Happy Halloween (and more thrifted, use-what-you-have costumes!)

We finished up the kids' costumes last night, and it was Dance Party USA in our house. We're all pretty happy with costumes this year, and the only new thing we had to buy was a pair of brown kneesocks (which will get lots of wear after the fact). This spider came together easily:

A thrifted sweatshirt, and I made the spider legs by cutting apart some black leggings, stitching them into tubes stuffed with pillow stuffing. They are stitched to the sides of the sweatshirt, and I used black ribbon to attach them to one another. His mask is made from some, ahem, breast pads that came from a swim suit (but don't tell him that). I held onto to them for so long thinking certainly I could use them one day. This was my mom's idea! We had the hat, and the antennas are just craft foam stitched on. The web is butcher string!

Then there's madam Luke Skywalker:

She has assumed the jedi attitude. A thrifted kid's karate shirt, and a belt resized for a slim waist. The rest is just khaki pants rolled to the knee, with brown kneesocks and mary janes to give the illusion of boots. The jedi robe was made from a thrifted velvet curtain panel, and I followed these awesome, simple instructions. The piece de resistance is the light saber, made from a flashlight, a clear plastic tube, some green tissue paper rolled along the inside, and strapping tape holding it together. Conceived of and created in three minutes! We don't need no stinkin' store-bought light saber!

Here are a few other crafty ideas:

EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club: Week 5

I had a colossal meatless meal disaster earlier in the week -- there was much swearing, a bloody finger, bean patties that simply would not patt-ify and some very unhappy customers. So I started thinking about what I could do with broccoli, one of the only veggies that my kids like cooked. From the deep recesses of my brain I remembered a Victory Garden episode I'd seen on PBS some 15 years ago, back when Russell and Marian Morash were on the program (and how I miss them). Marian made a broccoli soup that cleverly used pureed rice and broccoli stalks as the creamy base, and I'm sure it was this soup that prompted me to buy the Victory Garden Cookbook way back then. I don't think I ever actually made the soup until this week. Did the kids love it? Absolutely not. But hub and I did, and that's all the matters (this is my new motto).

Broccoli Soup from the Victory Garden Cookbook

It's vegan! Unless you choose to grate in some parmigiano reggiano, as I did.

1.5 lbs of broccoli

1/4 cup olive oil

1.5 tsp chopped garlic

1/4 cup rice (uncooked)

4 cups chicken broth (I used veggie broth, because, you know.)

Salt and pepper

grated Parmesan, optional

Separate broccoli florets from stems, cut into very small buds, and blanch for 3 minutes. Plunge into cold water, drain and set aside. Peel remaining broccoli stalks and chop into 1/2 inch chunks. Heat oil in a large saucepan, add garlic and cook for 30 seconds (don't let it brown!). (If you like your soup a little spicy, add some hot pepper flakes with the garlic.) Add chunked broccoli stalks and rice and stir for 2 minutes. Add broth and bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until broccoli and rice is tender. Lift out the broccoli and some of the cooked rice and puree in a processor or blender (add some broth if you're using a blender). Return the puree to the soup base and mix well. When ready to serve, add the florets and cook long enough to heat through. Season to taste with salt, pepper and parmesan.

The kids thought it smelled amazing, but they just didn't like it. I love that you use all of the broccoli, and that the pureed rice and stalks provide the creamy factor. It's pretty thick, but I like a thick soup. I served cheese quesadillas on the side, which they always gobble up. (And just so you know, spellcheck informed me that I originally misspelled 'broccoli' throughout this entire post. Let's hear it for consistency!)

So let's see what our partners in meatless shenanigans cooked up this week:

Join Seventh Generation's Million Baby Crawl!

I am generally leery of campaigns led by business entities to raise awareness of a cause. Oftentimes it just feels like a marketing campaign for the company itself. Which it is, I guess, but this one actually feels OK to me. Seventh Generation has teamed with Safer Chemicals, Healthy Families to host a virtual Million Baby Crawl in an effort to get Congress to pass a law banning toxic chemicals in household products. Essentially, they want you to sign up to support their effort and encourage your family and friends to do the same. To do this, you visit their Web site and create a crawler. (You don't actually have to have a baby to participate. It's a virtual crawler.) You give them your name and email address, and then you can direct friends and family to support your crawler by signing up, too. It's a gimmick -- they're trying to gather names (which hopefully will only be used as ammunition when presented to Congress) but sometimes you need a gimmick to get people involved.

It's easy to sit here at the keyboard and lament toxic products and feel like I'm powerless to make change. I have no idea how to make change on this kind of level, so I'm grateful when someone else is willing to take the reins and push for it. Yes, of course, Seventh Generation would ultimately benefit from this kind of anti-toxin legislation -- they're in the business of non-toxic products! But we all would benefit, too.

