Confessions of a Guilty Greenie

Mama's self-portrait after a long, long day

I truly hope that this article doesn’t rip the fabric of space-time or anything, since it’s not about gardening, vegetables, or recipes. But after reading my friend’s article in which she mentions eco-guilt,  I wanted to share my personal “issues” with going green.

I try hard, and possibly do more than most. When’s the last time you darned a sock? But the nagging feeling always persists that I could do more. This could be because I’m a recovering Catholic…we seem to have guilt steeped into our every pore.

While I don’t wish guilt on anyone, I’m sharing these thoughts to see if any of you have the same mental arguments.

For example:
Jackjack rips holes in the knees of his jeans. I cut them off and make shorts (which is good!) but I don’t do anything with the leftover pieces. There are a million things I could do with them (sew cat/dog toys, quilt them into a pillow, etc) but instead they sit in my fabric box until I get irritated and throw them out.

After a discussion with advanced-eco friends, I’ve decided to replace our current dishes with Fiesta Ware. It’s made in the U.S. without lead and is microwave and dishwasher safe. Now—what do I do with the old plates?  Since I feel they’re unsafe for my family, I shouldn’t donate them. There’s certainly a special ring of hell for those who poison the less fortunate. But I don’t want to add them to a landfill either.

There are four boxes of books in the garage that need to go. But I can’t bear to bring them to a used bookstore, because there ought to be somplace that I can donate them.

We’re replacing the carpet in the living room and office with wood floors. I don’t want to dump the used carpet, but how on earth do you recycle it? I can use a few strips between the raised beds in the garden…

So am I the only crazy one here? (I realize that is a distinct possibility.)
What would you do? Share with us in the comments!

Best Homemade Granola Bars

Quick quiz: Which would you rather put in your mouth? Your kids’ mouths?

GRANOLA (WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED OATS, BROWN SUGAR, CRISP RICE [RICE FLOUR, SUGAR, SALT, MALTED BARLEY EXTRACT], WHOLE GRAIN ROLLED WHEAT, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND COTONSEED OILS* WITH TBHQ AND CITRIC ACID ADDED TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS AND/OR SUNFLOWER OIL WITH NATURAL TOCOPHEROL ADDED TO PRESERVE FRESHNESS, DRIED COCONUT, WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR, SODIUM BICARBONATE, SOY LECITHIN, CARAMEL COLOR, NONFAT DRY MILK), SEMISWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS (SUGAR, CHOCOLATE LIQUOR, COCOA BUTTER, SOY LECITHIN, VANILLA EXTRACT), CORN SYRUP, CRISP RICE (RICE FLOUR, SUGAR, BARLEY MALT, SALT), INVERT SUGAR, SUGAR, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS, GLYCERIN, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN OIL*. CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF SORBITOL, CALCIUM CARBONATE, SALT, WATER, SOY LECITHIN, MOLASSES, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, BHT (PRESERVATIVE), CITRIC ACID.

Oats Wheat flour Butter Vanilla Honey Cinnamon Baking soda

There’s way more mystery ingredients in those packaged bars than there needs to be! That’s why I’m excited to tell you about an e-book I just bought called Healthy Snacks to Go, by Katie over at Kitchen Stewardship.

This fantastic book has more than 20 recipes for healthy snacks, tips for cutting down on sugar, and specialty diet options. If you are avoiding sugar, gluten, dairy, grain, nuts—or are looking for information on raw food or soaked grains, this is the right book.

More about that later, though. On to the recipe!

Best Homemade Granola Bars

Ingredients

4 1/2 cups rolled oats
1 cup flour (I used whole wheat)
1 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup honey
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda

Plus add-in goodies if desired: mini chocolate chips, raisins, sunflower seeds, coconut flakes, chopped dried apricots, dried cranberries, other nuts… (2 cups total)

Lightly butter a 9 x 13 pan and preheat the oven to 325 F.

Combine the butter and honey in a large bowl and mix well. (I used my KitchenAid.) Add all ingredients except the add-ins and mix until combined. Stir in the add-ins by hand.

Press the mixture into the pan. It’s a little sticky, so it helps to put a few drops of water on your hands and press the mixture in firmly.

Bake at 325 F for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. They won’t look quite done, but will firm up while they cool. After they cool for about 10 minutes, you can cut them into bars.

Store at room temperature in an easily accessible container. They will be gobbled up faster than you can imagine!

As you can see, this is easier than making a batch of homemade cookies. And you can customize the recipe as much as you want! Replace 1/2 cup of butter with 1/2 cup peanut butter, add 1/4 cup cocoa powder to the dry ingredients, etc.

