Day Two-- Let's Do Some Trash Talking!

     Today's subject is trash, kind of appropriate as this is the night I take my trash to the curb.  In the past, I used to look at my pile with a great pride, especially the trash night after a big holiday. I would see trash containers spilling out up and down my street and then give myself a big pat on my own back for our one can of trash with nothing spilling out and our HUGE pile of recycling.  "Oh look at all that recycling, you are one recyclin' fool, you are!" I would say to myself.  Until one day it hit me... I WAS a recycling fool. I was foolish to think that putting out a great big pile of recycling was something that should make me feel proud.  Making very little trash AND very little recycling was something to really aspire to.
     So I embarked on a wild and wonderful trash journey, which I continue on today. I started a compost bin, which in a household of vegetarians, turned into many compost bins!  My garden thanks me for it every year.  I started shopping differently. First of all, I vowed to never buy another bottled water. We bring water with us in mason jars in a soft-sided cooler when we are out and about and it works great. We try not to buy juice boxes (we did get weak while on a long car trip to Florida and one to Chicago, I'll admit it) and when we buy juice, we buy frozen juice in the little containers instead of the ones in the gigantic bottles. We do a lot of bulk shopping, and I found that most places will let you bring your own jars and weigh them before you fill them so you don't have to use those plastic bags. This is great because I buy the amount I want to store and don't have to repackage it when I get home. I also learned to bring my funnel with me because there was the "great couscous disaster of 2011" in aisle 8 that one time. Embarrassing.
     I shifted to cooking from scratch more, including making our bread (not nearly as hard as I expected it to be), reusing jars and bags. I learned to make cool tote bags by cutting off a tshirt's sleeves and sewing the bottom shut. A kid's shirt takes up very little room in a purse, so I always have a bag handy and I get to appreciate old favorite tshirts long after they are outgrown by the kids.  I shopped our house for all those free tote bags that I got over the years and put them in one place. They make great lunch bags.
      We have become trash-free lunch black belts in our house. We start off with our tote bags. We put yogurt in a small jar, have glass containers for our salads and entrees. We *gasp* take real silverware and cloth napkins (made from an old worn out sheet, but hey, it was a Ralph Lauren sheet, and it was only 25 cents at a garage sale because it had a tear).  My roundhouse kick to trashy lunches was discovering stainless steel straws for the kids! They came with a tiny little brush and are dishwasher safe and they. are. awesome.  Any fruit rinds come home in the yogurt jar for composting--take that, trashy lunch!
     I decided to take the plunge today, in honor of trash day, and start something new that I had been putting off... vermicomposting. Indoors.  I know, worms. Sounds gross, stinky, way too granola. But while out at the discovery center at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, I saw that they were vermicomposting with a gadget called Can O'Worms. I put it on my birthday list and forgot about it.  My supersweet Husband, Matt, actually got it for me!  But, it sat, unopened from July until today (yes, my head hangs in shame). My generous and brilliant neighbor, Ann, offered me a herd of composting worms! I quickly prepared their future home.

Preparing the coconut coir bedding 

Look at those glorious Red Wigglers

Ann, proud worm mama and my generous benefactor

Then I headed over and gratefully received my worms (funny, usually it is not a  good thing to get worms). I am all set up and ready to begin my experiment with vermicomposting in my basement. Thank you NIW Challenge, Matt and Ann!

     Where do I need to really look to making changes related to trash? I work weekends, and I notice that come Monday morning, there is usually some leftovers or produce gone bad that needs to be thrown out or composted. I need to pay careful attention Friday night to freeze large amounts of leftovers and prepare produce for the family or cut it up and freeze it for use later in the week. I would also like to learn to make our yogurt, which would cut down on a lot more packaging,

     I hate to say it, but I am squeamish about switching to different, less wasteful types of  feminine protection.  I need to look into that with a more open mind. There are a lot of different options, even including ones with less packaging or even recyclable packaging, which wouldn't be as big a deal as switching to a Diva cup or the moon cup.

Fun trash tidbit for Day two:

What about too brown bananas? Just throw them in your freezer, right in their skins!  Then defrost them and squish them into this delicious recipe.  The best part? This recipe is also freezable, so you don't have to worry about eating the whole cake at once (ummmmm, I never have that problem.)

