Meatless Monday: DIY Fizzy Drinks

Being green doesn’t get much more fun than this — making your own seltzer using water from your tap!

We have owned a SodaStream Source since late December. We love it!

With our Source we can make seltzer any time we want. Without electricity. With just the push of a finger. The best part is that there are no more full bottles to carry from the supermarket and no more empty ones to return.

The white cloud is the fizz.

Granted, there is an initial cost. The SodaStream Source lists for just under $100 at Bed Bath & Beyond (BB&B). The carbonator must be replaced when it runs out of fizz. Our first lasted nearly 5 months with daily use by 2 adults. When it runs empty, you can exchange it for a charged one at a number of retailers for just under $15. However, we have yet to pay full price, since it is possible to apply BB&B coupons to the purchase of any SodaStream products.

This page has information on how SodaStream products work. 

Here are a few tips:

• Always use cold water. Keep a bottle of cold water in the fridge for this purpose.
• There are three fizz settings. Start at the lowest setting to determine the level of fizz you prefer. At a lower setting, your carbonator will last longer.

The Source is packaged as a Starter Package. Included are various syrups for flavoring your drinks. Go ahead and try them out, but don’t feel you have to buy in to this part of the package to make a good drink.

You can save money and have lots of fun making your own flavors.

Here are some ideas we’ve tried.

• The water is delicious on its own, but try adding a splash of freshly squeezed lemon or lime.
• Lingonberry Drink Concentrate from IKEA (with no high fructose corn syrup) makes a deliciously fruity beverage. Start out with 4 tsp. and add more to taste. IKEA also sells Elderflower and Blueberry syrups. 
• Make your own syrup for ginger ale with a good old-fashioned kick.
• Make a 50/50 blend of fizzy water and your favorite juice.

You get the idea.

The SodaStream site claims the SodaStream carbon footprint is up to 80% lower than other carbonated soft drinks. This page is devoted to information on the cost of America’s addiction to bottled water and how freeing yourself from this habit is good for both your wallet and the planet.

While most of the press about SodaStream has a positive spin, I feel compelled to share something about the company about which I was not aware when we bought our Source. Although its box is labeled: “Made In Israel,” our SodaStream Source was actually manufactured in the Mishor Adumim industrial park in Ma’ale Adumim, the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Germany may soon restrict “Made in Israel” labels to exclude products made outside Israel’s 1967 borders. Some human rights activists are calling for a boycott of these products. You can read more here. 

Let your conscience be your guide.

Whatever you decide, have a great week. Stay cool. Eat (and drink) well. 

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: On the Move

In just a few days it will be moving time in the Have. Come August 1, leases will be up. Grads will move out and new students will start moving in. Permanent residents will once again realize just how many of their neighbors have merely been passing through.

All those books, sneakers, and odds and ends can’t simply be dumped in a truck. For those on a budget, it will soon be box hunting season. Those lucky enough to be heading to a job might decide to spring for new boxes, but these are pricey indeed and labor intensive to assemble.

There is, however, a better way.

Back in the winter months I spied a delivery truck imprinted with an interesting name – JuggleBox. The truck’s owner and I happened to be heading to New Haven Green Drinks, where I learned a bit about his company and promised a blog post. [Better late than never.]

JuggleBox is a NYC area startup that rents plastic boxes for moving. The company delivers the boxes to your old address. You keep them for two weeks. JuggleBox picks them up at your new address when you are through with them, and sanitizes the boxes before they are rented out again.

There is a price, of course, but it is lower than the cost of new boxes — according to JuggleBox, 50% less. Delivery is free. No assembly is required. True, you might be able to get boxes for free, but who knows where they have been? And think of all the time you’ll save by simply renting what you need, ready to use.

According to JuggleBox, Americans could save 122 million trees, 441 million gallons of oil and 65 million cubic yards of landfill EACH YEAR if they used plastic instead of new cardboard boxes for their residential moves. 

That's a lot of trees!

The JuggleBox site is a great resource for moving tips. JuggleBox even offers suggestions on how to downsize [somewhat counterintuitive since that means less boxes required].

While JuggleBox serves only the CT/NYC area, my quick search turned up a similar company in the Bay Area — ZippGo.

If you find yourself on the move this fall, check out green moving boxes. See what satisfied customers have to say here. 

