I just thought I’d pass on a link to David Suzuki’s Queen of Green’s Spring Breakup. It’s basically about toxic household cleaners and how there are other options. This week’s advice is on vinegar and homemade cleaners. There are handy recipe cards for download, which tell you what ingredients do various things like:
Happy clean and green housecleaning, folks!
As I’ve mentioned before, I got a bag of fabric scraps from freecycle a few years ago. And since I picked up that great little book Sewn By Hand, I’ve been sewing a lot more.
My sons have also done some sewing. We had a bit of a secret Santa-type valentine exchange last week with our homeschooling group (instead of every child bringing 22 cards, they each made one small gift). We went online (I love the web for creative ideas and patterns) and they selected the things they wanted to sew. My five year old chose some stuffed felt hearts (in navy, green, and red) which he and I worked on together (about 50/50) and my seven year old chose a felt rose. I can’t find the link to the instructions he used, but it was basically this here and we used a little square of felt, plus some scrap green felt (we keep all of the little bits for these wee projects), and another scrap for the bag.
I also made myself a roll-up for my circular knitting needles. It was a bit laborious for hand-sewing, and it’s a little imperfect, but that’s part of its charm, right? It’s made from a corduroy scrap from the freecycled fabric and the bottom portion of some curtains that were too long for the window.
I didn’t love the ribbon closure, however, so when I went to make a crayon roll-up (those cardboard boxes never last long) for the boys I looked (online) around for a better closure and found this great tutorial, which uses a couple of buttons and a hair elastic. Brilliant! The original is much fancier and uses a machine, but the boys and I are quite happy with ours.
And lastly, we had a birthday recently, and we usually decorate with crepe streamers (they are reused but each time they get a cm or two shorter from the tape rips off the ends) and I wanted to do something a little different and reusable, so my five year old and I got up early and made a birthday banner. It’s not actually sewn (it’s glued) but I may get around to securing the letters on a bit better at some point. My son chose the colours and placement of the letters. He wanted the letters to be “jumping.” Excellent.
We also made a monster stuffy for a story we told to our storytelling group, but I don’t have a photo and I can’t get one now since my little guy is sleeping with said monster! It came from My First Sewing Book.
We are still getting lots of beets from our CSA, so I figured I’ll share another favourite beet recipe, which comes from epicurious.com. It’s their delicious Roasted Beet Soup with Creme Fraiche. Try it. It rocks. (The kids don’t love it, but we just don’t care.)
We also get a lot of sweet potatoes in our CSA in winter, and we love sweet potato chocolate chip muffins, as well as this Roasted Sweet Potato and Garlic Soup from Food.com (at least I think it’s from there. I got it from my sister-in-law).
We also get a lot of greens, and like our salads (even the boys – phew!), and Williams-Sonoma’s Cobb Salad is one of our favourites, as well as the Caesar they have in their Salad book. (Unfortunately, the one in the book is not listed in the web site’s recipes.) Another great fall and winter salad is that classic, the Waldorf salad.
And as a little bonus recipe, which we likely won’t use much anymore since we’re cutting the refined carbs down (no more white pasta and the husband finds the whole grain stuff too mealy), but is probably my favourite use for my home canned tomatoes (I use 1 pint jar when I don’t have fresh) since it’s so quick and absolutely delicious, is Williams-Sonoma’s Penna alla Vodka. Try it. You won’t be disappointed.
Beets in our local only winter share from Plan B Organic Farms
Our CSA has once again offered local only winter shares. We get this every other week and a regular winter share on the off weeks, for a little variety. Today’s small local share included: potatoes, leaf lettuce, arugula, beets, butternut squash, apples, garlic, red onions, sweet potato, and apple cider. All organic local goodness. I saw the beets and was reminded of what one of the farmers at our local farmers’ market suggested in the summer. We tried this recipe and loved it for the taste and simplicity, and even our picky 6 year old liked it!
Beet salad:
Mix well and serve.
I buy many of my clothes second hand, as well as many of the clothes for my boys. Which means the knees in our jeans wear out pretty quickly. And I don’t like to throw them out, so I’ve mended a few pairs with fleece patches (fleece because it’s a bit stretchy, which is good for the knees) but apparently my method isn’t that great, because eventually the seam of my patches rips. A few pairs we’ve made into cut-off shorts. But I figured there had to be a better way to salvage them.
A couple of months ago my eldest son asked to learn how to sew so we got a couple of books out of the library, looking for good beginner projects. I found a book for myself as well, called Sewn by Hand, with some fun little projects in it. I liked it so much I ended up buying the book, and this weekend had a chance to do some of Susan Wasinger’s awesome patches. They kind of dress up the old holey jeans (as a friend commented: “Fancy pants!”) and make me want to wear them again!
