Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Carpool

As of last Thursday, I”m officially part of a carpool.  It involves only me and one other person at this point, but it is certainly better than two cars on the road every day.

We registered our carpool with RideFinders, which serves the St. Louis area.  When I say “St. Louis area,” I am speaking very broadly.  Their service area includes 7 counties, plus St. Louis City.  And don’t even get me started, but those counties, with the exception of maybe one, are NOT St. Louis.  They may be NEAR St. Louis, depending on how you define “near,” but it is not one and the same.

Anyway, if you are in a situation where driving is the only viable option, it’s definitely worth looking into carpool options.

Grandma’s baked beans

My grandma’s original baked bean recipe included some type of meat, but we discovered that it’s just as delicious without the meat.

Grandma’s Baked Beans

1 lb. dry navy beans, soaked 8 hours
4-5 c. water
2 t. dried  mustard
2-3 onions, quartered
bit of cloves or cinnamon
2 t. salt
1/4 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. molasses
2 T. vinegar

Add soaked beans, water, mustard, onions, and cloves or cinnamon to a Crock Pot set on high.  Cook ~4 hours (beans should be slightly tender), then add remaining ingredients, turn down to low, and cook ~4 hours more, or until desired tenderness.

Notes:

The beauty of making your own baked beans is that you can control the amount of salt and sugar.  Start with the amounts in the recipe, and add more to taste.

As written above, I add the sugar, salt, and vinegar later in the cooking process because these ingredients slow the beans’ cooking and can lead to tough beans.

Sometimes I add a bit of bulgar wheat (AKA cracked wheat) if the sauce seems too watery.

The original recipe calls for baking these in the oven, instead of using a Crock Pot.  I avoid this method because it requires that the oven be on for 6-8 hours.  If you want to try it in the oven, combine the first 5 ingredients in a pot and boil on the stove top for one hour.  Then add remaining ingredients, transfer to a baking dish, and bake at 250° for 6-8 hours.

Active living fail

Not news: Active living is challenging when you have to drive to work every day.

My number one advice for an active and green lifestyle? Intentionally choose to live somewhere that you can either walk, bike, use public transit, or some combination of the three, to get to work and other necessary places (e.g., grocery stores, your kid’s school, etc.).   Easier said than done, especially when considering not only your job, but your partner’s, but a worthy goal.  If you’re not certain that you’re going to be in your current job for many years (and who is?), a lease is A LOT more flexible than a mortgage.  And despite what those tricksy real estate agents and lenders try to tell you, buying a house is NOT a good investment.

Still here . . .

. . . and biking.  That is to say, I biked all around the town on Friday morning, running errands.  Friday afternoon I hopped on the big blue bus to KC, MO for a girls’ weekend with my mom and sisters!  Taking the bus to KC instead of driving the car was the only particularly green part of the trip, although I did have my reusable silverware ready for the hotel breakfast.  Oh, and we ate at a cool vegetarian restaurant that sources local and organic as much as possible, Eden Alley.

Between the new job and the trip, I’ve been a bit out of the blog loop, which may not really get resolved until Friday.