Tag: Food

• DIY: Compost Bin

  Posted at 4:37 AM by Brittany, on June 17, 2012

  Wasting food is worse than nails on a chalk board..almost. I shed a small piece of my heart each time I throw food into the garbage. I still have my entire heart because I refuse to waste, I will save even the smallest morsel of a meal to incorporate into the next. So what do I waste then? Scraps of food that I deem inedible: think watermelon rinds, lemon peels, garlic skin, wilted leafy produce. Rather than throw these away, why not compost them!

  Compost bins these days can be expensive, and take up a lot of space. There are plenty of DIY projects all over the internet, from digging holes in the ground to getting an old garbage can and filling it with left over food. I know someone who recently made a compost bin out of milk crates. It’s worked out well for left over scraps!

  DIY Compost Bin 

  You wont need much, just some milk crates (3 of them for a good rotation system), weed blocker, paper bags, and a hot glue gun. 

  

  These are the crates that were used. There are three, but I started with two to get the compost going. You won’t need the third one for a bit.

  

  Oh surprise, I used a TJ’s bag. You’ll need a sturdy paper bag to lay on the bottom of the bin. Eventually this will compost into your soil, but it will take time and lets the food break down first.

  

  You will take the weed block fabric of your choice, and hot glue it to the four side walls of the bin. Do not put a layer on the bottom, the bottom is only for the paper bag. You don’t want weeds growing into your compost, they taste like intruders.

  

  Glue glue glue. This part is dangerous, I couldn’t risk burning my clumsy sausage fingers.

  

  Voila, repeat these steps on the other two crates and you are almost ready to start spoiling food for fresh soil.

  

  Add a little bit of soil to get the bin started.

  

  The lid helps to keep the soil dark and moist, but you will need to let the bins have sun and water occasionally.

  Now for the rotation process: To make this easier to understand we will call the crates A, B, and C (eventually you will need three crates.) The top crate is A, middle crate is B, and bottom crate is C. Once crate A is 3/4 full you will swap it out with crate B. Crate B then comes to the top. Once crate B is 3/4 full, you will take whatever is left in crate A (which should be partially broken down by now) and POUR that into crate C. You will then put crate A back on top, and crate B back into the middle. This will begin your cycle. Crate C is there basically to collect the leftover waste that needs more time breaking down.

  This compost bin is strictly veg friendly. No meats or animal products will find their way into the bin. With meat you have to worry about other breakdown methods. If you want a meat friendly bin, this is the wrong blog for you.

  Q: Do you waste a lot of food? Ever thought about saving scraps like this? Someday this will be soil to fuel my garden! 

  

  | 85 Comments Tagged Compost, Compost Bin, DIY, Food, Gardening, Trader Joes, Waste

• I Love Carbs

  Posted at 10:58 AM by Brittany, on June 15, 2012

  One of my favorite things about half marathon training is all the carbs I need to eat. These will be my main energy source and with the running I will be doing, I will need A LOT of carbs! Carbs are my friend, they always have been. Any excuse to eat more bread is a GREAT excuse in my book. A lot of bread has been made around my neck of the woods, and it continues to get better each loaf.

  A couple weeks ago I shared a beer bread recipe from a vegan cookbook I have, but this bread was a bit dense. It was good..edible..but definitely needed something to go with it such as a jelly or PB. I have currently been sinking my teeth into the most amazing beer bread, with two simple variations. One with apples and cinnamon, and one with banana and chocolate. The loaves didn’t stand a chance and were gone within two days. If you take anything from this post let it be this: go make this bread..as soon as you can. Make sure you have friends with you because you WILL want to eat the entire loaf.

  Vegan Beer Bread 

  • 2.5 cups whole wheat flour
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1/3 cup melted Earth Balance (I use the soy free one)
  • 1 bottle of beer

  Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease a loaf pan and set aside. Combine the first four ingredients, then add the Earth Balance, then the beer. Mix together and the base is done.

  -This is where the loaves can vary. To make an apple cinnamon loaf simply cut up one whole apple into small pieces and mix into the batter. Add a LOT of cinnamon..no measurements..just a LOT!

  

  -For the banana chocolate bread, using a banana flavored beer added extra banana flavor. Mash an old banana into the mix, and find your favorite chocolate bar to chop up. Add banana and chocolate to the batter.

  

  This is seriously SO easy to make. After deciding which variety you want pour the batter into a your greased bake pan and take brown sugar, cinnamon, and oats to lightly cover the top of the loaf. Pour a small amount of Earth Balance on top, and bake for 50 minutes.

  This bread is moist, flavorful, and a perfect snack on the go, or addition to your morning coffee. This bread doesn’t need anything except self control from the person eating it.

  Q: Have you ever tried beer bread with fruits and spices added to them like these two variations? 

  

  | 27 Comments Tagged Beer Bread, Food, Half Marathon, Recipe

• Rice Rice Baby

  Posted at 10:24 AM by Brittany, on April 3, 2012

  For the past week, many of my meals have revolved around rice. Brown rice of course, specifically the brown rice medley from good ol’ Trader Joe’s.

  

  The protein/fiber content is great, and the addition of the radish seeds gives a nice crunch to the mix. Of course I don’t pummel spoon fulls of just rice into my mouth, I make a rice pile and fill the sides with tree’s and bushes.

  

  This meal happened a few times: Rice, asparagus, red bell pepper, vegan sausage, zucchini, Brussels, beets, and broccoli.

  Another ricerific meal that was duuhh-lish-ous included this..

