What a Heritage

I was challenged on Earth Day, the way I never expected

Earth Day Should Always Fall on Good Friday
Ben Lowe


On today, April 22, 2011, millions of people in over 175 nations are commemorating the 41st Earth Day.

This is a time to celebrate. Great good has come out of Earth Day since Senator Gaylord Nelson first started it in 1970, and we are a better people because of it.

This is also a time to mourn. The planet continues to struggle under the debilitating weight of unsustainable human consumption. This reality hits my generation"the Millennials"especially hard as we gear up to inherit the earth. Inheritances are supposed to be a blessing; this one is becoming a curse.

Creation is worse off now, by almost every measure, than it was back on the first Earth Day. It is easy to look at the interconnected environmental and social crises of today-- the water crisis, food crisis, energy crisis, climate crisis, global pollution and toxicfication, disease, natural disasters, wars and violence and fall into despair.

But these crises, while very real, are better understood assymptoms of a deeper problem. KenWilson, shares the following quote from eminent environmentalist Dr. James"Gus" Speth in his book, Jesus Branded Spirituality (Thomas Nelson 2009):
I used to think that if we threw enough good science at the environmental problems, we could solve them. I was wrong. The main threats to the environment are not biodiversity loss, pollution, and climate change as I once thought. They are selfishness and greed and pride. And for that we need a spiritual and cultural transformation, something we scientists don't know much about.


So it is especially fitting that Earth Day happens to coincide with Good Friday this year. As we contemplate both the crucifixion of Jesus and the current state of the creation he died to save, an appropriate call to action comes out of the Cape Town Commitments, the official statement published by the most recent Lausanne Congress, held in Cape Town, South Africa:

"Love for God's creation demands that we repent for our part in the destruction, waste, and pollution of the earth's resources and our collusion in the toxic idolatry of consumerism. Instead, we commit ourselves to urgent and prophetic ecological responsibility. We support Christians whose particular missional calling it is to environmental advocacy and action, and those committed to godly fulfillment of the mandate to provide for human needs from the abundance of God's creation. We remind ourselves that the Bible declares God's redemptive purpose for creation itself. Integral mission means discerning, proclaiming, and living out the biblical truth that the gospel is God's good news, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for individual persons, and for society, and for creation. All three are broken and suffering because of sin; all three are included in the redeeming love and mission of God; all three must be part of the comprehensive mission of God'speople.

The Economics of Happiness

Apple Cinnamon Roses

I've made these this afternoon. Boy they're great. Many times good looking sweets are not necessarily good tasting ones. Well, these are a great combo.

You do not need much.

1 pkg puff up pastry
3 large apples
3 Ts sugar (white or brown)
1 ts mapeline
4 cups water
2 Ts butter, melted
1 ts cinnamon
3 Ts brown sugar

You need to thaw the pastry if stored frozen.
In the meantime, core the apples, halve them lengthwise and slice them to thin slices. (Do not peel) Put them in a saucepan and add sugar, the mapeline and water. Bring to boiling then boil for 2 minutes more (or until slices do not break any more). Remove apple slices.

Roll out the puff up pastry, brush it with the melted butter and sprikle evenly with the brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut it with a pizza slicer into 1 inch x 8-10 inches long stripes.

Place apple slices on the stripes the way you can see it on the picture and roll them up. Place them on a baking sheet and put them in the 400°F oven for 15-18 minutes. Sift a bit of powdered sugar over them when taken out of the oven and enjoy. I think they are the best when you eat them lukewarm.

A meal plan tip. if you save the syrup in which the apples were boiled and cook another apple along with the rest, you can make a wonderful apple soup for the following day. All you need to do is to add 1/2 c cream mixed with 1Ts cornstarch and an eggyolk, cook it for 5 minutes and serve it chilled the next day.

Why is it RSR? Apple is available all year round, because it stores well and it can be grown locally practically all over the world. Can be baked in a cold oven, but add a 5-10 minutes to the baking time depending on your oven type.

RSR Restaurant made possible

Fantastic initiative.
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Keeping up with gas prices - I won't

It is spring time. I refuse to use the car as much as possible. It feels so good to take a walk for Aron to the nursery every day. 4.8 kms one way! Who needs to join a fitness club?

On the way back we partially take the public transport and walk a bit more (another 2 kms roughly). It is refreshing, a great bonding time with the boys, cheap and absolutely sustainable. Wish me luck to keep up with it.

I am pretty positive this will add another pocket to my RSR savings. Hmm, how shall I spend it?

Meal plans

Soon I am posting "Q1" results of my RSR lifestyle :) but one thing is for sure, I made savings. Roughly 70% of my savings came from returning to meal  plans.

This is a wonderful tool to keep myself organized and a brilliant aid to reduce the family’s consumption. It does not take more than 30 mins a month and can save me both energy and money. 


What do I do? 


1. I make a list of whatever I have in the pantry, fridge, freezer, etc. It is wise to indicate expiry date so that i could remember, that i need to use that ingredient up soon. 

