More woes in the kitchen

So I set out to make another bread, keeping in mind that the Whole Wheat flour I had used previously was not an appropriate whole wheat for bread (too course a texture). So a trip to the local co-op provided me with the needed Whole Wheat Bread Flour to make my next batch of bread. I get home with what I thought was all I needed to make the Chocolate Espresso Bread for Valentine's weekend. Sounds divine, doesn't it? Well, turns out, not so much.

Upon starting my venture into this new bread, I find that I did not have the bitter sweet chocolate required. However, I did have unsweetened chocolate and milk chocolate chips. Mixing these would have to produce the right amount of sweet... right? Turns out, that is wrong. I mixed the bread and it came out the rather wet consistency that the book warned, which was strange, but on track. I refrigerated the dough to make it workable, again as per the instructions. The dough was a beautiful dark chocolate color and I was excited for my newest experiment to be completed, and so was my daughter who had helped me make the dough.

Together we worked the cool dough into a ball and placed it to rest on the pizza paddle that we use to transfer the bread to and from the oven, we preheated the oven, and waited patiently as time rolled by and we were able to put the now formed ball of dough into the oven. With excitement we waited for the dough to cook, but the smell seemed a little "off". It smelled almost burnt, that scent that occurs when you know that something may have sat in the pan just a minute too long. Nothing strong or obvious, just bitter and not quite right. We pulled the cooked bread out of the oven and set it aside to cool, the entire time thinking it looked nice, but it just didn't entice us to start eating it right away.

After a good cool down time, and the man of the house coming in from work, we cut into the bread, put a pat of butter on it and made not so pleased faces while we ate. I quickly realized the error as I ate the, perfectly edible but not fantastic, bread. That unsweetened chocolate was just too bitter for this project and the milk chocolate chips did not help to sweeten the bread in the way I had hoped. Sadly, I had to concede that my second batch of bread was another fail. Granted, it was an edible fail, but a fail none the less. We even had half the loaf leftover the next day (almost unheard of in this house if I have only made a single loaf), so I threatened to force it on the family for breakfast. I did actually follow through with that threat hoping that toasting the bread and putting maple syrup over it would help, which it did... a little.

So without further ado, I'll show you the bread that I made (finally I remembered to take pictures).




As a reminder (did I mention this before, if not here it is), the HBin5 method has you make enough dough to make 3-4 loafs all at once. The dough is then refrigerated for you to take out and use as you need (preferably within 5-10 days of making). My next experiment will be using this dough again to make a bar in hopes of fixing my mistake.

Washing lettuce

Well, we've been getting loads of fabulous veggies from the local farmer's market, and among those veggies that are coming out right now is lettuce. Now if you've only been privy to lettuce that you buy in the grocery store, then you are probably unaware of the amount of dirt that can accumulate in between the leaves.

So the other week I came home with two large heads of lettuce and proceeded to prepare them to put in the fridge. To make things easier for later I decided to wash and tear the lettuce up so that all that I have to do is pull out what the family needed and use right away. To wash farm fresh lettuce it is best to soak the lettuce in water so that sand and dirt can sink to the bottom of the water, then take the lettuce from the water and use a salad spinner to get the moisture off the lettuce. Typically I do this by loading the lettuce in the spinner to do the whole process, taking the basket out with the lettuce to dump the water out of the lower bowl then replacing the basket with lettuce to spin.

The problem is, that with so much lettuce it would have taken 4-5 times to do this and that a lot of wasted water. I didn't want to fill the whole sink, not to mention I had already filled the salad spinner. While looking over my options, I happened to have a bucket that my family uses to pick strawberries with and I decided to dump the water from the sald spinner (along with the lettuce) into this bucket. I would add lettuce to the water, swishing it around every now and then until the lettuce took up about 1/2-2/3 of the water space (you want to have room at the bottom to collect the dirt). By the time I was done putting the lettuce in the water, it was ready to move it on to the salad spinner. I spun the lettuce and transferred it to a bag that would go in the refridgerator (this is a good way to reuse a ziploc bag), and then repeated the entire process.

