Home Made Potato Chips

About a week ago I decided to start collecting food waste to motivate myself into making a compost. I cut the top off a 1 ltr pop bottle and put it next to the garbage to remind me to keep usable stuff out of the garbage. It worked really well, and soon I had forced myself to finally create a compost. Before that was accomplished however, I had a two whole hand fulls of potato skins which I wanted to put in the pop bottle, but it was full... so I put it in the fridge instead, to wait. That evening I was looking up recipes on www.lovefoodhatewaste.com and I found out that I could make my own potato chips out of the skins I had taken off. PLUS they would be full of all the nutrients which the skins are made of. YAY! 

First you should soak the skins in cold/ ice cold water for about 20-30 minutes, then pat them dry. 

Heat oil (I used olive oil) on medium-high and put the skins in and they cooked for about 1 - 2 minutes depending on how big they were.

I sprinkled them with a salt n vinegar popcorn spice that I had lots of and then let them dry out for at least an hour. They were terrific! My husband actually asked me if they were for a special occasion and if it was ok to eat some right then. He greatly enjoyed them, and asked me to make them again with all of our potato skins :)

Homemade compost:

http://video.about.com/greenliving/Homemade-Compost-Bin.htm

I used this link as a guide to make my compost. The plans for our back yard are still up in the air and I didn't want to commit the compost to a specific spot just yet. So, I bought a $15 garbage bin and drilled (the video hammers a nail in to make holes, but a drill is soooo much easier!) into the plastic bin and then filled it half and half with my brown and green materials that I had been saving!

green (nitrogen)

 fruit waste

ashes

wood

newspapers

corn stalk

brown (carbon)

coffee grounds

cardboard

paper

food waste

grass

veg. scrap.

weeds

I am excited to see how it works! I want to use the compost dirt in my garden next year. Here is an updated picture of my garden.

I am nervous to find out how the potatoes faired in the buckets. I hope when I empty them in about another month or so, that they won't be all rotten, or slimy or something. My husband drilled holes in the bottoms so it's not like any water would sit at the bottom, so I hope they will be ok. It's kind of scary having a vegetable garden, when so much effort goes into planning, planting and tending to it all... there is no guarantee that it will all work out in the end. 

Next year I want to try this cool idea that I found for potatoes! Using this method they say you can grow 100lbs of potatoes in 4 square feet. I can really see how it would work, and my husband agreed to build one for next year. I can use my compost soil with it too, as you have to add soil as you go! 

http://tipnut.com/grow-potatoes/

Another thought about growing a large amount of potatoes and onions is how to store them long term. I am going to hope that my potatoes this year actually do turn out, and I am going to plan to store them ( hoping there will be something to actually store.) I am sewing several burlap bags to each hold about 10 lbs of potatoes. This will help them breath and  if one spoils it won't ruin the entire batch, but just the single bag it will hopefully have good long term results. Another trick I learned for onions, is to use an old panty-hose leg and after each onion tie a knot, and string them along. 

All for now!

-cooking4two

Garden - July

A few more weeks have passed and my garden has really been enjoying the sunshine!

Under the rock on the left is my homemade snail trap. I had seen many snails trying to eat my lettuce and put this trap in and it worked great! It is a small container with milk, placed into a whole in the ground and a rock covering 75% of it. It makes a damp cool place which attracts the snails, instead of my lettuce! Worked for me. :)

One of my tomatoes is turning red! I am really excited :)

All for now,

-Cooking4two

Another reason to like my freezer

Hi again!

Last week I saw some fantastic looking strawberries at the grocery store and I couldn't help myself but to buy some. My husband and I enjoyed some that night, and the next day, but by the third day - they had all gone bad and were moldy! I was not impressed and I felt guilty for buying something and having it go to waste. 

So the next time I bought strawberries I had a plan. I saved about 8 or so to enjoy fresh. The others I washed and cut up and laid onto a baking pan with parchment paper. I put them into the freezer in batches (so that the none of the strawberries were touching each other - and would freeze individually). 

When I took them out of the freezer I put them in a re-usable plastic ziploc bag and then back into the freezer again. I LOVED the results! They are all frozen indivudally, not in a big clump so if I want to take out just a handful for a smoothie, or 2 cups for a pie I can do just that. My mother-in-law said that i can also dust them with sugar when they are still fresh and before they go on the baking sheet and it will give even better results. 

So I tried it with raspberries next! 

Raspberries in the back, Rhubarb in the front.

My rhubarb had grown so big that I really needed to use some of it before it went bad. So i spent about half an hour chopping off the reddest stalks. I washed them, cut them in inch chunks and laid them out to freeze the same way! I have used them in two pies so far and the result has been wonderful!