Green moving boxes are good for your budget and for the planet. What better way to get packin'? If I were going somewhere, it would be a no brainer.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

Meatless Monday: Superpowered Jam

After taking a vacation from unnecessary cooking during our heatwave, I have resumed my experiments with chia — determined to find some tasty ways to incorporate this amazing food into my [our] diet.

Since fresh blueberries are in season, I decided to try a recipe printed on the back of my bag of Bob’s Red Mill Grains-of-Discovery Whole Seed Chia. Bob’s recipe for Blueberry Chia Jam utilizes chia’s gelling properties as a “nutrient-rich substitute for pectin.”

For once I decided to follow the instructions to the letter. Here you go:

Blueberry Chia Jam 

Yield Ten Servings

INGREDIENTS

3 cups fresh blueberries

1/4 cup agave nectar

1/4 cup chia seeds

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine berries and agave nectar in a small saucepan.

Cook over medium heat until berries begin to burst — about 5 minutes.

Add chia seed and cook, stirring often, 

until very thick — about 15 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool.

Add vanilla extract.

Store in refrigerator up to 7 days.

The result? It looks like jam and tastes like jam. The only thing you have to wrap your head around is that your usual blueberry jam does not have seeds, and this jam is chock full of them. The taste is blueberry, but the texture is blackberry.

It makes a delicious Greek yogurt parfait and a mean jam sandwich.

Greek yogurt, chia jam, Greek yogurt, chia jam

This recipe is meant to yield 10 servings. By my calculations [using Bob’s nutrition info], the chia in each serving will yield 8% of your daily dietary fiber and nearly 2.5% of your calcium. 

Blueberries are a super food in their own right. 

Chia + blueberries + no high fructose corn syrup = one very healthy treat!

Who knew jam could be so easy and a superfood, too?

Don’t be surprised if your recipe yields less than 10 servings. I don’t think you will find it a problem to eat all your jam in a week. My guess is that it will freeze well in a ziplock bag. I was going to try this, but, well…maybe next time.

Have a great week. Happy eating.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: Taking Water for Granted

We are VERY lucky in the US.

A heatwave is gripping the Northeast. We complain about the heat, but most of us have the luxury of hunkering down in air conditioning — at home, in the office, or in a cooling center.

We stay hydrated — with easy access to water from the tap, a water fountain, a bottle we carry with us, or a vending machine.

We choose to go Meatless on Monday, because we have the wherewithal to make such a choice — the means to cook or to purchase alternatives to meat.

Imagine not having access to food choices.

Now, try to imagine going without easy access to the most basic necessity of life — clean water. 

Water.org poses the question: “What if you had to walk 3 hours every single day for a sip of water?”

According to water.org, over 780 million people lack access to clean water, more than 2.5 times the population of the US! Some 10 million of those people live in what are considered developed countries. 

The work of collecting water falls mainly to women and girls. In just one day, 200 million work hours are consumed by women collecting water for their families. 

Imagine life without clean, convenient, drinking water.

To learn more about the water crisis and for suggestions about what you can do, click here. 

Please come back next week for a lighter post on my continuing experiments with chia.

Have a great week. Stay cool. Eat well. 

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Saturday Short Subjects: “There are only so many fish in the sea…

Your choices matter.”

This sums up the raison d'etre of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch® Program, a frequent subject of my blogposts. 

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch® Program encourages consumers and businesses to purchase seafood that is fished or farmed in ways that do not harm the environment. Their science-based recommendations indicate which seafood items are “Best Choices,” which ones are “Good Alternatives,” and which ones you should  “Avoid.”

The information is compiled into consumer-friendly guides — one for the US as a whole, and others specific to each region of the country. There is also a guide for Sushi. Each guide offers a carefully selected, carry-it-with-you, subset of choices from the program’s full list of recommendations. You  can access the complete list online here, where you can also search for the ratings for a particular fish. You can also access the recommendations by using the free mobile app available here. 

The guides are frequently updated. The Seafood Watch Program®’s Community Outreach director, Ryan Bigelow, announced yesterday that the newest versions of the guides are now available for download here.

Here’s your chance to be among the first to have them.

Remember, your choices do matter. Together we can make a difference.

Why Saturday Short Subjects? Some readers may recall  being dropped at the movie theater for the Saturday matinee — two action-packed feature films with a series of short subjects (cartoons or short movies, sometimes a serial cliffhanger) sandwiched in between. Often the short subjects were the most memorable, and enjoyable, part of the morning. That explains the name. The reason behind these particular posts is that we are all short on time. My Short Subject posts should not take me as long to write or you as long to read (or try).

