Friday Favorites

These are some of my favorite blogs to follow lately

Chiot's Run 
Susy gardens in N.E. Ohio, and her blog is simple and beautiful. She takes breathtaking photos of everyday life in the garden, and I look forward to each post!


homesprout 
This is a new blog for me- I just stumbled upon it recently. Allison, blog owner, writes about her efforts towards a "homemade" life. I'm excited to catch up and see more posts from homesprout.


100 Days of Real Food 
Lisa's blog at 100 Days of Real Food started off as a family challenge- to go 100 days without each processed foods, and focus on real and whole foods. I've enjoyed reading through the experiences, which I can really relate to, and I'm glad she's kept blogging 

Civil Eats
This is a great website, devoted to a whole assortment of blogs on topics close to my heart: local eats, young farmers unite, rooftop gardens. In addition to their themes, they also share a lot of relevant information about food systems, both locally and nation-wide, as well as relevant legislation and advocacy around eating, agriculture, & food.

What are your favorite blogs to follow? I'm always on the look-out for new blogs!

Shopping small-scale: Grocery shopping with intention

Because I make a concerted effort to buy locally and in season, I make several small trips for groceries each week. I don't mind, and in fact I enjoy the opportunity to buy fresh things every few days. I usually spend between $20-30 per trip, and try to get "ingredients", as my mom would say, so I am ready to make a variety of dishes.

My grocery haul for the day 

When our Downtown Ypsi Farmers' Market starts back up, I'll shop there each week, but in the off-season, I head to the Ann Arbor FM, or like today, the Ypsi Food Co-op. If you have a food co-operative near you, I suggest you check it out.

Co-ops often have competetive pricing to larger box stores, and a great focus on sourcing local products and produce. Their focus on quality, healthy food is inspiring, and their desire to provide local options and source products from local businesses both large and small means I will always be a loyal customer there.

When I head to the co-op for a grocery run, I start by heading straight to the produce section and looking to see what's locally-grown. The fruits and veggies I purchase will form the basis of my meals, so I like to get inspiration in the produce aisle to start. This week I found locally-grown spinach, baby bok choy, basil, a variety of herbs, beets, radishes, arugula, as well as some storage apples- whoa!! I picked out bok choy, which I'll use in soba noodle soup, basil to flavor various dishes, spinach for one of my favorite salads, and Fuji apples which I will bring to work for a snack. 

Over in the Dairy aisle, I'm always greeted with a variety of local and healthy choices of milk, cheese, and yogurt. I always pick up milk from Calder Dairy, and I like to get cheese for an afternoon snack. Eggs, tofu and other refrigerated items are in this aisle as well, and although I get my eggs farm-delivered, the co-op's eggs help to tide me over when I've run out too early.

On the bread rack is a variety of bread products, both local and not- I enjoy the Barry Bagels from Ann Arbor, and today I chose some Scallion and Dill bread from Avalon Bakery in Detroit (it's delicious!).  The bread will be toasted with some jam for breakfasts this week!

The bulk food section at your local food co-op is an inspiring place to go. Beans, rice, cornmeal, flour, granola mixes, nuts, herbs & spices, coffee, and looseleaf teas are just some of the items you'll find there. On this trip, I got some polenta meal to replenish my stocks- polenta is a quick dinner meal, and easy to customize to my liking.

My last stop is the soap aisle, where I fill up our bottle of Dr. Bronners soap, as needed. I'm pretty sure we've had that bottle for 4 years! There is also bulk shampoo & hand soap, so I bring in our soap dispenser to refill those things too. It's a bit cheaper to refill than it is to buy, and saving the use of a few bottles is nice as well.

Where do you do your grocery shopping? Have you found a natural foods store or a Co-op by you that meets your shopping needs?

Product Review: To-Go Ware Food Carriers & Bamboo Utensil Sets

Let's start by being honest with each other- I suck at bringing my lunch to work. How could someone suck at that? Let me tell you: I rarely remember to bring my lunch to work.

When I do, it is usually in a series of bpa-laden tupperware that I don't feel safe microwaving. Or I bring it in a mason jar, and forget to bring the jar home forever. My co-workers can attest to that.

But all that is changing, due in part to To-Go Ware, a great asset for having food on the go while conserving resources. To-Go Ware (founded in Ann Arbor!) produces a line of food carriers of different sizes, and bamboo utensil sets for carting your food around- to work, on trips, etc. I recently purchased the Snack Stack ($19.00) and the RePEat Utensil Set ($12.95), and I am loving them.

