Perpetual Pickles

We are a pickle-loving household, and usually have a few jars in the fridge and a couple back-ups in the pantry. This sounds excessive, but how else do you have spears, stackers, chips, and cornichons, and guarantee you won't have to fight over the last stacker on burger night? 

So inevitably, we go through several jars a year, each over half-full of that delicious, dilly, garlicky brine. 

You can use up that brine in anything that requires an acidic component, like marinades. 

But why not reuse it for its original purpose? Simply chop up a cucumber into your preferred shape, put it in the jar, and in a few days, you have round 2 of pickles. (I used 1 medium pickle to fill a 24 oz jar.) Make sure your cucumber is submerged and don't forget if you put chips in a jar labelled stackers. :) 

The original recommendation I saw for this stated it would take about 2 days to make these "fridge pickles" (good term to Google for other pickle reciples that don't require the canning method), but we found that at 2 days they were still crunchy and cucumber-y. They were perfect for us at about 1 week.

Not only did we get a second use of the jar and brine, but I didn't need to experiment with getting the right spice combination to make homemade brine from scratch, when we love that classic Vlasic flavor.

Average cost of a cucumber? $0.79

Cost of a 24 oz jar of pickles? $2.49

You've saved $1.70 (68%), and reduced your glass and food waste!

Making More from Marinade

I love food, and cooking is one of my favorite creative outlets, especially as we're limited for going to restaurants these days. My fridge is full of many jars of specialty ingredients like fig jam and colossal olives. 

Now, a lot of the bold flavors I like come with a lot of extra goodness. Think about things like pickle juice or the marinade from quartered artichokes. All of that can be incorporated into other recipes. 

Tonight, I wanted to use up a jar that used to be sun-dried tomatoes, but now was just the leftover juice. Yeah, this guy right here? Had about 2 inches of rich red oil left in it, essentially sun-dried tomato infused olive oil. That's not the "waste" of the jar of tomatoes - you would pay $$$ for a nice infused olive oil. :)

I also had some cream and goat cheese to use up, and settled on a pasta dish. Now, if you don't know how to start with oil and end up with a sauce, I'll teach you a super simple recipe. I didn't know about sauces myself until a few years ago, and was always trying to thicken the sauce and ending up with flour lumps. 

Most sauces are these basic proportions: 

• 2 tbsp fat (often butter)
  
• 2 tbsp flour
• 1 cup liquid (milk for creamy sauces, broth for gravies)

For this sauce, the sun-dried tomato oil was the fat. Heat the oil over medium heat, whisk in the flour, and let cook for 1 minute until bubbling. Slowly whisk in the milk until smooth. Add any aromatics you want (this girl isn't shy with some garlic salt). Then I also added a large portion of goat cheese to add some richness to the sauce. Viola! Less than 10 minutes for a sauce worthy of a date night. Toss with some pasta, sauteed veggies, and grilled chicken, and you've got a balanced meal.

(Sooo creeeamy!)

While this isn't a huge money saver, it is a free flavor-packed upgrade to your regular cooking. Bon appetit!

Ways to Honor the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day #QuarantineStyle

It was the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day today. This year feels like a weird year to be celebrating anything. We can't go out for the usual tree plantings, litter cleanup events, or other group events. However, let's not let the unusual year prevent us from a moment of reflection.

With COVID-19, we are seeing some unplanned, positive side effects. With stay at home orders and business shutdowns, there are no more commuter cars on the road and reduced manufacturing. You can see dozens of before-and-after pictures like the following, from around the world (Asia, Italy, California), showing visible reduction in air pollution.

An atmospheric map of China:

And an on-the-earth view of India: 

While the shutdown efforts may feel extreme and won't be entirely replicable when things return to "normal", let's figure out what we can bring forward. And in the meantime, it seems harder to maintain some of our good habits: restaurant delivery/takeaway with disposables have replaced ceramics and cutlery, Starbucks started refusing reusable mugs even before stay-at-home orders, and online shopping replaces reusable shopping bags with shipping packaging. Let's figure out where we can contribute now.

Here are several ways to honor the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day.

What You Can Do Now: 

• Many of us have moved the majority of our shopping online. When shopping on Amazon, choose "Frustration-Free" packaging if possible. If it's an option, you should see it as a filter on the left-hand side, as you are refining your search. Or search for Frustration-Free up front. 

• If shopping on Amazon, message cs-reply@amazon.com to request minimal plastic packaging inside your orders. This will help those non-frustration-free orders to do things like replace the plastic air-filled pillows with crumpled paper. 

