Green Options

Gas costs have skyrocketed, and with them, the cost of flying.  This greenie isn’t 100% upset: with the cost of fuel increasing exponentially in the past few years, people are examining their transportation patterns and needs and trying to find cost- and fuel-effective methods of getting from Point A to Point B.  Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars are selling well, and ridership on public transit is up.  But for many Americans, particularly those in smaller cities and towns, public transit is non-existent.  For those living anywhere but the East Coast, Amtrak is slow, unreliable, or non-existent.   We’re a country for whom the cost of cheap fuel has promoted individual car use to the detriment of other forms of transportation.

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When the summer heat breaks and the first cool days arrive, I feel melancholy, because it means the end of our local farmers market is nigh and the variety of summer produce will soon be gone.  While I savor the rest of our ripening tomatoes, my thoughts turn to fall’s produce, with its rich red and orange hues, mirroring the turning leaves.  Fall produce reminds me of rich, hearty dishes that fill you up during the harvest season.  Here are five fall fruits and vegetables (and meal ideas) that are great sources of nutrition and the basis of many delicious dishes.

Got tomatoes? Looking for a simple, delicious way to use those?  Because we planted somewhat late, we’re at the peak of our tomato harvest, and last night I made my first pasta sauce from scratch from slow-roasted plum tomatoes fresh from the garden. Slow-roasting concentrates the sweet flavor of the tomatoes, transforming them into an entirely different entity.  Find out how, after the jump…

I am totally fascinated and intrigued by lifestyle projects–you know, when someone radically changes their lifestyle for a set amount of time to make a point about something we might take for granted.  I loved Morgan Spurlock’s Super-Size Me and 30 Days.  I obsessively read No-Impact Man.  Now, Kerri and Chris, two social justice teachers in California, are creating their own month-long experiment: eating for only a dollar a day. 

Thanks to all those who entered our stainless-steel food carrier giveaway.  We had many comments detailing delicious lunches you choose to pack to school or work, most of which made my mouth water!

To pick the winner, we numbered the comments, starting with the Eat Drink Better comments (Shane Neuerburg being #1), then continuing to the EcoChildsPlay comments (Jen being #37) minus trackbacks.  We used Random.org to generate a completely random number for the winner. See if you won, after the jump…

Thanks to all those who entered our stainless-steel food carrier giveaway.  We had many comments detailing delicious lunches you choose to pack to school or work, most of which made my mouth water!

To pick the winner, we numbered the comments, starting with the Eat Drink Better comments (Shane Neuerburg being #1), then continuing to the EcoChildsPlay comments (Jen being #37) minus trackbacks.  We used Random.org to generate a completely random number for the winner.  See if you won, after the jump…

Whole Foods, following in the footsteps of Taco Bell, Burger King, and McDonalds, agreed this week to become the first grocery chain to improve working conditions and pay for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), tomato workers from Florida.  Whole Foods will pay an extra penny per pound of tomatoes, and will work in conjunction with the CIW to establish modern working standards for its agricultural workers.

The other night, I was baking a sheet of puff pastry for a veggie-topped refrigerator pizza.  Time got away from me, and I got the puff pastry out of the oven just as the bottom started to burn.  Not wanting to throw the base of dinner away, and also not wanting to eat semi-burned food, I had to think of a way to get rid of the bottom of the burned crust.  My successful solution, after the jump…

We St Louis bloggers all know Mae Mason, otherwise known as  MuthaMae.  She’s the mother of a three who not only blogs, but video-blogs (vlogs) and produces her own online show, Word To Your Mutha.  Mae’s blog discuss all kinds of parenting and family issues in a lighthearted, humorous way, and in her latest show, she tackles how to instill the value of recycling in her four-year-old and two one-year-olds…when she doesn’t really recycle herself.  Best of all, she used Green Options to help her figure it out…

Don’t have time to try new recipes?  Want to have homemade value-added products on hand, but don’t have the time to make them all?  The next time you and a group of foodie friends get together, make it a food swap.

You may be familiar with a recipe swap; I belong to an online recipe swap blog for local bloggers. A food swap is similar.  Its a party where, based on pre-established guidelines, all guests provide multiple portions of food items, and each guest takes home a number of different items made by others.  Food swaps are a great idea for two huge reasons: you can try foods/recipes you might not be familiar with or have thought of, and you can save a huge amount of time by making a large quantity of one item, but get the benefits of coming away with a variety of dishes and foods.

This can take many forms and themes.  Here’s five themes to get you started, after the jump…