Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Taking the Challenge!

Several weeks ago, I wrote this post about plastic and how we can (and must) reduce the plastic waste we generate.  In that post, I provided a link to some useful information on Beth Terry’s blog Fake Plastic Fish.

Today I committed to doing Beth’s “Show Your Plastic Challenge,” where I will collect, photograph, and catalog all the plastic trash (including recyclables) that I produce in one week.  This particular week I’ve chosen has a few twists that will keep things interesting and challenging.

The idea for the first week is to “live normally” in terms of your plastic waste and use that week as a guide for how you might begin to reduce.  Anyone else out there want to join me?

Little dumplings everywhere

We discovered the wonders of butternut squash gnocchi back in February, when we were enjoying last year’s winter squash harvest.  Last week, we made our first batch with this year’s squash.

We used this recipe for butternut dumplings (AKA gnocchi) with sage brown butter.  We substituted whole wheat pastry flour for the all purpose flour, as always.

If you’ve never made gnocchi before, it’s a bit of work, but worth the effort!

After the dough comes together, take a chunk and roll it into a long rope (back of above picture).  Then cut the rope into small chunks.  If you’re feeling lazy, you can stop here, but they cook better (and look fun) if you make an indentation with fork tines and then wrap around the handle of a spoon to make a nice C-shape.

After boiling for a few minutes, you have finished gnocchi.  Drizzle the sage browned butter on top, and dinner is served!

This recipe makes a lot of gnocchi.  After the shaping step, but BEFORE the cooking step, we set half of the gnocchi on plates in a single layer to freeze.

Once they’re frozen, toss them in a container or baggy for a quick, delicious meal some other night.

Granny behind the wheel

I’m a fairly assertive and aggressive cyclist, but I drive like a ninety year-old woman.  Sure, I generally get up to, and sometimes surpass, posted speed limits, but I go to great lengths to avoid sudden starts and stops.

In practice, this means I accelerate VERY SLOWLY — my goal is to stay ≤ 2000 rpm when accelerating.  I’m always on the lookout for things that will require stopping (car in front of me stopped waiting to make a left turn, red lights, etc.).  When I spot said situations, I start slowing down far in advance, in the hope that by the time I reach the light, it will be green, thus avoiding the gas intensive start from a complete stop.

Turns out that there are lots of impatient people behind the wheel out there who don’t appreciate my laid back, gas conserving, driving style.  I love nothing quite so much as an impatient driver who blows by me in the other lane, clearly annoyed that I am “slowing her down,” and speeds on toward the red light, only to sit and watch as I, at my slow, steady pace, flow right on by when the light turns green because I maintained 15 mph while she had to come to a complete stop.  Ha!

(Okay, I lied about “loving nothing quite so much” in the above paragraph, because I really would love nothing quite so much as biking to work instead of driving.)

Anyway, I’m cruising along on my way home from work yesterday, maintaining a nice, steady pace in the left lane of  a 4-lane, 35 mph street (Kingshighway, for all you StL folks), approaching a red light with cars already stopped in front of me, and the guy behind me pulls out and passes me on the right.  As he passes, he yells, “Lay off the brakes!”  (Followed by some nice, mature name calling, for good measure — this did not further his case with me.)

Which, what? Really?  You’re suggesting that I “lay off the brakes” as I approach these stopped cars in front of me?  Just drive right into them?

Seriously, where do these people come from?!?

Despite the sometimes negative reactions of fellow drivers, I highly recommend a more laid back approach to driving.  Fewer starts and stops, and gentler acceleration, mean less wasted gas.  If you have to drive, you can take steps to make your driving at least a bit greener, not to mention more relaxed.

Neti on the road

Though there are ceramic neti pots available, I chose plastic because  I wanted to be able to travel with my neti pot.  I premix pickling salt and baking powder for however long I’ll be gone.

Strangely enough, small plastic bags filled with white powder may arouse suspicion at airport security checks.  This occurred to me as I packed for my trip to D.C. back in March.  Sure enough, after scanning my carry-on, they pulled it off of the belt and asked for “the owner of this bag” to step to the side.

When the TSA officer opened my bag and held up the little baggy, I prepared for the worst.  Granted, the baggie was WITH my neti pot, and I had halfway been expecting this, so I calmly explained the whole thing.  The officer swabbed my bag (not sure whether she was ruling out drugs or just explosives) and sent me on my way, neti salts intact, no drug dogs involved.

Maintaining the neti routine on the road can be tricky.  When I was in Chattanooga last month, my hotel room did not have a microwave.  The only way to get warm water was to use it straight from the tap, without giving it time to dechlorinate.  Ouch!  Did that ever burn!  It was bad enough that I skipped one day (despite the high ragweed levels), then went crawling back for more when the congestion got too unbearable.

While nasal irrigation is not the perfect cure, it works at least as well as prescription nasal inhalants (i.e., Flonase) for the allergies, at a fraction of the cost, and no drugs involved.  Neither method is perfect — with both I get/got occasional sinus headaches when allergen levels are crazy high.  However, regular neti-ing  provides the added bonus of removing other invaders, like bacteria and viruses, giving me a leg-up on staying healthy — works for me!