Instead of using 4-5 buckets of water (approximately one gallon sized), I used one bucket of water to rinse 2 of the largest heads of lettuce I've ever seen. If I did this every two weeks (which is probably less often than it actually would be), I can save up to 8 gallons of water a month, and up to 24 gallons per season (since we maybe get local lettuce for 3 months, at the outside). This is a small amount of water, but all these little things add up.

If I find some other vegetable like this (say Swiss Chard, Leeks, and other really dirty veggies) and use the same concepts, finding the smallest volume that I can use and just using it repeatedly until all my veggies are clean, then I could save much more water in the process. Since most dirt and sand will just sink to the bottom, the water above the bottom 1/4 should be relatively clean (maybe a little green, but free of sediment). For particularly dirty leaves I rub a thumb over them to break up anything that's not realeasing on it's own.

The Importance of Gardening

AHHH, SPRING!!!

It's time for me and my family to get outside more and work in our garden. A garden is a fantastic way to save money on groceries (evnetually), reduce stress, teahc the kids valuable lessons, and stay green. Even more green than a garden in your back yard?? A garden in your front yard!! Grass requires a lot of water, it's tough to get much biodiversity (diversity in insects and other good creatures living in the dirt), and the chemicals required to keep a green lawn without weeds are pretty harsh to the environment (see biodiversity of grass).

The benefits of grass?? Well, it's pretty, you can walk across it without shoes, and on a hill it can prevent erosion.

The benefits of a garden instead?? You can eat what grows, it's much more colorful, more forgiving of mistakes, more motivation to working in it, and your dogs that live in the backyard can't destroy it!

Here's a picture of my garden just before planting for the spring. As you can see there are still lots of plants there that have stuck around over the winter.

Here's the same garden with a tiny bit of snow (a rarity around here).

And here is the same garden today (3 weeks post planting)

Okay, so maybe I just wanted to post pictures today, but there are some serious advantages to having a garden out front, as mentioned before.

One advantage is that gardens are more forgiving than lawns. If you plant multiple fruits and vegetables in your garden, your bound to get something out of it. If your soil is missing something you may have a problem growing some things but others may thrive. If your soil is missing something that the lawn needs it will all look bad. If you have a dead patch in the garden, just pull up the plants, add some compost and plant something else. If you have a dead patch in your lawn your going to have a harder time digging it up and replacing and it will be awhile before it blends in to the rest of the grass.

Another advantage is that it's easier to go organic with a garden than with a lawn (see more forgiving). While it is possible to go organic with a lawn, it is less forgiving and if you don't get your fertilizer ratios right (ie you'll most likely need store bought ) then it won't be the image of perfection that most want and the use of herbicides to get rid of weeds are generally used by most.

Let's face it, I'm lazy! I LOVE gardening, but if I don't see my gardening daily (even multiple times a day) then I just won't take care of it. It just won't be at the forefront of my mind, and I suspect it's the reason so many others fail at their back yard gardens, as well. I need to see the weeds as they pop up to pull it or they'll grow out of control. I need to see the ripe plump tomatoes and other veggies to realize that I need to pick them or they'll wither and rot on the plant. But most of all, I just need the reminder to go out and enjoy the garden and my children playing in it.

The last advantage that I'd like to discuss is the wonderful circle of life it creates. When you grow a garden you appreciate your fruits and vegetables more (even the ones you buy), in turn you are more likely to eat them helping to create a more healthy habit. After eating your produce you typically need to do something with the waste left behind and a common sense move is to start a compost (free fertilizer, who doesn't love that?) and that in turn will give you a bigger healthier garden.

Check those toilets!!

OK, so we all know that water is wasted when we have a leaky toilet. So every now and then you need to check them. Now, if you have a new toilet you may be thinking "Oh, this doesn't mean me." BUT, we used to have a nice pretty new house once too and within weeks of moving in we discovered one of the toilets, was in fact leaking. So we had to call in the contractor to fix it, and he showed us what was wrong with it. We continued to have to repair that toilet about once or twice a year after that. Now we live in a beautiful 102 year old house so EVERYTHING leaks.

So how do you check your toilet? Several ways. Of course, sometimes you can hear a leak, especially if it trips the water to cut on to refill the tank. You can also put some food dye in the tank (keeping the bowl clear) and check back in a few hours. If the bowl has the food dye in it then you've got a leak. Lastly, check the floor around the toilet. If there is water, or if you see an area with dried water (typically a brown ring) then you may have a leak (or a boy in the house who can't aim).

