The feature story this week is on the "greening" of Chicago, with farmers' markets returning to new locations with sustainable produce. The Tribune shares some tips for shopping at the farmers' market, as well as recipes from cookbooks that focus on market fresh produce: Scallops with three peas and prosciutto from Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, Savory mashed potatoes with garden herbs from Rosalind Creasy's Recipes from the Garden, Butter Lettuce Salad from Fresh, and Watercress, snow pea and shiitake mushroom stir-fry from The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally.
Are you baking Earth Day-themed cookies? Making an organic fruit salad? Walking to the grocery store (with your reusable bag, of course)? Finally starting your own compost pile?
Here at Slashfood we occasionally provide you with "green" information, whether that's an alarming statistic about how much energy it requires to get your food to your table or a new eco-friendly food or kitchen product. If, however, you are interested in going all out and want all the information in one place, kitchen appliance manufacturer Sub-Zero (and Wolf) have launched a website for just that.
Granted, GrowAGreenKitchen.com is a microsite on their own manufacturer's site, so it can be construed as marketing, but still, the information is there. The site is divided into three main sections: energy, construction, and everyday tips, all intended for consumers, builders and kitchen enthusiasts alike. Likely, you aren't going to tear out your old kitchen right now just to build a brand new one, but the every day tips could help you help the environment.
When it comes to packing up a sandwich, what do you use to keep that sandwich fresh and unscathed until lunchtime? I imagine that the majority of you use some sort of disposable plastic bag (whether it be zip or fold top). Assuming that you toss those plastic bags at the end of your lunch hour (or that your kid tosses it out when it's time to head out to recess) it begins to amount to quite a few plastic bags. There are reusable plastic container options out there, but what about checking out a reusable sandwich wrap?
If you want to make your own, check out out how this Australian mom made a sandwich wrapper for her daughter out of some fabric, a zip top bag and some old velcro (via Green Daily).
Last year at the Vegan Lunch Box, Jennifer posted instructions from a reader on how to make a reusable sandwich wrapper out of polyurethane laminate coated fabric.
If you're not feeling crafty, you can buy a ready-to-go wrapper at Wrap-n-Mat.
We're taught that in general, color is more desirable than white in food. This hasn't necessarily been the case for cauliflower, which belies its white color with a nutrition profile similar to its cruciferous siblings, broccoli and cabbage. Cauliflower is high in vitamin C and cancer-fighting antioxidants.
However, thanks to selective breeding (not genetic engineering), cauliflower in different colors are available. They taste the same as white cauliflower, but are just, well, more fun on the plate. Scientists are also claiming that they might be healthier for you than white cauliflower because of the benefits from the compounds that give the vegetables the color.
Healthier than white or not, if its being colorful makes you and your family eat it, that's all the better!
Everyone nowadays is concerned about the environment. Big business is especially concerned with its image. It wants the valuable consumers that a good green image can bring.
To coordinate everything, the drink maker even created a whole division dedicated to collecting and recycling all of its waste packaging. Coca Cola Recycling just built a plant in South Carolina. The division says that the aluminum recycling initiative will use 95% less energy and reduce carbon emissions by 95% than creating new cans.
So here you go; another big company working to beef up its green image. I think it's great. A company as big as Coca Cola recycling all of its waste can make a huge impact on what goes in the landfills. It also makes a lot of business sense. So this kind of thing is a win-win for everyone.
If you pay any attention at all to celebrities or fashion or celebrity fashion, then you might know something about Anya Hindmarch's "I'm Not a Plastic Bag" bag that created quite a mad rush when they hit US stores. Many designers took advantage of the cheeky eco message, some simply creating more re-usable shopping bags, and others taking and tweaking the "I'm not a ___" message, like Decor Craft Inc., which has created the "I Am Not a Paper Cup" cup. Naturally, coffee mugs are reusable, but DCi's "I Am Not a Paper Cup" reminds coffee drinkers that even when taking coffee to go, you can help the eco cause by not using the disposable paper cups that will end up in landfill somewhere. The cups are porcelain with a silicone lid
The rush to go green is on for big industry (well, a lot of them). The food industry is no different. Brill is being awarded the 2007 Energy Saver Award by the U.S. Department of Energy's Industrial Technologies Program. The company has saved more than 2.2 million kilowatt hours by upgrading a couple systems at their Tucker, GA plant. The upgrades resulted in about a 50% reduction in energy consumption for that plant.
For those readers who don't follow industrial food manufacturers, Brill one of the largest bakery suppliers in the U.S. I personally am not a big fan, preferring instead to either make my own frosting or get a cake from a high-end bakery that wold not use Brill. There are, however, many people who do enjoy Brill products, or at least the bakeries which use those products. Now the bakeries that use Brill products can be proud to support such an eco-friendly manufacturer.
You can read more about it here. The best part is that the actual award, presented at a 2008 industry even, is made from 100% recycled glass!
I was getting off the bus on my way to a craft swap, and I was mind-numbingly sleep-deprived. I needed coffee immediately and almost cried with happiness when I saw the sign outside the new electric car dealership. "Hip Drip Cafe," or something. Whatever. They had coffee.
I bought a cup and started feeling guilty when I got to the airpots to fill up. There was a sign encouraging patrons to bring their own cups -- you'd save 25 cents -- and I've been really working to reduce my waste lately. I mentally reminded myself to bring the cup home, so I could compost it and recycle the plastic lid. I grabbed the lid and... discovered Tater Ware.
