A few years ago I made my first dish with Quinoa. I made a rookie mistake and did not rinse the dry Quinoa thoroughly first so it had a bitter taste that no one in my family liked. Lately though I gave it another try and now it has become a weekly part of our menu. I rinse well, pop it in my VitaClay, and then add it to a variety of yummy dishes. My husband loves it with Ahi Tuna and green curry sauce. The kids and I love it in a salad. There are many ways to cook and eat this yummy grain.

Looking for some new recipes I asked on the NatureMoms Facebook page what the community’s  favorite way to cook Quinoa was. They gave me ten new ideas:

1. Cooked with brown rice in the rice cooker. Then topped steamed broccoli and sauteed veggies in sesame teriyaki sauce.

2. Wrapped in a burrito with corn and beans.

3. Steamed with fresh veggies and covered in a vinaigrette.

4. Mixed with black beans, scrambled egg, diced avocado and lots o’ hot sauce w/ a squeeze of lime.

5. In tabouli replacing the wheat.

6. Browned with a little butter first then cooked with with mushrooms, slivered almonds, and nettles.

7. Mixed half and half with homemade salsa.

8. After it is cooked… add black beans, diced tomatoes, minced garlic, sea salt, avocado, cilantro and squeeze some lime juice.

9. Fruity quinoa salad with yogurt, fruit, nuts, and dried raisins or cranberries. The quinoa is cooked w/water, apple juice, and cinnamon. YUM!

10. Cooked in chicken or veggie stock instead of water with several cloves of garlic and a bunch of my favorite herbs.

See anything you might like to try? Enjoy!

For more ideas checkout:

Quinoa 365: The Everyday Superfood

Americans are notorious for wasting food. While over 1 billion people on our planet do not have enough to eat per day Americans throw away approximately 1,400 calories of food per person per day. Put another way, America throws out 40% of the food that it produces.

Not only is this fact about waste disturbing in relation to those around the globe who are starving to death, but when you consider the volatility of the economy and how expensive food is becoming at the grocery store you would think that it would make more sense for people to guard against waste.

Think about the last time you cleaned out your refrigerator. Did you throw out moldy cheese, produce bags gone gooey, or bowls of leftovers that now resemble some sort of science experiment? Did the leftovers even make it to the fridge or did you just toss them out right from the start?

The problem is, our society has become so immune to the concept of waste; so used to throwing things away, that perhaps part of the problem is in not understanding how to avoid food waste. When we throw out that bag of spinach that has gone bad we know that the next bag is only as far away as the nearest grocery store. We won’t go hungry because we bought too much and/or failed to eat what we had on hand. How can we re-train ourselves to be more conscious of food waste? Here are seven basic tips that can be followed which, when taken together, will significantly avoid the amount of food wasted in your household each day.

1. Only make what you need. One of the biggest problems with food waste is that we often make more food than you need for each meal. If you are in doubt as to how much constitutes a serving, check online. You should be able to gauge how much you will need to make for the number of people you will be cooking for. Cooking only what you need will cut down on leftovers and potential waste. And if you do decide to cook extras make it a family rule that lunch the next day is leftovers from the evening before.

2. Prepare your food correctly. Many today are so used to pre-cooked and prepared food items that they don’t know how to prepare fresh food properly. They may buy up some fresh foods hoping to make some old family favorites they had as a child but since their cooking skills have fallen by the wayside in favor of boxed mac and cheese the foods may sit and go bad. Many times people waste large portions of these items because they don’t understand how to prepare them or they don’t have the confidence that they can do so. Now though, you can look up recipes online and get step by step pictures even. If you buy the food, put the effort into actually making it.

3. Cook your favorites. You know what you and your family members like so come up with a list of favorites that you can cook from scratch and cook well. Serve those meals once or twice a week and make a habit of buying the items you need to make them. When you see those familiar ingredients in the fridge you know what you need to make before things go bad. Occasionally I make a vegetarian version of chicken scallopini for instance and it uses white wine and cream (2 things I usually don’t buy or use). I will often make this meal 2-3 times in a single week until I use the wine and cream up. I do the same thing with Potato Leek soup when I have potatoes and leeks to use up.

4. Use your leftovers. Leftovers have a bad habit of sitting morosely in the refrigerator until they sprout mold and have to be thrown out. No one seems to want to take the time to put the items together to make a new dish. A key to avoiding waste is to devise new meals out of leftover items. There are lots of websites that give ideas for dishes that can be made out of common leftovers and if you get creative I’m sure that you’ll find a way to make something new out of something old. Produce that you know you won’t use in a meal can often be used in green smoothies too.