2. I open an Excel file in calendar format and start filling it. First I fill out the days when we'll be eating elsewhere, i.e. parents' or friends' house, and it is arranged. These normally fall on the weekends. Then I fill out the remainder Saturdays and Sundays. Not only because i have more time to cook at the weekends, but also these are the meals that leave you with the most leftovers. So for Mondays i would plan something using the leftover of the Sunday roast (with salad, in a strata or in a wrap or sandwich etc). This will go on for the rest of the days. If i have grilled veggies with something, next day i would have a casserole to use them up. I reduce waisting, we have a greater variety of meals and i save money. 
I know lots of people just throw leftovers in the freezer for 'rainy days' or busy days. I did that in the past and never really liked the taste when i thawed it. I always had to make something with it, so why not use them up the following day, why store them longer?


3. I make the shopping list of the things i'll still need for the month. Yes, i do major shopping once a month. This way i only need to go the farmer's market once a week to get fresh veggies, meat, bakery and dairy. 


4. I reorganize the shopping list by the sequence of the aisles in the supermarket. I know it sounds that the german in me took over again, but i actually do find it really helpful. It helps me reduce the time i spend in the shop which prevents me from impulse buying thus saves me money. Not so ridiculous now, is it?

Easy Cream Cheese - home made

Making cream cheese or créme fromage of your own is so simple, that I hate to collect the compliments. I just do not think I deserve them. I have access to this wonderful sour cream from a farmer's dairy and it really does the trick. 

 First take out a bowl and put a sieve over it. Place a clean cloth in the sieve to make an extra thick strainer so that only the liquid goes through. Spoon in the sour cream. If you cannot find high quality sour cream near by, mix sour cream with regular cream in the proportion of 1 to 1. Please note that this recipe does not work with the sour cream substitute, when you simply add vinegar into milk.You'll need to go the extra mile for the real thing.

 Now lift the cloth and give it a gentle squeeze so that the majority of the liquid comes out. Discard the liquid. 

 Put back the "baggage"into the sieve and let it stand in the fridge for at least 24 hours. If too much liquid stores up in the bowl, discard it.

In the end you have this wonderful and light-in-flavor cream cheese that stores up to ten days in the fridge. Who am I kidding? It never made it up to ten days. 

These pictures guide you through how to make 3 cups cream cheese out of 4 cups sour cream. Recipes may vary depending on the quality of the cream.

I am making a cheese cake tomorrow. Yumm!

su-STAIN Remover

Aron came home the other day with large pinkish purple spots on his T-shirt. (Needless to say, he wore it for the second time. Why do these things not happen to worn out cloths?) It turns out, they had beetroot with lunch. Lovely. How will I ever get it out?

I remembered vaguely that i saw this trick a while ago on 'How clean is your house?' that they used baking soda and vinegar to remove mold stains from a window frame. There was no way I was going to use vinegar on a T-shirt, but I thought I would replace it with lemon juice and worked perfectly.

Here comes how you do it:

1. Sprinkle 1 teaspoon of baking soda over the stain.
2. Get half a lemon and squeeze it gently (drop by drop) over the sprinkled baking soda.
3. This will make a lovely fuzzzzzzzzy foam. It is really fun to watch. Make sure the kid is not present, because he will want to keep making stains. It is that much fun to watch.
4. If no more foam is produced, rinse it with lukewarm water.
5. Repeat the process if needed.

This works surprisingly well, so no more vanish and or any other chemicals when there is a su-STAINable remover.

RSR - Sustainable

Do not get me wrong. I am not trying to lecture anyone and I do not have the answers to all questions. In fact I do not even have all the questions. These are just my notes to myself to hold myself accountable.

I think cooking is a wonderful tool to pursue a sustainable lifestyle. It has an instant turnover, its outcome shows right away.

My interpretation of sustainable food is

• it has come from a sustainable source.
• it has been produced in a sustainable manner.
• it best serves my sustainability.

Let me start in revised order. Food is the ultimate means to help your body sustain. This is why i think it is essential to stop wasting food . A funny thing happened when I introduced sustainability into my kitchen. On the first week I lost 6 pounds. It was not intentional at all, it was the side effect of my cooking choices. I have reduced the amount I am cooking and i am more picky on what to buy which results in healthier nutrition but less calory intake.

Cooking in a sustainable manner requires low-power kitchen appliances and using as little energy as possible in the process. (I know, I am back to square one, reduce energy consumption but you cannot waste what you do not use.) There are lots of tips on how to cook on low power, but that alone will use up a whole post. I will also need to measure how much energy my appliances consume, so I will come back to this later, too.

I consider the farmers market a sustainable source. Not everything is organic and free range, but they are definitely local. Also I try to buy fruit, vegetables and even fish when they are in season. They are not only the cheapest then, but also they are at the peak of their vitamin and nutrition content. two birds with one stone.

I am also avoiding supermarkets these days because mass production undermines sustainability. I am replacing store bought spice mixes with my own mixes which is healthier (no sodium of any form) and gives me a great opportunity for expirement. Reading the packages always made me wonder why I should intake stuff I cannot even pronounce.