So, I signed up. This I can do from my keyboard. You can support my crawler or someone else's or make your own. In addition, events will be held around the country to generate local support and awareness. There's one in the Portland metro area on Wednesday, November 18 from 10am-2pm at the Washington Square Mall. Stop by, sign a petition and make your voice heard.

Reviewing The Story of Stuff

Heather and I put on our best Kent Brockman voices a week ago, when we talked with all the second graders at our elementary school, saying "You might remember us from the 'Reduce/Reuse/Recycle' presentation we gave while you were in kindergarten..." I don't think any of them picked up on the Simpsons reference. But all in all, it was a good talk. You gotta love kids for their unbridled enthusiasm!

While prepping for our talk, I re-watched Annie Leonard's fantastic video The Story of Stuff. If it's been a while, you really should carve out 20 minutes to sit down and watch it. I probably looked a lot like an over enthusiastic sports fan while watching this video: Eyes glues to my computer screen. Shouting out spontaneous bursts of support: "Yeah!" "You go, girl!" and the triumphant hissed "Yes!!!" It was good no one else was home to overhear me. A few things from the video jumped out at me this time:

• About manufacturing... We put good stuff and toxic stuff together, resulting in stuff that gets thrown away quickly, but with it all now being toxic stuff. Yesterday's thread about the BPA in canning lids underlines this point. There's also warnings this year about how most Halloween face paints contain lead, cobalt, nickel and chromium. This makes me want to scream! I consider myself fairly informed, but imagine there are tons of moms out there who don't know and really want to cute their kids up for Halloween by painting their faces. Arghhhh!!! The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics offers some recipes for safer DIY face paints.
• The other thing that jumped at me was about fashion and how we watch tv and feel bad about ourselves, and we go out shopping to feel better, and we buy some stuff, and we go to work to pay for the stuff... Yet, if we resist, we end up being the mom with skinny heels in a 'fat heels year' and the TV blares "You suck!" I'd like to say I'm above all that. But truthfully, I do often feel like the most unstylish, un-chic person in every crowd. Oh well. But I do find I watch less TV, which happened very gradually over time as I had less and less time (probably the TV time loss can be attributed to the amount of time I spend blogging). So I'm exposed to less advertising, which is good so the chants of "You suck!" don't get overwhelming. 

Re-watch The Story of Stuff. And be strong. We don't suck. I'm Kent Brockman, signing off...

EnviroBits: Swedish labeling, BPA in canning lids, and my love for Mark Bittman

I have lots of stuff swirling in my head, so it's time for a brain dump:

*** Let's start with some love. I am publicly professing my love for Mark Bittman, food and cookbook writer extraordinaire (I swear this guy is everywhere). I wasn't really even aware of Bittman until about a year ago (despite owning his Fish book for several years). The man knows his food and he knows how to present it in an accessible, user-friendly fashion that makes me feel like Yes! I can cook this and it will be delicious and good for my family! I've recently become the proud owner (thanks, Mom) of his How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and I love, love, love it. Mmmwah to you, Mr. Bittman.

*** Oh those Swedes! First they get us hooked on modern particleboard furnishings, and now they've gone and started labeling food with carbon dioxide emissions! This information is supposed to help consumers make more informed choices about the food they buy in grocery stores and restaurants -- the lower the carbon rating, the better for the environment. The carbon rating measures the food's production -- the type of facility or soil in which it was grown, fuel used by machinery, packaging and transport. Will it work? Well, similarily a new study recently found that restaurant nutritional menu labeling, like what we have here in Portland, does in fact help people make better food choices. So perhaps the Swedish labeling model will work, too. Skål!

*** Finally, here's some news that will make you want to curl into a fetal position for the rest of the day: your canning jar lids contain BPA! Excellent. You try and do the right thing and can fresh food for the winter, and little do you know you could be slowly killing your family. Sorry, that's extreme, but I'm a little emotional (first love, now death!). Long-time reader Kristi sent us the above link from Utne Reader (and she just pressure-canned tomatoes for the first time ever). Apparently the only BPA-free canning jars are the lovely, but pricey, Weck jars. This article from Treehugger indicates that jarred store-bought baby food is also affected. I really don't know what to think about all of this. The BPA stuff is alarming and it's popping up everywhere and I'm sure I've ingested mass quantities of it my whole life and have fed large doses to my kids. You see? It's time to assume the position. Wah.

Buy-nothing-new Halloween Costumes: 2009

Halloween is almost here! Are you busy at work, like Cinderella's mice, putting the final touches on your buy-nothing-new Halloween costumes? I'm pleased to say ours are finished. Well, almost. I did envision a bell around the neck of my sheep, and I swear, there is a tiny metal bell somewhere in our house and unless I can find it in the next few days (which isn't looking good), we're going to have to forget about the bell.

