated in the project. Each supplied a wishlist of needed items and instructions on how to donate them. Most wishlists are very specific. Some are very short, others long. Some items are for immediate consumption (food); others are meant to provide a lifetime of joy (musical instruments, golf clubs). Most requests are for goods for use in ongoing programs. Some will be sold to raise funds for programming.

Wishlist requests range from alarm clocks to violins, from garden tools to wheelchairs, from bicycles to pickup trucks [on three wishlists!]. Some wishlists contain such challenging to donate items as musical instruments, pet supplies, medical equipment, and knicknacks! Many requests are items to fulfill basic human needs: bed linens, canned goods, cleaning supplies, diapers, paper products, toiletries, and towels, all items likely to be left behind if a person is making a long-distance move, transitioning to assisted living, or settling an estate.

The project proved useful even before The Downsizing Donation Guide was completed. One of the participating organizations contacted me to ask if I knew of anyone who might be interested in 200 chair covers they had been offered but could not use. I was able to connect them with someone who was looking for that very thing!

While the primary purpose of this guide is to find new life for still useful things, it is my hope that as you explore The Downsizing Donation Guide you may also discover some new organizations of interest, or even of service, to you or someone you know.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”- Vincent Van Gogh

If you make a donation as a result of The Downsizing Donation Guide, please tell the organization how you heard about their needs.

Please share the The Downsizing Donation Guide with friends and colleagues whenever you have the opportunity. Happy downsizing!

Downsizing for Good

2019-02-23T14:10:00.000-05:00

Calling all not for profits in New Haven County! I have an opportunity for you.

As the recipient of an Innovation Grant from RecycleCT, I am contacting not-for-profits in New Haven County seeking wish lists of gently used goods that will benefit their organizations. I will be compiling this information into a resource called “The Downsizing Donation Guide,” a best practices guide for donating goods to not-for-profits in New Haven County.

This project’s major goal is to keep useful items being downsized or discarded from people’s homes out of the waste stream and out of recycling bins, directly benefitting groups that can use them.

Anyone who has tried to downsize their own belonging or those of a loved one is familiar with the problem. There are so many potentially useful things and the prospect of finding them a good home is daunting.

It is my hope that this e-guide will benefit both agencies (who need specific items) and those who are downsizing (who don't).

The material will be organized in the form of a pdf booklet, broken into two alphabetical sections.

The first part of the booklet is a listing of goods, arranged alphabetically by category, along with the agency(ies) accepting a given type of item, such as “books."
The second part is an alphabetical compilation of participating agencies. Each agency has a page that includes a mission statement, a wish list, and clear instructions for making donations.

I am working with HomeHavenVillages.org, a not-for-profit serving Greater New Haven, whose mission is to support its members’ desire to remain in their own homes as they grow older. When completed in April, “The Downsizing Donation Guide” will be shared with the participating agencies, distributed through HomeHaven’s email list, and posted on such sites as RecycleCT, public libraries, and the recycling section of each city and town’s website.

If you would like to participate in this project or have a suggestion for an agency to include, please email DownsizingDonationGuide@piroet.com for more information.

I am trying to publicize as many agencies as possible and to solicit as wide a range of donations as possible. So please participate!

Thank you! I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Getting Your Recycling Right

2018-10-09T09:16:00.000-04:00

Recycling has been the law in Connecticut since 1991. In 2015 residents and business recycled and composted about 35% of our state’s waste, a rate that has remained relatively flat over the past decade. Each of us is sending about about 4 pounds of trash per day, or ¾ ton of trash a year to be burned or buried. We can and we must do better.

If done correctly, recycling saves our cities and towns money; recycling costs less than landfilling or incineration. Residential mixed recycling collected curbside or at transfer stations is brought to one of five material recovery facilities (MRF) in Connecticut. The MRF employs people and technology to separate out aluminum, tin/steel, paper, plastic and glass containers. These materials are processed and baled or boxed and sold to manufacturers looking for those raw materials to make new products.

If recycling is done incorrectly, it can contaminate the entire batch sending it all to the incinerator to be burned instead of being sold for reuse.

The Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection has issued a universal list of what belongs in your recycling bin and what does not. This graphic has been branded for distribution in New Haven, but the rules are the same whether you live in New Haven or Coventry, Greenwich or Hartford. You can get your own printable guide here. Forget trying to recycle by using the numbers stamped on plastic containers. Use this guide instead. You can read more here to learn why.

The guide is not perfect. The wording is at times confusing. As an example, what is a “spiral wound container?” But the guide is a good start, and if you have any questions about what is in or what is out, just ask the RecycleCT Wizard found on the RecycleCT website.

There’s more…

Just because something is designated as an “out,” that does not mean you should put it in the trash. Check out the site’s “Beyond the Bin” tab. You can either use the “Wizard” or search alphabetically to learn how to recycle items from antifreeze to yoga mats.

FYI For those of you reading this in the New Haven area, you only have a few more dates (October 13, 20, and 27) to get your hazardous waste to HazWaste Central before it closes for the season. To be sure your items are eligible, review the online user registration form. It will save time if you fill out the form in advance, print it out and bring it with you. Since 1990, HazWaste Central has collected over one million gallons of waste from more than 113,000 households.

Here is something we can do that will make a difference! Just how big a difference depends on how many others we can get to do the same. Spread the word in your home, neighborhood, city. For inspiration check out the materials promoting CT Recycles Day on November 15.

In the words of the Lorax:

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” ― Dr. Seuss

Meatless Monday: Discovering The Beyond Burger

2018-05-07T19:24:00.000-04:00

There is something about the smell of meat being cooked… If you have ever in your life enjoyed a burger or a steak, you know what I am talking about. Decades have passed since I have grilled a burger, but a faint whiff of meat wafting from the restaurants up the street still makes my mouth water.

Over the weekend I tried a product that fully satisfies this primal craving while harming no animals in the process. The product is The Beyond Burger, a product of Beyond Meat, touted on the company’s website as being “the revolutionary plant-based burger that looks, cooks, and satisfies like beef.”

In the package, it looks like two generous, well-formed beef patties. They sizzle and smell like burgers when cooked according to the package directions. And they have the mouth feel and taste of a fine burger. They even bleed (beet juice). If you serve them with a leaf of lettuce and a slice of onion, you will not know the difference — I kid you not (as my dad used to say).

Pea protein isolate is the source of the protein — 20 grams or 32% of your Daily Value. The world has come a long way since the early meat substitute HVP (hydrolyzed vegetable protein) of the 70s.

I had first heard about this product from relatives in the west who wanted to cut back on meat consumption but loved the taste so much that they had found it impossible—until they discovered Beyond Meat. The vegan cashier at Whole Foods told me that for them the product was a real game-changer, something really satisfying that could be enjoyed without guilt in the company of friends. And there is the mother I met while waiting for a delayed flight at JFK. I do not recall how the conversation started, but she told me her college-age daughter was changing her major to chemical engineering after getting hooked on these burgers, with the hope of working in this growing new field when she graduates.

