Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

When life gives you lemons . . .

. . . be patient and wait until they ripen; they’ll taste better that way.

I bet you didn’t know you could grow lemons and limes in Missouri! We’ve watched these guys growing all summer, and they’re getting oh so close.  After they put on size, they were strangely light weight, similar to the fake lemon that my mom uses as a practical joke.  Now they’re putting on weight and starting to lighten to yellow.

We’re also growing key limes!  This tree didn’t set fruit for a long time, which had us worried, but now it’s going strong.

I sense a key lime pie in my future.  The best part?  We can zest our lemons and limes and enjoy our culinary creations knowing that we won’t be consuming “food-grade” wax.

Wedding dress rescue

I’ll start with a brief recap of my wedding dress saga.  In an effort to be both green and frugal (i.e., not spend a ton of money on a dress that I would only be wearing once), I was determined to buy a used wedding dress.  After much hunting on Craigslist and Ebay, I finally bought a dress on Craiglist, paid for some alterations, and decided, about three weeks before the big day, that the dress was COMPLETELY wrong for me.

In a last minute attempt to correct the situation, I found another dress in an online-only department store collection, crossed my fingers, and placed the order.  Several days later, I held my breath as I opened the box, pulled out the dress, and slipped it on.  (Much more breath-holding ensued as I attempted to zip it.)

The girl who really didn’t even want ONE wedding dress ended up as a two-dress bride.  Ironic, no?

Although dress #2 (“the dress”) was, technically, a wedding dress, the fact that it didn’t scream “Wedding!” and could thus be worn on other occasions, justified the purchase.

Fast-forward almost two years, and I have yet to actually wear the dress for anything other than the wedding.  Matthew suggested we makes plans to get dressed up and go out to dinner.

I pulled the dress out of the closet, where it had hung, untouched (and unwashed) since immediately after the wedding, only to discover some serious stains.  There was my dress, my dress that was not going to be a one-time-only dressed, stained and unwearable.

I investigated dry-cleaning options, and a Treehugger article led me to this EPA list of dry cleaners across the country that offer alternatives to the really nasty traditional dry cleaning method that uses PERC.

Luckily I found a “greener” cleaner not too far away, but before I could get the dress there, I started investigating DIY options .  We were pretty sure the stains were either wine (maybe a rosé?) or beer — since the stains were almost two years old, I felt pretty pessimistic about anything, including dry cleaning, removing the stains — nothing to lose by taking a stab at it myself.

I started with a washcloth and some lukewarm water, gently washing the affected areas.  Lo and behold, it seemed to be working.  After treating all of the spots with the warm water, I tossed the dress in a large garment bag, grabbed a couple of other delicate items, and ran a small load on the permanent press setting.  I just happened to have some laundry detergent especially for delicate clothing.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a “before” picture of the stains,  so you’ll have to use your imagination — lots of brown colored splotches in a two-foot wide swath on the bodice of the dress.

I’m happy to report that after my careful home cleaning and air drying, my dress returned to its original glory, no dry cleaners, green or not, necessary!

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How green was my wedding bouquet?  Click here for the full story.

Pasta! Pasta!

When I requested pasta with pesto as an easy weeknight meal (extra easy because we made the pesto earlier in the week), I certainly wasn’t expecting to come home to this.

Homemade whole wheat pasta made from locally grown wheat!

We’ve been talking about making our own pasta for awhile now but feared that we would not be able to get the dough thin enough without some fancy pasta maker.  The full pasta-making kit attachment for our stand mixer costs about as much as the mixer itself, not to mention that you’d be buying some tools that do just one thing — make pasta.

So Matthew found a recipe for whole wheat pasta, pulled out our lovely made-in-Missouri rolling pin, and got to work.

No pasta maker?  No problem.  Matt still wants to tweak some things, but I thoroughly enjoyed our first homemade pasta venture — whole wheat fettuccine.

Green features:

  • 99% local ingredients (flour, water, and eggs) — only the salt was non-local
  • Avoids packaging of store bought pasta

Baby Jake is famous!

I discovered this cool site, EcoVelo, just in time for their “Why I Bike” photo contest.  Click here to see my Baby Jake in all his glory.

While you’re at it, browse through the other “Why I Bike” photo entries — some of the photos (and stories) are simply spectacular.  If those photos don’t make you want to go out and jump on a bike, I don’t know what will (but I’ll keep trying to motivate you, anyway).  Entries include people and bikes of all shapes, sizes, and ages, many with amazing scenery.  I’ve never done any bicycle touring, but it might be time to change that.

 

One month too late

We’ve been enjoying the fall flowers brightening up our apartment these last few weeks.  When we planned our wedding, I had the delusion that maybe, if we had a very nice, mild fall, I could carry a homegrown (or at least locally grown) bouquet down the aisle in mid-November.  Turns out, not so much.

My MIL made some beautiful dried flower (and other natural product) arrangements to decorate the altar and pews, but for the bouquets and boutonnieres, I reluctantly resorted to conventionally grown flowers (with  all the chemical nastiness and poor working conditions for people in other countries 😦 ), but in an unconventional way.

See, just like many grocery stores and restaurants throw away unconscionable amounts of food every day, large florists do the same thing — but with flowers.  Dumpsters full of perfectly good flowers!  Or almost perfect flowers that just need a little TLC.

With a little A LOT of help from our personal floral guru, we created some beautiful arrangements from flowers (including lots of roses) that would have otherwise taken up space in a landfill.  Not a bad compromise!

Still, I would have preferred to walk down the aisle with flowers (and greens — like basil!) from my own garden, and if this is a priority for you or anyone you know who will be planning a wedding soon, I encourage you to consider local flower availability when setting your wedding date.