Here they are: one Japan girl and one sheep... 

The Japan girl might have originally been called a Geisha Girl, but that had some connotations I didn't want associated with my 7-year-old, so we focused on this storybook we have called Bon Odori Dancer. Her costume is simply an adult robe (that we had), and she'll wear some Asian pj pants under that are also a silky fabric (probably poly). I made an obi sash with a layer of felt, covered by a floral remnant that looks rather pretty in this context, but seemed fairly ugly for anything else. We used a smidge of the floral to cover a plastic headband, and I harvested some silk-lei flowers to embellish the headband. Oh, and there's a shoe-lace tacked to the top of the obi.

For the sheep, we used a vest that was trimmed in fluffy white fleece to give that wool shearling look and turned it inside out. I sewed a bit of black fleece onto some old rabbit ears, then added a few cotton balls on top. There are cotton balls tacked to the back of her vest also for a tail. We borrowed white Oompa-Loompa pants from the costume Heather's son wore last year, then thanks to the great idea from EnviroMom reader Becky, found four black socks to put on her feet and hands to look like hoofs. This kid loves her costume and has begged me to leave the tail on the fleece and says she plans to keep wearing it inside-out after Halloween so she can be a sheep all the time. It will be also hard to keep the ears off her head because she really likes being a sheep.

If you've got photos of buy-nothing-new costumes you'd like to share, please email us enviromompdx [at] gmail [dot] com and we'd be glad to post them! 

EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club: Week 4

I acquired a copy of Mollie Katzen's veg cookbook The Enchanted Broccoli Forest in college, during a phase when I decided to become vegetarian for no real good reason -- a bold move for someone who wasn't a big fan of veggies. On second thought, it may be one of those unwritten college rules that you have to be a vegetarian for at least a semester. Anywho, I was not much of a chef but loved the whimsical name, and just had to try the recipe. I made it for a friend but remember wishing the broccoli didn't come out quite so brown. So I'm trying it again some 20 years (oh lordy, did I just confess that?) later, hoping its name will work magic with my family but that I can keep the broccoli trees bright green this time. Behold:


The Enchanted Broccoli Forest

1 pound of broccoli, cut into tree-like spears
6 cups cooked brown or white rice
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup chopped onion
1 large clove crushed garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dill weed
1/4 tsp dried mint
black pepper to taste
cayenne pepper to taste
3 large eggs
1/4 freshly minced parsley
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar or Swiss cheese
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp melted butter

Cut the broccoli into tree-like spears. Cook your rice. Mollie's recipe calls for 2 cups brown rice and 3 cups of water cooked in a saucepan about 20-30 minutes. I did mine in a rice cooker instead. While rice is cooking, saute onions, garlic and everything else you might desire in butter until onions are translucent (8-10 minutes). Because my kids are picky-picky-picky, I chopped my onions superfine so they'd be too small to pick out, and I also omitted all green herbs (dill, mint and parsley), as well as the pepper family (black and cayenne). Otherwise there would be much gagging and gnashing of teeth. Never a pretty sight at the dinner table.

Next, the recipe says to beat three eggs, then mix in the parsley, grated cheese and rice. Another version of this recipe also suggested putting sunflower sees in, and omits the eggs. I passed on the parsley and seeds, but opted for the eggs, and cut way back on the cheese -- just sprinkling some over the top of the rice-egg mixture. To expand the forest metaphor, think of the cheese as a dusting of fall leaves below the broccoli trees.

The recipe says to steam the broccoli until it's bright green at this point, then stick them upright into the bed of the rice mixture that's been placed in a greased casserole pan. As I recollect, this made the broccoli turn from bright to dull green, and there's no way I'd get my kids to eat that. So I baked just the rice-egg part in a 325 degree oven (covered with foil) for 30 minutes. Right before popping it out of the oven, I lightly micro-steamed my broccoli (make sure it doesn't get floppy), then poked it into the 'dirt' bed using the end of a wooden spoon to make guide holes. The recipe calls for melted butter and lemon juice on top of the trees, but I skipped the lemon juice and just plopped a tiny pat of butter on the trees as I served it. For my kids (and yes, it's OK if you think they are freaks right about now), it helps if they see the butter. If it melts they don't believe it's there.

My recipe budgets 50 minutes of prep time, and 30 minutes to bake -- so don't expect you can just whip this up. I will say the kids LOVED it. From the first mention of 'enchanted broccoli forest' they wanted to help. They picked the spots where we planted our broccoli trees, then used little broccoli stalks to make people wandering into the woods. For the most part, I don't encourage playing with food, but this was a worthwhile exception and everyone ate their trees! I also got immediate requests to make this again. Yippee!!

Now let's see what our guest bloggers have cooked this week!

