I just concocted this tonight and it was bangin, thought I'd share. It's vegetarian (but not vegan), my measurements are probly not exact, I don't really measure stuff when I cook, that's why I suck at baking.
1 small butternut squash
3 or 4 cloves garlic
3 Tbsp melted butter
2 or 3 Tbsp agave nectar
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1 cup prepared vegetarian chicken stock (I used this "vegetarian chicken broth powder" I found in the bulk spice bins at New Morning, great find!)
1 or 2 Tbsp fresh chopped rosemary
1/2 cup crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
I quartered the butternut squash and threw it on a sheet pan with the cloves of garlic (unpeeled), drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with salt. Stick it in the oven at 450 degrees for about 20 minutes or until the garlic looks browned and you can stick a fork through the squash pieces. Let cool then scoop out the squash from the peel and put in the blender. Add garlic cloves by squeezing the garlic out of the peel right into the blender. Add chicken stock, butter, agave nectar and thyme, blend, salt to taste. Separately, mix the rosemary and Gorgonzola together.
Fresh gnocchi is best but i used frozen, boiled. Pour the sauce over the gnocchi and sprinkle with the the rosemary Gorgonzola, soooooo yummy! I served it with a side of sauteed kale :p
That's all for now!
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Monday, January 17, 2011
100th monkey, slow progress
Phase One of my effort to live a more sustainable lifestyle (initial recycling and conservation efforts i'm not really counting since it only required a little belt tightening; I know how to do that stuff): Composting
Not an easy project to start in the winter and may be near impossible to maintain depending on your living situation. We have plenty of space on my (rented) property to have a compost pile/bin outside in the spring/summer, but I wanted to start now since I found out that the methane gas emitted by decomposing food and other material in landfills actually has more greenhouse effect than CO2. Not to mention I will be needing some fertilizer for my garden by June, which I plan to quadruple the size of this year.
So here's the whole point of these "100th Monkey" blogs: I spent some energy doing research online and found an easy way to keep up your composting in the winter, and now I want to detail it really simply for you, so you can see how easy it is to make these changes that make a big difference (if EVERYONE just made them).
Bokashi: A bacterial culture that naturally helps compost material break down faster (break down into nutrient rich soil). Bought this indoor compost bin and one bag of Bokashi accelerator for $80 on line (with shipping). Fits right under my sink, I keep a large jar on my kitchen counter and when it fills with food scraps I just empty it into the bin and sprinkle a little bokashi over it, mix it up with a wooden spoon and close it. That's it. And REALLY it's not that gross and doesn't smell bad and to boot it has this spout at the bottom, fluid collects in a compartment under the bin and you drain it out, sposed to be AWESOME for watering your household plants or even clearing clogged or slow sink drains, naturally!
Worm Bin: But my Bokashi bin is only 5 gallons, so where was I gonna put that stuff when the bin got full? After researching, it seemed like a worm bin would be the best, cheapest, indoor solution. Found some easy directions online : http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/easywormbin.htm cost = $20 for two, 14 gallon bins and a dozen worms (although I think i'm gonna need more, like another 3 dozen maybe, they were only $3 per dozen at a tackle shop). I haven't had to empty my Bokashi bin into it yet, so we just started it with damp shredded newspaper, some leaves, dirt and food scraps and when we opened it the next morning the worms had burrowed down into it and I think they're pretty happy. This IS kinda smelly, and I'm thinkin we may have to put it downstairs in the garage, it can't be too cold though so it can't go outside.
By April we will transfer both of these to an outside bin, this indoor system is only necessary October through April (in New England). We cut down our household garbage to one small bag this past week; that's five people, one full week. I think that's pretty good, imagine if every 5 person household only produced that amount of garbage per week? I also cut way down on the amount of packaged food I buy, I didn't buy much to begin with but now I've even stopped buying the kid's juice boxes (they take small water bottles which we just keep re-using), ice cream or desert products, bagged shredded cheese or string cheeses (many bags are recyclable but those often are not, look for the triangle before you purchase that bagged food!) even breakfast cereal (made my own granola using items you can find in bulk bins at the health food store, it's delicious!!)