Drawbacks? There are a few. Beyond Burgers run about $6.00 for two, making this an expensive option for a family with teenagers. They also come with a lot of packaging.

To learn more about the company and its mission to create “mass-market solutions that perfectly replace animal protein with plant protein, listen to CEO Ethan Brown (a vegan) discuss the company’s vision on npr.

You will have to check the company website to see whether these fresh burgers are available in your area; they are gradually making their appearance in supermarkets and restaurants nationwide. If you decide to give them a try, you will find them in the Meat (yikes!) aisle.

Enjoy! “See you” again soon, I promise. My posts have been far between, I know. But I have been busy! Stay tuned to learn some of things I've been up to.

On Mondays I often blog on food, food issues, or gardening in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Leaves are Not Litter

2017-11-04T10:03:00.000-04:00

This weekend is one hour longer for most of us, for today marks the end of Daylight Savings Time for Americans living in all but the states of Arizona and Hawaii.

But just because your weekend is one hour longer, that doesn’t mean you have to spend it raking leaves. Thanks to the CT DEEP Wildlife Highlights for November, I learned of the Xerces Society’s LEAVES ARE NOT LITTER campaign.

The Xerces Society is “an international nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their habitats.” The group takes its name “from the now extinct Xerces Blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche xerces), the first butterfly known to go extinct in North America as a result of human activities.”

The Society urges you to leave your fall leaves on the ground because the butterflies need leaf litter to survive. Monarchs migrate, but the vast majority of butterflies do not; they overwinter in the landscape and rely on leaf litter for protection. So do bumblebees, spiders, millipedes, mites… You get the idea. As the Xerces site says, “It’s easy to see how important leaves really are to sustaining the natural web of life.”

Looking ahead, the Xerces Society warns, “Don’t spring into garden cleanup too soon.” This page offers easy to remember guidelines for when it is really safe to reach for the rake and also when to start planting.

If you want to stay up to date on what’s happening with the wildlife in Connecticut, click here to read the latest issue of Wildlife Highlights and join the subscription list.

Now, relax a bit and enjoy your weekend.

Meatless, Flourless Monday

2017-07-31T19:55:00.000-04:00

There’s nothing like seeing an Al Gore movie to make you feel like you can’t waste another single thing or another second more.

That was (and still is) my exact situation after having the opportunity to watch “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” last Friday night. Check out the trailer or this video of the film's theme song to see for yourself just how dire the earth’s situation is.

Yet, despite a last minute re-write of the film’s ending after the president pulled the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement, the message of “Truth to Power” is a positive one. Vice-President Gore manages to convince viewers that is still possible for the citizens of the world, wherever they live, to make the change planet earth needs (even without their leader’s support). Change starts with us.

As I try to map out what my next bigger steps will be, I am implementing some small ones, starting with being even more careful not to waste or take for granted any of the resources I already have on hand.

During my recent stay in a cottage colony on Cape Cod, I had the opportunity to buy a dozen eggs laid by hens who live on the premises. I brought home the ones I had not used and needed a special way to put them to good use.

A good friend sent me a recipe in the mail (yep, that’s not a typo) thinking I might like to try it it in one of my cast iron skillets. The tiny newspaper clipping contains “A Recipe for Pan Baked Lemon-Almond Tart” from Mark Bittman’s “Here to Help” column in the New York Times. It called for 4 eggs, just what I had on hand.

I ran out for some cream and a lemon (sadly no lemon tree in my CT back yard). I used Trader Joe’s almond meal for the ground almonds. The greatest work was juicing the lemon and grating its peel.

I melted the butter on the stovetop in my number 8 cast iron pan, poured in the batter, and cooked it on low until the edges set. After 20 minutes in the oven, the cake tester showed it was done. I skipped the broiler step, content to dust with powdered sugar and sprinkle with more almonds.

It made for two decadent and delicious breakfasts, perfect fuel to power us on for the hard work ahead.

Meatless Monday: The Importance of Eating in Season

2017-06-19T19:37:00.001-04:00

When you walk down the supermarket aisles today it is difficult to tell what is in season unless you read the fine print indicating the produce’s place of origin. With the advent of produce from Chile you can buy blueberries and raspberries at Christmas; they won’t taste quite the same as New England berries in July, but you can buy them.

My friend Polly recently reminded me how great a treat food it was to enjoy local, seasonal food when we were young. Her birthday coincided with the peak time for two of her favorite foods, asparagus and strawberries. Her mom always prepared them for her to mark her special day, and those dinners remain among Polly’s fondest memories.

The peak asparagus season is over now (those thin stalks in the supermarket now come from Peru!), but if you check out this Harvest Calendar for Connecticut, you will see that strawberries, rhubarb, peas, and spinach are among the crops that are now coming into high season.

With our president pulling us out of the Paris Agreement, the burden falls on each of us to do whatever we can to achieve and surpass the commitments of the treaty that President Obama signed in 2016.

The US is the number two producer of CO2 emissions. Local produce travels a shorter distance to get to us. When we support our local farmers, we are creating a smaller carbon footprint.

The US also produces a significant amount of methane, another greenhouse gas. According to the EPA, agriculture accounted for 10% of the greenhouse gas emissions in the US in 2015, much of it coming from livestock. If enough of us cut back on the meat we eat, methane production will be reduced. Cutting back on meat consumption by observing Meatless Monday is a step in the right direction.

Americans sprang into action on the homefront during WWII: starting Victory gardens, salvaging scrap metal, and giving up some of their favorite foods so the troops would not go hungry. Their efforts made a difference in the outcome of the war.

We can make a difference, too.

When you do your weekend shopping find something in season. Search for a recipe if you don’t know how to prepare it. Or simply plan to make a Meatless Monday salad like this one. Grab a head of local lettuce or a bunch of spinach instead of one of those ubiquitous boxes.You will notice the delicious difference.

Meatless Monday: “Kitchen Sink” Frittata

2017-05-22T19:04:00.001-04:00

Putting my own house in order is one way I’ve found a bit of peace in these challenging times.

I have been trying to use up things I have on hand before heading out the door with a shopping list. I started by using up all my little travel toothpastes!

I have worked even harder than usual to keep my fresh produce out of the compost pile. Last week I found myself with a surplus of spinach on a day that was a bit too cool for salad as a main course.

For inspiration I turned to a series of recipes I discovered in last June’s Vegetarian Times. The recipes were all variations of the frittata, an egg-based Italian dish. Following are the steps common to each dish:

Preheat the oven to 400°F.
Whisk a number of eggs (ranging from 6-10) with salt and pepper to taste and then set them aside.
Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a large cast iron pan.
Sauté some vegetables.
When they are almost tender, drizzle the eggs over them. Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables slightly so the eggs cover the bottom of the pan.
Put the pan into the oven to bake for about 12 minutes, until set.
Cool slightly before serving.

