Bare Bones Scones!

The independent natural health food store I work for has a fully functioning vegetarian kitchen upstairs and every morning they bring down two fresh batches of vegan, spelt muffins in various incredible varieties. I typically cannot save myself the $1.19 plus tax, minus discount, no matter how big a breakfast I've already eaten. They are easily my biggest temptation of the day (unless a Mumford & Sons music video comes on TV, right Angela?) and boast mouth-watering combinations like apple, ginger, sunflower seed; carob and walnut; lemon-blueberry and the famous Amy-Joy (actually known as the Almond Joy). The point of this little introduction is that the kitchen staff's creativity inspired me to find a bare bones breakfast recipe that I could customize to my liking once in a while at home. I came up with scones.

Bare bones scones are so easy to make: easier than muffins, and they take only a short time to bake. They can be flavoured any which way and I haven't found a bad one yet. Here's how to make them:

Preheat oven to 425.
Mix together dry ingredients: 3 cups flour, 4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt.
At this point you can add any solid additions like dried fruit, nuts, chocolate or carob chips, etc.
Mix together wet ingredients: 1/2 cup oil, 1/2 cup honey, 3/4 cup any juice, milk or liquid.
At this point you can add any mushy additions like fresh fruit or fruit purees, peanut butter, citrus zests.
Whisk the contents of the two bowls together until combined, form into scones, and bake on a cookie sheet for 12 minutes or until golden.

For example, I love using orange juice as the liquid, then adding orange zest and dried cranberries. Chocolate chips as an addition, and using milk as the liquid is really good. I've even made these using shredded zucchini and white cheddar cheese. And don't worry about the flour - if wheat isn't your thing they work great with spelt or a gluten-free mix. Go crazy!

Community Shared Agriculture

I just attended a great talk at the Western Fair Farmers' Market through On the Move Organics. It featured a farmer from Aylmer, Ontario who runs the Triple Cord CSA.

A CSA is a program where people pay up front to secure a number of weeks of fresh produce. In this case it is $400 for a small, or $600 for a large, box of organic fruits and vegetables, grown in Aylmer, for 20 weeks - starting May 21st and ending October 1st. Boxes can be picked up Saturdays between 8am and 3pm at the farmers' market. They are packed full of fresh, organic produce ranging from spanish onions to potatoes to kale and even berries. There is also an opportunity half way through to visit the farm and get a tour of where and how everything is grown.

Reasons to join a CSA:

Support a farmer! These hard workers incur all of their costs at the beginning of the season and all of their profit at harvest - it's not easy on their bank accounts. By paying up front you give them both income for purchasing seed, etc. and a guaranteed market so they know exactly what to grow. It saves them from wasting a work day at the market when they could be tending to the crops. This in turn promotes the local economy.

Receive quality produce! You know this stuff will be fresh and organic. It will have high nutrient content and the very person who grew it will be giving it to you with pride. Grocery store produce is not often picked ripe and doesn't receive full nutrition. Instead it sits in a truck pumped with ethylene gas until it looks ripe. You eat a red tomato, but you get the nutrition of a green tomato. And grocery store produce is genetically bred for shelf stability and looks not taste and quality. Besides if you have a box of fresh vegetables sitting in the house you're going to eat a lot healthier than usual.

It's better for the environment! Rather than shopping around for avocados grown in Chile that must use gallons and gallons of gas getting to your plate why not eat the local food that your body was designed for that has only traveled less than an hour. When you accept a box of produce you eliminate the incredible food waste that goes on in grocery stores because people pick and choose what they want that week. And if it's organic you can be sure the soil and water practices are ethical and planet friendly.

Enjoy a new experience! Not only will you learn a lot about farming when you're touring the land but you'll come to see what crops thrive or don't in certain weather. Perhaps the melons in your box will be smaller this week because rain fall has been short, or your box will contain more spinach than arugula because weather's been unseasonably cold. You will also learn about vegetables that you wouldn't normally cook with (kohlrabi, turnips, bok choi), forcing you to experiment. If you receive an abundance of something one week that can't be eaten or shared before going bad maybe you'll learn a new method of preservation. This also grows community because it gives other CSA contributors a chance to talk amongst each other about uses for certain vegetables.

You can get more information about the Triple Cord CSA by emailing Jeff at onthemoveorganics@gmail.com or visiting the farmers' market on a Saturday.

This was originally posted on the Farmers Almanac site. I loved it, and wanted to repost it.

Grow a Garden for Good Health

by Jaime McLeod | Monday, April 11th, 2011 

Gardening has exploded in popularity in recent years. As food prices rise and paychecks go down, more people are growing vegetable gardens than ever before. In fact, between 2007 and 2009, the number of gardeners in the United States increased by 40%, and seed sales spiked by 25%!

