Indoor Garden Update

The indoor garden is coming along just as planned with the exception of the stubborn mint and the addition of a few new plants. I got a strawberry plant for the boyfriend's sweet tooth and a lime basil plant for my Mojito tooth. I never heard of lime basil before, but when I saw the seed packet I had to have it! I immediately imagined it in various cocktails, teas and pasta sauces. Also, I had been waiting for my potato tubers to come and they finally arrived earlier this week. I will be planting them today and I'm so excited!

Earth Day 2011

This past Friday, April 22nd, was Earth Day. I have recollections of a handful of Earth Day "clean-ups" taking place at my grammar school, but I haven't attending any such events since then. When thinking about what to do for Earth Day this year I thought back to this blog post about picking up litter. It seems that I got ahead of myself in writing this blog. For one, I didn't take into consideration weather. It's snowed here well into March and April has been a cold rainy mess. Now, there have been a sprinkling of unseasonably warm days, which I have taken advantage of, but for the most part it seems like picking up litter everyday will be more challenging than I expected.

Environmental Enlightenment #14 (Lunapads)

Prepare yourself for another "feminine hygiene" related post. When I first wrote about the DivaCup I was only beginning to realize how much this product would change how I handled my monthly gift from mother nature. In this post I would like to go into a little more detail about the DivaCup as well as my new experience with Lunapads.

In my original post about the DivaCup I briefly mentioned Lunapads as an alternative reusable menstrual product, but I hadn't yet tried them for myself. Since I was using the cup I saw no reason for purchasing a Lunapad. While learning how to use the DivaCup I was still wearing a disposable liner "just in case." I thought that once I became confident in my DivaCup skills that I would be able to stop using the liner and just go with the cup. I underestimated my paranoia! The cup has never leaked, but I just can't help wanting some extra protection on the off chance that it does leak. So after reading numerous positive testimonials about Lunapads I decided to try one out for myself. I purchased a mini pantyliner to wear as a back-up with the cup.

Environmental Enlightenment #13 (Natural Easter Egg Dye)

In addition to my magazine subscription to Fine Cooking, I also receive e-letters from them via e-mail. These e-letters usually include recipes related to the season. For example, the most current e-letter features how to plan your Easter menu. It also includes how to make the perfect hard-boiled egg and how to naturally dye your Easter eggs. That last part caught my attention. So I followed the link that they provided and found the recipe for naturally dyeing Easter eggs here. This recipe uses vegetables, fruits, coffee, tea and spices to dye the eggs a wide range of colors. I haven't dyed Easter eggs since I was a kid, but I might just try the recipe out this Easter.

Grapefruit Infused Tequila

I love infusing liquors with my favorite flavors and so far I've made bacon infused vodka (which I used in a Bloody Mary) and also ginger infused vodka (which I used in a Saketini... upcoming blog about this recipe!) So when I came across a recipe in my Fine Cooking magazine for Tequila-Grapefruit Cocktails, I couldn't resist! This recipe features grapefruit infused tequila which is very simple to make. Shave the zest from 2 grapefruits with a vegetable peeler. Add the zest to a 750 ml bottle of silver tequila. Make sure that you pour off enough tequila to make room for the zest in the bottle (I used the tequila that I poured off to make myself a Margarita). Chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 days and up to 2 weeks. Also, don't get rid of those grapefruits that you zested! The cocktail recipe calls for fresh grapefruit juice, so I kept them in the fridge in Ziploc bags until the tequila was ready.

Environmental Enlightenment #12 (Recycle Old Shoes)

When it comes time to get rid of something used/old I am trying my hardest not to throw it away. I've been doing a lot of research on how to recycle things that I never knew could be recycled! Earlier this week the boyfriend had some old gym shoes to get rid of and my first thought was to donate them to charity. However, they were unwearable at this point (falling apart and too abused to be useful to anyone else's feet). As far as I knew there weren't any shoe recycling programs, but I decided to do a quick Google search to double check. To my surprise there is a way to recycle old gym shoes! Nike (and their sister company Converse) has a re-use a shoe program. Every part of the shoe is used. The rubber from the out-sole is used to make running tracks; the fabric from the upper-sole is used to make padding for basketball courts; and the foam from the mid-sole is used to make the springy surface of tennis courts. The materials are passed through grinders to make the raw material which is then used for the previous mentioned purposes. Yesterday I found the nearest drop-off location and took the old gym shoes into Nike to be recycled.

Newly Purchased Books!

Online shopping can be a dangerous thing. I went on Amazon for just one book, I swear! But I ended up checking out with four books. Although I'm pretty excited about all of them. I'll be writing up a review for each book as I read it, but for now I wanted to share the titles of the books and what I know about them from their inside covers.

Sweet & Sour Shrimp with Veggies and White Rice

I don't know why, but for some reason when I'm thinking of new foods or recipes to try I tend to lean towards Asian inspired foods. A few days ago I started a search for an easy to make sweet and sour sauce that I already had the ingredients for in my kitchen. I found a recipe By Rhonda Parkinson on About.com and I decided to try it with some shrimp, veggies and white rice. You can substitute shrimp with chicken and use any veggies that you like. I used red bell pepper and onions. I also only made one serving for myself as I was just testing out this recipe, but the ingredients can be multiplied for more people.

Renewable Energy Tour

Saturday, April 2, 2011 I embarked on a renewable energy tour in White County, IN. I had no idea what to expect, but I was mainly attending out of curiosity anyways. I live in a big city where farmers and their land are very much out of sight, out of mind and it was interesting to see what the farmers of White County were doing with their land and resources. The description of the tour according to the IEEE website is as follows:

"The tour is an all day event with the tour taking four hours having stops at a 500 Megawatt wind farm, a Algae wheel wastewater treatment plant, a Anaerobic Digester running off cattle/swine waste and other organic products to produce 3 megawatts/hour of electricity off methane gas and a visit to the Liberty Landfill for a 6.9 Megawatt biomass power generation plant."