5. Get Creative – Freeze your cutting board scraps like onion skins, carrots, celery, garlic, mushroom stems, etc and reserve them to make your own veggie broth. Produce that is about to go bad can also be used for this purpose. Stale bread can be used for bread crumbs and coutons.

6. Do a pantry/fridge challenge once a month. This means you avoid going to the store and figure out what you can eat from what you have. Spending a week or more eating this way gets rid of older foods before they can go bad and it saves money too!

7. Compost. As a last resort, compost all the biodegradable items that you are not able to eat or use. While technically this IS waste, it is waste that is being reused for something productive; in this case fertilizer for your garden and is not entering the standard waste/recycling system. We had had great success with our Worm Factory Compost Bin.

By following these seven simple steps you can significantly reduce the amount of waste in your household and, hopefully, will serve as an example to your children about curbing food waste.

The chair you see in the photo above is a new and much loved fixture on my back deck. I have long been in love with Adirondack chairs but I wasn’t willing to buy plastic ones and the wooden ones are actually quite a bit of work to maintain. Every year it seems you need to sand and paint them or end up with splinters in your derriere and a pretty sad looking chair.

So when Trex Outdoor Furniture contacted me and asked to me review one of their recycled plastic Adirondack chairs I was… well, let’s just say I was VERY happy. I could see myself getting some daily sun in this chair… watching my kids play while I enjoyed a good book, and generally just finding more mom time in my own personal chair. Lucky for me it is as perfect as I hoped and I can heartily endorse this furniture.

The actual chair is their Cape Cod Adirondack and each one is made from 240 recycled milk jugs. The actual ratio of recycled plastic versus new plastic is pretty darn impressive… 90%. Often times when we think of recycled materials we think of down-cycled products like children’s toys and such but this is definitely up-cycled… meaning they took the plastic and turned it into something of better quality or a higher environmental value. The design is also fabulous. It doesn’t look like plastic at all. The faux wood grain makes it look like a luxurious wood chair but unlike wood this chair doesn’t retain water, get overly dirty, splinter, require painting, or I would wager look dingy after its first summer or two. It is an absolutely gorgeous chair.

It comes in  variety of colors too. I got the classic white but I they also offer it in dark green, brown, tan, sand, stone, and black. You can get the chair as a stand alone or with the matching Cape Cod Ottoman. And of course they also offer chair seat cushions. The beauty above is their Bravada Salsa cushion. Orange may just be my fave color so of course I had to have it. Their web site does not indicate that the cushion is made of recycled materials but you can always make your own if you want.

I have only had it for a few weeks now I but I seem to find reasons to go out and sit in it several times a day. It is super comfortable as well as super durable. Seeing it on my back deck is a reminder that my sad looking deck needs sanded and painted, LOL. It just goes to show that recycled plastic products can be an amazing convenience for us. We are taking plastics and giving them a new and useful life AND making our lives easier by purchasing products that will not require the care and upkeep that wood does.

The shipping aspect was also quite nice. It arrived on a big truck fully assembled. Plus my kids loved the giant box and played with it for days before they tore it asunder. The only tricky aspect was carrying this HEAVY chair to the back yard but it was well worth it. Doesn’t my mom space (above) look cozy? Yep! Now I can grab a book and my glass water bottle and chill for a bit each day while the kids play. It is the perfect summer furniture option in my opinion.

The giveaway winner has now been chosen at random! It is Alicia Bayer, congrats! Thanks to everyone for entering.

Cooks know that as the temperatures outside increases, the desire to cook decreases. It has already hit me full force… I don’t want to heat the kitchen by using my oven at all. And it isn’t due to lack of wanting to cook I just have the need to keep our home as cool as possible. We don’t run our air conditioner willy nilly because we don’t want to be energy hogs.. or spend extra money on energy bills. This is why baking is done mostly in the winter months and cool dishes are served during the summer. Who wants to heat their house up with the oven only to have to pay higher bills to cool it back down again? Not me!

Keeping cool in the kitchen doesn’t automatically mean eating a cold sandwich and watermelon every day… although that’s cool if you want to. We have such a wide variety of cooking appliances to choose from though, we can serve wonderful meals for our families without heating up our homes. Here are just a few of the gadgets you can choose from.

