My Hobo (not) Monday creation

I was all set to cook something for Thursday Night Smackdown's Hobo Monday on Monday when our good friend showed up at our front door with two pizzas. So Hobo Monday became Free Pizza Monday. Tuesday night I warmed up soup and bread after the boys and I got back from sledding. 

I asked Michelle via the comments on her blog if Hobo Monday could be Hobo another night, but she hasn't responded. So I asked myself, "What would Michelle do?" And it occurred to me that Michelle would probably say 

"Rules are for sissies." Only she'd probably throw a good few drunken sailor curse words in there for good measure. 

So here's my Hobo Monday creation, made on a regular Wednesday night. I actually combined the requirements for Hobo Monday (dinner under $10 for the four of us) with digging in the pantry/fridge and came up with my first ever stir fry. 

• Stir fry beef I got on manager's special weeks ago for $1.71 (love manager's specials on meats)
• 1 1/2 cups of organic brown basmati rice I had in the pantry - $1.50
• Various veggies I had in the crisper that needed to be used - baby carrots, sugar snap peas, zucchini and an onion - I'm going to guess about $3.00 worth of veggies.
  
• A stir fry sauce made of water, soy sauce, corn starch and sugar - guessing $.50

For under $7.00, I made dinner for the four of us with leftovers for lunch tomorrow. The boys actually ate it, too. Happily. I also created it from stuff that I had. I didn't go out and get new groceries. Nice.

Green term of the week: victory garden

During World War 2, Americans turned to Victory Gardens to help them get through the financial crunch until they were victorious in the war. Everyone grew vegetable gardens in their back yard, and it considerably eased the amount of money they needed to spend at the grocery store.

There's a new Victory Garden movement afloat. It started before this crummy economy really took hold of us all, but the tough financial times are certainly strengthening it. The Wall Street Journal reported that vegetable seed sales are up, some sellers reporting as much as 80%. This upcoming season is poised to be the biggest vegetable garden season in decades with gardens being planted in community plots, back yards, windowsills, and in containers on balconies and fire escapes. 

The original Victory Gardens got their names because the war was causing tough financial times, and people at home wanted to do something in the quest to be victorious. Well, we're at war now, too, and while the current war may be one of the reasons we're in tough financial times, there are other things that our gardens can help us be victorious over this time around.

• Food miles - No fuel is consumed in bringing a tomato in from your back yard to your kitchen. When a tomato grown in Florida, however, has to come to my kitchen, it travels hundreds of miles and uses fuel and other resources.
  
• Pesticides and chemicals in our food - Many modern victory gardeners are doing it the natural, organic way.
  
• Losing our understanding of where food comes from - Ask most kids where food comes from, and they'll understandably say "the grocery store." My generation and the ones after it aren't particularly savvy about how food gets created. We need to change that.
  
• Losing varieties - Over the past several decades, many varieties of vegetables have disappeared as large farms have focused on only growing the varieties that look pretty and travel well. Victory gardeners are finding and perpetuating the growth of all the varieties they can get their hands on, saving their seeds, and sharing those seeds.
• Couch potatoism - A recent Nielsen survey found that people are watching TV 151 hours a month! We need to get off the couches and back into the dirt.

What are waiting for? If you've ever thought of growing vegetables, I can't think of a better time than now. It's still early enough in the season for anyone in the country to start growing some vegetables this year. Go play in the dirt.

Image: mercedesfromtheeighties

10 easy ways to be more sustainable with St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is in two weeks, and you don't have to be Irish to celebrate it. Fun story before I get to this week's 10 easy ways. This past summer when I was in Ireland, I looked up some family information. According to one of the sources I found, my ancestors on my mother's side kidnapped St. Patrick way back when. There's no way to know if this is true, but it's kind of cool (although I'm sure St. Patrick didn't think so).

Anyway, to make up for the alleged sins of my ancestors, I'm making it my job to green up the day that honors St. Patrick just a little bit. Here's ten easy ways.

1. Make that corned beef grass fed and that cabbage organic.
   
2. Cook that corned beef and cabbage in a slow cooker - it will save a little energy. (disclaimer: I have not tried this recipe, but I may.)
   
3. If you're going on a pub crawl, get your beer on tap instead of in a bottle (and order Smithwicks if you can - it's not greener; it's just the best Irish beer I know).
4. Skip buying a new "Kiss me I'm Irish" t-shirt, even if it's organic. No one's going to kiss you just because you're wearing it, and it's a waste to buy a shirt you'll only wear once a year.
5. You don't need the headband with the four leaf clovers bouncing on top  of it or the green plastic bowler hat. Don't buy cheap stuff you're just going to throw away the next day.
6. If you're planning a part at your house, send e-vites instead of paper invitations.
7. Read the story of St. Patrick to your kids from a book borrowed from the library.
8. Make Irish Potato Candy using all organic ingredients. I wanted to point you to a place where you could purchase some, but I couldn't find one.
9. I was able to find some organic, fair trade chocolates from Sweet Earth Chocolates, however. They have some chocolate, peppermint shamrocks if you feel the need to give someone chocolate on St. Patrick's Day.
10. Download Irish music instead of purchasing physical cd's. I highly recommend the traditional Irish folk music of Beyond the Pale.

