Please use reusable bags!

Why oh why do I still see so many people leaving the stores with plastic bags? Reusable bags are easy, convenient, and so much better for the world.

These are the best bags for grocery shopping I have the Pastel String bags and Stephen has the Neutral ones. 5 bags with a stuff sack to keep them all in they are perfect to keep in the car for all your shopping needs. I like the short handles best.

For produce I love my mesh bags I bought from here. They are the perfect size and they store in their own stuff sack which I have attached to my string bags stuff sack. They are see through and durable but could be considered on the small size. A couple of extra large ones would be a good idea to complete the set.

I also love to buy from the bulk section, no wasted packaging. For my bulk purchases I have these wonderful bags. They hold anything I need.

I have 2 of these that I love for throwing in my purse when I go into any store.

The bags above are just a few of the thousands of options you have in reusable bags. The trick is to really think about what you will use them for and buy accordingly. Here are 2 great places to start your search for reusable bags.

reusablebags.com

Etsy.com

Lunch Box

I spent today looking for an eco-friendly lunch box for the kids. I am thinking with our new schedual it would be best for me to pack them a lunch on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday because we are usually out until lunch time. If I had something to easily pack a lunch for them in it would make my outings much easier. We already have a few things like our Klean Kanteens, some wrap-n-mats, and some other fabric sandwich wraps from Etsy. I love all of these things but I wanted a cohesive set that I can use to make lunches. I really like the Bento Box idea but I was not keen on plastic. From the reviews I read I do not think my kids could use it effectively, not to mention all the pieces I know that they would end up lost.


Today though I found this from Planetbox.



I am loving it and can not wait to get one for each of my kids.Basicaly it is a one piece Bento Box. The magnet are super cute as well (I just love the rainbow one).


I am hoping that they will last the kids a long time maybe even through elemtary school. They have a 5 year warranty on them which when you look at it it is only $12 a year if spread out over 5 years. Plus they are likely to last longer then that. It even has a carrying case that will fit our Kleen Kanteens. I just wish they had more colors to choose from in the carrying case.

Meatout Mondays

I heard about this through a blog of a friend here.
I would love to see more people go meatless and Meatout Mondays is a good way to start. TO learn more about why meat is unhealthy for both you and the environment click here and be sure to sign up for Meatout Mondays. If you need any suggestions for good meals try these check out my recipes here.

Salad

One thing I love about Texas is the long growing season. Right now we have everything for salad right in out backyard.

Here are the cucumbers. We even have some peppers still growing. We also have onions and peas in this box.

Here we have different types of lettuce, some carrots, and radish. We also have some broccoli plants just starting.

These boxes have our 4 artichoke plants and our strawberries.

Our other two boxes have eggplant, more carrots, celery, and squash growing. I just love the garden. It is a great learning experience for the kids and it saves me so much money.

No more canned beans

We eat a lot of beans here, mostly because of our vegetarian diet. Two things concern me about canned beans the sodium level and the chemicals used in the can that leach into the food and consequently into our bodies. Until now I have just used canned beans because I always thought it was hard to make beans. Well I decided to give it a try this weekend. After doing some research on line I thought it would be easiest to use the crock pot. The beans turned out great and I can not wait to try another kind next week.

This week I made black beans since they are what we eat the most of. First I rinsed and sorted the dried beans. I then placed the beans in the crock pot with a lot of water. I set the crock pot on high for one hour and then set it to low for 5 hours. I checked on the beans periodically to make sure there was still plenty of water in them and they were not too soft. They turned out great. I divided them into four portions and froze three of them. I used the fourth for dinner.
I will no longer be using canned beans in our house.


A little side note:
I am a vegetarian and I have been for about 14 years now. I do not cook meat in fact I do not even know how to cook meat. Just because I do not eat meat does not mean that the rest of my family are vegetarians. Stephen can cook meat whenever he wants to, although he never does. Andon has turkey sandwiches sometimes and eats meat when we are out. I believe in giving my kids choices and letting them decide what is right for them. It does not matter to me if they choose to be a vegetarian or not, I just hope they make healthy choices.

Dinner

Dinner
Last night I picked some things out of my garden for dinner. I love it when I get to use fresh veggies and herbs for dinner. We are currently having a tomato and pepper overload in our garden so I decided to make some veggie sandwiches.

I cut everything up and cooked the onion and pepper in a little olive oil. I chopped up the basil and mixed it with some mayonnaise. I spread the mayonnaise on the outside of the bread. Then I layered cheese, tomatoes, pepper and onions in the sandwich. Stephen then grilled the sandwiches for about 5 minutes on each side.

