Eat. Drink. Better.

What’s Your Favorite Lunch? Comment and Win!

Kelli Best-Oliver — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:47:20 +0000

My husband says that figuring out what he’s going to pack in his lunch is one of the most frustrating parts of his day. Me? I have no problem packing up last nights leftovers, adding a piece of fruit, some carrots or other portable veggies, and possibly a treat. In fact, when I make my favorite meals, I always think about leftovers for lunch. I long ago abandoned actual brown bags; I almost always use some type of reusable cloth bag with reusable containers and silverware. I’d been coveting a stylish reusable lunch container for quite some time, but passed on buying one, citing it as something I didn’t really need.

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Farm Aid 2008

Stuart Stein — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 17:30:14 +0000

Farm Aid: 22 years of great music, supporting farmers, and strengthening America.

In case you’ve been in a cave for the last two decades, Farm Aid is:

The nonprofit organization, whose mission is to keep family farmers on their land, works with organizations to help family farmers thrive through programs that develop local food markets, training, youth education and food awareness initiatives.

Farm Aid promotes food from family farms, helps grow the good food movement and takes action to change the “system”. How? The most visible of the organization’s work is an annual daylong concert featuring some of the top names in music - headliners Willie Nelson, Mellencamp, Neil Young, and Dave Matthews.

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Food for Thought

Beth Bader — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:29:56 +0000

Stevia Sweetener Safe or Not?
Just as soft drink companies are poised to introduce new products sweetened with Stevia-derivative rebiana, a new 26-page report by toxicologists at the University of California, Los Angeles showed in several laboratory tests that the sweetener causes mutations and DNA damage, which raises the prospect that it causes cancer. Based on the report, Center for Science in the Public Interest is urging the FDA to not approve the sweetener until further tests are done. Interestingly, the tests sponsored by Cargill, manufacturer of the new sweetener, did not have similar results.

Junk Food Still Available in Schools
Marion Nestle contemplates the recent CDC report showing that, despite the childhood obesity epidemic, about 80% of public schools still sell snacks or sodas to kids during school hours.

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Off the Well-Trod Path: Alternate Routes to Victory Garden Triumph

Pamela Price — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:15:04 +0000

Guest contributor Pamela Price is the founder of Red, White & Grew, a blog devoted to “Promoting the Victory Garden Revival and other simple, earth-friendly endeavors as bipartisan, patriotic acts in an age of uncertainty.”

As mentioned here last month, folks short on fertile land but eager to grow their own vegetables can opt for container-based Victory Gardens with astonishing results.

Below are four more clever garden alternatives worth exploration. Some are old, some are new…but each illustrates that, when it comes to cultivating food, we humans are remarkably imaginative beings.

Just as our parents, grandparents, and grandparents adapted best practices in growing their own food during WWI & WWII, our concept of the modern Victory Garden movement can (and should) include a variety of strategies to ensure success!

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Celebrate The End of Summer With Watermelon Agua Fresca Recipe

Kelli Best-Oliver — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:11:20 +0000

Summer’s fleeting, but we’ll undoubtedly still have a few hot days and men are still selling watermelons off trucks by a gas station near my house. I love watermelon, and I love agua fresca, the fruity, refreshing beverage sold at taquerias on Cherokee Street in St Louis that are easy to make and easier to drink. You can use any juicy fruit you like, but as long as watermelons are around, I’ll be using them.

Watermelon Agua Fresca

6 cups cubed, seedless or seeded watermelon (about one medium watermelon)

sugar, honey, or agave nectar, to taste

juice of two small or one large lime

2 cups water, divided

pinch of salt

mint leaves, for garnish

Puree half the watermelon with half the water. Strain juice into a pitcher.
Repeat with remaining watermelon and water.
Add lime juice, sweetener to taste (a tablespoon or two should do it), and a pinch of salt. Mix well.
Chill.
Serve cold, garnished with mint leaves

If you desire, you can turn this into an adult beverage with the spirit of your choice.

Photo courtesy of Steve Evans at Wikimedia Commons

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Green Diva’s Guide to Delicious Living: Herbal Oil, Vinegar & Salad Dressings

Megan McWilliams — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 17:00:22 +0000

Tis the season . . . for harvesting wonderful herbs that is. There are many books, articles and probably millions of blog posts on the many ways to use and abuse herbs.

