Saturday Short Subjects: Rock to Rock Overachieves!

The final tally is in. Earlier this week, Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride 2013 organizers announced the final statistics for this year’s event, the 5th annual ride.

The fundraising goal was $150,000.

The 1,100 riders in Rock to Rock 2013 recruited 2,388 donors, who contributed more than $152,000  — surpassing the fundraising goal by over $2,000! 

FYI, on April 20, Rock to Rock participants collectively biked more than 16,000 miles (over halfway around the globe) for the benefit of 23 different environmental organizations in New Haven!

Chris Randall, who took the photos of these two happy riders, was out and about documenting the day’s events. 

For more images from Rock to Rock 2013, check out this page at the website IloveNewHaven.org.

And, save the date of April 26, 2014 for next year’s ride!

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: Tofu to the Rescue

Tofu is  a regular item on my grocery list. High in protein, a good source of calcium, and relatively low in calories, it is an excellent meat alternative in stir-fries, and can be turned into a delicious faux egg salad. 

As great as tofu is, however, I will admit it is not without a few challenges:

• The tastiest stir-fries are the ones in which the tofu has been marinated in advance. Some people may be fond of the taste of bare naked tofu. I prefer my chunks of tofu when they have soaked up all the delicious flavors of a homemade sauce. 
• Fresh tofu has a relatively short life span. Despite my best intentions, I have more than once discovered that the package of tofu in my fridge is past its expiration date.
• I care about GMOs, and it has become hard to find organic tofu, and even harder to find organic tofu made in the USA.

I recently discovered the answer in the Elm City Market. The perfect product comes in a Tetra Brik® box and can be found on the shelf in the ethnic food aisle —Morinaga Silken Tofu. Silken tofu is available in a variety of textures, is non-GMO, is made in the USA, requires no refrigeration until it is opened, and has a shelf life of several months.

AND, the solution to the last-minute problem was printed on the box! A delicious dinner in under an hour:

Morinaga Tofu Stir Fry 

Preheat your oven to 400°F

Stir the following ingredients together:

• 6 tbsp. light soy sauce
• 2 tsp. honey
• 2 tsp. balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp. grated fresh ginger [2 tsp. dry ginger if you don’t have fresh on-hand]
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/2 tsp. toasted sesame oil

Lightly oil a baking dish.

Cube the tofu and place it in the dish in one layer.

Pour half the sauce over the tofu and bake for 30 minutes.

While the tofu is baking, slice a bunch of green onions.

Prepare additional vegetables of your choice for the stir-fry 

(about 6 cups). 

[If you are in a pinch, you can use veggies from your freezer.]

When the tofu is done, sauté the onions in oil for 1 minute.

Add the remaining vegetables with the remaining sauce, cooking until crisp tender.

Gently stir in the tofu.

Serve with some rice, pasta, quinoa, or other grain.

Voilá! One delicious dish in almost no time!

Have a great week.

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 Shorts: Hope

We lost a beloved spruce last fall in the snowstorm that followed Hurricane Sandy. We had planted it the year we got married, cared for it, watched it grow, and used it as a backdrop for photographs of many happy events – a new baby coming home, family visits, graduations… Not to mention that the spruce had provided shelter for countless winged residents and passers-through. You get the idea. It was an important tree.

Conditions in the back yard have changed. It is shadier than it was years ago. We have changed, too. We decided to take all we’d recently learned about the importance of native plants to heart and embarked on a search for a native tree that would thrive in our little shady urban plot, a tree that would be “easy on the eyes,” resistant to disease, and an attraction for native wildlife.

After much research we chose the American Hornbeam or “Musclewood” (Carpinus caroliniana),  a member of the Birch family, and native to much of eastern North America. The smooth gray bark and fluted trunk of a mature specimen suggests a strongly-muscled limb (to me, an animal leg), hence its nickname. In fact the trunk is one of the tree’s most attractive features, particularly during winter when its limbs are bare.

You may not see it now, but in a few years this tree will be buff! 

The tree is slow-growing, to a height of 30 feet with a spread about the same. The American Hornbeam is not considered a particularly showy tree. In spring it has flowering catkins. In fall its leaves turn yellow to orange-red, and it bears small nutlets. Songbirds in particular are attracted to this tree for its fruit and the shelter it offers. 

Yesterday this American Hornbeam was planted in our yard, not far from where the spruce once stood. It has been watered well. Its leaves are starting to unfurl. 

My husband had just wondered out loud how long it would take the birds to notice the new addition when the mockingbird, who has been claiming our yard as part of his territory for the last few weeks, landed in the tree and then used it as a diving board for a plunge into the adjacent bird bath.

Much like deciding to have a child, planting a tree takes a leap of faith. You hope it will thrive. You hope it will be a benefit to the world around it. You hope you will see it to maturity. [In this case, we hope it will be a backdrop in many happy photographs.]  We hope…

I hear the mockingbird singing.

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).