We Grow Our Own Herb(s)

Once upon a time, I was in a grocery store and wanted some mint. For mojitos. I had three options. There was dried mint. Not really an option for mojitos, but it was mint. There was a section of fresh herbs, individually packaged a few twigs at a time in plastic. The price? Close to $4. I gagged. Maybe I didn't want a mojito after all. At this price for the mint alone, when you added in the rum and lime and...maybe I should go buy one at the bar.

Then I saw it. A tiny little plant, tall and spindly, just roots and twigs really. It wasn't even potted. But it was 2.99. It was grown hydroponically. It was alive, and the package said it would last up to two weeks in its wrapping. I brought it home, and instead of keeping it in its little snug wrapping, it found a home in a tupperware container with water in it.

And there it grows to this day. That sucker has made it several months now, happily feeding our occasional mint needs. We change the water out every once in awhile, but that's it. What a bargain!

This happy little mint plant inspired us to try to add to our "herb garden." We have recently added a small basil plant to the tupperware. There is no soil, no fertilizer, just water. The plants get plenty of sunlight and are very happy.

We don't have a yard, or a porch even. My husband and I live in a tiny glass box apartment suspended high in the air, which comes into our place courtesy of an H-Vac. But even we can have our very own tiny hydroponic garden. You can too. Just get out that tupperware you never use.

Tofu Scares Me

A lot. I enjoy those delicious little white cubes, particularly in a stir fry of noodles or rice and veggies and an appropriately spicy sauce. I don't know how to make tofu, though. I mean, is it cooked when you buy it? How long do you cook it for?

Besides, isn't stir fry expensive? Tofu's not exactly cheap, and all those vegetables must certainly add up.

So I set out Sunday evening to make stir fry as economical and delicious as possible, while still thinking about how responsible my food sources were.

First, my rice is organic short grain brown rice from Whole Foods. I realized the other day that Whole Foods (as do some other grocery stores, particularly smaller co-ops), sells some of their grains loose, in bulk. This saves on packaging both for the environment and your wallet. This meant that I could buy organic brown rice for the same price as non-organic, and I can bring the same container back to the store to refill when I am out.

I also included some snow peas from the CSA, as well as some shell peas, asparagus, and red pepper from Haymarket. Now, Haymarket is not a farmer's market. The vendors sell goods they have acquired from a wholesale market in Chelsea. Basically, these are the leftovers. The produce equivelent of the reduced price item section in a supermarket. On a grand scale.

This is an ethical dilemma. Is it okay to buy these goods? On the yes side, I would argue that this produce will be thrown out otherwise. Also, the vendors at Haymarket are "local" in the sense that they are running their own local small business, i.e. their fruit/veggie stand. On the no side, these items come from anywhere and everywhere, with little thought as to source, amount of miles traveled, carbon footprint, responsibility of the grower, etc.

I think the yes side can win out if one shops carefully at Haymarket. First, many packaged items, such as berries and lettuces have their place of origin on them. With a little careful looking, I found strawberries that were not from Chile but from California. California's not great, but for the same price I chose something with several thousand miles less of a footprint. You can also occasionally find organic produce at Haymarket, especially lettuces. Just watch the labels (on the produce, not the handwritten signs by the vendors). Lastly, I try to make some simple, smart choices. Are there blueberries from the U.S. being sold at Shaw's, Whole Foods, and Stop and Shop right now? Yes; okay, then I can buy blueberries at haymarket. They're likely from the US too. Kiwi? Those are never really in season in the US, so I avoid more exotic fruits and veggies. I also try to avoid items like apples, which could come from New Zealand or the US right now.

So, my stir fry veggie total from Haymarket was a whopping $3. This picture is deceptive. We had stir fry leftovers for lunch until Thursday following Sunday dinner.

My tofu was firm organic tofu.

After pre-cooking the rice and the vegetables, I mixed everything in a wok with tofu and some szechuan sauce from Super 88. Was it good? Absolutely! Would I make some changes before serving stir fry again? Again, absolutely.

1. Next time I will buy extra firm, or super firm, or firmiest of the firm tofu. "Firm" wasn't "firm" enough. It crumbled.