Meatless Monday: Pancakes on the Porch

Last week we took a break — from working, from blogging, from gardening, from working on the house, and from experimenting with chia.

Where were we? On Cape Cod, on Pilgrim Village on White Pond in Chatham. From the screened-in back porch of our little cabin all you see is trees and water — like glamping but better.

One of the cabins

This is the perfect setting for one of my greatest joys — a pancake “breakfast” at whatever time we please.

The view from the porch

In advance of our vacation, I prepared two batches of the recipe below, packed them in ziplock bags, and kept them in the cooler during the trip. All I had to add was an egg, water, milk, and some form of liquid fat. 

The cabin’s kitchen is tiny, but it contains a refrigerator, small stove, a cast iron skillet, mixing bowl, and basic cooking and eating utensils — all you need to whip up this breakfast.

What you see here was served around noon on Thursday. The sun was out, and very strong as it can be in early summer. We decided not to race to the beach, opting to enjoy pancakes right where we were, while we listened to the birds sing and watched the light sparkling on the blue water.

Brunch on the porch

I had brought along some real maple syrup, and some of the grapefruit I had ordered online. Nearly local blueberries were in season. Triple yum.

Oatmeal Pancakes

(Inspired by “Oo is for Oatmeal Pancakes” from the Alpha-Bakery Children’s Cookbook 

published by Gold Medal Flour in 1987)

Serves two. This recipe can easily be doubled.

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of quick-cooking (one minute) oats

3 teaspoons of dry buttermilk*

1 tablespoon turbinado sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

a pinch of salt

a handful of dried cranberries (optional)

2 tablespoons organic canola oil (or for a special treat, melted butter)

1 egg

3/4 cup of water*

1/4 cup milk

*Or, substitute 3/4 buttermilk for the powdered buttermilk and water.

Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl. 

Add the remaining ingredients, and whisk gently until smooth. 

(You can thin the batter with some extra milk if it is too thick).

Heat and grease your griddle. 

(To see if the griddle is hot enough, splash with a few drops of water. 
If the bubbles bounce around, the temperature is perfect.)

For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle.

Top with 4-5 blueberries if you have them.

Cook until pancakes are puffed and dry around the edges. 

Turn over and cook until the other side is delicately browned.

Serve with maple syrup and fresh berries or summer fruit. 

These pancakes, containing dairy, oats, and eggs, and lower in fat, salt, and sugar than standard restaurant fare, are a delicious and nutritious once-in-a-while treat. They can easily become a dinner meal if served with a side of yogurt and fruit. Try ’em anytime even if you don’t have a screened porch.

Have a great week. Happy eating.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”

Meatless Monday: How to Turn Any Salad Into a Meal

This short post is about making your summer easier, your time spent in the kitchen shorter, and your summer salads more satisfying.

The next time you cook a grain — any grain — to go with a hot dish, make twice as much as you need. Set aside what you require for dinner, and then place the remainder in a glass or ceramic dish, immediately marinate it, let it cool, and then place it in the fridge for use later in the week. 

Within the next few days, prepare your favorite salad and add a scoop or two of the marinated grain.

My salad, in the photo below, has a base of mixed salad greens and is topped with: shredded carrot salad from The Art of Simple Food, by Alice Waters; fresh sugar snap peas; minced Bermuda onion; grape tomatoes; avocado in fresh lime juice; and a generous scoop of marinated red quinoa.

I marinated the quinoa in a dressing I made in the proportions of 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar to 3 tablespoons of good olive oil.

Mark Bittman offered up a similar salad idea in “Eat With the Grain,” in the June 12 New York Times Magazine. He suggested using 2 cups of grain to 1 cup of fresh veggies. 

There is no need to measure or to be that precise. Go with what you have on hand. This is a great way to use up leftovers that don’t quite make a meal on their own. 

Adding a grain turns a simple salad into a satisfying meal. With a grain like quinoa,  it’s one packed with protein as well.

Doesn’t this sound easy?

Have a great week. Happy eating.

I often blog on food or food issues on Monday in support of Meatless Monday, one of several programs developed in the Healthy Monday project, founded in 2003 in association with Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications. Meatless Monday’s goal is “to help reduce meat consumption 15% in order to improve personal health and the health of our planet.”