For Thanksgiving we went to my brother’s house, and on our way back, as we were driving there was a terrible stench that both of the kids exclaimed about. I told them to look out the window and tell me where they thought the smell was coming from. My eldest recognized the factory chicken farms (rows and rows of the long windowless chicken houses) and knew immediately what the smell was. They have both seen Food, Inc. so they have an idea of what it looks like in there and what goes on inside.
A few days after that, my boys and I went to Everdale Organic Farm and Learning Centre with our homeschooling group. As we drove up I looked at the green field, in the centre of which was a coop and around it there were a bunch of chickens and a couple of cows. I remarked at how happy they looked. It was such a relief to be in a place where the animals are treated humanely after the Thanksgiving experience.
We had a great day and had lots of fun new experiences learning about their greenhouses, produce, chickens, cows, sheep, and the donkeys who take care of the sheep.
The first time I wrote about Not Far From the Tree was their first year, in 2008. I managed to get on one fruit pick that year. In 2009 I had a bike accident that prevented me from doing any fruit picks and last year we were out of the city for 3 months of the summer. Since I healed up from my surgery, about mid-August, I’ve been keeping my eye out for fruit picks on this side of the city but every time I get an invitation, I click on the “Attend” button and I’m too late, they’re already full. This isn’t really that surprising since I believe there are only 5 volunteers (plus a supreme gleaner) on every pick, and there are many volunteers. And then last week I managed to get on one! And it was right in my neighbourhood. So Friday morning my 6 year old and hopped on our bikes and rode over to a house about 6 blocks away and got set to help glean a local apple tree.
You start the pick by cleaning up all of the grounders which helps by making the ground more walkable (there were a lot of grounders – the tree owner told us that if we’d been there 3 days before we would have had many more to pick), it helped clear out the wasps feeding on the rotting grounders, and helped clear any possible bad bacteria (e.g. e.coli) that might be in the rotting fruit on the ground so that we can use any windfall (the fruit that we attempt to pick but it lands on the ground instead of in the picking bag on the end of the pole). We put them in bins and leaf bags (and at the end, the tree owner dumped them back on the ground, as they make great compost. This was a first for our supreme gleaner, as all other tree owners want them taken away). The tree was, unfortunately, too tall for my son to help with, but he helped out by weighing the bounty as the bags were filled. There were two guys there taking still photos who are making a documentary on community organizations there, so we’ll post a link once that gets posted online.
The volunteer pick is a great way to spend a couple of hours. The brilliant weather (sunny and 23C in October) helped a lot, but the people are interesting and there’s a lot to be said for labour in the fresh air. At the end, the fruit is weighed (except the windfall, as it’s bruise or broken – we took a few home to add to our green smoothie right away) and 1/3 goes to food banks, 1/3 is divided between the volunteers, and 1/3 goes to the owner (but he only wanted a handful as he’s been picking them as they ripen). We took about 5 or 7 pounds of apples home, and that night we had apple pie. I have to make up some sauce and maybe some apple cheddar muffins with the rest. Yum!
If you have a fruit that goes unpicked in your Toronto yard (even crab apples, as they are made into jelly), you can register your fruit tree with them to get on their list and have it gleaned for you at harvest time. For more information on what they do, there is a great little 3 minute video on their website.
A quick note first: I’m moving this blog from the old software (which appears to be not working anymore) and server onto wordpress.com. It’s taking some time (4 years of blogging would) but I’ll get through it.
For now, though, I’d like to post about tomato canning. I’ve done it twice before (2010 and 2008) and a bushel of plum tomatoes has lasted us until February. I thought people might be curious as to how it’s done. And, frankly, I seem to have forgotten how to do it this year (must be all that cancer business) so I decided that I need to write it down so I’m ready next year. So this is as much for me as for you.
A note on canning tomatoes to give credit where credit is due: everything I learned about it, I learned on http://www.canning-food-recipes.com/canning_tomatoes.htm and some of the text below is cut and pasted from that fantastic web site!
So, I bought a bushel of tomatoes, but I don’t do the whole bushel in one day. Last year it took me 3 days, I think. This year it will likely take longer as my day is split up with radiation treatment in the early afternoon so my batches are smaller.
To begin, I gathered my plum tomatoes (I bought a bushel yesterday - new this year there’s the awesome Lesliville Farmers’ Market in my neighbourhood we can walk to! I believe they were from Highmark Farms), mason jars, lids, very large pot(s), a small and a medium pot, canning funnel, and an empty compost bucket.