2. I will add the tofu to the wok a couple minutes early with the sauce so it can pick up more of the flavor. It was a little bland.

3. I will cook the rice longer and the veggies less. I thought the former would "finish" with the stir fry and the latter would be fine. The opposite was true.

So learn from my mistakes, and have no fear! Tofu won't hurt. I think. I should try again before making any promises.

We'll Bring Dessert!

Friends asked us over for dinner on Friday night. Accepting their generous offer to cook, I asked, "Can we bring anything?" The answer: dessert.

Simple enough, but what were we going to bring? I didn't have a lot of time, I didn't want to go buy a bunch of ingredients. Should we just stop by at a bakery and pick something up on the way there? It was tempting, but I thought I could spend less and know where my ingredients were coming from. So I opened my refrigerator, looked on my shelves, and realized I had what I needed for a crisp.

Crisps have all the goodness of pie without all the difficulty of making a pie crust.

Take about 6 cups of local blueberries (or whatever fruit you have on hand). Mix in a little brown sugar and a little flour and lemon juice until the fruit begins to look like it's coated in something. I used a tablespoon of each.

Take 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 a cup of flour, and 1/2 cup of local butter (cut up into tiny chunks.) mix together, add enough cinnamon to darken the mix a little, and sprinkle on top.

Bake at 375 for 30 or so minutes or until it looks brown on top and a little bubbly on the inside.

Now, this was a "healthy" recipe, but if I was making it again, I'd use a little more butter.

You might raise the fair question..."I thought you said it wasn't supposed to take long! 30 minutes is WAY to long to bake something."

Actually, put it in one of these lovely pyrex dishes with a lid. Dessert baked while we ate dinner. The dessert took less than 5 minutes to prep.

Way less than a blueberry tart I was eyeing at the bakery. That thing was $12. My dessert? Less than 5, even with all those yummy blueberries.

Meatless Mondays: Breakfast for Dinner

Riding the T around lately, I've noticed advertisements asking me to "Go Vegetarian" for dinner tonight. While on the whole the carbon footprint (check out the previous link for an awesome calculator) for most meats is greater than a vegetarian meal, the same might not hold true if your vegetarian meal consists of conventionally grown fruit, vegetables, and tofu grown and shipped from all over the world (a recent trip to Whole Foods showed apples from Chile and asparagus from New Zealand, for example). And, if your meats are more responsibly and locally sourced, you are probably off-setting your carbon footprint. Besides, don't all those fruits and veggies and tofu and tempeh get expensive?

So the other day I set out to make an inexpensive, more locally sourced vegetarian dinner. I also wanted something a little easier, so I didn't want to spend a ton of time on it.

The result may not be the most nutritionally balanced meal I've ever made, but it was delicious. And relatively affordable. And incredibly local.

Make breakfast for dinner.

We started off with some pancakes. I LOVE Trader Joe's Multigrain Baking Mix. It makes the most delicious pancakes ever! A box is less than $3 and just 1 recipe took only about 1/4 of the box. This was the least responsible of the items, but again, it is a dry good. Smaller footprint.

I made the recipe using oil I had, eggs from my Silverbrook Farms CSA, and some frozen Maine organic wild blueberries from Trader Joe's. Those blueberries really made the difference. I used just a little Kate's butter to make sure the pan didn't stick.

Then, I used the rest of the eggs from my CSA share for the week to make a nice scramble with some Cabot reduced fat cheddar cheese.

Last but not least, you have to invest in some real maple syrup. You know, the stuff made from the sap of maple trees. Your major "syrup" brands, no matter what family-friendly face they plaster on their sticker, are basically corn syrup with coloring to make it look like maple syrup. Yes, it's expensive, but it is local for New Englanders. I watch and buy when it's on sale. A little of the real stuff goes the long way.

So try breakfast for dinner, and enjoy!

What are you Drinking?

I used to drink a lot of soda. Diet soda, particularly. Now, there's always controversy surrounding every artificial sweetener out there, but that's not the point of my post today. I am no chemist, but I did stop drinking soda for two good reasons. First, it's an expensive and carbon-footprint-heavy habit. At the height of it, I was going through nearly 24 cans of soda a week. Even on sale, we're talking 8 bucks a week for my caffeine fix. Second, I appreciate the food I eat a heck of a lot more now that I don't drink soda. I notice flavors more, because my palate isn't overwhelmed with sweetness. I particularly like more kinds of fruit now. And no matter what side of the sweetener controversy you fall on, fruit is better than soda.