Want more easy, super-healthy snack recipes? You can instantly download and print or save Healthy Snacks to Go for just $6.95. This is a 43-page book full of tips and recipes for snacks like:

• Wheat Thin-style crackers
• Fruit Roll-ups
• Peanut Butter Kisses
• Easy One-bowl Muffins

Besides all the recipes and tips, it includes 3 bonus sections: 

• Basic Snacks Checklist
• Soaking Grains Primer
• Sanity-Saving Lunch Packing Tips

Give it a try—we’ve saved more than $6.95 just by making our own granola bars. We’re trying Peanut Butter Kisses next!

Disclosure: I am an affiliate of Kitchen Stewardship's eBooks, which means I'll earn a small commission from any sales made through these links.

You Know You're Going Green When...

A much younger Jackjack admiring the year's garlic crop.

I choose green, healthy, sustainable living most of the time. But that's not always the case with the rest of my family! What are some telltale signs that your greenie-ness is rubbing off on others? I'll get us started--add yours in the comments.

You know you're going green when...

• Your 5-year-old reprimands you for leaving the water on while brushing your teeth.
• You ask your husband if you can rip out the front lawn to plant vegetables and he says, "Sure! Then I won't have to mow anything."
• People stop you in the hall at work to share eco-living tips.
• While you're swooning over rain barrels at the garden store, your husband is mentally reverse-engineering them to build his own.
• Your son tells your mother, "Gramma, your bread is wrong. It's white instead of brown."

How about you? Share your funny or serious green story in the comments.

Why Didn't I Think of That? Wednesday

Each Wednesday I'll share a tip to make your week go more smoothly or just make you say "aha!" 

This could be a real energy-saver if your electric bill is sky high.

We all know that you should insulate your hot-water heater to save energy. But if you have an electric hot-water heater, you can save even more by installing a timer that turns it off at night or while you're at work. There's no reason to heat 50+ gallons of water all day when there isn't anybody using it!

End-of-Summer Harvest

It's a great feeling to go to the Farmers' Market and know that your backyard has everything they're selling. All I needed to buy was honey! The rest was harvested this afternoon.

What are you harvesting? Share with us in the comments!

9/11: A Gardener's Tribute

"Although the world is full of suffering,
it is also full of the overcoming of it."

--Helen Keller

Preserving the Harvest: Bell Peppers

A more accurate title would be "Preserving Someone Else's Harvest," since my peppers (below) are still puny and haven't produced a thing. But anywhoo...

This week at the Farmers' Market, bell peppers were five for a dollar. It's too hot to make stuffed peppers, but I couldn't pass up the deal! So we bought a bunch and brought them home to freeze. Unlike corn and green beans, peppers don't have to be blanched before freezing. This was a quick and easy task!

Wash your peppers and place them upside down on the cutting board. Cut almost all the way through and then crack the sides apart.

This makes it easy to get the core and seeds out, with very little waste.

Use a spoon to scrape the ribs off the inside. Repeat until all your peppers are prepped.

Cut them up in whatever fashion you'd like. I chose strips since I can use them just like this for fajitas, or chop them up smaller if needed later.

Don't just dump them in a zip bag! If you do that now, they'll freeze in a giant lump. We're going to flash freeze them, so lay them all out on a cookie sheet or baking rack (which makes the freezing go faster). They can touch a bit, but again--you don't want a big pile.

Tuck them into the freezer (you did measure the rack to be sure it would fit before you loaded it up, right?) and remind yourself to move the multiple containers of ice cream before taking another picture.

After about an hour, they should be frozen solid. There are a couple of ways to test this: look for ice crystals on the cut edges, or accidentally drop one and watch it shatter all over your clean floor. I suggest option #1.

Now you can dump them in your labeled zip bag. Before you stash them in the freezer, make sure you've pulled all the air out of the bag to prevent freezer burn. Slip a straw in one edge of the bag, and zip it shut right up to the straw.

Then suck the air out while your husband takes pictures and makes "I didn't inhale!" jokes. Try not to laugh and fill the bag back up full of air.

Voila! Now you have a tasty bag of peppers in your freezer stash. Won't it be great to bust those out when the price is $3.69/lb later this year?

Labor Day Tomato Sauce

Eleven pints of tomato sauce and my "labor" is done for this Labor Day Weekend. The zillions of tomatoes are finally gone from the kitchen counter!

Why Didn't I Think of That? Wednesday

Each Wednesday I'll share a tip to make your week go more smoothly or just make you say "aha!"


I read this tip recently but haven’t had a chance to try it. I’m using up so much home-canned applesauce that I haven’t tried anything else!


You probably know that you can replace oil or butter with applesauce in cakes, muffins, zucchini bread, and so on. You can also substitute beans in place of the oil and it doesn't change the flavor.

Puree a can of beans (with the juice), then substitute equal portions of the puree in place of the oil. If the recipe calls for 1/2 cup oil, use 1/2 cup bean puree. Use beans that match the item’s color, like black beans in brownies, pinto beans in zucchini bread, etc.

What do you think? Have you tried it? Let us know in the comments!