Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

Green Dreams

Some things I look forward to, sooner or later:

  1. Living somewhere with insulation (see #2).  Lots of insulation!
  2. Residing in something other than a brick oven.  (I’m not sure what the comparable term would be in winter time.  “Brick freezer” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.)
  3. Owning one money sucking, CO2 producing pit car instead of two.  Zero would be ideal, but “one out of two ain’t half bad.”
  4. Ceasing to produce waste in the form of prophylactic packaging (i.e., that which one might use if one is highly suspicious of the options that involve hormones).
  5. Walking out my back door to our garden, instead of being 10+ miles away from the delicious bounty and the weeds-that-need-constant-vigilance.
  6. Relieving myself in one of these.  Yes, this might seem a little weird, a little gross, but let’s face it, so is putting our poo in waterways.  This is what happens sometimes in my city, and maybe in yours, when the “sanitary” sewer system is overwhelmed and the processing plants (that use lots of ENERGY to clean up our shit) can’t handle the volume so the excess RAW SEWAGE is just dumped into waterways.  Meaning places that people might boat, swim, or fish.  Meaning places from whence we get our drinking water.  When you think about it that way, maybe a composting toilet is NOT SO BAD after all.
  7. Reducing utility usage by producing some or all of the power for my home, through a geothermal system or solar panels, for instance.

Suffocating

Note to building operators in building where I work: I know it’s less than 70 degrees outside, but since you built this building with NO OPERABLE WINDOWS, it is hot and stuffy in here.  Need office with windows that open — what a novel idea!

But no, we will just have to turn on the air conditioning, despite the fact that it is a perfectly reasonable temperature outside the building.


Strawberry season + deep freeze = lots of work (and some good eats)

Late last fall, we purchased a used deep freeze so we would have a way to store local produce for the long winter months.  We are just now beginning to fill it with spring’s bounty.  Last weekend was asparagus; this weekend was strawberries.  Locally grown, using organic practices strawberries.

I froze most of the berries whole, but I couldn’t resist making some freezer jam.  I’ve observed my mom making freezer jam, but had never done it myself.  When I called for directions, she warned me that I would not like the amount of sugar necessary for the process.  (I frequently cut the amount of sugar in recipes to make them healthier.  You can often do this without negatively impacting the recipe.)

A quick bike ride to the grocery store yielded some Sure-Jell (pectin), complete with directions for freezer jam.  I quickly scanned the directions and saw that for 2 cups of crushed strawberries, I was supposed to add 4 cups of sugar.  4 cups of sugar???  For 2 cups of berries?!?  Why don’t I just open the bag of sugar and pour it straight down my throat?

As I was contemplating reducing the sugar, I looked more closely at the directions, which seemed to be speaking directly to me:

Measure exact amount of sugar into a separate bowl.  (REDUCING SUGAR OR USING SUGAR SUBSTITUTES WILL RESULT IN SET FAILURES.)

(Note: bold, italics, and all caps were part of the original directions, not something I added.)

They may as well have written, “Melissa, we are talking to you.  We know you are thinking about reducing the amount of sugar.  Don’t do it!”

I reluctantly bowed to the wisdom of the powers that be, and I now have about 10 cups (I doubled the recipe) of delicious strawberry flavored sugar goo jam in my freezer.  To be enjoyed in moderation.