Oh no, do the toilets need replacing!? Well, no. While a new low flow or dual flush toilet would be a great help in conserving water, there is also the whole throwing away of an old toilet that you have to deal with. That's still wasteful to throw away a perfectly good toilet. Many times fixing a toilet is quite easy and inexpensive. What's even better is that now there are flush systems that only allow the tank to refill a couple of times before it stops the cycle. If the leak continues the tank will eventually empty without refilling itself and wasting water. We have this on one of our toilets (see old toilets above) and it works well. If a leak develops we know because the next time we go to flush the tank fills up instead of flushing. It can be a bit annoying to have to wait for it to refill completely before flushing, but I know that it means that water was saved. This same system is going to be put on our other toilet very soon because I have started to hear it reflling itself in the middle of the day.

How does one fix a toilet? Well, it depends on what's wrong. Look in the tank and check to see if the chain is knotted up, if the ball is gunked up, if the wax washers are disintegrated, and if the handle is functioning is a good start. Make your observation, pay attention to the brand of toilet you have and go to your local home improvement store. Tell an associate what you saw and chances are they can direct you to what you need to replace. The replacement parts typically have instructions, but you can always clarify with the sales associate. Toilets are pretty straight forward and can be a good way to dive into home repair if you've never really tried before, but of course you should gauge your abilities first before deciding to dive into repairing them.

Napkins

Seriously, buy cloth napkins! They look elegant, save money, and are reusable! Our family has had the same white cloth napkins for 6 years. They are a little ragged looking and we have some newer ones to use when company is around. Just think of all the napkins we've saved from going into the landfill over the years and the money we've saved by not buying single use napkins all the time!! They can be really cheap if you are a sewer like me and use all those scraps in your fabric bin to make up a bunch (plus you are keeping those scraps from going into the trash, if you can bear to get rid of them)! Use a nice heavy duty fabric for this and they'll last forever.

You are going to be washing towels and whites anyways so they won't use much more water and electricity. You can even use them multiple times before tossing them in the laundry, especially if they aren't heavily used at dinner time.

So that's at home, what about when you go out and get fast food. They always stuff loads of paper napkins into the bag. What then? Well, I certainly don't want to throw them away unused, so I keep them in the car in the console and hand them back to the kids if they spill a snack on themselves. That way you always have something to clean up a mess in a snap and you were going to have to do something with all of those napkins anyways. Also, if you are out eating at the restaurant, remember to only grab what you actually need. For our family of four we grab 2-3 napkins and share. If we need more we can always go back (and have done that before). NO! Leaving the extra on the table is NOT a good idea. The next people are NOT going to use them, do you?

Try encouraging your local eateries to switch to recycled, unbleached paper napkins if possible. Just mention how nice it would be to know that your favorite place thinks green and maybe it'll sink in!

Paper, some info.

Like with plastic, I wanted to give some quick information on paper before moving too heavily into tips. We currently live in a very disposable society where we use so many paper products that are thrown away. We use paper towels, paper plates, paper cups, paper tissues, paper boxes,paper diapers, paper everything!! Luckily paper is easily recyclable, all curbside services take it and finding PCW (post consumer waste) products is relatively easy. But just because it can be recycled or can be found in PCW form doesn't mean we should be so quick to mindlessly pick up paper products when we have a good alternative.

Here are a few facts about paper according to Earth 911:

• In 2006, the amount of paper recovered for recycling averaged 357 pounds for each man, woman, and child in the United States
• Every ton of paper recycled saves more than 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space
• By 2012, the paper industry’s goal is to recover 55 percent of all the paper Americans consume for recycling, which is approximately 55 million tons of paper
• More than 37 percent of the fiber used to make new paper products in the United States comes from recycled sources

Recycling your paper is very important, and currently Americans are doing a fairly good job of this, according to paperrecycles.org:

In 2007, an all-time high 56 percent of the paper consumed in the U.S. was recovered for recycling. The 54.3 million tons of paper recovered equal approximately 360 pounds for every man woman and child in America.

The paper industry has set a new goal of 60 percent recovery by 2012. We'll need your help to get there.