Here is the first recipe. I have it from a friend so the credits are not mine, but surely better than the store bought mix.

Ranch Dressing Mix

2 tablespoon + 2 teaspoon dried onion
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2.5 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoon sugar
2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoon pepper
1.5 teaspoon garlic powder

Mix it, and use 1 tablespoon mix with 1c mayonnaise and 1 c yogurt.

The impact of food waste on climate change

This is an article by Lloyd Alter, which I found on Treehugger. Shocking. I am not sure if these statistics include the apple cores, banana peels and fat trims from meat as waste or if this is only the restaurant leftovers and the expired food at supermarkets. Either ways, this article only underlined why I believe 'Reduce' is the ultimate golden rule. 

 It is estimated that 40% of the food produced in America is wasted; it amounts to 1400 calories per person every day. According to the EPA, 31 million tons is thrown into landfills. Much of that produces methane as it rots; the gas is 25 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. The UK website Next Generation Food estimates that each tonne of food waste is equivalent to 4.2 tonnes of CO2. They conclude that if we simply stopped wasting food, it would be the equivalent of taking a quarter of all the cars in America off the road.

·         

The numbers are extraordinary:

In the US, a report in Plos One at the end of last year found that per capita food waste has progressively increased by 50 percent since 1974 reaching more than 1400 calories per person per day or 150 trillion calories per year. Food waste now accounts for more than one quarter of the total freshwater consumption and 300 million barrels of oil per year.

The consumption of water and fossil fuel making food that is thrown out, the 150 trillion calories per year, landfilled, that could have fed people around the world, the statistics just pile up.

It seems that so many of our problems, from energy independence to climate change to world hunger to water, could be significantly mitigated if we could just get control of our food system and stop wasting so much.

See the entire infographic here

RSR? WTH?

We loooove letters. We love abbreviations. We even need them. We feel secure and cool when using them thinking we are part of a secret society of some sort because we know a letter word only a few understands. No wonder I had to come up with one of my own.

By RSR cooking I mean – reasonable, sustainable and responsible. Today let me dwell on reasonable.

I wish I had the great backyard big enough to grow my own vegetables and keep my own animals in. I do not. I live in an apartment. Yet I believe I can take some baby steps towards a sustainable kitchen by introducing a few reasonable principles.

I think it is very important to be realistic about sustainability and draw a reasonable line. Where? I stop at the vegetable stand for some carrots. option 1: local carrots, but were not grown in a sustainable manner. option 2: organic carrots imported from Austria. Quite a dilemma. Either I pick, I keep a rule and I break a rule. As long as the carrot is neither canned or frosen, I think I am fine.

There are so many factors to consider when I want to stay reasonable.

• How much will I need? (not at all as obvious as it sounds)
• How much did my food travel until it landed on my table?
• How much energy do I need to process the food?
• Are the ingredients organic/free range or not? Is there an organic option?
• How much of that certain fruit/vegetable can be used up? How much will I throw away? Can this be reused?

And I could go on and on. These are just some of the most important questions I ask myself.

Reduce – I try to buy as little as possible. Is it reasonable? Oh yes! The less I spend, the more I have left in my pockets. She is happy, he is happy. And this is only one obvious advantage. The less I buy, the less I’ll waste. My top priority is to reduce as much as possible. All the rest I subordinate to this golden rule.

Reuse – I try to waste as little as possible. If I use every plastic bag only twice, it means I already halved my littering. Of course this principle applies to any other container etc that would otherwise end up in the trash.

Recycle – When I do need to waste, I do it the proper way.

Meal plan – I did apply this principle in the past, but it slipped through until very recently which I regret. This is a wonderful tool to keep myself organized and a brilliant aid to reduce the family’s consumption.

Buy local food – I live in a town surrounded by wonderful farming land. Literally thousands of family farms are all around. This would be a huge mistake and an even greater waste to miss this opportunity. Fresh local food is available all year round. Why is this reasonable? Not only because I supported the local farmers but I also reduced CO2 emission.

These are not only my major principles, it is also my priority list in this order. I know, this all sounds as if I was making New Year's resolutions, but far from me. A little attention and care can help a lot.

What's new in cooking?

Soooooooo many cooking blogs all over the web, why to start one more?

These days I am more and more interested in pursuing a sustainable lifestyle. Being a mother of 2 I feel responsible for the future of my kids and this includes a healthy planet to leave onto them. By now I think everyone is aware of the big trouble this civilization has created by overplowing our lands and overloading the atmosphere with CO2 etc, etc. No need to overexplain. If i wanted to have a play on words, I'd say "the reason is given, so the response is sustainability" or "this reason requires sustainable response" and I could go on and on.

Well, i've always had the reputation of a good cook, therefore the first step came very naturally - I should line up my cooking habits along sustainable principles. This is not at all as easy as it first sounds considering all the factors involved.

1. How to keep sustainable cooking within reasonable boundaries?
2. What makes cooking sustainable? Is it the ingredients or the food processing?
3. What is my responsibility and what is not, if any?

This blog is my journey to establish and maintain my sustainable kitchen. Welcome aboard.