Other than drying or freezing them, another way to use fresh herbs to create delicious herbal taste into the colder months when we may not have as hearty a harvest available (although window herb planters are kind of cool for winter-fresh herbs.

Herb-Infused Vinegars
As Kelli Best-Oliver wrote earlier this week in her ‘five cool things to do with herbs’, making herb-flavored vinegars is pretty easy. She suggests heating the vinegar slightly. I’ve never done that, but it seems like a good idea!

I usually use white wine, white balsamic or champaign vinegars for these. My current favorite (and the one people are getting for x-mas this year) is tarragon vinegar, which of course makes an awesome bernaise sauce (always served at our traditional McWilliams family Christmas eve dinners).

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Thrifty Thursday - Five Ideas for Using Up Leftover, Cooked White Rice

Robin Shreeves — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:55:25 +0000

We try not to do takeout meals often at our house except for our weekly pizza. There’s always a lot of packaging waste with takeout food and the nutrition value is usually poor. Somewhere along the line however, we started the tradition of getting Chinese takeout on the first day of school. And yesterday was it.

I’ve been paying much closer attention to the amount of food waste that my family of four produces lately. As I wrote about in The Shocking Statistics of Food Waste, about 30% of the food produced in America gets thrown away. The environmental impact of wasted food is immense.

As I cleared the table after dinner last night, I thought about the three cups or so of white rice that came with our takeout that nobody touched. Nobody ever touches it. It usually gets put in the refrigerator only to be thrown away a week later.

It’s perfectly good rice so I decided to spend a little time finding some recipes that could use it up. Here are five recipes that you can make using leftover, cooked white rice next time you faced with one or more of those uneaten containers.

Garlic Rice - This is a simple Philippine fried recipe that calls for adding pantry staples plus some ground pork, but after reading comments made on the recipe from users, the pork can be omitted and vegetables such as mushrooms and green peppers can be added.

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Extra Zucchini? Try This Recipe!

Kelli Best-Oliver — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 15:22:19 +0000

Many home gardeners gratefully complain about having too much zucchini during the summer once their plants’ fruits ripen. They just don’t have enough to do with it. In my house, it’s even more of a problem because my husband, like Jessica Seinfeld’s kids, only eats “green things” if I hide them. He will actually eat this dish twice a year or so, mainly because it’s deliciously creamy and cheesy. It’s kind of a sauceless lasagna, and it’s pretty hard to mess up. It makes a great meatless main dish or a substantial side dish, and can be altered to use whatever you happen to have on hand. The recipe, after the jump

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Pump Up Your Pantry: Three Tips to Stock Up and Save Money

Lisa Kivirist — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 22:39:47 +0000

Artists keep stocked with paint, pencils and other supplies so they can craft a masterpiece whenever the creative muse hits. Likewise, as someone passionate about food and cooking, your palette is your kitchen. Keep it stocked with the core ingredients necessary to whip up anything from bag lunches for the kids to an impromptu dinner party.

Stocking the pantry saves time and money – two non-renewable resources and drains on greening our lifestyle. With a little planning and organization, your pantry will never let you down. I recently gushed about my pantry passion in an article for Hobby Farm Home magazine, going into more detail on stocking the kitchen.

Here’s a few starter tips:

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Five Cool Things To Do With Herbs

Kelli Best-Oliver — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 14:13:04 +0000

You’ve got that garden of herbs, in containers, in your windowsill, in your garden. You’ve made basil pesto, and added some parsley or oregano to pasta sauces. Well, there’s more you can do with those herbs you’ve been growing. A woman in my recipe swap got me thinking about other things to do with herbs to make your meals more flavorful. Thanks to Lisa at 47 Thoughts for getting the ball rolling on this. Those tips, after the jump…

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Eat. Drink. Better.

What’s Your Favorite Lunch? Comment and Win!

Farm Aid 2008

Food for Thought

Off the Well-Trod Path: Alternate Routes to Victory Garden Triumph

Celebrate The End of Summer With Watermelon Agua Fresca Recipe

Related Posts

Green Diva’s Guide to Delicious Living: Herbal Oil, Vinegar & Salad Dressings

Thrifty Thursday - Five Ideas for Using Up Leftover, Cooked White Rice

Extra Zucchini? Try This Recipe!

Pump Up Your Pantry: Three Tips to Stock Up and Save Money

Five Cool Things To Do With Herbs