This paring was moist, buttery, tangy, and gently peppery.

We have guests coming for lunch tomorrow. Although we had this for dinner last night…is it too much to prepare these same tasty dishes again tomorrow?

Oh, you can find the Bon Appetite recipes here for the pork and here for the slaw. Yum. Have a wonderful weekend.

I love foodie magazines, natural living magazines, and personal finance and business magazines. Gotta keep up with those tech entrepreneur trends! Okay, maybe not that important, and isn’t it interesting I didn’t list any crafting, sewing, or knitting magazines? Hummm.

Anyway, you ask, what packaging do magazines require? Well, mine come either enter my abode with an extra paper outer to protect it’s front page, like one above, or with plastic shrink wrap packaging stuffed with offer and subscription mailers that just go in the recycling bin. Most of my magazines also end up in the recycling bin, minus a few pages that were torn out and inserted into my crafting binder or recipe folder.

So why retain only the knowledge from the printed pages and toss out the entire stack of inked paper you pay for each year? Why not go to your library or the internet for the same information? You’d save some money and you’d throw out a lot less paper.

Next week, stay tuned for more packaging discussions about choosing to consume less paper and plastic. Maybe at the end of all this, my family will throw away less too. Have a great weekend!

But anyway, this cute head covering knits up super quickly, even for a beginner knitter. And you can find the pattern here, if you are so inclined to knit up your own. (Apologies about these weird pictures, it was a cloudy day, *sigh*.)

These are super warm leg warmers in Manos del Uruguay handspun kettle dyed pure wool. This simple pattern that also includes striped iterations is here. If you can make this out, inspired by the fabulous and hilariously funny Mason-Dixon Knitting team, I embroidered the recipient’s name on the front in a chain stitch.

My last trip to the library, I picked up their book Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. My embroidery here is patterned after their super cool Mystery Sweater titled the Margaret. (Actually, a wonderfully talented designer by the name of Mary Neal Meador created this fantastic sweater.) See all that wonderfully cool patterning on the front of this sweater? A chain-stitched secret passage! I so want to make this one…

Meat from the grocery requires:

• plastic wrap,
• a styrofoam dish
• maybe a plastic baggie to keep bacteria from getting all over everything else the package touches
• and that weird suck-up-the-moisture pad thingie I try to avoid touching all together.

Meat from your local farm requires:

• a plastic vacuum freezer pouch (and the one in this picture also has a piece of freezer paper wrapped around the cut bone so it doesn’t puncture the plastic.)

Okay, the plastic freezer pouch weights more than the plastic wrap you get from the store, but my local farmer didn’t give me any styrofoam packaging. In terms of waste weight, I’d say this packaging conundrum is equal. In terms of avoiding styrofoam, the local meat wins out.

There isn’t always going to be a less-packaging winner. Sometimes the product that requires more packaging just fits your lifestyle better. Sometimes, different types of packaging have different trade offs. Just use the brain and think about what you are consuming. Conscious consumption is always best.

I have been reluctant to try much gluten-free baking beyond cookies since my weird chocolate cake experiments. But this recipe developed by The Culinary Institute of America had the secret…egg whites. Egg proteins really create the structure of the cake pastry as the gluten proteins take a backseat. Folding in those egg whites whipped into soft peaks made all the difference between a fluffy moist crumb and a rock hard doorstop.

This recipe is labor intensive. It required three separate ingredient bowls, draining carrot juice, separating eggs, and two 6″ cake pans to bring to life this gluten-free delight. (Can I brag about my cake pan collection sizes 6″ to 14″? But really, who normally has 6″ cake pans?) It took about an hour to make the cake batter which seems entirely too liquid to bake into anything delectable. And it took 48 minutes in my burns-hot-electric-oven to bake the cake. The recipe then calls for letting the cake cool entirely in the pan. When I took turned the cake out, it seemed as if the bottom were a bit soggy, like well, the cake cooled in the pan; condensation pooling under that delicate layer. But now I think the moisture retention was intentional and adds to the tender, if a bit spongy, texture of this very good gluten-free carrot cake.

In my opinion, this recipe could use a few more spicy additions like more cinnamon and perhaps ground cloves?? It was a bit bland. And the frosting needs a bit more of that smooth cream cheese tang and a bit less sugar. Oh that toddler desert sugar buzz before bath and bedtime, not so good.

