Tomato Thievery

Let me preface this post by saying that I should be studying for a test right now, but I need to get this off my chest or I won't be able to concentrate on anything else! Yesterday, as I left for school, I walked out the front door and paused to take a look at my tomato plant. It's been warm the past week or so which has prompted my plant to put out some new flowers. I had hopes that these would be the last tomatoes of the season. When I returned from school however, the plant was gone! That's right. GONE. Pot and all. The only thing that remained was a wet ring of dirt on the cement where the pot had been sitting all summer. Who could do such a thing?

Harvested Serrano Chili Peppers and Mini Bell Pepper Update

I'm just popping in here to write a quick update on two of my plants. My serrano chili pepper plant had a nice amount of full grown peppers ready to be harvested so I picked some yesterday. I'm so excited to make some salsa with them! It's still flowering and producing peppers, but I'm not sure how long that will continue. I also still have the two outdoor serrano chili pepper plants (which are in my parent's backyard) that have their first peppers appearing. My two outdoor mini bell pepper plants are also starting to form little peppers. The indoor mini bell pepper plant is doing fantastic! The two biggest peppers are starting to turn yellow which means that they are just about ready to be harvested. 

Aloe Vera Lemonade

I was doing some blog surfing when I came across this recipe for aloe vera lemonade and since I have an aloe plant I decided to give it a try. I found the recipe over at The Thrifty Mama and, as usual, deviated from the recipe a bit. The recipe calls for lemon juice and of course I couldn't just pour it out of a bottle. I had to buy lemons and squeeze them myself. Since lemons are in season right now I was able to buy them at a fair price. If you'd rather used bottled lemon juice, like the original recipe suggests, I would advise against buying Realemon (no offense meant to Thrifty Mama!) Firstly, Realemon comes in a plastic bottle (my awareness of plastic and avoidance of said plastic is ever increasing) and secondly it's lemon juice from concentrate. We can do better! For cooking I purchase Italian Volcano Lemon Juice which is also available at Costco. It's in a glass bottle, it's 100% juice AND it's organic... sold!

Mint & Lime Mojito

The first time that I had a Mojito was in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico in 2008 while I was on vacation with a few of my girl friends. It somewhat become our signature drink of the vacation as we ordered them every time we were at a bar. Here is 20 year old me enjoying a Mojito in Mexico...

When we came back from vacation we started to ask for Mojitos at bars and restaurants, but most of the time our server would give us a puzzled look. After being disappointed with the few Mojitos that I could find, I decided to make my own Mojito recipe. Some people like granulated sugar in this drink, but I prefer simple syrup (which can easily be made at home and I will include this recipe as well). You can substitute granulated sugar instead of simple syrup if you like.

Sweet Beginnings Local Raw Honey

I first mentioned Sweet Beginnings honey in my post about the Green Festival. I had read about them previously, but until then I hadn't actually tasted the honey. Since I bought some of the honey at the Green Festival I have been using it everyday. The 12 oz jar that I had purchased is half gone! I figured that I should write a review about their company and their honey (for people who may not know what local raw honey is).

Cucumber-Mint Water

Earlier this year I purchased a Jack LaLanne Power Juicer. My thought process was that it would help me drink healthier, because I rarely drink water and I'm usually drinking some sort of artificially flavored juice. I don't know what it is about the taste of water, but I just don't like it! I like something with flavor. So I started juicing and I juiced everything under the sun! Let me tell you, fresh fruit juice is way better than anything you can buy in the store. I then experimented with mixing some veggies into my fruit juices and I discovered that cucumber added a very cool and refreshing note. So when I came across a cucumber-mint water recipe in my Fine Cooking magazine I just had to try it out. You don't necessarily need a juicer for this recipe, but you will need a blender.

Green Festival 2011

Yesterday I attended the Green Festival in Chicago at McCormick Place. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was very excited! The festival took place on Saturday May 14th and Sunday May 15th, but I only went on Sunday. There were stages where people were giving talks, a music stage, an organic wine/beer garden, renewable energy booths, fair trade booths, organic food booths and so much more! I was a little overwhelmed at first, but we made our rounds, I snapped some photos and grabbed a bunch of pamphlets. I'll post some pictures here and talk about what I saw and also what I bought.

To Buy or Not to Buy Organic

I loved this book and learned so much that I didn't know about food and how it is grown! The book goes into details about how foods are grown, what type of pesticides/chemicals are generally used and why organic foods are healthier. It also covers 12 foods to only buy if they are organic aka  The Dirty Dozen, because of the amount of pesticides used on their conventionally grown counterparts. What interested me the most was the fact that the author mentions "going beyond organic" by choose local and sustainable foods. This wasn't something that I had given much thought to previously. 