  

  I really only bought this to have an excuse to say “punjab” multiple times in one hour, but this stuff was so good. I didn’t like the packaging, and I didn’t like the heating option. Instead of heating the foil like packet in water on the stove, I emptied the contents into a pot and then put it on the stove. Heating foil/using a microwave are two warming options I avoid. I need to get an invincible hamster to run hours on a wheel to produce heat for my food, that would be ideal.

  The final product..

  

  This time I made a rice mote, and filled the punjab in the center. Then surrounded the outside with trees and plants.

  Moving forward. I have found a veggie (and vegan) friendly peanut sauce to make up for my oops moment, when I bought peanut sauce with anchovies in it. Unfortunately the sauce I bought this time lacked in flavor and punch.

  

  Fortunately I had enough peanuts to make up for the sauce.

  

  As you can see, I put my math studies to good use by using geometry on a daily basis to make a circle out of my meals. That’s really all it’s good for.

  As for my vegan update, I have successfully completed one week eating a vegan diet, and I have to say the week FLEW by. I only thought about cheese once and that was the first day of being dairy free. Since then it’s been easy (given it’s only been a week) and I plan to continue eating vegan for a little while longer. I will write a post dedicated to my thoughts and physical state after a bit more time.

  I’ve also completed one week cutting out sweets (except the extra jelly I’ve been adding to PB&J’s) and this was a bit more difficult. I thought about cake multiple times throughout the week, but I persevered. I deserve a medal for this I swear. I might even go longer than the week. I’m exuding God like strength with this task.

  Running is great, Saturday I ran 5 miles at a 9:52 pace and each mile felt better than the one before it. Cycling is good, Thursday night spin classes are becoming my favorite. Monday nights not so much. Those are all the updates I have for now!

  Q: How do you eat your brown rice?

  

  | 52 Comments Tagged Brown Rice Medley, Cake, Food, New food, Running, Spinning, Trader Joes, Vegan

• Dairy Free

  Posted at 11:32 AM by Brittany, on March 26, 2012

  Before I jump into the topic of this post, I want to share a quick and easy Thai inspired meal. You’ll need four items: Rice noodles, peanuts, a sauce, and a vegetable (Or go balls wild and have multiple vegetables!)

  

  Real quick side note, this satay peanut sauce is NOT vegetarian friendly. I somehow missed this while skimming the ingredients. I read the ingredients to a similar product from a different store, and that one was vegetarian friendly. I assumed TJ’s was too. Mistake. Lesson learned- never skimp on reading the ingredients! Regardless, the meal was delicious and the peanut sauce has been donated to a non vegetarian. If you are a carnivore, omnivore, or even a pescatarian (the sauce has anchovies in it) you’ll love it!

  

  After making a head of broccoli hair, I had to resist the urge to make a peanut face. 10 minute meal. Boom.

  Onto the Brussels and potatoes of the post. Over the past six years I have evolved into a happy, healthy vegetarian. I started as more of a carb-o-tarian, which is what I call those that give up meat, but replace the meat with carbs instead of fruits and veggies. I have fallen in love with fruits, vegetables, and cooking over the past three years and have never looked back. I don’t crave meat, I find excitement in new recipes, and I enjoy telling people about my lifestyle (until they criticize and are ignorantly closed minded.)

  One question I often get is, “have you tried being vegan?” The answer is “sort of.” I have never fully committed to becoming “vegan,” but I have had my experimental weeks, two at the most, of eliminating any and all animal products from my diet. I LOVE cheese, and occasionally eat eggs, and along with this I eat products made with dairy. Although I may not drink milk directly, I am ok with using it in recipes, and eating foods made with milk, cheese and eggs.

  I’ve decided to give this vegan thing another go. However, I will not be calling it “vegan,” rather, “dairy free” because I am not going to be picky about where or how the food products are made. If the bread I buy is made somewhere that milk and eggs are present, but not included in the ingredients, I am ok with that. My diet over the next week, two weeks, or however long I plan to try this for will consist mainly of fruits, and veggies, along with the proteins, fats, carbs and other nutrients I will need. I will be completely dairy free including products made with dairy.

  This is not a lifestyle change, more of a fun challenge to test my creativity and willpower to resist cheese. Along with cutting out dairy, I am cutting back on sweets. OHH MY HOGSQUASH this will be hard. I love my cookies, but I need a serious detox from sugar!! Notice I said cutting back, not cutting OUT.

  With all this said, dinner last night was a dairy free success.

  

  This plate looks like something I eat anyway, but throughout the day my desire for a string cheese and wheat thins was ever so present. This meal made my nagging cheese beast disappear.

  Breakfast this morning was egg-less, but better than ever.

  

  Skittle rainbows have NOTHING on my color wheel of food. I will be including cheese, greek yogurt, and cookies back into my diet very soon, but for now I will enjoy the challenge of trying new things! This will also challenge me to figure out exactly what the items listed on the ingredient lists are. The sugar, and cheese beasts in my system need to be tamed for a bit. Did I mention I love cookies?

  On a random side note, but along the lines of challenges (running is a challenge I accept daily) check out this race photo from my 10K last week. 

  

  I’m pretty much a celebrity because this photo was an example photo on the website before the others were even uploaded. This is why there isn’t a giant PROOF written across the photo to ruin it unless you choose to buy it. Of course I was caught getting my Garmin ready.

  “The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.” -Bette Davis

  Q: What’s challenging you this week? Not eating cookies. 

  

  | 30 Comments Tagged 10K, Challenge, Food, New food, Running, Trader Joes, Vegan, Vegetarian

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• Contact: blissfulbritt@yahoo.com

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