What does all this good news mean? Well, that we are well on our way to becoming a more green society and our awareness on this issue is heightened. However, we need to spend more time looking for PCW materials to "close the gap" in the paper products we do buy. If you can't find a product containing PCW material, then consider writing the company that makes your favorite product and let them know how important it is to you as a consumer that they use PCW products. Emails are very efficient for this and don't take very long since most companies have a website with a "Contact Us" area. How do you find PCW material? Well, this information from Earth 911 can help you with that:

Recycled

Also, make sure to look for the Recycled symbol which means that product is made out materials used before. There may be a statement next to this symbol that mentioning the percentage of recycled-content in the product.

Recyclable

Confused by this symbol? Don’t be. This one means a product can be recycled – not that it necessarily contains recycled content.

Now, if we are doing a better job of recycling paper and buying PCW paper, then why do we need to increase our awareness of paper products? Well, there are still many pitfalls in paper and many ways to decrease our usage of paper. One of the major pollution problems with papers are dioxins (link):

Dioxins and furans are some of the most toxic chemicals known to science. A draft report released for public comment in September 1994 by the US Environmental Protection Agency clearly describes dioxin as a serious public health threat. The public health impact of dioxin may rival the impact that DDT had on public health in the 1960's. According to the EPA report, not only does there appear to be no "safe" level of exposure to dioxin, but levels of dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals have been found in the general US population that are "at or near levels associated with adverse health effects."

...Dioxin pollution is also affiliated with paper mills which use chlorine bleaching in their process...

Dioxin is released into our environment and makes it way into our food supply, we then ingest the dioxins and since they love fat they stick around in our body until they metabolize out. In order to decrease dioxin production we need to encourage paper mills to stop bleaching our paper products. Buying chlorine free paper (PCF) products (whether it's our paper towels or disposable diapers) is a good start. Again, contacting your favorite brand companies and requesting unbleached paper is another way to get the ball rolling. We need to start associating all that white paper with being unclean and toxic instead of the current psychology that all that white paper means clean and pristine.

A second factor in the problem with paper is the lost of our forests. Forests not only provide shade and habitat for animals, it also scrubs our air clean and provides oxygen for our planet. Deforestation is still a problem that many people ignore. This quote from National Geographic's Green Guide explains the issue:

Nearly half of the trees cut in North America are made into paper. Every year, from Washington state to Georgia, over 3.8 million acres of forest are clearcut, leaving wide swaths of stumps marking our insatiable demand. Nor does it stop at our borders; our wood pulp and virgin paper products are increasingly sourced from South America and China.

Trees are incredibly important for our health and the health of our planet. There are companies out there who are good stewards and farm trees in sustainable ways as well as provide PCF paper and they need to be encouraged in the marketplace. Even some of the more traditional paper manufacturers are getting into the game and they too need to be encouraged by buying their PCF and PCW products. There are, however, many ways in which to reduce your use of paper altogether and that will be the subject of my upcoming blogs. For now, I ask you to look for products that contain the previously shown "recycled" logo and look for unbleached or PCF products to replace existing paper products in your household.

Styrofoam!!

Seriously, stop using it if at all possible. There are so many recyclable alternatives to this product that we should be capable of discontinuing it's use. OK, so like everything, it does have it's advantages, it's lightweight so transporting is fairly easy and it's inexpensive. The problem comes in that it's typically not available for recycling, despite being easy to recycle back into it's original form (egg crates can be recycled back into egg crates), which is not true of other plastics. However, the fact that it is so lightweight does not make it a desirable good to recycle since recyclers can't make much money off of it. Also, it's lightweight nature makes it susceptible to fly off to various parts of our planet and polluting everywhere. According to Earth 911:

• Because it is so light (comprised of 98 percent air) it is easily carried by wind and water currents to all reaches of our planet. Its unsinkable nature makes it a main component of marine debris
• It is non-biodegradable and can remain as pollution in our environment for nearly 1,000 years

So to continue my one step at a time I'm going to focus on egg cartons. Pick eggs that come in paper cartons. These are easily recyclable as well as reusable, you can use them for crafts for your kids as well as to start seeds in and you can plant the container too! Even the clear plastic egg containers are preferable if your recycling center takes them.