Take our Planet Back

I've liked will.i.am for a while now - everytime I hear him speak it's about important things and he actually has something to say.

Here's a new song and video he's done - I really like it and hope you do, too!

PS I got the video code from Grist.org - a site I cannot recommend strong enough!

BPA-Free Organic Pumpkin Puree

It's Pumpkin Time!
And what better way to celebrate than to make some BPA-free pumpkin puree for the holidays?

We got an organic sweet pumpkin in our co-op delivery this weekend. Since we split the deliveries with a friend, we really got a half a pumpkin - but it was plenty.

And what do you do with half a pumpkin? My friend is making soup, but I'm not really a soup girl. But I do like me some pumpkin pie, mmmmmmmm. So, I roasted it - see instructions below. You can actually do this with other kinds of pumpkins too - like the one you carved, but that brings in some sanitary issues for me.

Pumpkin Puree

Heat oven to 450 degrees.

Scoop out the seeds and stringy pulp. You'll want to save this for toasted pumpkin seeds later. DO NOT THROW this goodness away!

Cover with foil - no spices needed, but I think if you're using a carving pumpkin you'd want to add some sugar. They aren't raised for flavor, you know.

Roast until insides are soft. It took mine 1.5 hours. I took it out at 1 hr and started to scoop it out, but the meat closer to the skin wasn't quite ready I think. I noticed it was a bit stringy, so I put it back in for 30 mins.

Scoop out pulp with an ice cream scoop. Puree with a blender or a food processor until smooth. You don't want any strings so you may have to strain the puree to get these out - I didn't have that issue.

I got about 3 cups of puree with my half of the pumpkin. Enough for a pie and maybe some of these pumpkin muffins.

I've always heard that canned pumpkin puree was as good as the fresh, but since this was so easy and with all the nasty BPA lurking in those cans - Why not just do it yourself? Plus you get some yummy seeds to snack on.

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

Separate seeds from pulp. I cover the seeds with water in a bowl, they kind of float to the top and I get my hands in there to remove the yuck and then put the seeds on a cookie sheet.

Toss with olive oil, enough to coat. Season with your preferred seasoning. Shinerman prefers All-Purpose Season Salt, yes I know it's made of horrible chemicals - oh well. I think a good combo would be cayanne and salt. What about you?

Toast in the oven with the pumpkin for about 15-20 mins.

I tossed the stringy pulp and shell into the compost pail so this was NO Waste project! WOOHOO!

Holy Compost, Batman!

If I had money THIS is what I would buy. A composter that you just plug in? You can compost kitty litter???!!!! No more yuck in the backyard?! I am sold – why have I not heard of this before? Apparently it was on Oprah's Earth Day special - but seeing as I work for a living I didn't see the show.

It doesn't really get much better than this. A machine that you put your waste into and out comes nice yummy compost without the nasty things you get in the backyard compost bin (ours at least). The only killer is the price, but if you buy one of the neat tumbler things it's $200 bucks right there. Just another hundred and you got the base model of the NatureMill. The Pet-Friendly version is $399, but I think it's worth it. We have just one cat and I hate putting all that litter in the trash - it easily doubles our weight from the regular trash bag. And bonus - if you have two friends that want one too (any model) you can get a discount if you let them know you're together. (see website for more details)

I think I know what is going on my Christmas list. Oh, Santa…

Our Garden

We finally got our garden planted for the late summer plantings (I say we, but it was really just Shinerman). We planted pole beans, lettuce, carrots, chives, cilantro, okra, broccoli, broccoli raab, and beets. I bought certified organic seed packets at Central Market.

I tried to talk Shinerman into planting the lettuce just a few seeds at a time so we could have successive harvesting, but he doesn't think that they'll grow very well at all. So we'll see, we might have a plethora of lettuce to share with friends and neighbors.

I think that's a big part of having a garden, sharing your bounty. I think the very nature of gardening and harvesting really requires you to share. Because you don't want all that okra or lettuce to go to waste, right? Sorry about the little tangent - I'm taking hydrocodone after getting my wisdom teeth reomoved and I'm feeling a little out of it.

Anyway, we already have some okra and pole bean sprouts! woohoo! Unfortunatly, the only way I know of cooking okra is to fry it. I'll have to do some research...

Hear are some pics of our garden.

bring out the good paper plates, honey

Everytime I see one of these commercials, I get really ticked. It pretty much says "Let's trash the earth so I don't have to do the dishes" I don't really understand why you can't read your kid a story at bedtime AND do the dishes. And honestly, as old as some of these kids are in the commercials, they should be helping with the dishes anyway. The littlest man helps as much as he's able. But really - if you run out of time to get the dishes done before you're too dead tired (been there many a time), it's OK to have dishes in the sink. There is no Dish-Gestapo who will break through your windows to berate you for not having a sparkling efffin' kitchen!!

And their whole line about preventing diease through a paper cup...I'm 30-some odd-years old and have NEVER used a cup to rinse after brushing my teeth. And I'm pretty healthy, too.









In the interest of full disclosure, I do have paper plates. I have some leftover from my non-green days that we pretty much only use when we camp. We also have more enviromentally friendly plates I bought for a camping/bbq. I got them at Wal-Mart. I don't remember how much they cost, but they couldn't have been to expensive.

On another note, sorry I've been AWOL for so long! No excuse, just life. I plan to do better in the future!