Show the ocean your love

The old saying goes, "One man's trash is another man's treasure." But what if
one man's trash becomes another man's dinner?

That's a worry among some researchers, given that one of the world's largest garbage dumps is the regular feeding ground for many fish that, then, end up on cutting boards around the world.

So starts the report last week from Good Morning America on plastic finding its way into the bellies of sea life. While I caught part of it one morning last week, I finally had a moment to read the article, and I was appalled.

The worst quote? "We filleted it, opened the stomach and ... there were 17 fragments of plastic." Just the idea of it makes me cringe.

Sure, it's easy to dismiss as someone else littering causing this, but the reality is lots of someones have contributed to a very large problem. And it will take lots of someones to make a dent in this problem.

So what can you do? Well, the obvious things are to reduce your plastic and not to litter. But there's more.

Fake Plastic Fish offers a few ways to show the ocean - and your love - your love this Valentine's Day by reducing your plastic. Among them:

• Bring your reusable bag when you go shopping.
• Choose a non-plastic wrapped gift to show your love. (OK, Beth's original post said "plastic gift," but it just doesn't sing romance to me.)
• Wrap your gift in a reusable packaging.
• Enjoy a romantic walk on the beach.
• If you eat out, order sustainable seafood and bring your own container for leftovers.

If you want my two cents instead, go ultra-romantic and package-free. Make a homemade candlelit dinner and give your sweetie a massage!

One month down...

It's hard to believe we're already a week into February. Time flies when you're sleep-deprived!

So how am I doing on my resolutions for 2009? Here's my confessional:

Curb my passion for paper: D. Um, well, to be honest, a 38-or so page site map project at work, and all of its requisite revisions and approvals, isn't helping my problem. (Unfortunately my office hasn't caught on to the fact you can set PDFs for comments.) To tell the truth, I spent two hours on a Saturday sorting and recycling and filing in my office to no avail. But you now have a less trecherous path to my dusty Mac, if needed.

Grow a little more: A. We're working on plans for this year's garden, and my lovely husband is already trying to figure out where to put in raised beds. (We're not allowed to have just a garden plot in our subdivision!) We've got the order ready to place as soon as the details are worked out, and I'm trying to figure out how to fix my pH in my yard so I can grow blueberries for my other two required bushes. (Hint: Contact your extension office if you're stumped about growing, too!)

Give greener: B. My one gift-giving occasion involved maybe not the greenest gift, but I get points for a second life for gift wrap and a homemade card.

Plan my menus: C. I've tried, we just hadn't stuck to it the last two weeks due to other distractions in life.

Spend wiser: B. I've had a few oops'es, including a sanity lunch that I probably shouldn't have splurged on but did. And the Diet Coke thing isn't budging yet. But overall, I'm buying fewer things that we don't need in the pantry.

How are you doing on your resolutions?

Smile for Saturday

As I'm spending much of this unseasonably warm Saturday afternoon trying to get not one but both kids down for a desperately needed (for all of us!) nap, I'm trying hard to focus on what I love most of them in the midst of my frustrations.

So I leave you with the one lesson I learned this week. Each day my kids go to daycare while my husband is unavailable to watch them, we have a routine on the way home when we talk about what we did that day. Usually it's a laundry list of who hit who, what was eaten for snack and what was discussed during "preschool time."

On Tuesday, the topic of note was Groundhog Day. I asked my daughter what groundhogs did.

She said, "They faint on their tushies."

Yep. Six more weeks of winter would make anyone pass out!

Enjoy your weekend!

Seasonal salads for February

The throw-it-together method of cooking is nothing new in my family, but I’m always amazed with the results.

Sunday my husband came up with a fabulous lunch for us to enjoy. The entrée was leftover chicken and apple sauces sautéed with sliced onions and a little Worchestshire sauce in olive oil.

The accompanying salad was to die for. It was based on Emeril’s recipe for Arurugla Salad with Blood Orange Vinaigrette.

What’s a blood orange? It’s an orange with flesh closer to the color of the darkest grapefruit. And it’s in season right now, though like most citrus, it’s likely being shipped into your area.

Of course, he adapted this recipe to whatever we had on hand:

A 5-oz package of arugula
½ yellow onion, thinly sliced
2-3 cups sliced fresh baby portobellos (at our stores the prices are similar to the average white mushroom
Red pepper flakes
2 blood oranges – 1 peeled into pieces, the other squeezed for juice
Olive oil
One large shallot
Dijon mustard
Sugar
Champagne vinegar

The vinaigrette was poured together to taste from juice from one of the blood oranges, shallots, Dijon mustard, a bit of sugar, olive oil and Champagne vinegar. (How we had Champagne vinegar in our kitchen, I have absolutely no idea.)

The arugula, remaining blood orange onion were tossed.

The mushrooms were sautéed with the red pepper flakes in the olive oil then tossed on the salad.

It’s definitely worth trying. And if you require actual proportions, here’s Emeril’s original recipe.

We also did a second seasonal salad using a couple of pears, lettuce, walnuts and dried cranberries, though I can tell you the kids picked off the toppings in no time. If you're needing actual proportions and don't feel comfortable with the what we've got, we'll use approach, visit Meals Matter for a recipe for an Anjou Pear salad that's close to what we made.

Photo from Wikipedia.

How does your garden grow?

No sooner than the Christmas catalogs stop coming than the garden ones take their place.

And as soon as they arrive, those garden catalogs get strewn over the house as wish lists are written. The funny thing is, it's not just my husband and I checking them out. My 3 year old insists on flipping through the catalogs as well and placing her "orders." I figure, if she's interested then I have a helper!

A few weeks ago, I asked her what she wanted to plant this year in the garden. Her answers:

"More" strawberries
Apples
Tomatoes. (I was informed that "growed tomatoes" make her happy but "not growed" - off the vine and on her plate - make her sad!)
Pears
Beans
Carrots
Flowers

Last weekend, we started some of our shopping for this year's seeds at Botanical Interests. My daughter's gardening wish list for 2009 has since evolved to:

"Rainbow carrots" (I have to admit, they are kind of cool.)
Multicolor beans (She saw a packet of yellow, green and purple bush beans online.)
Shallots (!)

Gardening is not going to be cheap for this one! Hopefully she will be just as interested in the growing process this year.