 Granny Shanny Bananny Bars 

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup yogurt (I use lowfat vanilla, plain would work just as well)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour (even better, 1/4 cup of ground flax seed and 1 3/4 cups ww flour---yummy!)

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cinnamon

3 medium bananas smooshed (I freeze them in their peels when they go brown and just nuke them for 10 seconds when I need them.  Then they squeeze out like tooth paste, already mashed for your pleasure)

Frosting:

1 package of cream cheese (8 oz.)

1/2 cup butter or margarine softened

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 3/4 - 4 cups confectioners' sugar 

1.  Mix 1/2 cup butter, softened and 1 1/2 cups sugar.

2. Add 2 eggs, 1 cup yogurt, and 1 tsp vanilla.

3. Mix in 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 Tbsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp salt

4.Mix in 3 medium bananas smooshed.

5. Pour into a greased 9" x 13" baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 min. A toothpick inserted in center should come out clean.

6.  Let cool and proceed to frosting it in the pan.

7. Beat cream cheese, 1/2 cup butter or margarine softened and 2 tsp vanilla extract

8. mix in 3 3/4-4 cups confectioners' sugar until desired consistency

9.  lick beater like no one is watching.

10. Spread over top and enjoy! (Refrigerate this cake as it has cream cheese frosting, and it is really good  cold) Freeze it right in the pan if it has a lid, and enjoy it later! If you can resist it's temptation!

Recipe time!

     Being winter and all, baking has been a frequently occurring event for the Hoffman homestead.  Besides goodies ( mmmmm, goodies) there has been bread baking as well!  I never in a million years thought I would be able to bake all of our family's bread, but for more than a month now I have been doing just that!  Prior to this, we had been eating Giant eagle's light wheat bread, which lists an insane amount of fiber in its nutrition data (more than all those super chunky grainy breads even, which always made me think it must be a typo).  It was fairly healthy compared to many products, especially since two slices were a serving size and other breads are one slice = one serving.  Still, I found ingredients listed that I couldn't pick out in a crowd and knew that many were probably preservatives as that bread stayed fresh for a long time.  So, I embarked on a quest to find a recipe that met my general recipe criteria: very few ingredients, healthy ingredients, inexpensive ingredients, easy to make, will actually be eaten by my family.
     I fiddled around with different concoctions, tweaking as I went and this is what I have come up with so far.  Here's the thing with making big changes, it is best done incrementally for me.  So, at first I baked bread for a treat, still using store bought bread for sandwiches until I found a recipe that met my demands.  I started off with a mostly white bread and substituted whole wheat more and more until I got to a point where the bread still sliced well for children's sandwiches and didn't weigh 12 pounds.   Now, I know I could go more wheaty, and most likely will as time goes on, but currently I am satisfied with this ratio because it allows me to make a bread without added oils (although I typically add a mist of olive oil to the crust) and 1/2 tsp. sugar per loaf.  That is great.  We eat all whole grain pasta, brown rice, oats, etc... so we do routinely get other whole grains in our diet.  I may try using honey instead of sugar next time and see how that goes but 1/2 tsp. is really minute.  I bought an inexpensive food processor with a big bowl and dough blade and it takes about 5 minutes to make this.  I still knead it for a short time because this is a sticky loaf and then I can add just enough flour at the end, telling by feel when it is right.  I have made this with my ancient kitchen aid mixer and it works up similarly with just longer kneading time in the machine.  It can be made by hand, but that is a labor of love and would not allow me the time to make the 4 or more loaves we need every week.  I make two batches individually, but then put it together when I knead and do the first two risings.  I freeze one of the baked loaves until we need it and it defrosts easily on the counter.  I make the dough about 9:30 in the morning and it bakes around 3 pm, but my house has been about 62 degrees, so maybe this will be faster in the summer.  So here it is:

Hoffman Homestead Bread

(Makes one loaf,  directions for food processor)

1 1/2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees)

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 TBSP active dry yeast

1/2 TBSP salt

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups all-purpose flour 

1.  put 1/2 tsp sugar and add 1 1/2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees, which is my tap water when run to its hottest).