Whether driven by the economy, concern for the environment, a desire to teach kids where their food comes from, or just for its value as a relaxing hobby, people are lining up at their local garden centers in droves for a chance to get their hands dirty in their own backyards (or, for urban dwellers, in one of the growing numbers of community garden plots now available in many major cities).

In addition to being an inexpensive source of fresh, local produce, and an enjoyable pastime, gardening also provides many important health benefits. Here’s a look at just a few of the way raising a garden can keep you healthy.

Exercise
Though it may not look a lot like going to the gym, gardening is actually great exercise. Planting, digging, watering, weeding, mulching, and harvesting are all very physical activities. All of the lifting, crouching, and pushing can build strength, improve muscle tone, increase flexibility, burn calories, and raise your metabolism heart rate. Do that enough – doctors recommend at least half an hour of moderate exercise per day – and you can even give up that expensive gym membership.

Stress Relief
Most hobbies are relaxing (unless, of course, your hobby is skydiving). We do them because they help us forget the stresses of everyday life and make us feel good. The good news is that feeling good may not be as frivolous as you may think. Chronic stress can contribute to a whole host of health problems, including depression, diabetes, heart disease, hyperthyroidism, anxiety disorders, ulcers, cancer, and even gum disease. In fact, as many as 90% of doctor’s visits are for symptoms that may have been prevented with lower stress levels. Regularly engaging in activities that you enjoy lowers stress, which can help your body to function better. Gardening can help to lower blood pressure, decrease triglycerides and “bad” LDL cholesterol levels, improve chronic health conditions, and generally make you feel better.

Nutrition
Of course, nobody would bother to garden if it weren’t for the ultimate benefit: all of that fresh, delicious, homegrown produce. Growing a garden can inspire the whole family to eat healthier. After all, what could be more exciting than sinking your teeth into something you’ve worked so hard on all summer long? Gardening with kids is a great way to get picky eaters excited about eating vegetables. Even the most finicky kids will be hard-pressed to resist some broccoli or spinach that they grew themselves. Children are naturally curious about the world, and love doing anything hands-on. By getting them gardening early, you’ll create lifelong gardeners, and healthy eaters.

On top of that, local vegetables are more nutritious than vegetables shipped from across the country. Vegetables begin losing nutrients as soon as they are picked. The longer they sit around between when they are picked and when they reach your table, the more nutrients they lose. When you grow food in your own backyard, you know it’s as fresh as it can possibly be. In fact, in many cases, you can even wait to harvest your garden vegetables until right before you’re ready to use them. What could be fresher than that?

Whether you have a massive yard with room for rows and rows of lettuce, beans, and heirloom cucumbers, or a small fire escape garden with a few window boxes full of herbs and a washtub for tomatoes, get gardening this summer for your health!

New: Blogs I Follow Page

If you're interested in how I spend my time in front of the computer, and you already know the answer is witty Twittering, funny YouTube videos, correspondence quizzes for school and constant Mumford & Sons, then behold the final puzzle piece:

Blogs I Follow

Enjoy.

Getting Started Gardening

 I'm only now realizing that not everyone in the world was blessed enough to grow up with a mom who taught them about gardening. From a young age we harvested chives if we were eating baked potatoes and we watered our own cherry tomatoes in hopes that it would yield a few miniature fruits to snack on while we played. Our mom was a trained florist and a botanist by nature. So for everyone who doesn't have that background, and would like to start gardening, here's an easy guide!

1. Find your space. It could be a huge plot in the backyard, it could be pots on your balcony. As long as there's enough room to grow what you're growin' then it works! To make room you can look into trellising (that's when you install criss-crossed wood or plastic pieces that vegetables that grow up rather than out). You could also pay into a community garden space.

2. Choose your veg. It wouldn't hurt to talk with seasoned gardeners in your area about what they think works well. Many gardeners have told me that corn is near impossible and that broccoli can be annoying too (hasn't stopped me yet!) Once you know what your options are, pick things that you'd normally buy at the grocery store, that way you know it'll get eaten. I'd suggest tomatoes, some greens and something high-yielding like zucchini or kale, for your self-esteem. Also, don't forget herbs. There's nothing better than fresh basil on your morning scrambled eggs.