I found Gluten-Free Baking with The Culinary Institute of America at my library. (Always a good idea to try out the recipes before buying the book.) Although the introduction to Celiac disease diagnosis in the first chapters scared my socks off (I am not medically diagnosed), I am eager to try a few more recipes from this publication. “Cheers” from the gluten-free blogger who ate carrot cake for breakfast this morning.

What do we throw away when we use all 1080 paper towel sheets?

• 12 shrink wrap wrappers
• 12 cardboard tubes
• one HUGE plastic wrapper that held all 12 rolls and is large enough to picnic on.
• oh, and one thousand and eighty (1080) paper towels!

What do we throw away when we use dish towels, miracle cloths, washies, and cloth napkins?

• The cardboard box that holds 42 loads of detergent.

42 laundry loads is a lot of dish towels which, unlike a paper towel, we use to clean up more than one mess. Some of what we toss out is recycleable or reuseable. However, I can only tolerate so many paper towel tube telescopes, loud speakers, and brandishing weaponry that seeks to threaten my wall decor. Why even choose to consume more packaging if there is a good-for-your-lifestyle option that means less paper and plastic in your shopping cart?

After this stash, I don’t think we will be buying that much throw-away packaging ever again. And that feels pretty good.

Stay tuned for 16 more days of discussion about choosing to purchase less packaging. Up next, meat…

How are you thinking about the amount of packaging you consume?

It must seem to you that all my family does is drink liquids. Chai tea, frozen popsicles, and now juice. It is just that our family seems to consume tons liquid that made its way into our home inside of a package.

I think this choice is a bit obvious.

Toss:

1 plastic juice container (or 48oz can)

or toss:

8 small non-recyclable juice boxes or juice pouches,

and 8 little plastic straws that came inside 8 little plastic liners

and that plastic shrink wrap or cardboard box everything came inside.

Sure many of these items are recyclable, or reusable, but their production and recycle processes require energy. Why not bring less of this packaging into your home and throw out less too?

For an on-the-go family taking drinks with is a necessity. We have Camelbak sippies and Kleen Kanteens but I don’t like to put juice in these for fear it will sour and mold will grow on the inside of our drink holders. Maybe we should just forgo the juice and drink more water. Oh, wait, our county has some of the worst municipal water in the country. We’ll save that for another post…

Day 2 in a discussion about packaging.

As I began to open my eyes, and notice all the printed cardboard, plastic shrink wrap, and packing peanuts coming through my front door, I started to wonder, where does this come from, how can I lessen it, and why is it necessary? I am perplexed and slightly in awe of how our society has transformed life into a face-paced, disposable, never-look back hamster wheel. And I wonder how I landed squarely on that wheel that spins round and round and doesn’t go anywhere. Sometimes you even get a bit behind; backed up between the 9 o’clock and 6 o’clock sides. Maybe this is why we consume so much packaging. Maybe this is why we don’t know what to do with it, so we throw it out.

Well, this month, spurred by Hip Mountain Mama’s One Small Change challenge, I plan to lessen the paper, plastic and Styrofoam we throw away everyday; for our environment, for our bodily health, and for our sanity.

Yes, we are a year-round popsicle family. Well, the kids do the consumption here. Sensitive teeth kind of get the better of me personally. In the throws of a bad toddler stomach illness, I snuck into that I-am-convenience-with-tons-of-sugar-and-preservatives-section of the grocery store, aka the frozen food section, and popped a bit of frozen liquid delight  into my cart, hoping that these babies would somehow calm and hydrate my son’s poor little body.  Well, he loved them. Red no. 40 and all. Since, we have switched to a more natural brand that doesn’t add artificial ingredients, but we still come home with

• 12 little plastic wrappers,
• 12 sticks of wood,
• a cardboard box,
• and sometimes even a piece of shrink wrap large enough to erect a greenhouse for a hedgehog.

How to eliminate this extra throw-away? Make your own popsicles.

I snagged these molds at Ikea. Plastic I know. Not the best, but hey, the food isn’t going to be on contact with this plastic for that long. Little popsicle-vores. I simply make a smoothie in the blender, or pour a bit of 100% juice into the mold, replace the stick-top, and freeze. To un-mold, run the container under warm water and the popsicle will slide right out. Home-made popsicle throw-away:

• Juice container (we get ours in those tin-48 oz cans which you can recycle, or reuse…I made punched lanterns out of these things as a kid. MS has a good how-to here. Or Google the phrase.)

