cramming vegetables every which way

I posted about watching Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead and the quest for a juicer, but haven't updated you since then. We found a juicer on Craigslist, a Champion 2000+, and though we haven't used it all the time like I thought we would, we've used it a handful of times. It has certainly inspired a different mindset in my dinner preparation, albeit accidentally. I went a little overboard buying produce to juice...as in the fridge was crammed full of collards, kale, chard, turnip greens, spinach, cauliflower and fruits.The result was a week crammed with veggies in every manner possible. Here's a little recap:


Creamy cauliflower and greens soup with grilled hummus sandwiches (I saw on Facebook Jen was having them and totally loved that idea)


This is a chicken, chard coconut curry sort of concoction. Martha Stewart has a recipe for Chicken Spinach Casserole, that's pretty good, but I didn't want all that cream. Instead I subbed the half and half with coconut milk, added curry powder, ginger and lemongrass and deleted the bread crumb topping.


Last night we had leftover stew. Basically the liquid is a quick chicken broth mixed with leftover cauliflower soup with shredded chicken, carrots and chard.


Thursday night I made a big ol' batch of green juice. The colors (before mixing together into a muddy green) were fantastic thanks to kale, apples, lemon, oranges, and carrots. Oddly enough, kale juice has a faint banana flavor to it. Who woulda known?

What's your favorite sneak-a-veggie recipe?

down wind of chemical stench

My lengthy dislike for Scotts MiracleGro products started when I was just getting interested in gardening. Scotts was suing TerraCycle for using green and yellow on their packaging, though I never really believed that was all it was about. Perhaps a small start up company with a great idea for reused packaging and simple organic ingredients was putting a hurting on a major corporation's profits. Whatever it was, Scotts image seemed like the popular football star stuffing a nerdy kid in a locker.




Companies like Scotts promote chemical use in the garden, persistent chemicals that perpetuate reliance for gigantic yields and "weed-free" gardens. They promote the idea that a singular plant (grass) is the only acceptable basis of a beautiful, lush yard. A single variety plant space, such as a weed free lawn, is known as a monocrop, and a monocrop's lack of diversity can create all sorts of issues that need other synthetic products to resolve.

I won't get into the many uses of weeds...well maybe for just a second--some of those weeds might replace your prescription medicine, others could be pulled up and used to make an organic plant food, yet others simply feed the wildlife in your yard. Perhaps if the critters had natural forage they wouldn't go after your tomatoes and you wouldn't need that Scotts brand pesticide after all.



The more I learn about gardening, the more I learn that popular kid in the green and gold uniform had a few unsavory secrets. Enter stage left: Monsanto, wealthy, smooth-talking hip best friend to Scotts. Monsanto's own GMO-tainted politics does nothing to endear me to Scotts. 


To put my feelings into perspective, let's talk about something most people have some level of concern about: the honeybees. We've all heard about the rapid decline of bee populations and what will happen if they keep mysteriously dying. Bees an accessible environmental issue: less bees, less pollination, less productive crops, less food, higher food prices, food shortages...you get the idea. Scotts sells all sorts of weed killer monocrop the hell out of your yard. Make it all grass, get rid of that nasty clover...that nasty clover that bees find so useful as a source of food. Yeah, food, that little thing that keeps us all alive. Of course, Scotts' BFF Monsanto, the company that sues farmers whose crops have accidentally cross-pollinated with Monsanto GMO crops. The GMO crops that may or may not contribute to the decline of bee populations, certainly contributing to the loss of monarch butterfly populations (another handy insect that pollinates plants).

And then the National Wildlife Federation announced its partnership with Scotts. Frankly I took the news personally. I felt like an old friend went and made out with the dude that used to tease me every day about being flat-chested. Betrayal.


How do you feel about the partnership? Care, don't care, wish I'd saved my breath for some pretty furniture and lovely pictures?

* * *


You Grow Girl and Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens discuss the new partnership on their blogs.

Laundry List


This is going to sound whiny and privileged, so bear with me and know there are also regular life things going on, so the following "issue" isn't really an issue, just an ongoing search for a clutterbug's organizing solution.


Our laundry room is in an upstairs alcove, which means it's visible as a space you walk past anytime you're upstairs. It's a 10 x 10' sunny, warm, welcoming spot when clean, but a stressful eyesore the rest of the time. Let's face it, stressful messy rooms don't get used, and I need to use the laundry room or they'll start complaining at work. 

In my eternal quest for a vacation-land home, I'm stuck. We have a few items (pictured above: free desk rescued from the dumpster by the Mr., similar dresser to the one shown via Craigslist, 3 sorting baskets from Ballard Designs) and I want to keep it as simple as possible.

Any great ideas come to mind for helping me make our ugly space pretty? I'm ready to start outsourcing laundry...hey, that's not such a bad idea. 

links worthy of collecting


If you're interested but don't know where to start learning about what SOPA/PIPA could mean to you, this is a great article.

La porte rouge makes me want to draw and paint horses in snow.

I guess I'm a little late to the OldBrandNew party, but I'm so glad I made it!

Since we're knee deep in cold and flu season, the Numen site has a beautifully simple site full of herbal remedies and resources for natural approaches to healing. (Thanks so much for the link Shari!)

My Simpler Life's Declutter Calendar makes decluttering your entire house a doable task in tiny little time segments.