Cork placemats: just as durable as plastic

A few months ago, after we finished our kitchen recession remodel, I went in search of round placemats for our new round kitchen table. Since I intend to keep this table for the rest of my days, I want to keep it in good shape. We never used placemats on our old, battered 50's dinette, so I've been out of the placemat loop for the past decade. (Placemat loop?) I figured I'd find some sort of cloth mats, but to my delight found cork placemats at Crate & Barrel marked down to $3 a piece (and it doesn't look like they carry them anymore). I was a little hesitant. Would they stain? Would they crumble? It's one thing to purchase an item made of a sustainable material, but if it doesn't hold up then it's not really sustainable, right?

Well, four months later I'm happy to report that these placemats totally rock. They look as good as they did brand-new. No rips, no crumbling, no drink rings, and the food wipes right off. They are cushiony and naturally resistant to mold and mildew. I love that I don't have to keep throwing them in the wash like I might with a fabric mat. Vinyl mats wipe clean, too, but I just could not go there. These are such an excellent alternative. Now I'm planning to line some of our drawers with cork (since I didn't have enough Marmoleum remnants to do all of the kitchen) and will skip the pricey version in favor of cork rolls from a craft or hardware store (thanks for that idea, Rachele).

From what I've read online, cork is a natural renewable resource, and it is harvested by stripping the bark from cork trees. It doesn't harm the trees and it grows back. The downside is that the trees only grow in Europe, primarily Portugal, so cork travels a ways to get here. But don't most products travel a ways to get here? Not a good argument, I know, but it's all I've got right now.

Any good cork success/failure stories to share? What are you using for placemats? Any good crafty reuse ideas out there for making your own?

Read or see: Chris Jordan's Running the Numbers

Right now in Seattle, there's an exhibit by artist Chris Jordan at the fantastic Pacific Science Center called Running the Numbers, on display until January 3, 2010. I'm hoping our family will find time to go and see it.

If you are not familiar with Jordan, he is considered the 'it' artist of the green movement who mixes art with activism in stunningly beautiful digital images. The Seattle Times' review of the exhibit offers a great explanation of Jordan's work:

'His subject is human consumption, human waste, our whole buy-it-now-throw-it-away-later culture. His method is to start with a statistic — say, the 2 million plastic beverage bottles used in the United States every five minutes — and to create an image that translates those astonishing numbers into something you can see at a glance.'

Oooh, boy. Are you sitting down? Two million plastic bottles every five minutes?! Arggghhhh! Forgive me while I freak out for a few minutes...

OK, I'm back. The Pacific Science Center's web page that outlines the exhibit features an 11-minute video of Jordan speaking about his work. He's extremely well-spoken and worth the 11 minutes to watch. In the video, Jordan explains that his art helps us to visually feel environmental and social issues that detrimentally affect our culture, and he hopes it motivates us to take responsibility and change our personal behavior.

About a year ago, my oldest daughter became fascinated by the book Hungry Planet. I'd hazard a guess that Jordan's images will be arresting and though-provoking when I share them with my kids, and likewise valuable learning tools for all EnviroMoms striving to raise green kids. If you're not near Seattle, this is a traveling exhibit. Check out Jordan's website for cities it's coming to. He's also published a book by the same title, Running the Numbers, that I haven't read, but plan to.

Did you know? Copy paper ream wrappers are not recyclable

This is a public service announcement from your friendly Master Recycler!

That's right, folks. That ream wrapper contains a moisture barrier (a la wet-strength), which is composed of a plastic-y substance that cannot be recycled. While I can only speak for the Portland Metro area, a quick Google search indicated that college campuses around the country also prohibit recycling of ream wrappers. So, I can only assume that most municipalities don't want them either. You can always call or email your recycling service to find out for sure.

Now, you're probably thinking, Ack! I always throw those in the bin! Why don't the recycling guidelines list 'copy paper wrappers' as not acceptable? Well, they kind of do. Those wrappers fall under the 'paper coated with plastic' category (though it's hard to tell just by feeling the wrapper). But to specifically call them out? My guess is that it is a low priority. It's hard enough trying to get hundreds of thousands of residents to not throw plastic bags in the bin or to keep glass separate -- stuff that's far more important. I suspect they don't want to add in a bunch of smaller priority items and overwhelm residents. Plus, sorters at the Material Recovery Facilities are trained to pull out these items when they see them (though I doubt they can catch it all). So, now that you know, try and make their jobs a little easier and keep the wrappers out of the recycling bin. My Master Recycler guru always advised us: "When in doubt, throw it out." Better to end up in the landfill than to muck up the works at recycled paper mill.

Have you ever come across a paper wrapper that states it is recyclable? I have not, and I look every time. I'd love to hear about a brand that claims it!