Crockpot – They aren’t just for soups and stews.. although those are so easy why not? Slow cookers or crockpots are wonderful for recipes which typically take a long time to prepare. You can cook anything from lasagna to bake potatoes in a crockpot. I personally like to use up our local produce by throwing them in a crockpot with some beans. Sometimes I have some pretty wild creations but they are all yum. Slow cooked goodness without heating the house and you can keep it green and safe by using a clay crockpot. I have a VitaClay and LOVE it.

If meatless meals are your thing but you are not a pro with veg based slow cooker recipes try: Gourmet Vegetarian Slow Cooker: Simple and Sophisticated Meals from Around the World. Going meatless saves money too!

Microwave – If getting in and out of the kitchen quickly is important to you, there’s always the microwave. I personally don’t use one or own one because I think their safety is in question. But for those that like them you can cook nearly anything in a microwave in much less time than conventional cooking.

Wok – Oriental cooking is prepared at high temperatures in the wok but the foods cook quickly. If you don’t have a wok, you can make similar meals using a normal skillet. Just toss some veggies and sprouts in there and mix with some Asian sauce and you are good to go.

Pressure Cooker – The pressure cooker was once a staple in every country kitchen. They aren’t used quite as often any longer but they can still be used to cook a meal in less time, and therefore less heat, than other methods. A meal that might cook 4-5 hours in your dutch oven might take only an 1 hour in a pressure cooker.

Another way you can keep the kitchen cool this summer is to begin preparing meals earlier in the day. Plan the major part of your cooking early in the day while it is still cool. Once the cooked items are prepared, you can allow them to cool and place them in the refrigerator to add other items to when it’s time to get the meal on the table.

Offer your family plenty of cold foods when the temperatures soar. Cold fruit salads, tossed green salads, green smoothies, vegetable trays and homemade ice cream are sure to keep the kitchen and your family cool when it is hot outside. During the summer months my hubby and I will often take the kids and go to our local artisan ice cream shop for our evening “meal”. Rhubarb and Lime Cardamom Yogurt for dinner… heck yes!

Finally, if you want to keep your kitchen cool but aren’t afraid of a little heat, strike a match and get to grilling! You don’t have to stand in front of the grill while the food is cooking and the taste will be out of this world. Grill some veggie kabobs, corn on the cob, and Portabella mushrooms. Best of all, you will see keeping cool in the kitchen when it is hot outside is not only possible, it can also be delicious!

As is normal this time of year, I am completely head over heels in love with local food. My garden is coming along nicely and I have tiny cauliflower, tomatoes, and sugar snap peas already. My city’s farmer’s market starts this Thursday and my organic delivery box is ripe with farm fresh produce and pastured eggs. It is about this time that I like to re-read my fave local food memoirs like This Organic Life, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

So of course when I saw a local foodie book at my library this morning I had to scoop it up. The book is The Feast Nearby: How I lost my job, buried a marriage, and found my way by keeping chickens, foraging, preserving, bartering, and eating locally (all on $40 a week). The title is  mouthful but the book is quite an awesome read. It is a personal journey mixed with stories of family, neighbors, and food. It also has lots of recipes for all the delicious dishes the author mentions in the book. I think I will end up buying it for the recipes… some of them I just need to have on hand!

Mather, the author, picked up and moved from a big city to a small town in Michigan and a small lakeside cabin. She has a very modest food budget of $40 a week so she buys up food when it is in season and cans and preserves it for the cold weather months. She doesn’t have much of garden space but she does have chickens and the rest of her food comes from local sources. I loved reading her story month by month and sometimes week by week as new food items come into season and she buys up extra to preserve them each and every week until she has enough to last the winter. When she buys them up she also makes her weekly meals with them too so there are lots of great seasonal recipes and preservation recipes in there.

I loved going along with the author as she would go to the farmer’s market and score the first beets of the season and chat up the farmer’s about this or that. I also loved the stories from her childhood meals she would tell, mixed in with the daily grind of feeding her chickens or making batches of raspberry preserves. Since she had/has a limited budget she made all her meals from scratch and she bartered for things… trading her preserves for fresh greens and potatoes from her neighbor. She also didn’t need to sacrifice quality on that $40 a week. She had local lamb, beef, and chicken regularly as well as her favored but pricey milk. It just goes to show you that you can feed a family of 4-5 with organic, fresh, pastured, nourishing foods for only $150ish a week, without growing your own.

Anyway, I read this book in just a few hours and can’t seem to keep my mind from wandering to all the goodies I will find at my own farmer’s market this week. Can’t wait!

Here is a photo I took this week of what we are eating at the moment… yum!