However, I still like to have something other than water to drink sometimes. No more 8 bucks a week for me, though, now I spend much less on what I drink.

First, for those of you who are going to stick with the soda, you can save some money and make your own. It's a little expensive as an initial investment, but if you're committed to soda, it saves in the long term. Also, you can reuse your bottles, so you make a big reduction in your carbon footprint.

However, I recommend switching to iced tea. I make my own. Buy one of these tea balls (you're going to want one at least this size), fill it with tea, and boil some water. Attach the tea ball to a pitcher, pour the water in, and refrigerate. After a few hours, you have your favorite flavor of iced tea. I've had mango green iced tea, pineapple ginger black iced tea, red iced tea. You don't only need to use loose leaf tea. Just stick four or five bags of tea in. You usually can use a tea ball twice. Two pitchers of tea with 8-10 glasses each in exchange for four or five bags of tea. A much better deal per glass than soda.

Where do I get cheap tea? First, I often get tea as a stocking stuffer or gift. I haven't bought tea in MONTHS and am still trying to get through all the tea I have been gifted over the years. However, you can also buy cheap tea at dollar stores, Christmas Tree Shop, Marshalls or TJ Maxx, or online. Happy tea hunting!

For a little more flavor, mix in a favorite lemonade, limeade, juice, or other flavor combo. Whole Foods had organic limeade on sale the other day for $2, and it made mango green tea taste like a virgin mojito..with caffeine! It was a bit more expensive and it has plenty of calories, but you only have half a serving when mixing it with the tea. So 6o calories instead of 120, and .15 instead of .30.

So try being your own tea barista, and drink up!

Making Do With What You've Got...But You Can Microwave Quinoa!

Just because we made the pledge to eat more responsibly a few months ago now doesn't mean that we still don't have some slightly more irresponsible food lying around. Particularly those items in our freezer. However, I think one of the most irresponsible thing one can do with food, responsibly acquired or not, is waste it.

So this is how I ended up baking this delicious pre-seasoned pork loin for dinner. It comes from Shaw's and had been sitting in our freezer. It was an excellent bargain. Normally $10, it had one of those $3 off stickers on it, and it was already on sale at about $7. So $4 for nearly 2 pounds of pork, preflavored. Not too shabby. However, this best I can say about this pork is that it is "all natural." What does all natural mean? Well, that depends; I don't know, and neither, I suppose, does the FDA. Seriously, however, there were no chemical additives or artificial or synthetic ingredients in the pork. Not so bad, when you think about it. No promises, however, about what Mr. Pork ate while still alive, his living conditions, and whether he was treated with anti-biotics. Oh well.

Accompanying this were some delicious snow peas obtained from our CSA. I can't tell you what they cost, because I purchased a subscription, paid for in full a few months ago, which means I am paying $335 for fruits and veggies during a 26-week growing season. I get several items every week. It's been a pretty good deal so far.

Last but not least is quinoa. Pronounced KEEN-WAH, it's pretty delicious stuff. I tend to be more flexible about the locality of my dry goods, particularly grains, because they take much less of a carbon footprint to get here, with no special refrigeration, etc. required. It's a delicious, nutty grain, and it's high in protein and fiber. A box may cost close to 2.50, but seriously, this stuff stretches much farther than couscous. A quarter cup prepared is more than enough for 2.

My favorite thing about Quinoa? YOU CAN MICROWAVE IT. Just follow the directions on the box. I promise. It's just as good that way.

So, in conclusion, what did I do to cook this meal? Stick a thing of pork on a dish and stick it in the oven, removing at the right time. Rinse some peas, stick them in a steamer insert with some water and steam. Microwave quinoa. Pretty easy stuff. And, if we're honest, a significant improvement in responsibility from our normal eating habits.

Enjoy!