I will continue to add to and take from these freezer bags as the berries and other fruits and vegetables ripen and need to be used. 

I hope to have a collection of berries and other goodies in the freezer so that I can use them in the dead of winter next year. They are supposed to be good for at least 6 months in the freezer. 

Enjoy your berries this summer!

-Cooking4two

My city garden

Hello again! Part of my action plan this year was trying to make the best use of my garden. I want to have the most benefit from it, with the least waste. 

Above: from the left (broccoli - hard to see), then onions, carrots, cucumber, corn, tomatoes, lettuce.

Corn is in the bottom right. I just planted peas and beans at the base of the each corn stalk so that they can climb up the corn stalk as they grown. Beans and peas also put large amounts of nitrogen into the soil, which corn needs! 

Tomatoes

From the left: spinach, one lonely garlic plant, butter lettuce, green onions, green leaf lettuce.

My garden is 6' x 12' and I am growing 5 potato plants in containers, which should come up in a few weeks. I also have a small garden on the other side of the yard which has raspberry bushes, and rhubarb... which i will post about later on.

The black hose thing that is wrapped around in my garden is called a weeping hose and the water flows out of the entire length of it. (Although I haven't had to use it much as it has been so wet this year.)

My favorite thing to do in the summer is to go out and cut off some lettuce from the garden to make an impromptu salad. 

There are so many varieties of lettuce and they can easily be grown in a pretty pot. 

I hope you are also trying your hand at gardening this year. 

Enjoy!

-Cooking4two

Jarred

Here is another great article that I received for ideas on reusing household items.  This time its focus is on the stylish glass jar.  Check it out for some great ideas!

~TheDirt

Attention Ladies

Hello again!

As a group, we talked about another important post that we wanted to share, especially for women.  As you know, we spent three months monitoring our waste and the one thing that especially frustrated us was 'that time of the month' and the garbage it produces. We all know that using sanitary pads or tampons creates waste, but can it be avoided?

Here are two options that we would encourage you to look into!

The Diva Cup and Make Your Own Menstrual Pad

Think about it, pass it on, decide for yourself :)

-Cooking4two

This and That

I think I can speak for the whole Food Group when I say that things have been/still are crazy busy at school!  We presented our Action Learning Project last Monday and I think it was a real success!  We had a handful of special guests from the Board of Education and the City of Regina attend; a big thank you to them for taking time out of their busy days to come down to the University and listen to us present.  I brought my worms to show and Cooking4two shared her garden-grown homemade salsa with the class.  It was a real celebration of all our hard work.

My partner and I also had our first blue bin pick up last week and I have run into an unforeseen challenge of sharing a recycling program.  I don't want to sound ungrateful for the support and interest I received when trying to recruit, but since we are sharing the bins and they are in my name, what my neighbour puts in the bin for recycling becomes a reflection of me.  Allow me to explain.  I made this endeavour as easy as possible by offering to take the bins down to the curb if they are left outside their door the evening before.  Since we only have two bins, one each, we need to merge our recyclables so they meet the sorting requirements.  When I went to take the bins down, my neighbour's bin wasn't out yet so I wasn't able to do this.  The next day I made my way back out to the curb to see if our stuff had been picked up, and I noticed my neighbour's bin was now outside their door.  When I discovered my bin had not been picked up yet, I proceeded to take their bin down and merge our items so it would all get taken away.  Unfortunately, the sorting guidelines were unclear and there was basically garbage in with their recyclables (i.e. styrofoam, plastic wrappers, paper towel, etc.).  I draw the line at digging through someone else's trash so I left it as is, but Crown Shred won't take bins if they notice stuff like that in there.  So now I am faced with the dilemma of sending them yet another letter to clarify what is and what is not recyclable.  I feel like a bit of a nag to say the least.

On the worm front, I think my bin got a little too damp last week and a few worms tried to escape again.  It makes me laugh when I open the bin and see them scaling the wall.  I left the lid ajar for part of the day to dry it out and added some eggshells to neutralize any acids and things seem to be back to normal.  They are pretty easy little guys to take care of!  I also had a classmate contact me to get information on where to get worms to start her own bin.  I contacted my worm supplier and set them up to arrange a pickup time.  I am very excited that someone else has decided to take on the adventure of vermicomposting.  Questions and comments are always welcome!

Yesterday I received one of my many email-subscription newsletter-thingies, and it contained a calendar for April on 30 Days to a Greener Lifestyle.  Each month I get one, usually health and wellness related, but this one was more eco-focused so I thought I would share.  Feel free to check it out to see what kind of easy changes you can make to reduce your eco-footprint!

-TheDirt