We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow the earth from our
children.
-Native American Proverb
We have been treating the Earth like we don't live on it.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Yah, Thursday

I made it! No Diet Pepsi yet. Yesterday I ended up making myself some Blackberry tea, added a little sugar and chilled it. It was yummy. And my spirits are better today because tomorrow is 4th of July. We will be celebrating it with friends and I can't wait to eat, drink and enjoy a great time.

I tried some new things this week that are helping me be greener. I baked my own bread, finally. I hung my clothes outside. I froze a lot of zucchini. Kept the A/C off. And I made zucchini muffins.

I baked the bread with King Arthur's Organic Whole Wheat flour (from Trader Joe's, of course) and used the recipe on the back of the flour bag (minus the nuts, my family would complain.) It was a dense bread but had a very good flavor. Isn't it pretty? This was my first yeast bread. I started it in the bread maker on the dough cycle, took it out, let it rise, then put it in the loaf pan and baked it. The house smelled really nice. I think I cut the slices too thick for sandwiches but we still ate it. Remember, if you bake fresh bread at home refrigerate it so it doesn't mold, there are no preservatives in it. (Beth, I went to the website for the bread recipe you directed me previously and it is gone.)

I started hanging my clothes outside. I hang everything except underwear, socks and jeans. I don't have a clothesline but I have 2 clothes racks like the one pictured to the left. It is warm, dry and breezy during the day here so they were dry lickety-split. They smell better than putting the clothes in the dryer. I saved my house from heating up. And I didn't use about 3 hours worth of dryer time. Not bad.




This is what happens when you leave unattended zucchini for just 2 days. They are worse than the kids! Notice the pen next to the largest zucchini. This is why you will be hearing me talk about which zucchini dish I made-AGAIN. I froze much of it. I shredded, chopped and sliced for a couple of hours. The shredded zucchini is flash frozen for a couple of hours then packed away using my new handy dandy Foodsaver. Any other types of cuts you need to blanch first, cool, flash freeze and let the Foodsaver do its work. Zucchini is juicy and that disrupts the sealing process of the Foodsaver so flash freezing it keeps the juices at bay. I am all ready to make soup, breads, cakes and casseroles this winter.

Thanks to Crunchy Chicken I am trying to cut back my A/C. I never officially joined her challenge but I am trying to follow her guidelines. I can say, so far it hasn't been hard. We are only in the mid to high eighties this week. It was hard to keep it off today because I made zucchini muffins. I used the same recipe from my mother-in-law but subsituted 1 cup of regular flour for 1 cup whole wheat. You can't tell the difference.

If you live in the states have a wonderful 4th of July and if you don't you can still have a wonderful 4th of July.

Be Green





5 comments:

Robin Shreeves said...

I want a DIET COKE! I haven't had one in well over a week. I had to go to the store this morning and there was a little frig full right at the check out line calling my name. If it wasn't for my "no individually bottled beverages) challenge this week, I may have given in.

I've made a few loafs in my bread machine lately, and I've been hanging my clothes out, too.

AND my husband has cut back on the AC all on his own without my even asking.

By the way, your blog hasn't shown up in my RSS feed (I use google reader) for the past couple of days. Did you change your settings?

Chile said...

Back when I quit Diet Dr. Pepper, I switched to drinking the Cola Berry Sparkling Water by Crystal Geyser. It gave me just a hint of soda-like flavor with no caffeine or sugar. I don't buy it anymore but it was a good transition drink.

You can use some of that zucchini now to make relishes and chowchows if you do canning.

Allison said...

Robin-I did give in over the 4th of July to bottled water and soda (and wine, hee hee) but today I started the challenge back up again.
I am working on my feed. I am a novice at XML and HTML and RSS so it may take me a while. Can you verify if your feed is still active?
Chile- I will keep an eye out for that drink. My challenge right now is to avoid any drink in an individual container BUT when that challenge is over I will definitely try some transitional drinks. I really want to quit soda.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Your bread looks great! Sorry for not commenting. I rely on Google to let me know when my favs post....nothing on you for a while, then BAM! 5 posts this evening!!

Allison said...

Thanks Beth.
I don't know what happen with my feed. I pinged it a couple of times a few hours ago and it clicked back in.