A Belated 4th of July Post: How to Feed More Than 10 People on a Budget

It has been a crazy week, and so I am much delayed in posting on the 4th of July party we hosted. Originally planning to picnic on the Esplanade, the half-million plus crowds combined with the 90+degree heat led us to change our plans with less than 3 hours before people started to arrive. Yet, with a quick trip to Whole Foods and Panera, and with a little creative stretching, we served about 12 people on leftovers and about $35. Pretty awesome.

First, we didn't serve a full "meal" per se, but the amount of noshes we had was more than enough for "dinner" for everyone.

First, we took a page out of our own book, and the base of our meal was about 4 baguettes from Panera (about $10), and some cheese. However, fancy local mozzarella was not in the budget for this many people, so some concessions were made to locality for budget's sake. Now, brie may sound fancy for a dinner party on the cheap, and it is, but we have found a super deal on it. President's Brie now comes in easy-to-slice brie logs, and since it is a new product, they offer a coupon for it! You can get $3 off a brie log. Fill out the info and you can print your coupons. Now, supermarkets like Shaws and Stop and Shop will put $2 and $3 dollar off coupons on cheese (and other deli products) that are close to their expiration date. If you look through the cheese section you can usually find some. So, on the 4th, we got 2 brie logs which are normally 6.79 each for about 1.79 each! Slice thinly, and these go a long way.

We also added some somewhat local blueberries and strawberries from Whole Foods which were on sale, some other random things we had lying around the house, and we made a delicious spinach salad. You can buy a whole giant container of baby spinach at Whole Foods right now for about 6.99. That sounds expensive, but we only used half of the container for our salad to feed 10-12 people.

Spinach and Strawberry Salad

Baby Spinach, sliced strawberries, +cheese (optional, feta or goat is highly recommended)

Dressing...mix balsamic vinegar, a little olive oil, and poppy seeds together. It's delicious!

So, with a delicious meal, we settled down for an excellent view of the fireworks...in air conditioning!

Buy in Bulk, or, How I Continue to Receive an Education Every Time I Go to Whole Foods

When I hear the encouragement to "buy in bulk" when I hear tips about saving money, I usually cringe a little. See, I've made buying in bulk mistakes before, like the time we bought about 120 rolls of toilet paper because it was the cheapest per roll price. There are now toilet paper rolls stuffed in the few conceivable storage places we could find in our tiny apartment (and some in some inconceivable locations as well.) Yes, we save .01 per hundred sheets, or something like that. Was it worth it? Probably not, although we have not had to buy toilet paper in a year. A full year.

However, buying in bulk sometimes makes sense. If you use a product or item frequently, and it goes on sale infrequently, then you should buy enough when it is on sale to last you until it is on sale again, as long as you have space and it won't expire.

That said, if you like Stonyfield yogurt, it is currently on sale for .50 a pop at Whole Foods. So now half of the top shelf of our refrigerator is yogurt. Seriously, we spent close to 25 dollars on yogurt alone yesterday. Why? Because, even with our yogurt-obsessed kick of one for breakfast and maybe one for lunch, we have enough to last us the next three months. It was over half off, and even sale prices on mass-producers dannon, yoplait, and the like are comparable to that price.

So think about what you like to eat. That thing you will always have, no matter what, with a great deal of frequency. Then go out and buy it when it's on sale. Easy enough.

However, no trip to Whole Foods is complete anymore without me learning something new. This time, I learned two important facts.

1. Whole Foods, as well as many other retailers, now offer recycling for #5 plastic, which is the heavier duty plastic found in, for example, my beloved yogurt cups. They'll also recycle your Brita Water Filters. An awesome tool to find out who near you recycles #5 can be found at the Gimme 5 website. There, you can find drop off points for #5 plastics, as well as learn how you can even MAIL IN your #5's if there is no place near you!

2. The cashier looked at us bug-eyed when we checked out with so many yogurts. He kept joking with us about how we were "setting records" on yogurt purches. Then, a manager saw our purchase and came over to tell us that Whole Foods will give you a 10% discount when you buy a case of something, or in bulk, such as say the yogurt, when it is not on sale. So, even if we ran out and yogurt had not gone back on sale, we could just ask and get a 10% discount. This holds true with all of their products!