Giving for Good

Each of us has important people in our lives whom we like to honor with tokens of love, gratitude, and affection. The quest to find meaningful gifts that will be enjoyed and not stowed can be daunting, expensive, and exhausting. I have assembled a smattering of ideas for alternative gifting that I hope will help and inspire you. 

Honor the Person Who Needs Nothing with a Gift that Keeps on Giving 

• Consider making a gift to Kiva in his or her name. Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Here’s how it works: You make a gift to Kiva in the amount of $25 or more in honor of someone. Kiva notifies the individual about your gift with an invitation to search through the Kiva database of over 5,000 loans and select a borrower. When the loan is repaid, the process repeats! 
• At Oxfam Unwrapped YOU choose the gift when you honor someone. (For example: A Christmas donkey for $150 or a toilet for $50.) You receive a humorous gift card to send. 
• Heifer International works in much the same way. You can browse their gift catalogue here. 

Stuck with what to give a grandchild? 

• How about the gift of an adventure with you? Check out the intergenerational offerings at Road Scholar. 
• Or consider a gift to his or her college fund. Ask your son or daughter for info on how to make a contribution. Or, set up a CHET account yourself and take the CT tax deduction.

If you want to give a tangible gift, try these ideas:

Edible Gifts:

• Homemade baked goods.
• A gift certificate to a favorite coffee shop, deli, or restaurant.
• Support a family farmer by shopping at CitySeed Farmers Market (Saturdays and Sundays until Dec 18) OR online through Local Harvest with its catalogue of over 5500 products including fresh fruits, nuts, dried fruits, and non-edibles from beeswax candles to clothing and baskets.

Shop for Good:

•  Make someone’s life better by shopping at Ten Thousand Villages, a fair trade retailer, with an online shopping site AND a physical store on Chapel Street. The company strives to improve the livelihood of artisans in developing countries. According to the website, “$140 million in sustainable income has been earned by makers who would otherwise be unemployed or underemployed since our founding in 1946.”
• Shop to benefit a local not-for-profit such as Creative Arts Workshop’s Celebration of American Crafts. 
• Shop at a museum gift shop: Yale Center for British Art, Yale University Art Gallery, the Peabody Museum, or the New Haven Museum Shop.
• Give a green and useful gift like LED lightbulbs, good for the environment and for the user’s budget. IKEA is a great place to shop for these; it is the only type of bulb they sell.
• Also at IKEA: For every toy, piece of play furniture, or children's book sold until December 24, the IKEA Foundation will donate $1 supporting children's right to play and develop. The New Haven store is collecting soft toys for the Yale New Haven Children's Hospital, so buy a few extra to put in the donation bin. 

Other Ideas:

• Do you have too many cookbooks? Pass some of them on, perhaps adding tabs for your favorite recipes and decorating with a gadget or two instead of a bow. 
• Make a gift. 
• Do you have too many notecards? Give them, along with a selection of beautiful stamps, to someone who still likes to correspond the old-fashioned way. 
• Divide and repot your plants. (Be sure to keep them warm when you transport them).
• If you have a skill you would like to share with someone, give the gift of lesson(s).

Happy Gifting!

[Note: This is an edited version of an article I wrote for the holiday issue of HomeHaven News, a monthly newsletter for the members of HomeHaven, an organization in New Haven helping seniors to "age in place." While some of the ideas are geared to shopping locally, I hope they will give you ideas for ways to help the community in which you live.]

Meatless Monday Matters

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL.  In these uncertain times each of us needs to commit to doing all we can to lower our individual carbon footprint.

Eating less meat is one step we can take.

Wasting less food is another.

A small step is better than no step. It can be as simple as making a meal at home from ingredients you have on hand, especially those that are nearing the end of their shelf life.

If you feel like comfort food at the moment, this recipe might be just what you need. Inspired by a dish I once ordered at a pancake place, it comes out of the oven high like a popover and falls as soon as you cut into it. It will take you to a happy (ier) place. 

It is very easy to make and is a great way to use up apples picked earlier in the fall that are starting to become a little soft. If you do much cooking you probably have the other ingredients in your fridge and pantry.

BAKED APPLE PANCAKE

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup butter
• 4 tart apples
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup milk

Directions

• Preheat ovn to 425°.
• Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet.
• Peel and slice the apples.
• Add the apple slices to the melted butter and stir.
• Lower the heat and continue cooking, stirring often until apples are tender.
• Remove the skillet from the heat.
• Combine the eggs, flour, and milk and whisk together until smooth. [You can use a blender.]
• Spread the apples evenly in the skillet.
• Pour the batter over the apples.
• Bake for 20 minutes until the pancake is puffed up and nicely browned.
• Cut into 6 pieces and serve immediately with a bit of maple syrup.