Do you have any other tips for greening St. Patrick's Day?

Image: Statue of St. Patrick in St. Patrick's Cathedral, London

5 reasons to dig into your pantry

Over the past few weeks the fact that people are digging into their pantries (and freezers and fridges) more often to create their meals has become obvious to me. The Wall Street Journal had a piece about the sale of food being down, and attributed part of it to people using up what they have instead of buying new.

I saw two blogs over the weekend that talked about using up what you have, too. The Green Phone Booth had a post called Eating Out the Cupboards that chronicled one woman using up the stuff in her cupboards for a week and making brownies and pizzas from stuff that might have otherwise gone bad.

On La Vida Locavore blogger Jill Richardson made Pot Luck a.k.a. Let's Clean Out the Fridge.

Maybe it's time we all started digging into our food stores and using what we have. Here's five good reasons why.

1. You'll waste less food. Food waste is a big environmental problem.  Whenever you waste food, you also waste all of the water, resources, and fuel that went into growing, processing and transporting the food. 
   
2. You'll get to flex your creative culinary muscles. Figuring out how to use that can of black beans that you bought for a recipe that you never made (and now don't remember what it was) can help you discover all new recipes.
   
3. There's a good chance you'll eat a little healthier. Let's face it, you've probably got some dried whole grains in your cupboard that you bought with good intentions, but passed over when you chose to make something a little less healthy. Chances are a good deal of the foods you pass over are healthier ones. At least that happens frequently in my family. 
   
4. You'll get your cupboards, fridge, and freezer cleaned out. Once they are a little less full, you can refill them with more healthy foods. For some ideas on healthy, organic foods that won't break your budget, check out this post I did over at MNN on how you can afford some organics.
5. And speaking of budgets, if you use foods you already have, you won't need to spend so much on groceries. At least for a while. It can help you lower your weekly food bill for several weeks, and you can save some much needed cash.

First Thursdays becomes Hobo Mondays

Michelle from the awesome Thursday Night Smackdown blog has done away with her First Thursday challenge for the time being since we're all pretty much broke at the moment. Instead she is instituting Hobo Mondays, or as she likes to call it Cheap Ass Mondays. She's been doing Cheap Ass Mondays for a while now, making a really inexpensive, but usually creative, meal every Monday night.

Tomorrow night will be the first advent of this event. What are the rules?

1. In the interest of those whose blogs are not R-rated, the event will be called “The Recession Special: Hobo Mondays.”
   
2. The meal must either serve 2 for $5 or less (total, not per person) or 4 for $10. If your family is larger than that, add $1.50 per additional family member. However, You cannot take advantage of economies of scale by making enormous meals that serve 200 and come in at $0.10 a person. Sometimes we only have $5 in our pockets and we still need dinner. Currency conversion is allowed.

Click here to see the remaining rules - they aren't that complicated.

Unlike First Thursdays, you don't need to use a cookbook to participate in Hobo Mondays. 

Since it looks like many of us are going to be snowed in tomorrow (ya, I'll believe it when I see it), tomorrow night might be the perfect night for a creative Hobo dinner. We just might need to scrounge through our cupboards and see what we can throw together.

Evidence of spring, part 2

This has happened before. Sometimes by Friday, I've just run out of interesting things to say. But I wanted to show you what I got to do today. It's more evidence of spring.

I got to put laundry out on the line. It's not particularly sunny, but it's windy and 60 degrees. Spring is coming!

Enjoy your weekend. Go outdoors, find your own evidence of spring and take some time to appreciate it.

Online seed exchange: Get your seeds for free

I first read about this on Mother Earth News (not to be confused with Mother Nature Network). iVillage Garden Web has a seed exchange forum. Many people save the seeds from their plants. On the forum, some people are looking to give away seeds that they have. You simply need to send them a self addressed stamped envelope. Others are looking to exchange seeds.

Someday, I hope to talk about the problems with seeds in our country and beyond - how one big company, Monsanto is creating a monopoly on owning the seeds. I need to do more research on this, however. But it's important that we support those who are invested in saving seeds so we don't lose varieties of plants and we don't forget how to save our own seeds.

On that note, I think that this year, I will make a commitment to save one type of seeds at the end of the gardening season. I'm not sure which plant I'll choose, but I think it's something I need to learn to do. Apparently, there is a little more to it than just picking the seeds out and letting them air dry.

Image: Arria Belli