Tater Ware is, as the cup lid indicates, made of potatoes. They are 100% biodegradable and, if you're worried about those things, GMO free. In addition to the to go cup lid I had on my coffee, the company makes clamshell takeout containers, deli trays, cutlery, and hot/cold cups. The products are "microwarmable" (you can use them to reheat food and beverages in the microwave) and, yep, they can go straight in the compost pile.
Most importantly, my coffee did not have a potato-ey aftertaste. My next campaign: convincing my neighborhood coffee shop to switch to Tater Ware. Someone's got to keep Idaho in business!
There really isn't anything that special about this following list of recipes for vodka cocktails, other than the eco-inspired names and the fact that they are made with 360 Vodka, a brand new, environmentally friendly premium vodka. 360 Vodka is made entirely from American grain and bottled using 85% recycled glass and biodegradable packaging. The manufacturer, McCormick, is setting aside $1 for every 360 Vodka bottle closure returned through its unique "360 Close the Loop" program that will allow it to support recognized environmental organizations. Recipes for Green Princess, Green-tini, Enviromintz, Green House Gas, and Eco-tini after the jump:
Not that I would ever turn down a real mojito, but if for some reason I had to eat a dessert instead of drinking a cocktail, I'd love this Mojito Cupcake, from food blog Vegan Yum Yum. The recipe in on the blog post, but as a summary, the cake is a modified version of the golden vanilla cupcake recipe from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Soymilk was infused with traditional mojito flavors, mint and lime juice, rum and lime zest were added to the batter, and the frosting wass flavored with dark rum. The natural garnish is, of course, a wedge of lime (though a sprig of mint would be pretty, too!)
Of course we know that Earth day should be every day, but sometimes a special day like Earth Day, which is Sunday, April 22, is a good reminder to take good care of this planet on which we live.
One way to do that, aside from choosing earth-friendly chocolate when indulging, is by using bamboo kitchenware. Bamboo is a plant that grows quickly, which means it is highly renewable, which means it works for sustainable living. Anything in your kitchen or on your dining table that is plain old "wood," you can switch to bamboo -- serving trays, salad bowls, dinner plates, and cutting boards. And what a lovely thing that bamboo looks so pretty, too.
Walk into the cheese section of any market, especially at an upscale gourmet-type store, and you are going to see a tremendous variety of cheeses available. And that selection doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of the number of cheeses that are out there. It can be difficult to figure out the differences between each product until you've tried all of them, but here is a quick guide to cheese terminology that might help you sort through the basic types of cheese.
Fresh - High moisture cheeses that have not been aged, like cottage cheese, cream cheese, feta, mascarpone and ricotta.
Soft-Ripened - These have hard rinds and soft interiors, like brie and camembert. They often have edible rinds made by "spraying the cheese with Penicillium candidum mold before a brief aging period."
Semi-Soft - Cheeses that are neither hard, nor runny, but that are high in moisture and creamy in texture, like Monterey Jack, fontina or havarti. They are often easy to grate and slice.
Firm/Hard - Less creamy than soft cheeses, but ranging in texture from slightly elastic to brittle. These are also good grating cheeses and tend to melt well. The category includes Asiago, cheddar, Gruyere, Swiss and Parmesan.
We looked at a couple of spinach alternatives last week, but with the new warnings against lettuce, we're starting to reevaluate some of our salad options. After all, it is always good to have a backup plan, even though no one has become sick as a result of contaminated lettuce at this time. NPR has several suggestions for alternatives to typical salad greens. Their picks include arugula, baby bok choi, swiss chard, collard greens, watercress, cabbage and brussel sprout petals. Chef Patrick O'Connell came up with recipes for all of these alternatives, too.
The only potential drawback of this list is that most of the salads/sides are actually hot dishes, and not what you would necessarily expect to stand in for a pre-dinner salad. Fortunately, with fall and winter on the way, a warm salad can be very satisfying and this is a good opportunity to try a few new greens in a new way, such as Braised Baby Bok Choy or Brussel Sprout Petals with Coriander Vinaigrette.
Have you ever stashed a Coke in the freezer, hoping to chill it quickly, then forgotten all about it, only to have it explode all over your frozen peas?
The feature story this week is on the "greening" of Chicago, with farmers' markets returning to new locations with sustainable produce. The Tribune shares some tips for shopping at the farmers' market, as well as recipes from cookbooks that focus on market fresh produce: Scallops with three peas and prosciutto from Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, Savory mashed potatoes with garden herbs from Rosalind Creasy's Recipes from the Garden, Butter Lettuce Salad from Fresh, and Watercress, snow pea and shiitake mushroom stir-fry from The Farm to Table Cookbook: The Art of Eating Locally.
Everyone nowadays is concerned about the environment. Big business is especially concerned with its image. It wants the valuable consumers that a good 
The rush to go 
I was getting off the bus on my way to a craft swap, and I was mind-numbingly sleep-deprived. I needed coffee immediately and almost cried with happiness when I saw the sign outside the new electric car dealership. "Hip Drip Cafe," or something. Whatever. They had coffee.
Walk into the cheese section of any market, especially at an upscale gourmet-type store, and you are going to see a tremendous variety of cheeses available. And that selection doesn't even come close to scratching the surface of the number of cheeses that are out there. It can be difficult to figure out the differences between each product until you've tried all of them, but here is a 
We looked at a couple of 
A fraking amazing Battlestar Galactica cake
Iced Tea 101
Pierogies + cheese + onions + kraut = Parmageddon!