[I have only baked this in a skillet but I imagine a casserole dish would work, too.]

This may not be the most nutritious meal, but there are far worse.

• This comfort dish has benefits, too.
• You have kept food in your fridge from going to waste.
• You have lowered your carbon footprint by passing up meat AND by leaving your car turned off.
• It is also a really cheap meal. Perhaps you can do some good with the money you save.

I am not saying this is all we need to do in the days ahead, but observing Meatless Monday is a good start.

On Mondays I often blog on food, food issues, or gardening 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.”

The Great Pumpkin Revisited

Just in time for Hallowe'en! Today's Meatless Monday topic is the pumpkin. Celebrated at this time of year for its potential to grow to a gargantuan size and the ease with which it can be carved, the pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo) has been a valuable source of nourishment for centuries. 

The pumpkin originated in Central America but is now grown on six continents. Pumpkins come in numerous varieties. Some are better for eating or growing large; others are better for carving. The Jack-o’-lantern in the photo was most likely carved from a Connecticut Field pumpkin. 

The Pilgrims were not familiar with the pumpkin when they landed on the shores of what is now Massachusetts in the 1600s. But they soon learned of the many ways the Native Americans put the pumpkin to good use including roasting of long strips of pumpkin on the open fire for eating, and drying strips of pumpkin for weaving into mats. The creative colonists went on to invent uses of their own: the origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, filled the insides with milk, spices and honey and then baked the pumpkin in hot ashes. They also found a way to turn it into beer, a tradition that continues in the brewing of seasonal ale to this day.

Pumpkins are a nutritious food, low in calories, high in fiber, and packed with vitamins and minerals. One cup of cooked pumpkin has 2 grams of protein, 3 grams of dietary fiber, 564 mg of potassium, an astounding 2650 IU of Vitamin A, and a mere 49 calories.

Newly-harvested pumpkins are readily available at farmers markets, farm stands, and supermarkets. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, store shelves are well stocked with cans of pumpkin that have been cooked and puréed to make life easier when you have to whip up a pumpkin pie on the fly. 

These cans of pumpkin are good for lots more than pie, so pick up a few before they disappear. They will come in handy when you crave a pumpkin treat and local pumpkins are nowhere to be found. One of my favorite uses for pumpkin purée is in a cornbread recipe I adapted from a recipe from The Muffin Cookbook: Muffins for All Occasions, a spiral-bound cookbook published to promote name-brand canned goods and dairy products.  

Tex-Mex Pumpkin Corn Muffins (Cornbread)

Ingredients:
1 cup yellow organic cornmeal
1 cup unbleached organic flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon (or more) of your favorite chili powder
2 eggs
1 cup canned organic pumpkin (NOT pie filling) 
[Note: Feel free to cook and prepare your own.]
1 cup low-fat milk
2 tablespoons organic canola oil
1 4 oz can chopped green chili peppers (mild) or one small, fresh chili chopped
3 oz (or more to taste; I use at least 4 oz) of extra sharp Cheddar cheese, grated

In a large bowl combine dry ingredients. In a smaller bowl beat eggs; mix in pumpkin, milk, oil, and chopped chili peppers. Add wet ingredients to dry; combine with rubber scraper just until moistened. Turn into an oiled 10” cast iron skillet. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake in 425° oven for 20-25 minutes —just until cake tester comes out dry. If you decide to bake as muffins, temperature should be lowered to 400°, time will be approximately the same, but check on the early side. Makes around 18 muffins. 

This cornbread is a wonderful accompaniment to pea soup or curried kale. Leftovers (if there are any) taste great after being lightly toasted in a toaster oven and then spread win a little grape jam.

Now for some Jack-o’-lantern trivia in honor of this holiday: This tradition was brought to the United States by the Irish. The myth behind the Jack-o’-lantern involves a stingy man named Jack who makes a deal with the devil and finds himself wandering forever after he dies, unable to gain admittance to either Heaven or Hell. Legend has it that the devil tossed Jack an ember from Hell to light his way. Jack placed the ember in a carved out turnip which he carried with him as he roamed the earth. People in the British Isles began carving various root vegetables to make their own “Jack-o’-lanterns” to keep Stingy Jack and other evil spirits away. The Irish used turnips (and sometimes potatoes). Upon arriving in the US, they discovered the readily available, larger, and easy to carve pumpkin. “Turnip Jack” soon became history and the pumpkin Jack-o’-lantern became part of American culture. 

[Note: This post was originally published in October 2010.]

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.