Here is my recipe:

Kitchen Sink Frittata

INGREDIENTS

5 large eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
1-1/4 teaspoon turmeric
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 mini red peppers
1 large sweet onion
1 can chick peas, rinsed and drained
1 generous bunch of spinach, washed, drained and roughly chopped

DIRECTIONS

Whisk the eggs with the salt, pepper, and turmeric.
Thinly slice the onions and peppers; then sauté onions and peppers in olive oil until tender.
Add the chick peas and spinach.
Stir until the spinach is starts to wilt.
Drizzle the eggs over the mixture.
Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring the vegetables slightly so the eggs cover the bottom of the pan.
Put the pan into the oven to bake for about 12 minutes, until set.
Cool for few minutes before serving.

I found five eggs enough enough to satisfy two people and to hold the frittata together. If you are feeding more, adjust the number upwards and maybe even top the frittata off with some shredded cheese.

The possibilities are endless; the suggestions in Vegetarian Times ranged from cabbage to tomatoes. Just be sure that whatever vegetables you use are crisp tender before you put your frittata in the oven, especially if you use potatoes.

Happy Monday! "See" you again soon.

Meatless Monday: Ricotta Pie

2017-05-08T11:38:00.001-04:00

It’s a tradition in my family to have Ricotta Pie for dessert on Easter (and Thanksgiving or any other time calling for pie). The tradition was handed down from the Italian side of the family and the recipe was one my father’s sister Stephenie shared with my mother. My mom always baked the ricotta pies, so I always made something else, usually pumpkin for Thanksgiving. After she died in 2014, my sister Diane and/or her daughters assumed the role of ricotta pie makers.

This Easter I found myself staying in New Haven and having dinner with friends. I was responsible for dessert, so I decided to try my hand at the pie. I got the recipe from Diane. I even decided to make the eggy crust. I went to the store to buy what I needed.

The night before I Easter I set about to make the pie. I got out my electric mixer, my mixing bowls, my rolling pin, and all my other equipment. I got out the ingredients. I re-read the recipe. Oh no! My angst had been so great, apparently, that I had forgotten to buy the one ingredient that had never made sense to me — sweetened, condensed milk! What to do?

I turned to google search for help and found an “authentic 150 year old family recipe” for ricotta pie. The recipe came from Martha Pesa’s wonderful blog A Family Feast via Pea Pod!). It did not call for condensed milk. It would make one pie, all I needed.

I was eager to try it for two reasons:

I had all the ingredients.
The crust called for olive oil rather than butter or shortening.

I put away my mixer, swapped out my ingredients, and got started.

Despite the warning in the recipe, I found the crust very easy to blend and roll out. And it had a self-healing quality to it; if there was too much crust hanging over in one place it was very easy to break it off and add it to a place that was a little light, something that is harder to do with traditional pie crust.

The filling was a snap.

The other unusual part of the recipe was that it called for baking the pie over a bath of hot water, and specified that you leave it in the oven for ten minutes after turning the oven off, without peeking!

I followed the directions exactly and ended up with one delicious pie. With almond and vanilla extract and 1/3 cup of sugar, the crust had a cookie-like quality when baked. The filling was perfectly set.

My whole-hearted recommendation is to give this recipe a try.

Enjoy! “See you” again soon, I promise. My posts have been far between, I know. But I have been busy! Stay tuned to learn some of things I've been up to.

Earth Hour 2017

2017-03-25T18:49:00.000-04:00

I am down to the wire in posting this, but I am hoping that some of you will be able to fit an observance of Earth Hour into your Saturday night plans.

Saturday, March 25, marks the 11th annual observance of Earth Hour, a global event coordinated by the World Wildlife Fund, when people around the globe set aside an hour to "host events, switch off their lights, and make noise for climate change action.” "There's never been a more critical moment in the fight," said Terry Macko, senior vice president of marketing and communications at World Wildlife Fund.

The designated hour is 8:30 to 9:30 pm. TONIGHT!

Candlelight dinner anyone? If you want some other ideas, check out this link at the Earth Hour site for more suggestions.

According to an article in yesterday’s USA Today some of the landmarks that will spend an hour in the dark this evening include: the Empire State Building, the Space Needle, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Colosseum in Rome, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Sydney Opera House and the Eiffel Tower.

You can follow the event on twitter.

I hope you will join me and the millions of others who will be spending an hour in the dark tonight.

Better make my dinner…

Meatless Monday: Late Winter Salad

2017-03-05T19:42:00.000-05:00

It’s been over a month of Mondays since I last managed a post.

I thought I’d get back in the groove by sharing a simple idea with you.

It’s in the teens outside today. But the warm weather last week had me thinking about salad. Native tomatoes are months away. The very tasty ones grown in Maine greenhouses that I found at Nica’s up the street are selling for $5.99 a pound! The other ones with good flavor come from south of the border and are pretty pricey, too.

But California oranges are another matter. Ditto for Florida grapefruit. Most of the stores are offering bargain prices for bags of citrus. [Note: A word to the wise. Check to verify that the fruit is firm. Remove from the fruit from the bag and put in the fridge as soon as you get home.]

I have discovered that citrus paired with spinach greens is a perfect solution for my late winter salad cravings.

Here is the recipe for the salad pictured here.

Elaine’s Late Winter Salad

INGREDIENTS

Salad

Fresh Spinach
Arugula
Radicchio
Red Onion
Blood Oranges
Dried Cranberries
Sunflower Seeds

Dressing

1 Tablespoon Balsamic Vinegar

3 Tablespoons Olive Oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Method

Wash the salad greens and spin dry.
Tear into reasonable sized pieces.
Thinly slice red onion to your taste.
Peel and break a blood orange into sections. Cut each section in half before adding to the salad.
Add a few dried cranberries for color.
Sprinkle sunflower seeds on top.
Whisk the dressing ingredients together
Top your salad

Notes

Cara cara oranges, naval oranges, grapefruit, and clementines are also delicious.
You can use any combination of salad greens you wish.
With the addition of cheese you have a one bowl meal.

Enjoy! “See you” again soon.

Meatless Monday: In 2017 Everything Matters

2017-01-16T19:13:00.001-05:00

I let the end of the year slip by without farewell thoughts or best wishes for the new year.

I returned from my first ever Christmas on the west coast, with resolutions in hand. At the top of the list was “Blog More.”

It is now the THIRD Monday of January, but better late than never….

My first post of 2017 has three parts:

Part One: A Place I Visited

While in California we had the opportunity to have lunch at Lyfe Kitchen in Palo Alto. Started by Mike Roberts (the former global president of McDonald’s), Mike Donahue (McDonald USA’s former chief of corporate communications), and Stephen Sidwell (who helped found the meat substitute Gardein), this fast casual chain offers something healthy for everyone — omnivore, carnivore, vegetarian, or vegan. It is a place any group can happily go to enjoy a meal together. Menu items are under 600 calories!

A prominent feature of the restaurant’s decor is a hydroponic herb wall, shown in the photo below.