Add some milk, banana, and veggie chips and we had a delicious meal.

Andon of course picked out the peppers and onion and just ate the cheese.

Our Garden

With spring here our garden is growing strong. Stephen just made me two more garden boxes so I have twice as much room. Currently everything is crammed into two boxes but now I am expanding to the other two boxes. I have picked a handful of strawberries today and soon we will have tomatoes and squash. There is nothing better then fresh fruits and veggies from your own garden.

Carrot Cookies

Andon and I tried a recipe for carrot cookies the other day. They are very good more like little cakes then cookies but delicious. So I wanted to post the recipe. I made a few changes from = the original recipe in order to use what I had in the house.

Carrot Cookies
1 cup Butter
1 cup Sugar
1 tablespoon Orange Juice
1 Egg
1.5 - 2 cups grated Carrots
2 2/3 cups Flour
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
3/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg

Cream the Butter and Sugar. Add Egg and Orange Juice. Combine Flour, Baking Powder, Cinnamon, and Nutmeg. Add the flour mixture and the carrots alternately to the butter mixture. Mix to form dough. Drop by teaspoon onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 or 12-14 minutes.

I have found that a batch of almost any cookies is to much for our family at once. Instead of baking all of the cookies I scoop out the dough to make cookies but I then freeze the scoops. Once they are frozen I place them in a container which I keep in the freezer. When ever we want cookies I just heat up the oven and pull out the frozen cookies.

Garden

Our garden is growing well. I hope next year to have a better plan so we have vegetables ready to pick all the time. It all takes planning and this year I just planted stuff for fun with out much thought. I am finding though that I do not have enough room for all I want to grow and I am thinking I need more garden space. In fact I think I need a whole backyard makeover especially when it comes to our patio. I was hopping to get some work done in my yard while my sister was here but so far it has been very rainy.

Andon’s favorite lunch

Lunch is always a big decision I get tired of grilled cheese and I want to be sure I am making something healthy and giving Andon variety. So I found a recipe to try and after adjusting it to my taste I have a good lunch recipe both Andon and I like.

Veggie Nuggets

1 cup chopped fresh or frozen veggies (we like carrots and broccoli)
1 cup shredded cheese
3 slices whole wheat bread
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoon water

Heat oven to 375° F. Cut up the bread into very small pieces. Mix all ingredients in a bowl. Form the mixture into nuggets and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 20-25 min.
Let cool and enjoy with some ranch for dipping.

Organic eating

Eating organic is one of my biggest goals this year. As I started researching natural living I discovered how many pesticides and chemicals are in the food we eat. Eating organic is not just for your body but the environment as well. Organic food is made without chemicals so there are no chemicals washing into the ground and rivers. Plus there are no chemicals entering your body.

I really thought we were eating healthy. We always ate fresh fruits and veggies and I made sure we had lots of protein and grains in our diet. I would always get comments at work about the good food I brought. Rarely did I eat a TV dinner or go out for fast food. I guess in the large scale of how many Americans eat I was eating healthy but in reality I was not doing all I could do eat well.

When you realize you are shaping someone’s eating habits for the rest of their life you began to really look carefully at what you are doing. I decided we would have no more junk food sitting around the house. Although Stephen was not too pleased I stopped buying cookies and sugary snacks. Once we ate what we had it was gone and I was not going to buy more. If I really wanted cookies then I would make them at least then I knew what was going in to them and I could control the ingredients.

With our new budget eating out many times a week has ended. We now eat out about 2-3 times a month and other then that I cook dinner. This does not mean that I am spending hours everyday cooking. When we do have a frozen pizza or boxed pasta I make sure I have bought something with natural and organic ingredients. I do spend a lot of time now looking at the ingredients on packages and if I can not pronounce or I do not know what an ingredient is I tend to think again before buying it.

I am far from perfect and sometimes it is hard to find organic products so not everything we eat is organic. I do my best and I am lucky to have HEB which has a lot of organic products. Some things are more important to buy organic then others. I put dairy products (especially milk and eggs), fruits and vegetables, and baking supplies at the top of my list. Yes it can be more expensive to buy organic but the benefits are well worth it.
You do not have to change everything at once. I was way overwhelmed in January and February until I decided to give myself a year to go natural now I love every step because I do not feel rushed or forced. So I am asking you to try something little switch one or two things to organic and go from there. If we spend our money on organic products companies will began to understand that we do not want the chemical products in our body.