2.  Sprinkle 1/2 TBSP active dry yeast over the water and wait for one minute before mixing gently (I use a chopstick so less surface for the yeast to stick to).  This should proof for at least 5 minutes and be frothy and yeasty smelling.  Here is a link to an article on proofing yeast.

3.  Put about 2/3 of the flour and the yeast-water into the processor and pulse for about 30 sec.  I let it sit while I gather my trusty old cookie sheet with a little flour sprinkled on it and a large bowl greased with olive oil.  

4.  I add 1/2 TBSP salt and pulse for about 15 seconds.

5.  Add the remaining flour and pulse for about 45 seconds.  Then I dump it onto my floured cookie sheet .

6.  I knead it, adding a little flour here and there if I stick to it.  I knead it until it is "as smooth as a bambino's behind"  which is how one recipe author described it and I find it a rather accurate description.  The cookie sheet keeps the flour in one spot and makes for fast clean up.  Here is a link to an article on kneading bread dough.

7.  Put the dough into the oiled bowl.  I wet a tea towel and cover the top of the bowl with it.  Since it is cold here, I put it in the oven (oven is off!!!!!!!)  with just the light bulb on, as it creates some heat and helps it rise faster.  Wait until it doubles in size, depending on the temperature and barometer (rises faster during stormy weather) it will be an hour +.

8.  Punch the dough down, recover (moisten towel if dried out) and rise again as before.

9.  Punch down and shape into a loaf.  Here is a video on shaping dough. Put into an oiled loaf pan and recover with the tea towel.  Let rise again until it is an inch above the pan.

10.  Heat oven to 450 degrees and bake for 15 minutes.  Lower temp to 350 and finish up for 15 more minutes.  The top should be golden and the crust should have a hollow sound when tapped (especially after you turn the loaf out and tap the bottom.  Before I turn it out, I give a light spritz with my olive oil mister to the top of the bread, but that is just my preference as it keeps the top sort of soft.  I turn the bread out onto a cooling rack and try to let it cool on its side without eating it all!

     This next recipe is modified from a recipe my Grandmother had.  I suspect that it would work well substituting most of the butter with applesauce, but haven't yet tried it.  This is a great recipe because, if you only want a little, it freezes really well.  It reminds me of sara lee frozen banana cake from my youth, which we ate frozen and right out of the carton.

                                                                   Granny Shanny Bananny Bars 

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup yogurt (I use lowfat vanilla, plain would work just as well)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbsp cinnamon

3 medium bananas smooshed (I freeze them in their peels when they go brown and just nuke them for 10 seconds when I need them.  Then they squeeze out like tooth paste, already mashed for your pleasure)

Frosting:

1 package of cream cheese (8 oz.)

1/2 cup butter or margarine softened

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 3/4 - 4 cups confectioners' sugar 

1.  Mix 1/2 cup butter, softened and 1 1/2 cups sugar.

2. Add 2 eggs, 1 cup yogurt, and 1 tsp vanilla.

3. Mix in 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 2 Tbsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp salt

4.Mix in 3 medium bananas smooshed.

5. Pour into a greased 9" x 13" baking pan and bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 min. A toothpick inserted in center should come out clean.

6.  Let cool and proceed to frosting it in the pan.

7. Beat cream cheese, 1/2 cup butter or margarine softened and 2 tsp vanilla extract

8. mix in 3 3/4-4 cups confectioners' sugar until desired consistency

9.  lick beater like no one is watching.

10. Spread over top and enjoy! (Refrigerate this cake as it has cream cheese frosting, and it is really good  cold)

Old School Kettle Corn

1/4 cup veg oil

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 cup popcorn kernels

 Put 1/4 cup veg oil in a large pot with cover and drop 3 corn kernels in it.  When all 3 have popped, pour in 1/3 cup sugar and 1/2 cup popcorn kernels.  Cover and shake the pan in a jiffy pop style until the popping stops.  Quickly (the sugar will very quickly burn once the popping stops) and carefully (ever get hot melted sugar on your skin?  You won't soon forget the experience!) pour the contents into a clean paper grocery bag and salt as desired, close bag and shake.  Enjoy!!!

Now I have to make veggie swedish meatballs again so I can write down a rough estimate of what I did.  I totally winged it last time and will have to try hard to recreate it!