Photo by LYFE Kitchen

Lyfe Kitchen’s mission is: “To consistently provide flavorful, nourishing experiences and extraordinary service. We feature balanced flavors from real, high quality ingredients for the freshest possible meals, making the choices to feed you and your family easier.” Mainly of the ingredients are locally sourced. There are currently thirteen restaurants in six states. Alas, Connecticut is not one of them.

Part Two: A Show I am Watching

When I got back I discovered a docu-series on Netflix — Chef’s Table . The teaser reads: “Dinner is served. Find out what’s inside the kitchens and minds of the international culinary stars who are redefining gourmet food.” I started with the spinoff series, Chef’s Table — France, of which I have seen two installments.

Episode one tells the story of Alain Passard, who dramatically transformed the menu of his famed restaurant L’Arpège. He replaced the meat on his plates with vegetables grown in his own gardens. L’Arpège never once lost any of its three Michelin stars and Passard became known as the founder of the Farm to Table movement.

Alexandre Couillon and his restaurant La Marine is the subject of episode two. He transformed a seasonal family restaurant into a year round destination, putting his island Nourmoutier on the map. Relying on local fish harvested in a sustainable manner, Couillon endured through an oil spill, from which he drew inspiration for a dish that brought a critic to tears. HIs restaurant has earned two Michelin stars.

Part Three: A Thing I Learned

Potatoes and root vegetables are traditionally stored in a cold cellar, but here is a trick for those of us who don’t have one: If you keep your potatoes in a paper bag, they will not sprout and they will last longer.

The common theme? Through food you can be an agent for change. The French chefs changed the world and economy around them through the food they chose to cook. The founders of Lyfe Kitchen brought “healthy” to fast casual. And a simple paper bag can help you to waste less food in your kitchen.

We need to keep hope alive and remain optimistic in the challenging days ahead. How each of us lives our lives can have a positive effect on the planet and inspire others to do the same.

Giving for Good

2016-12-11T18:49:00.000-05:00

Each of us has important people in our lives whom we like to honor with tokens of love, gratitude, and affection. The quest to find meaningful gifts that will be enjoyed and not stowed can be daunting, expensive, and exhausting. I have assembled a smattering of ideas for alternative gifting that I hope will help and inspire you.

Honor the Person Who Needs Nothing with a Gift that Keeps on Giving

Consider making a gift to Kiva in his or her name. Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Here’s how it works: You make a gift to Kiva in the amount of $25 or more in honor of someone. Kiva notifies the individual about your gift with an invitation to search through the Kiva database of over 5,000 loans and select a borrower. When the loan is repaid, the process repeats!
At Oxfam Unwrapped YOU choose the gift when you honor someone. (For example: A Christmas donkey for $150 or a toilet for $50.) You receive a humorous gift card to send.
Heifer International works in much the same way. You can browse their gift catalogue here.

Stuck with what to give a grandchild?

How about the gift of an adventure with you? Check out the intergenerational offerings at Road Scholar.
Or consider a gift to his or her college fund. Ask your son or daughter for info on how to make a contribution. Or, set up a CHET account yourself and take the CT tax deduction.

If you want to give a tangible gift, try these ideas:

Edible Gifts:

Homemade baked goods.
A gift certificate to a favorite coffee shop, deli, or restaurant.
Support a family farmer by shopping at CitySeed Farmers Market (Saturdays and Sundays until Dec 18) OR online through Local Harvest with its catalogue of over 5500 products including fresh fruits, nuts, dried fruits, and non-edibles from beeswax candles to clothing and baskets.

Shop for Good:

Make someone’s life better by shopping at Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade retailer, with an online shopping site AND a physical store on Chapel Street. The company strives to improve the livelihood of artisans in developing countries. According to the website, “$140 million in sustainable income has been earned by makers who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed since our founding in 1946.”
Shop to benefit a local not-for-profit such as Creative Arts Workshop’s Celebration of American Crafts.
Shop at a museum gift shop: Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Peabody Museum, or the New Haven Museum Shop.
Give a green and useful gift like LED lightbulbs, good for the environment and for the user’s budget. IKEA is a great place to shop for these; it is the only type of bulb they sell.
Also at IKEA: For every toy, piece of play furniture, or children's book sold until December 24, the IKEA Foundation will donate $1 supporting children's right to play and develop. The New Haven store is collecting soft toys for the Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, so buy a few extra to put in the donation bin.

Other Ideas:

Do you have too many cookbooks? Pass some of them on, perhaps adding tabs for your favorite recipes and decorating with a gadget or two instead of a bow.
Make a gift.
Do you have too many notecards? Give them, along with a selection of beautiful stamps, to someone who still likes to correspond the old-fashioned way.
Divide and repot your plants. (Be sure to keep them warm when you transport them).
If you have a skill you would like to share with someone, give the gift of lesson(s).

Happy Gifting!

[Note: This is an edited version of an article I wrote for the holiday issue of HomeHaven News, a monthly newsletter for the members of HomeHaven, an organization in New Haven helping seniors to "age in place." While some of the ideas are geared to shopping locally, I hope they will give you ideas for ways to help the community in which you live.]

Meatless Monday Matters

2016-11-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL. In these uncertain times each of us needs to commit to doing all we can to lower our individual carbon footprint.

Eating less meat is one step we can take.

Wasting less food is another.

A small step is better than no step. It can be as simple as making a meal at home from ingredients you have on hand, especially those that are nearing the end of their shelf life.

If you feel like comfort food at the moment, this recipe might be just what you need. Inspired by a dish I once ordered at a pancake place, it comes out of the oven high like a popover and falls as soon as you cut into it. It will take you to a happy (ier) place.

It is very easy to make and is a great way to use up apples picked earlier in the fall that are starting to become a little soft. If you do much cooking you probably have the other ingredients in your fridge and pantry.

BAKED APPLE PANCAKE

Ingredients

1/3 cup butter
4 tart apples
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
4 eggs
1 cup flour
1 cup milk

Directions

Preheat ovn to 425°.
Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet.
Peel and slice the apples.
Add the apple slices to the melted butter and stir.
Lower the heat and continue cooking, stirring often until apples are tender.
Remove the skillet from the heat.
Combine the eggs, flour, and milk and whisk together until smooth. [You can use a blender.]
Spread the apples evenly in the skillet.
Pour the batter over the apples.
Bake for 20 minutes until the pancake is puffed up and nicely browned.
Cut into 6 pieces and serve immediately with a bit of maple syrup.

[I have only baked this in a skillet but I imagine a casserole dish would work, too.]

This may not be the most nutritious meal, but there are far worse.

This comfort dish has benefits, too.
You have kept food in your fridge from going to waste.
You have lowered your carbon footprint by passing up meat AND by leaving your car turned off.
It is also a really cheap meal. Perhaps you can do some good with the money you save.

I am not saying this is all we need to do in the days ahead, but observing Meatless Monday is a good start.