• Shop Amazon Smile (smile.amazon.com), now available on the mobile app too by navigating to Menu > Settings > Amazon Smile. This allows you to designate a charity of choice, and Amazon will make a small donation on eligible purchases. There are many available charities/non-profits, included many with a sustainability mission. 

• When online shopping, you can still do second-hand. Consider options like thredup.com, swap.com, or Poshmark.

• Reuse your disposables. Just because they are marketed as disposable doesn't mean you can only use them once. The plastic cutlery I've been receiving with my takeout has survived multiple rounds through the dishwasher. A single reuse of a disposable means you're reducing your waste by 50%. 

• Are you making fabric face masks to wear when grocery shopping? Make your masks out of worn textiles, for example, a retired bed sheet. 

(old sheet + seam ripper = fabric and elastic for masks)

• Plant a tree or get a houseplant. You can get plants at stores that are otherwise essential, for example grocery stores and hardware stores. Take advantage of spring and get some green in your home.

(new tree brings joy and breathes carbon dioxide)

• Start a food garden. Whether getting a starter from the garden section of a hardware store, or regrowing food from your produce scraps, growing food has the general benefits of growing plants, and also makes you more food self-sufficient.  

• Mend clothing. You may have some extra time at home now to catch up on that mending pile. And if you are a beginner, this is the perfect time to practice with worrying so much about the end result. 

• Gather donations. Just because you can't drop off your donations at a thrift store, doesn't mean you can't gather them in the meantime. For some items like clothing, online sales are a way to deal with donations if you want to move them before physical stores reopen. 

• Shop produce online. Subscription clubs like Imperfect Produce allow you to get fresh fruits and veggies while avoiding the store crowds. They will now even take back the box they deliver food in. 

• Switch to a bidet. No better time to consider alternatives than when there's a shortage of toilet paper!

• Use food scraps to get creative about cooking. Keep small amounts that don't seem like a small serving to combine into an interesting salad or buddha bowl at the end of the week. Keep the trimmings from your veggies to make homemade veggie broth. 

• Eat your leftovers! If you want to mix things up, just freeze those leftovers, and you'll soon have a stockpile. 

• Switch to reusable feminine products. With a shortage of those necessary products at stores, no time like now to invest in washable pads, period panties, or a menstrual cup. 

• Continue to use online marketplaces where safe and available. Some groups like Buy Nothing are reducing posting to essentials only. Find the groups that allow you to buy and sell, read their safety guidelines, and use "porch pick up" for free items.

• Save your delivery packaging for reuse. Larger boxes are great for moving or storage. Smaller boxes and envelopes for are good for shipping and by small businesses. I put out a weekly stash on the curb and have it claimed each week. 

(boxes with free sign on curb disappear within an hour)

• Repair something around your home. Now is a perfect time to learn a new skill and prevent the need to shop for new things.

• Once you've gathered your donations, choose a t-shirt that isn't ideal for donating, and turn it into face cloths/makeup wipes. Simply cut into squares, and you have the softest reusable tissue.

• Stream more, buy less. Replace impulse buying movies or magazine from the Target end-caps with some of the amazing free content that is being provided by cultural institutions. From museums to Nasa archives, to at-home musical concerts, there is tons of content to enjoy.

• Pick a favorite snack food and perfect an at home recipe. Love snack applesauce or granola?Identify containers to portion and replace single use snack packs. It will be easier to develop a new routine now than when you are in the hustle of your daily commute. 

• Use what you have for household essentials or in your pantry. Were you saving staples like condensed soups or cans of beans for a quick dinner? While they may have a long shelf life, it's amazing how often I come across the one that got lost in the back and expired 2 years ago. Rotate your essentials and use them up. 

• Use what you have for activities or gifts you have yet to get to. Receive a book for Christmas and have yet to crack it open? Get bath and body supplies for your birthday two years ago and haven't used them up yet? While you can't do certain activities that are closed, treat yourself to the things you can do and were planning to "get to someday". 

• Try a solid bar shampoo or conditioner. It's an ideal time to experiment with new products. Dry products avoid the plastic bottle packaging, and save shipping fuel by concentrating the size and weight of the product. 

What You Can Do When We Return to "Normal":

• Continue to work from home. Even 1 day per week is a 20% reduction in commuting.

• Switch to a rideshare or public transit for the days you go to the office. 

• Keep track of the changes above that were easy for you, and maintain them as we move forward. 

Cheers to you for whatever you're able to contribute amidst this crazy time, and Happy Earth Day. 