Bushel of fresh local plum tomatoes from the farmers' market!
Boil a medium pot of water and fill a large bowl with cold (with some ice if you like) water. Use these for peeling. Cut one shallow split on the bottom of each tomato. Put in pot of boiling water for 1 minute or two until the skin splits up the side, then put into bath of cold water. Peel (peels can go in compost). I do these in small batches of about 12-14 tomatoes per batch since that’s as much as I can keep up with when watching to see which tomato has split.
Cut a small slit in bottom of tomato before putting it in boiling water (this step isn't totally necessary but there are always a few that don't want to split on their own and need a little help).
Boil tomatoes briefly in small batches to split tomato skins
Cool the tomatoes in a cold water bath after the skin has split to stop them from cooking and make them cool enough to handle.
Boil a couple of large pots for sterilizing the clean jars. Sterilize (boil) for 10 minutes. Heat a small pan of water for the new lids but do not boil. Sterilize the canning funnel and a ladle as well.
Cut the tomatoes in quarters, and cook: Heat a bunch of the quarters quickly in a large pot. As they are added, crush cut pieces using a large wooden spoon. This will draw off some juice. Continue heating the tomatoes, stirring to prevent burning. Bring to a boil and gradually add the remaining quarters while stirring continually. These will soften with stirring and heating and will not need to be crushed. Continue until all tomatoes are added. Then boil gently 5 minutes.
Stewing tomato quarters
Add lemon (and salt if desired) to jars, then, using the canning funnel, spoon the stewed quarters into the sterilized jars. Fill only to the line about 1 cm from the top. (For quarts, add 2 tablespoons of lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon citric acid. For pints, 1 tbsp lemon juice. For quarts, 1/2 teaspoon salt, if desired.)
Stewed quarter tomatoes in the jar, filled to the ridge below the screw threads.
Fill large stock pot about 2/3 full (maybe less) and bring to a boil. You need 1 to 2 inches of water above the tops of jars. Put the kettle on just in case you need more and have a clean pot and a ladle handy just in case you need to remove some water as you add the jars.
Place jars on rack (if you have one, I don’t) immediately after packing. Lower filled rack into canner. Cover jars by 1 to 2 inches (3 to 5 cm) of water. If you add more water, pour between jars and not directly on them. Cover pot with lid. When the water comes to a rolling boil, start to count the processing time. Reduce heat slightly and boil pints gently for 25 minutes and quarts for 35 minutes (for stewed tomatoes).
When the cooking time is up, remove jars immediately and place on a cooling rack away from heat and away from any draft. Keep jars separated to allow for air flow.
The finished product: canned tomatoes, cooling on a rack.
It’s been 9 months since I last wrote. The first 3 months are mainly because I can’t seem to come up with new ideas, or I just don’t count new stuff I add to my everyday life. The past 6 months are different.
In February I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I’ve since been through 8 rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, and I’ve just started 5 weeks of radiation. So, as you can imagine, I’ve had other things on my mind.
Even though this “Green me up” project started as a live green and lightly on the land thing, it has become a be a better person thing.
Recently a friend of friends started a project of his own. He is going to ride a tandem bike from Toronto to New York City (via Boston) with his son. It’s not a charity ride but they’re taking pledges of kindness. They’re hoping to get 500 pledges so it’s called 500 Kindnesses. It got me thinking that I’ve probably had that amount of kindnesses bestowed upon me in the past 6 months. During this cancer journey my family, friends, neighbours, hospital staff, volunteers, and acquaintances have been amazingly kind and generous to me and to my family. To read about the 500 kindnesses to me, check out the cancer blog.
So today I only have a link for you. The ideas/initiatives are great. Here in Toronto, only #1 is in effect, but all City of Toronto functions do not use bottled water (although I’m not sure how long that initiative will stick around with our new mayor) which is a step in the right direction.
Anywho, onto the link… I actually saw it retweeted from @Inhabitat on twitter. It’s a list of Good magazine’s 10 favourite innovations for reducing plastic consumer waste.
I love all of the ideas, with the exception maybe of #9, which reeks of dioxin at first glance, but I haven’t read the details of Plastofuel, so don’t quote me on that.
I especially like #5: “Try take-out, without.” I still use the tiffin boxes that I bought in at the beginning of July 2007 and without fail, every time I use them at least one person comes up and starts asking about them and what they’re all about and, eventually, where to get them. I have no idea whether anyone else has bought them for take-out use (some friends have bought the nesting ones for lunches and snacks) but at least people are talking and thinking about it. It’s a start.