On Mondays I often blog on food, food issues, or gardening in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

The Great Pumpkin Revisited

2016-10-31T19:25:00.003-04:00

Just in time for Hallowe'en! Today's Meatless Monday topic is the pumpkin. Celebrated at this time of year for its potential to grow to a gargantuan size and the ease with which it can be carved, the pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) has been a valuable source of nourishment for centuries.

The pumpkin originated in Central America but is now grown on six continents. Pumpkins come in numerous varieties. Some are better for eating or growing large; others are better for carving. The Jack-o’-lantern in the photo was most likely carved from a Connecticut Field pumpkin.

The Pilgrims were not familiar with the pumpkin when they landed on the shores of what is now Massachusetts in the 1600s. But they soon learned of the many ways the Native Americans put the pumpkin to good use including roasting of long strips of pumpkin on the open fire for eating, and drying strips of pumpkin for weaving into mats. The creative colonists went on to invent uses of their own: the origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, filled the insides with milk, spices and honey and then baked the pumpkin in hot ashes. They also found a way to turn it into beer, a tradition that continues in the brewing of seasonal ale to this day.

Pumpkins are a nutritious food, low in calories, high in fiber, and packed with vitamins and minerals. One cup of cooked pumpkin has 2 grams of protein, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 564 mg of potassium, an astounding 2650 IU of Vitamin A, and a mere 49 calories.

Newly-harvested pumpkins are readily available at farmers markets, farm stands, and supermarkets. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, store shelves are well stocked with cans of pumpkin that have been cooked and puréed to make life easier when you have to whip up a pumpkin pie on the fly.

These cans of pumpkin are good for lots more than pie, so pick up a few before they disappear. They will come in handy when you crave a pumpkin treat and local pumpkins are nowhere to be found. One of my favorite uses for pumpkin purée is in a cornbread recipe I adapted from a recipe from The Muffin Cookbook: Muffins for All Occasions, a spiral-bound cookbook published to promote name-brand canned goods and dairy products.

Tex-Mex Pumpkin Corn Muffins (Cornbread)

Ingredients:
1 cup yellow organic cornmeal
1 cup unbleached organic flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon (or more) of your favorite chili powder
2 eggs
1 cup canned organic pumpkin (NOT pie filling)
[Note: Feel free to cook and prepare your own.]
1 cup low-fat milk
2 tablespoons organic canola oil
1 4 oz can chopped green chili peppers (mild) or one small, fresh chili chopped
3 oz (or more to taste; I use at least 4 oz) of extra sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl beat eggs; mix in pumpkin, milk, oil, and chopped chili peppers. Add wet ingredients to dry; combine with rubber scraper just until moistened. Turn into an oiled 10” cast iron skillet. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake in 425° oven for 20-25 minutes —just until cake tester comes out dry. If you decide to bake as muffins, temperature should be lowered to 400°, time will be approximately the same, but check on the early side. Makes around 18 muffins.

This cornbread is a wonderful accompaniment to pea soup or curried kale. Leftovers (if there are any) taste great after being lightly toasted in a toaster oven and then spread win a little grape jam.

Now for some Jack-o’-lantern trivia in honor of this holiday: This tradition was brought to the United States by the Irish. The myth behind the Jack-o’-lantern involves a stingy man named Jack who makes a deal with the devil and finds himself wandering forever after he dies, unable to gain admittance to either Heaven or Hell. Legend has it that the devil tossed Jack an ember from Hell to light his way. Jack placed the ember in a carved out turnip which he carried with him as he roamed the earth. People in the British Isles began carving various root vegetables to make their own “Jack-o’-lanterns” to keep Stingy Jack and other evil spirits away. The Irish used turnips (and sometimes potatoes). Upon arriving in the US, they discovered the readily available, larger, and easy to carve pumpkin. “Turnip Jack” soon became history and the pumpkin Jack-o’-lantern became part of American culture.

[Note: This post was originally published in October 2010.]

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.

Meatless Monday: Water Saving Pasta

2016-10-17T20:15:00.000-04:00

We are in a drought in Connecticut. Our fall palette is somewhat muted this year with russet tones replacing our normally brilliant reds. Our rainfall deficit is why state residents are being asked to voluntarily reduce water consumption by 10%. The New Haven Regional Water Authority has a number of water saving tips on its website. We don’t have a water shortage at the moment, but we need to preserve what we have in our reservoirs.

Over the past year or two in our house we have switched to low flow toilets, and we recently replaced a sink with leaky faucets. We have long had water efficient shower heads and aerators on our sinks. So we are down to the small things, mainly being more mindful of water use whenever we turn on the tap. This brings me to my Meatless Monday adventure of the day, my experiment with Barilla Pronto Pasta. Pronto promises: One Pan. No Boil. No Drain. Dinner for 6 in under 15 minutes!

I have long been a fan of Barilla in general and Barilla’s no-boil lasagna in particular because it allows me to make lasagna quickly on demand. So when I noticed Pronto products on the shelf I decided to give them a try. The Italian-American woman on checkout made a snide comment when she put the Pronto in my bag, but I brought it home and did a little research.

I checked out the Barilla website and found a YouTube video.

I decided Friday night was the night and I followed the directions on the box:

Pour the whole box of pasta into a large skillet,
Pour three cups of cold water into the pan, making sure that the water covers the pasta.
Turn the burner to high, stirring regularly, until most of the water is absorbed.
Remove from heat and add your favorite ingredients.

It worked! Less water, and none down the drain. Fewer dishes.

Here are before and after images:

Starting Out

Done

I used cold water from the fridge and I couldn’t bring myself to turn the flame really high, so it took 12 minutes instead of 10 for my pasta to cook. You will know when you stir it if your pasta is done.

I saved half the pasta for another day and topped the rest with a small batch of fresh pesto. It was delicious, and it had the taste and texture of the pasta I normally used.

I am not sure how they do it; the ingredients and nutrition info for Pronto Penne are the same as in the traditional variety. I wonder if you could do the same with the whole grain version, perhaps with a little more water, and a little more time? Could you use a little less gas by not turning the burner quite so high? I will have to do some experimenting.

What I do know is that Pronto made life a little easier on the night I tried it, and it did take less water.

Keep in mind that blue box pasta is not a nutritious meal in and of itself, but if your day has slipped away and you have the perfect something to serve on top, this product is really great.

FYI If you are used to microwaving your leftovers, be warned that Pronto tends to stick together when reheated. It will be fine once you add your sauce and give it a good stir.

Happy Monday!

I often blog on food, food issues, or topics related to growing things on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Oven Roasted Tomatoes

2016-10-10T18:49:00.000-04:00

Those of you who read my recent post on peaches know that I cannot pass up a bargain, particularly when it comes to food. At a late Friday stop at Bishops’s Orchards in Guilford, Connecticut (on a quick mission to buy lettuce on our way home from Hammonasset Beach State Park) we discovered that large baskets of plum tomatoes were available for just under $11. We had to buy one.

When the weather turned surprisingly wet and windy on Sunday, I had the perfect opportunity to turn these beauties into two large batches of Oven Roasted Tomatoes, using a recipe from a cookbook called The Cape Cod Table, by Lora Brody.