Final Thought Last night I was making my boyfriend and I a fritata for dinner, he looked in the fridge, found we had only 3 eggs and was PO'd he had to drive to the store and get more.... how dare he have to wait for his fritata!! How much in our modern lives do we take things like refrigeration, store bought eggs, driving a car, and grocery stores for-granted?? These conveniences will NOT be available to our children's generation if we don't learn to do some mildly inconvenient and easy things to care for our planet and conserve it's resources.... think about it. Ta-ta for now, xo
Not an easy project to start in the winter and may be near impossible to maintain depending on your living situation. We have plenty of space on my (rented) property to have a compost pile/bin outside in the spring/summer, but I wanted to start now since I found out that the methane gas emitted by decomposing food and other material in landfills actually has more greenhouse effect than CO2. Not to mention I will be needing some fertilizer for my garden by June, which I plan to quadruple the size of this year.
So here's the whole point of these "100th Monkey" blogs: I spent some energy doing research online and found an easy way to keep up your composting in the winter, and now I want to detail it really simply for you, so you can see how easy it is to make these changes that make a big difference (if EVERYONE just made them).
Worm Bin: But my Bokashi bin is only 5 gallons, so where was I gonna put that stuff when the bin got full? After researching, it seemed like a worm bin would be the best, cheapest, indoor solution. Found some easy directions online : http://whatcom.wsu.edu/ag/compost/easywormbin.htm cost = $20 for two, 14 gallon bins and a dozen worms (although I think i'm gonna need more, like another 3 dozen maybe, they were only $3 per dozen at a tackle shop). I haven't had to empty my Bokashi bin into it yet, so we just started it with damp shredded newspaper, some leaves, dirt and food scraps and when we opened it the next morning the worms had burrowed down into it and I think they're pretty happy. This IS kinda smelly, and I'm thinkin we may have to put it downstairs in the garage, it can't be too cold though so it can't go outside.
By April we will transfer both of these to an outside bin, this indoor system is only necessary October through April (in New England). We cut down our household garbage to one small bag this past week; that's five people, one full week. I think that's pretty good, imagine if every 5 person household only produced that amount of garbage per week? I also cut way down on the amount of packaged food I buy, I didn't buy much to begin with but now I've even stopped buying the kid's juice boxes (they take small water bottles which we just keep re-using), ice cream or desert products, bagged shredded cheese or string cheeses (many bags are recyclable but those often are not, look for the triangle before you purchase that bagged food!) even breakfast cereal (made my own granola using items you can find in bulk bins at the health food store, it's delicious!!)
Final Thought Last night I was making my boyfriend and I a fritata for dinner, he looked in the fridge, found we had only 3 eggs and was PO'd he had to drive to the store and get more.... how dare he have to wait for his fritata!! How much in our modern lives do we take things like refrigeration, store bought eggs, driving a car, and grocery stores for-granted?? These conveniences will NOT be available to our children's generation if we don't learn to do some mildly inconvenient and easy things to care for our planet and conserve it's resources.... think about it. Ta-ta for now, xo
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
We are sheep, peeps.
Anyone else feeling insulted by some of these advertisements lately? I'd like to think I'm above advertising ploys; like I'm too smart for these marketers to outwit me, no matter how much they've studied the psychology of American consumers. And yet I'll be in the grocery store contemplating over whether to buy Arm and Hammer or Tide laundry detergent and have to admit that I feel swayed towards the Tide not because it's better in my experience but because it must be better it says so on TV and it costs more!
What we all need to do is stop watching so much damn TV for starters. But what started me thinking about this was not TV ads but the ones I've seen on the internet lately. Mostly for online schools or mortgage companies it's simply a random picture or quick video that catches your eye, the picture does not relate to the headline of the advertisment but it doesn't matter; apparently if they've gotten you to look it's a win. I'm guessing by tracking cookies, marketers have found these ads to be successful, right? Apparently we are mindless sheep. This supports my theory that people may be devolving. Technology has made life so easy that most people's brains just don't have to work as hard and are reverting back to primitive ways of thinking. So a few people are evolving and they are creating technology that is causing the rest of us to devolve..... turn off the TV, step away from the shopping mall, and get back into reading and doing people or your bloodline is gonna be phased out!!
What we all need to do is stop watching so much damn TV for starters. But what started me thinking about this was not TV ads but the ones I've seen on the internet lately. Mostly for online schools or mortgage companies it's simply a random picture or quick video that catches your eye, the picture does not relate to the headline of the advertisment but it doesn't matter; apparently if they've gotten you to look it's a win. I'm guessing by tracking cookies, marketers have found these ads to be successful, right? Apparently we are mindless sheep. This supports my theory that people may be devolving. Technology has made life so easy that most people's brains just don't have to work as hard and are reverting back to primitive ways of thinking. So a few people are evolving and they are creating technology that is causing the rest of us to devolve..... turn off the TV, step away from the shopping mall, and get back into reading and doing people or your bloodline is gonna be phased out!!
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