Orange You Glad for By-Products

Winter is the perfect time for citrus, and my Imperfect Produce box is overflowing with more oranges, grapefruits, and lemons than I can get to. Fortunately, I love some fresh squeezed juice! 

I've been reading about ways to use the peels. Having already tried (and not loved) soaking them in vinegar for homemade cleaner, I wanted to try something else: CANDY!

There are many recipes for candying orange peel. I tried and liked this one.

First step: slice your orange peel into 1/4" strips. Go ahead and leave the white/pith. It won't be bitter when you're done. 

Next: boil the peels for 15 minutes. Dump that water. Then add 2 cups sugar, 1 cup water, and simmer the peels for 45 minutes. 

Finally: strain the peels (don't toss the liquid! keep reading for why), and a few at a time, toss them in granulated sugar to lightly coat. Set them on a wire rack and leave uncovered for 24 hours until fully dried. 

Voila! Perfectly candied orange peels! You can eat these as-is, garnish other baked goods, or dip in chocolate for a decadent treat. 

The end result? Something like this:

(image credit arsheffield on flickr)

These are not a picture of mine. Mine didn't turn out as pretty due to one main mistake: I used microwaved chocolate chips for my dipping chocolate, which re-hardens pretty quickly. I recommend using baker's chocolate in a double boiler for prettier results. Regardless of how pretty, they will taste amazing. 

Now, back to that liquid gold that is left in your boiling pot. The sugar water that you simmered your peels in is now orange-infused simple syrup! This is the perfect addition to a mocha or a cocktail. 

Cost of candied orange peel: $0.70 cents of sugar
Cost of simple syrup: FREE by-product!

These are a beautiful and festive treat as you wrap up your holiday season. Happy snacking. :)

It's Alive!

Hi lovelies,

So I've been pretty busy adulting the last few weeks: stretched thin at work, buying new carpet for our house, etc. What this means is that I neglected some basil that I had bought for meal prep.

I was reading some tips about keeping ypur cut herbs longer, and the tip for basil was to put it in a cup of water in the windowsill vs. keeping it in your fridge. So there it was in the windowsill, in a cup of water, for a couple weeks. Every odd once in a while, I'd top off the water, but I never did get around to my recipe.

I kindof assumed it would just die and go to waste, but to my surprise, I checked on it today, and IT HAD GROWN ROOTS!

Now, mind you, this was not one of those fancy "living herbs" with the rootball still intact. No, this was just plain cut basil. Who knew that it could regrow roots from essentially, a leaf? Is this the earthworm of plants, that can regenerate after being cut in half?

So, after the surprise wore off, I decided to plant my new basil plant in dirt, and enjoy my accidental herb garden. Check out that growth on the top couple inches - it looks like I'll have many more basil leaves to come.

I rarely buy fresh herbs, in part because of how expensive they are and I rarely need the whole package during its normal shelf life. Now that I have a plant that I can trim leaves as I need them, I'll be enjoying fresh herbs more often and saving about $4 per recipe.  Cheers to a happy discovery!

Oceans: Part 1, Plastic in our Food

We're starting to see more and more stories of our marine life dying with stomachs full of human trash:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/03/160331-car-parts-plastics-dead-whales-germany-animals/
http://awesomeocean.com/2016/01/05/youll-be-horrified-at-what-was-found-in-dead-whales-stomach/

While learning that our ocean giants are being harmed by us is devastating, it was also hard for me to understand my role. After all, I'm not dumping my old shoes and car parts in the ocean...

Here's what made it really sink in for me:
Our fish and seafood are now filled with plastic. Foods I considered to be healthy proteins, filled with Omega-3s etc, are filled with plastic.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/aug/31/fish-plastic-pollution-ocean-environment-seafood
http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/health/case_studies/plastics.html
http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2013/12/12/250438904/how-plastic-in-the-ocean-is-contaminating-your-seafood

When you are trying to eat healthy and can't trust your food sources, you start feeling a bit helpless. Here are a couple things we can do to contribute on a daily basis:

• Purchase beauty products without microbeads. While those little beads don't seem like much, multiply it by millions of people, and it adds up. As of summer 2017, the US is banning production of microbeads in many products, but you can start now!
• Purchase clothing made from natural fibers. When you wash your polyester shirts and microfiber fleece jackets, the "lint" that washes down the drain is plastic fibers. Who knew!

Want to make a bigger impact?

The Ocean Conservancy has many tips, tricks, and tools on their website, as well sign-ups for an beach cleanup volunteer project near you.