In her preface to the recipe Lora Brody wrote, “These tomatoes will become a kitchen staple when you see how much punch and flavor they add to a vast number of dishes, including soups, sauces, fish, poultry, and meat.”

She is so right. I have been cooking up multiple batches in early fall for the past several years. I use my largest stainless steel baking pan; it holds 30 plum tomatoes, by my calculations equal to the amount called for in the recipe. The recipe is really easy if you have a large pan and a bit of time on your hands.

Oven Roasted Tomatoes

Ingredients

5 pounds of plum tomatoes, rinsed and cut in half lengthwise
4 large springs fresh thyme, or 2 teaspoons dry thyme leaves [Fresh is great, but dry is fine.]
1/3 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons balsamic or red wine vinegar [I used balsamic with a delicious result.]
2 teaspoons coarse salt
Five or six peeled shallots if available [My tweak. I had some on hand and had used them in the past in a similar recipe.]

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400°F, with the rack in the upper third of the oven, but not the highest position.
Place the thyme in the bottom of the roasting pan.
Spread the tomatoes over the thyme, in one layer if possible.
Scatter the shallots.
Drizzle with the olive oil, and sprinkle with the vinegar and salt.
Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, or until the tomatoes have browned (unevenly) and given up their juices and the juices have reduced and become slightly thickened and syrupy. [I let them go for an hour and a half.]
Allow the tomatoes to cool in the pan.
Remove the thyme sprigs if used.

Tomatoes before cooking

Once the tomatoes are out of the oven I let them cool down and congeal a bit at room temperature. I put them in a covered glass casserole overnight in the fridge and then bag them in freezer bags, label and date them, and lay them flat in the freezer; I find that three cups per bag works well. If you don’t eat them they will last until next season.

Tomatoes when they are done

My favorite use? Can I mention fish on Meatless Monday? I like to use my oven roasted tomatoes for baking or poaching cod fillets. I discovered individually wrapped MSC certified Atlantic Cod Fillets, frozen in packages of six at Whole Foods. Three cups of tomatoes is the perfect amount for cooking two fillets, and that is all you need to make a great meal. It is easier if you thaw the fillets in the refrigerator a day ahead.

However you use your oven roasted tomatoes, I promise you will be amazed at just how easy it is to give yourself a taste of summer all winter long.

Happy Monday!

Meatless Monday: Peaches 3 Ways

2016-10-03T18:53:00.002-04:00

We had a very pleasant surprise on a visit to Bishops’s Orchards in Guilford, Connecticut several weeks (and a season ago now). We are peach lovers and, though hopeful, didn’t really expect to find baskets of perfect, ripe, jumbo, native peaches for sale. They were pricey at $22.99 a basket, but we couldn’t resist.

They were a little firm when we brought them home. I spread them out in flat baskets in a single layer and waited for them to ripen. By the next morning I found one ready to slice for breakfast cereal. By the next day the scent of peaches permeated the air, and it was time to do something with them.

These survivors of both the early budding/late frost in the spring and the scorching summer drought that followed are the sweetest and juiciest I can remember — the kind that send liquid dribbling down your chin when you bite into them. We did not want to waste a single one.

I set aside about a dozen, and the rest I froze using a very easy method that had worked for me last peach season.

Easy Frozen Peaches

Line a baking sheet with plastic wrap.
Peel and slice the peaches as you would for a pie. [A ripe peach peels easily. If the skin doesn’t come off easily, you can dip the peach into boiling water for 10-20 seconds using a slotted spoon, cool slightly and then peel.]
Lay the slices on the baking sheet in a single layer without overlapping them.
Cover with a sheet of plastic wrap, pressing the wrap firmly down over the peach pieces.
Pop into the freezer overnight (or until the peaches are firmly frozen).
Put the peach slices into ziplock freezer bags.

Last year I sliced, froze, and bagged five peaches (enough for a crumb top pie) as an experiment. Turning them into a pie was a snap.

That evening we had fresh peach halves filled with Sweet Italian Cream, probably the easiest elegant dessert ever. This was a dish inspired by a recipe in an Italian travel magazine calling for mascarpone, marsala, and crushed amaretti, none of which I had in my pantry. It did, however, bring to mind a ricotta-based recipe from my friend Claire Criscuolo’s cookbook Italian Feast. I had no sweet vermouth, but I did have everything else. I substituted Amaretto and came up with a delicious treat.

Here is my version:

Italian Cream Filled Peaches

(Makes enough to fill 4 peaches)

INGREDIENTS

1/8 cup golden raisins

1-1/2 tablespoons Amaretto

8 ounces whole milk ricotta

1/8 confectioners sugar, sifted

DIRECTIONS

Soak the raisins in the Amaretto for half an hour, stirring occasionally.
Put the cheese in a bowl.
Add the now plumped raisins with any liquid remaining.
Add the sugar.
Stir to combine.
Peel and cut two peaches in half.
Remove the pit.
Use the sweet ricotta to fill the centers.
Put any remaining cheese into the refrigerator.

Claire uses her sweet ricotta to top poundcake and fill cream puffs. She also shared that her mother liked to spread it on her breakfast toast.

And the next day I made this beautiful pie, based on the Neely’s Peach Crumb Pie on the Food Network site. The only substitution I made was to swap almond flour for the flour. It enhanced the flavor of the sliced almonds, which goes so well with the taste of fresh peaches.

The recipe is “easy” as it promises, particularly if you have an empty pie crust on hand. The smell as it bakes is sublime. It is particularly delicious served slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. This is why I froze just enough peaches to make this pie on some cold, dreary day in the future when a taste of summer is just what I need.

My apologies. Peach season is over. It’s time for apples and pumpkins now, and these tips will be much more useful next August. Life got in the way of blogging. That happens sometimes.

Meatless Monday: Raspberries, Raspberries

2016-09-05T13:52:00.002-04:00

The normal late summer sequence of Pick Your Own in Connecticut is blueberries, peaches, raspberries. It was a terrible season for pick your own peaches; a string of 50 degree days in February tricked the trees into thinking Spring had arrived and then two extremely cold spells damaged the buds, but this year’s raspberry crop is amazing!

Nearby Bishops’s Orchards grows a variety called Heritage. Their orchard handout sheet explains that pruning the canes to ground level in late winter yields new growth that produces a crop in late summer and early fall. The season typically begins in mid-to-late August, peaking in September, and winding to a complete close after a killing frost. Several friends have reported that the picking is already great, and I have evidence, too — the 4 qt basket of freshly picked berries two friends gave to my husband on Friday!

Raspberries are a fragile fruit, and you really need to use them within a day to keep them from losing their shape and spoiling. I didn’t want to waste a berry. So I came up with a plan.