3. Figure out when to plant. Some things you need to start indoors. This means place the seeds in soil, in pots, and leave them inside either in a sunny window or under a grow light, for a few weeks until the risk of frost is over (the frost-free date in London is May 9th this year I think). Other seeds you can plant right away, they're hardy to cold. Lastly, there are seeds that you should sow directly into the soil outside, but you have to wait until the frost-free date. Check out the list here:

Seeds to start indoors and to plant as seedlings

• eggplant
• peppers
• tomatoes
• broccoli
• brussels sprouts
• cabbage
• cauliflower
• onions
• potatoes

To be seeded directly in early spring

• beets
• chard
• cilantro
• kohlrabi
• lettuce
• mustard greens
• green peas
• radishes
• spinach
• snap peas
• asian vegetables (i.e, bok choy, napa cabbage, etc..)
• carrots

To be seeded directly after the frost-free date (typically after May 24)

• beans
• cantaloupes
• cucumber
• honeydew
• melons
• okra
• squash
• corn
• watermelons
• pumpkins

Keep in mind, when you start something indoors chances are the container it's in isn't big enough to keep it for long. If your plant has overgrown its container, replant in a larger container! You can tell if it's growing really high really fast and not producing shoots or leaves horizontally. That means it's using all its energy to build above ground because there's no room for root growth, which is the most important thing.

4. Take good care. I water my plants whenever they seem dry, it works for me. I leave them under the grow light for 14 hours a day and turn it off for 10 hours at night. I also give them a powdered kelp supplement for added nutrition. When I bring them outside I harden off (slowing acclimatize them to the outdoors by leaving them outside for increasing amounts of time, but keeping them inside overnight, until they're ready) and by adding compost regularly. (Would you like a blog about composting?) If pests are a problem, I spray a diluted mixture of neem oil around the area.

5. Enjoy! And don't hesitate to ask for help. I don't consider myself an expert gardener but right now I have a future nursery room full of healthy seedlings that are excited to be outdoor-planted and to produce food for my family and I, so advice has gotten me far.

Soap Making!

Mom and I have been wanting to make handmade soap for a long time. RockyTopSoapCompany was featured on Etsy.com last week and his incredible soaps really put me over the top - we instantly set sail for stores that were selling the supplies we'd need (which, by the way, are really hard to find.)

Here's what we came up with. Let me know if you'd like to buy a bar.

 Measuring the liquid fats.

 Measuring the solid fats.

Measuring the lye.

Melting and heating the fats.

Dissolving the lye.

 

 

Scent and texture agents.

Whipping to "trace point".

Molding.

Making labels.

 After setting for 24 hours. Now I need to let the cut slabs saponify for 4 weeks!

My Natural Bathroom!

"There's Lead in Your Lipstick" is a new book hitting top sellers lists quickly and leaving me on a library hold list for longer than I'm used to waiting. It's a great book, and the thing I'm most excited for is the resulting awareness of the public in regards to the chemical toxicity of mainstream make up and hygiene products. I haven't read the whole thing yet, and I don't agree with everything she writes, but it prompted me to write you a list of things I use every morning. Make that, every morning that I actually will myself to get in the shower.

Yes to Cucumbers shampoo and Yes to Carrots conditioner:
I'm a strong believer that your hair is healthier if you don't wash it every day or even every two days, so I get by using shampoo probably once a week and just rinsing with water in between. When I do think my roots need a scrub, and it'll take more than baking soda solution or soap bar, I reach for these products because they are a mix good of decent ingredients and excellent result. Some natural shampoos and conditioners I've used are garbage and I don't think it's worth the effort if they don't have any effect. You can find them in any Shoppers Drug Mart.

Soap Works simple bar soap:
I switch between varieties - I like them all. Right now I'm using their pine tar and I have a bar of chamomile in the shower too. They made good honest soaps, cold-pressed method I believe and they're cheap as heck. You can buy them at Quarter Master or the Bulk Barn.

Homemade tinted moisturizer:
For this concoction I simply saved an old pot from a night cream and filled it with a brew of: face cream, sunscreen and a few pumps of foundation. It doesn't give me a lot of coverage but I don't really need it. I'm particularly prone to sun burning right now (if it weren't snowing) because I'm pregnant, so even though I love my vitamin D, I put a little SPF on the face for good measure.

Lavera Intense Volume mascara:
It was a miracle to find a 100% chemical-free mascara that actually works. It is organic, vegan & cruelty free with no parabens, petrochemicals or toxic chemicals.

JASON Sea Fresh toothpaste:
I'm addicted to this product, I'll never switch to anything else (OK fine, I sometimes use Weleda Calendula toothpaste and Hakeem's herbal). It tastes so good, cleans so well and has great ingredients.

Lastly,

Green Beaver Wild Yam deodorant:
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Green Beaver is the best company on the planet. Honestly, they're from Ontario, they made amazing things that work and use all natural ingredients. This deodorant is my recommendation for anyone who wants to get away from cancer-causing ingredients living under their arms. Buy one today!