Make-your-own (MYO) is the less packaging route hands down. It doesn’t take too much time to open a container of juice, pour, and freeze. The kids aren’t yet brand-sensitive-consumers, (but they will be) and like this frozen version just as much as the boxed kind. I wash the molds in the sink with a bottle brush, or some versions maybe dishwasher safe. I think MYO wins out here in the packaging throw-away challenge.

Why is MYO the poll-winning answer so far here on 20 Days of Packaging? Time versus money I get. Time versus the environment…my jury is still out on this one. Is it just another horn sound alerting me that I should “slow-down” a bit for the world around me?

Update: found another wonderful tutorial for a tin can punched luminary with pictures here!

:: Take care when chopping. Uniformity makes a nice presentation.

:: Don’t ignore the nuances, squeeze all that water out of the blanched spinach before you begin the sauté.

:: Never bother to measure your seasonings…let the nose and tongue be your guides.

:: Be sure to make the dish your own. Let it’s flavors, textures, and smells, suggest your personality, style, and heritage.

:: It is never too late to learn. I learned how to prepare this traditional Korean dish, in addition to how to locate those sweet potato noodles in the Korean grocery, in my 30s.

Here is my recipe.

**Chap Chae**

• 2T cooking oil – like expeller pressed safflower oil (don’t use olive oil, you’ll get a weird Tuscan-Korean blend thing going on.)
• 1 med yellow onion julienne
• 3 med carrots julienne
• 1 lb ground beef, browned and drained
• 8 oz fresh shiitake mushrooms julienne
• 1 lb spinach, blanched, drained (squeeze all that water out) julienne
• 2T minced fresh garlic
• 1 lb sweet potato noodles, cooked per package directions and rinsed 2-3 times in cold running water, then drain
• 2T sesame oil
• 1t sesame seeds
• 1/4C soy sauce (use a wheat-free variety to make this dish gluten-free, yes, wheat is the second ingredient in soy sauce after water…and before soy.)
• 3T sugar
• salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. Heat cooking oil in a 12″ heavy bottom fry pan over medium heat. Add onions and carrots and cook until onions are translucent and soft but not brown.
2. Add beef, shiitake mushrooms, spinach, and garlic and heat through.
3. Add noodles, sesame seeds, sesame oil, soy sauce, sugar. Toss and heat through.
4. Taste! And season with salt and ground black pepper as needed.
5. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 8

*  *  *

And to change continents, with the help of my husband, I prepared Tacos al Pastor for dinner. You can find this deliciously smoky, spicy, and sweet recipe here. The zesty lime flavor and fragrant ancho chile salsa took me back to the time my friends and I stopped at this road-side taco stand on the side of a highway not far from Tampico, Mexico. Under a killer sun and among sandy grasses they ordered tacos, un kilo de puerco. We drove in a beat up vintage VW bug back to an apartment with folding chairs and aluminum edged card table to feast. Roasted onions–blackened to beat the pungent bite into sweet, mild submission. The salsa was a smoky mix of flavors and the heat lingered only for a moment. Fresh, pungent cilantro and the smoky charcoal pork clashed to make a fresh, slightly mysterious explosion in the mouth. Beautiful I say. Mind you there were 8 or so of us that finished those 2.2 lbs of that tasty barbeque.

My daughter and I rise to wash up, dress, and get ready for the day in time to meet the sun as she is rising in the east. It is quiet as I steal these pictures of fresh calmness and awakening. No traffic rumbling on the road yet, just a few birds singing their wake-up songs and the soft din of our heater. I can smell newness in the damp leaves on the ground as dreams of the activities in the day to come dance in my eyes. For a moment, my heart is filled with optimism, inspiration, and supreme peace.

I revel in this serenity. I add a cup of coffee, a few scrambled eggs (only to be stolen by my daughter’s hungry grabby hands) and a bit of reading. These early morning moments are fleeting. I don’t know where they run off to during the day. But I do know these bits of peace return each morning to greet us early risers with joy and gladness.

Have a wonderful day all.