We gently washed and ate some right away.
We picked out individual beauties, laid them out on a single layer on a baking sheet, and put them in the freezer. The next morning I poured the frozen berries into a ziplock bag. I followed old advice to freeze the berries without washing and to rinse the frozen berries well before using. The new message seems to wash and dry gently first. You can read more about storing fresh berries here.
We set some aside in one layer in the fridge for eating on cereal over the next two days.
I measured out 4 cups to bake into raspberry crisp the next morning.

We had been buying and enjoying long distance berries over the past few weeks as they have been a BOGO item in all the supermarkets. But it was amazing to taste the difference a local berry makes.

Crisp is one of the easiest desserts to bake. It stores well in the freezer, too. Here’s a photo of the one I baked while it was still intact.

Here is the recipe I used; it is based on an old Bishop’s Orchard handout.

RASPBERRY CRISP

Ingredients

4 cups fresh raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1/3 cup almond meal [The original recipe called for flour.]
3/4 cup rolled oats
Fresh lemon juice

Directions

Place berries in a 9” square pan.
Sprinkle with a few drops of lemon juice.
Mix together dry ingredients.
Cut butter into the dry ingredients [This is a snap with a hand held pastry blender if you have one.]
Sprinkle the topping evenly over the raspberries.
Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until the berries start to bubble.

This was a birthday dessert, so we topped it with Farmer’s Cow Hay! Hay! Hat! Vanilla Ice Cream.

Raw raspberries (fresh or frozen) are high in Vitamin C and dietary fiber and have many other health benefits. You can use them to top your cereal or spinach salad.

Raspberries are also great in pie. And they make delicious syrup and jam. There are many, many ways to prepare them.

I plan a visit (or two) to Bishop’s soon, a tradition I began when our son was small. It was the perfect outing for those early fall school holidays. Bishop’s has a “sin bin” for contributions to pay for the berries that never made it to the basket for weighing; back then I was a generous donor.

If you want to locate a PYO near your, Local Harvest is a great place to start. Enter a location and click on Pick Your Own to find the farms nearest you. It’s a great and healthy family outing. Enjoy!

Saturday Shorts: 08.27.16 Out with the Old

2016-08-27T10:10:00.001-04:00

I’m finally back, with a really short post. It’s not like me to throw anything away, but today I tossed the incandescent lightbulbs I had stashed in my basement. I put them in a sturdy paper bag. I crushed them. I bagged the paper bag in a saved plastic bag and then I put the whole shebang into my brown Toter for pickup on Monday.

Embed from Getty Images

I had long suspected I should no longer use these old bulbs. I knew that incandescents, unlike fluorescents, contain no hazardous material requiring that they be brought to a collection center. I had been hoarding them in the hope that I could find out how to recycle them. In August the Sierra Club’s “Mr. Green” answered the question: “Is it better to use up old incandescent bulbs, or should I recycle them for LEDs instead?” In his answer he confirmed that yes, these bulbs are energy hogs and should never again be used. He also stated that the recycling value of incandescent bulbs is really low and he advised his readers to throw them out. So I finally did. You can read Mr. Green’s full response to this dilemma here.

When shopping for new bulbs, please take Mr. Green’s advice (and mine) and visit the Energy Star site for some excellent tips.

Have a great Saturday!

Meatless Monday: The Ubiquitous Prickly Lettuce

2016-07-25T13:16:00.001-04:00

Prickles

Even in the midst of this year’s rainfall deficit in Connecticut [currently down about 6 inches from its usual total], the wild urban plants continue to thrive. One of the most prolific inhabitants of the space between fence and sidewalk is prickly lettuce (Lactusa serriola), so named for the prickly spines on the underside of its leaves. An ancestor to today’s salad lettuces, Lactusa serriola is a member of the sunflower family and is native to Europe.

Prickly lettuce has a basal rosette of pale green leaves from which rises a single hollow stem that can grow to 7 feet! Its alternate leaves are deeply lobed; they typically orient themselves vertically toward the sun, rather than horizontally, leading to the nickname “compass plant.” The tops of the leaves are smooth, but the bottom is prickly, particularly along the midrib [an easy way to distinguish this plant from the dandelion whose leaves have a somewhat similar appearance]. It has a long and sturdy taproot and spreads by re-seeding. Like its modern-day relatives, prickly lettuce grows best in nutrient-rich soils, but it can tolerate dry sites with poor soil, one of the reasons it thrives when lawns are turning brown!

Tiny flowers, gone by.

In mid-summer, the plant blooms at its tip with a profusion of small, yellow flowers. “Individual plants can produce from 35 to 2,300 flowers. Each flower head contains an average of 20 seeds, giving an estimated seed production of 700 and 46,000 seeds per plant, respectively. Most seeds are viable and ready to germinate immediately after dispersal.” The seed can survive in the ground for one to three years.

Pods starting to form.

Prickly lettuce was traditionally used in herbal medicine as a sedative and a painkiller, hence one more nickname, “opium lettuce.” Some modern day foragers gather and eat its shoots or smoke its leaves, but most authorities caution against harvesting and using this plant as it is known to have toxic effects. In fact, WebMD has listed a number of warnings to those who decide to experiment with this plant. They urge everyone to avoid eating wild lettuce in large quantities, but the site also lists a number of immediate dangers to ingesting even a small amount of this plant for those with medical conditions including enlarged prostate, an allergy to ragweed, or narrow-angle glaucoma, as well as for those taking prescribed sedatives or about to have surgery. As a food source, perhaps it is best to leave this lettuce alone.

The plant is particularly troublesome to wheat farmers because the buds can be difficult to screen out of grain. The latex can clog equipment. However, rather than demonizing the wild lettuce, Washington State researchers chose to explore its possibilities as a cash crop. They were intrigued by the milky sap the plant exudes from all its parts when it is broken. A 2006 study had found that the latex in prickly lettuce was very similar to the polymers in natural rubber. The WSU researchers began by mapping prickly lettuce DNA. The initial findings were published in 2015 and seem promising; regions in the plant’s genetic code were found to be similar to those of plants used in the production of rubber. This is indeed good news as the Brazilian rubber tree, our main source of natural latex, is threatened by disease; over half of our rubber products are now being made from petrochemicals. Perhaps one day prickly lettuce will be cultivated and our tires will be made from this wild plant.

Prickly lettuce has one other property I should mention. Peter Del Tredici, author of Wild Urban Plants of the Northeast, states that this plant can be used in phytoremediation of urban sites contaminated by heavy metals, particularly zinc and cadmium. [Another reason not to eat prickly lettuce harvested from a parking lot.]

I hope you have enjoyed this tale of a plant that you most likely have seen but may not have noticed. If so, you might also like to read my past posts on the wild carrot and purslane.

Happy Monday!

Meatless Monday: Celebrate Summer

2016-06-27T20:19:00.001-04:00

Eat Well. Stay Safe. Don’t Let the Bugs Bite!

Summer is in full swing, and it’s time to head outdoors to enjoy the long sunny days with family and friends.