Environmental Enlightenment #15 (Know Your Meat)

I'm about 3/4 of the way through "To Buy or Not To Buy Organic" and already it has encouraged me to discover where my meat is coming from. I'll review the book in a future post, but I do want to say that it brought up a very good point about not only considering organic foods, but also considering local and sustainable foods. Those organic grapes from Argentina may not be worth all the fossil fuels used to transport them to your doorstep. Anyways, it got me wondering where my meat is coming from. So I did a little research...

Mini-Farming Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre

I finished reading the Mini-Farming book yesterday and I was very pleased by the 200 plus pages of detailed information! Reading this book made me want to throw on a pair of over-alls, grab a shovel and get planting. Unfortunately, as it stands right now, I don't have any "land." The indoor garden is it for now. Although I have made a bargain with my parent's for some of their yard space and I fully intend on applying some of the methods that I learned in this book when I transplant some things over there.

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!

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.

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.

Environmental Enlightenment #10 (Natural Bath Products)

I promised a post in which I would share my love of Lush products and here it is! I'd like to start out by saying that I haven't used many of their products, but the ones that I have used I love. Lush has a wide selection of bath bombs. I enjoy a soak in the tub a couple times a month so I decided to try two of them out. My favorite was the French Kiss Bubble Bar.

I have a soft spot for Lavender. It smells so good! One day while I was out shopping with my sister we stopped in Lush and started sniffing all of the bath bombs. Picking up their products and smelling them in the store is totally acceptable and quite fun. The woman working at the time was very helpful. She asked what scents I liked and directed me towards the French Kiss Bubble Bar. It contains Lavender oil, Rosemary oil and Thyme oil. Then she performed a demonstration on how the bubble bar works. She plopped a small piece of a bubble bar into a pitcher and started to pour water into it. My sister and I watched as the water began to bubble up. Then she poured the bubble-y water back and forth between two pitchers and the bubbles became fairly thick and soapy, just as a regular bubble bath solution would. This demonstration was supposed to mimic the act of filling up your bath tub with a piece of the bubble bar in it. I took it home and tried it out and it worked so well. I also have jets in my bathtub so when the bubbles popped I just ran the jets and it stirred it back up into bubbles again! I used about 1/4 of the bar for one bath and it was plenty. I love this product and would recommend it to anyone who wants to take bubble baths in an environmentally friendly way.

Environmental Enlightenment #8 (Fair Trade Tea)

Food has always been the hardest thing for me to change when it comes to being the most environmentally friendly as possible. Since I love to cook it is personally very hard for me to go without avocados, butternut squash, mangoes and other food items that come from outside of the United States. The indoor garden will be (I hope) a small step towards alleviating my reliance on non-local produce. My trips to the grocery store are becoming more and more time consuming because I have been spending more time reading labels and scanning for organically made products. I normally get my fresh produce from a store called Fresh Farms, but for other food purchases I head on over to Jewel. I've noticed that recently they've been stocking their shelves with a brand called Wild Harvest Organic. So I bought some of their organic tea which is certified fair trade.

Basil and Cilantro Planted

A couple days ago I planted the first two plants that will be a part of the indoor garden: basil and cilantro. I've grown basil before, but not cilantro so I'm pretty excited about that. I've also been reading up on how to save seeds from these plants so that I can possibly grow other plants from my own seeds. The main reason that I wanted to write about the basil and cilantro was to share a couple of crafty ideas on how to label your pots so you don't forget which plant is which before it sprouts. The first idea came from Gayla Trail's book Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Spaces. She writes that an inexpensive way to make plant tags is to spray tongue depressors with chalkboard spray and then write in chalk which plant is in that pot and you can always erase the chalk and reuse them! At Christmas time I was given a chalkboard wall decal which I didn't have a purpose for, but I remembered Gayla's idea and came up with my own version. I cut up the wall decal into smaller pieces and stuck them to the pots (labeling what plant was in there and the date that it was planted).

The Beginning of the Indoor Garden

I determined that the best place for my plants would be near the front window. The next step was to find a table for the plants. My mom helped me out and found a sofa table that is the perfect height for the front window and that matches my current coffee table and side tables. (Yay mom!) The table arrived yesterday and I put it together today... all by myself!

Organic Vodka

Until recently I didn't know that organic vodka existed. A couple months ago I walked into my local liquor store and there happened to be a woman inside giving out samples of various alcohols. She had me sample a citrus flavored vodka and then told me that it was organic. It tasted smooth and less harsh than any other vodka that I had previously tried. So I picked up a bottle of Moon Mountain vodka.

How is vodka organic? Well it turns out that Moon Mountain vodka is made from organic grain. You can learn more about their brand here. Just last night I tried their Wild Raspberry flavor which was equally delicious!