Much as I like to cook, my summer game plan includes spending as little time in the kitchen as possible. I make lots of salads, some whipped up with canned beans and condiments from the cupboard, others more elaborate and based on what produce has come into season at the farmer's market. My key to success is to make sure I always have fresh greens on hand for a salad base, and to make extra grains each time I cook so that I can easily turn a simple salad into a meal.

As promised here is a link to all my blog posts on salads to get you inspired. They are in chronological order beginning with last weeks’s recipe. I can almost guarantee that there is something in this list to appeal to even the pickiest eater.

Three-Bean Salad
Farro Salad
Last Days of Summer Salad Note: This is the perfect salad to make when local berries come into season. Don’t wait until September to try this.

The time is now for this Danish treat!

Kale Salad
How to Turn Any Salad into a Meal
Quinoa Salad
Greek Cucumber Salad
Fred Harvey’s Coleslaw Note: This recipe, made popular by railroad restaurateur Fred Harvey, is simply delicious and particularly refreshing on a hot day — perfect for a 4th of July cookout!
Hakurei Turnip Salad

Now that we have Salads covered, I want to share a couple of summer safety tips.

As tempting as it might be to run out the door and head to the beach without applying sunscreen or putting on a hat, keep in mind that in the northern hemisphere the sun’s rays are the longest and most powerful at this time of year. Unprotected exposure to intense sunlight increases the risk of skin cancer, particularly between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm. Be warned that while some sunscreens are long lasting and do what is promised on the label, others are inadequate. Each year the watchdog Environmental Working Group tests and rates sunscreens on the market; here is the link to this year’s list. Good Guide is another useful consumer tool, rating products based on safety, health, and environmental factors. See how your sunscreen performs here.

And don’t forget the dangers from insect bites. Even though I don’t plan to hit the tropics, the Zika virus has been on my mind. I visited the CDC website to see what they recommend for insect repellants and I discovered this excellent fact sheet. I then checked out the latest recommendations from Consumer Reports and I learned there was one repellant, Sawyer Picaridin, that is effective for at least eight hours against the mosquitoes that transmit the Zika virus, the Culex mosquitoes (which can spread West Nile virus), AND deer ticks (which can spread Lyme Disease). Here is the link to the report. Sawyer Picaridin can be purchased on Amazon as well as in a number of big box retailers; here is a store locator.

I'm all ready to enjoy some time outside the kitchen. I hope you are, too.

Eat well. Stay safe. Don’t let the bugs bite!

Happy Summer! Happy Meatless Monday.

Meatless Monday: Summer is for Salads

2016-06-19T19:41:00.000-04:00

It’s the first day of summer! And the weather in New England is glorious at the moment. With such perfect weather it is a shame to spend too much time indoors. In our house, summertime is salad time, especially now that fresh local greens and berries are making their way to our farmers’ markets. With some careful planning before you go to the market, and a bit of advance preparation on the weekend, you too can stock your fridge for a week’s worth of salads.

In all my years of Meatless Monday blogging I can’t believe I have never shared this favorite recipe — a riff on “Kidney Bean Salad” from Recipes for a Small Planet, by Ellen Buchman Ewald, first published in 1973. This easy to prepare salad is versatile and economical; it can be altered depending on the ingredients you have on hand, making it perfect for a surprise invitation to a potluck. Served on a bed of greens with a side of bread it is all you need for a quick dinner on a hot summer night. It stores well in the fridge and makes a wonderful grab and go lunch for the office or a spontaneous picnic. No need for those high-price containers from the deli section!

The original recipe follows with my changes in brackets.

KIDNEY BEAN SALAD [AKA Three Bean Salad]

6 portions; 1 portion=approx. 7 grams of protein

INGREDIENTS

1 cup dry kidney beans [1 small can kidney beans + 1 small can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained, + 1/3 lb. fresh or frozen green beans, lightly steamed]
1 green [red] pepper, chopped
1/2 cup chopped onions [Vidalia]
1 teaspoon crushed or minced garlic
1/2 cup olive oil [extra virgin]
1/4 cup wine vinegar
1/8 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon tomato catsup
dash [or 2 or 3] hot sauce
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley [Italian]
1 cup yogurt whisked with …1/4 cup milk powder [Greek yogurt]

DIRECTIONS

Combine the beans, pepper, onions, and garlic.
Make a dressing of the remaining ingredients EXCEPT yogurt and milk powder.
Pour the dressing over the bean mixture and toss gently.
Refrigerate at least one hour.
Just before serving, stir in the yogurt mixture.

Optional additions: chopped cucumber and/or celery. NOTE: I chose not to stir the yogurt into the mix. I prefer to top each salad with a scoop of Greek yogurt, some crumbled feta cheese, or some grated sharp cheddar. The salad stores better that way.

Enjoy your time outside the kitchen! And come back next week for a complete list of the salad recipes I have shared over the years.

Happy Summer! Happy Meatless Monday.

The Choice is Clear

2016-06-09T11:52:00.000-04:00

Many of my blog posts have an optimistic tone. I strive to share good news about people doing things to make the world a better place, such as the recent post about a bee swarm and a beekeeper who came to its rescue.

But now to a reality that should strike fear into any responsible person’s heart. The presumptive Republican candidate for president, in a late May speech to oil producers in North Dakota, said he would “cancel” the Paris climate agreement and withdraw any funding for United Nations programs related to global warming. He also pledged to reopen coal mines and to try to reopen negotiations to build the Keystone XL pipeline. You can read his entire energy policy plan here.

Presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has vowed to “deliver on the pledge President Obama made at the Paris climate conference last December… Her plan will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 30 percent in 2025 relative to 2005 levels and put the country on a path to cut emissions more than 80 percent by 2050.” In November 2015 Hillary Clinton said: “I won’t let anyone take us backward, deny our economy the benefits of harnessing a clean energy future, or force our children to endure the catastrophe that would result from unchecked climate change.”

For the first time in its history the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) has endorsed a candidate for president. That candidate is Hillary Clinton. The advocacy group declared: “She has the deep knowledge and diplomatic skills to fight for our kids’ future, preserve America’s leadership role in the Paris Climate Agreement and build upon that global framework to fight climate change. We will work with her to honor and implement that historic accord to preserve our planet for future generations.”

Why is this so important? In a talk entitled “A Future Free from Fear: Why We must Act on Climate Change Today,” delivered at Yale in May, Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCC (Un Framework Convention on Climate Change) stated that we have just FIVE YEARS to make important progress to reducing the amount of CO2 in our air.

Figueres praised the Paris Climate Agreements for setting up the possibility of a new reality, but emphasized in her message the we need to make this reality happen NOW. She was careful to point out that with challenges come great economic opportunities. Yes, we can change the world and garner economic benefits. We must face the challenge head on. This is our moon shot!

One only has to watch or read the news to see that destabilization of our world has begun. Parents and grandparents in particular must realize the burdens which we are going to pass on to the next generation. That is the price of inaction.

It is clear that just one of these candidates has the vision to help us as a nation achieve a clean energy future. An obvious first step is to vote for that candidate in November and to work in the coming months to persuade everyone you know that they should do the same.