The Snack Stack is the smallest food carrier system that To-Go Ware sells. I like it because it is light and fits in my bike panniers or a backpack easily. It's food-grade stainless steel, as are all the carriers made by To-Go Ware. The Snack Stack has 2 different containers that fasten together- to give you an idea of what size they are, the top tier holds 2 cups and the bottom tier holds 2.5 cups. The whole package is about 5" tall and 5" wide- cute, huh? It allows me to pack a variety of food, and so far the whole thing seems quite secure- no soup spilling out!

The RePEat Utentsil Set is pretty awesome as well. The utensils themselves are made with bamboo, and are easy to wash by hand or can go in the dishwasher. The utensil holder is made of recycled plastic bags- cool! The set comes with a fork, a knife, a spoon, and chopsticks- I love that it has chopsticks! My two favorite features- the utensil holder, which means there is less chance that I will loose all the utensils one by one, and the little carabiner that is on the back of the utensil holder- even harder to loose them-Yes!

As far as I can tell, To-Go Ware seems to be very into Fair Trade, and although the products are all made over-seas, they seem intentionally support businesses with strict fair labor standards and focus on high quality products. This review is just my 2 cents, and speaking of cents, I have not been paid or sponsored by To-Go Ware, I just like their products and I wanted to share. If you're looking to bring your lunch to work more often, in a healthy, earth-friendly way, OR you're looking to get take-out and avoid those styrofoam containers, check out a To-Go Ware Food Carrier!

Urban Homesteading

Ashes sent me a wiki entry on Homesteading-

"Currently the term 'homesteading'^[1] applies to anyone who is a limb of the back-to-the-land movement and who chooses to live a sustainable, self-sufficient lifestyle. While land is no longer freely available in most areas of the world, homesteading remains as a way of life. A new movement, called 'urban homesteading', can be viewed as a simple living lifestyle, incorporating small-scale agriculture, sustainable and permaculture gardening, and home food production and storage into suburban or city living."

I think this is roughly my goal. I'd like to produce some of my own food, turn most of my yard into either a) gardening space for growing food or b) native plant areas that mimic (somewhat) what plants might naturally grow here. I also am trying to eat "seasonally" or with seasons in mind. Of course, that's not as easy as it sounds. It doesn't even sound easy! But here's some of the things I've been working on:

• Trying to choose previously owned, sustainably-made or re-purposed furniture whenever possible. All that we bought new (furniture-wise) for this house was our bed frame and that was made by company that re-plants a tree for each one it uses, and uses parts of Rubber Trees that are going to be disposed of!

• Shopping at the farmer's market, Ypsilanti Food Co-op, or Whole Foods/Trader Joe's. That's where I get 90% of our groceries

• Canning and preserving food that is in-season now for the winter, when it will be unavailable

• Had my own community garden plot this year!

• I try to support local businesses whenever possible, whether its buying furniture, buying food, buying art, etc.

• Hope to transform my yard and leave only about 20% grass. The rest will be raised-bed gardens and native plant areas!

• 90% of the household products I buy (toilet-paper, cleaners, etc) are organic or non-toxic

• Used No-VOC paint (FreshAire from Home Depot) on most of the new rooms we painted!
  

In general, I try run everything I buy by this test: Is it either local or environmentally friendly (it's hard to find both!)?

Anyway that was a rant! Just meant to post some pictures of our latest canning adventure: Butternut Squash soup, Apple and Ginger Marmalade, and Apple butter! Yum!

Dining room done! Planning gardens :)

Finished painting the dining room yesterday!! Took us a few days because we kept falling asleep at like 10pm instead of painting :)

But we got it done! Here's some pics on the left:

I think the color (Northern Pear Tree, FreshAire paint) really highlights the woodwork that we really like! When we put on the first coat, I had paint buyer's remorse, haha, which I always seem to have after the first coat of paint, that "this is pretty gree-eeennn!" feeling. However, I think it looks pretty awesome. What can I say? We have a colorful house now!

Our goal this week was to get the office and the dining room painted. So hopefully we can knock out the office on Saturday or Sunday. I am really tired of taping already. If I never had to see that blue painters tape again.. I would be a happy girl.

Looks like I won't be too happy any time soon haha!



I had a really cool guy come over from the Michigan Native Plant Producers Association name Greg. His business is called the Native Plant Nursery, LLC in Ann Arbor. He came over and gave me some ideas about how to incorperate native plants into our front and back yards, and what native plants might go best where, since I am a gardening virgin.

I am so excited to use some of his ideas. I ordered a book from Amazon called, "Landscaping with Native Plants of Michigan", by Lynn M. Steiner, and that just got to my house a few days ago. That has been a great resource because it has pictures of some of the plants that Greg recommended! I think I'm going to try to get all the beds ready for ...composting or biodegrading or something? I don't know what the word is, but I am trying to replace some of the grass in my lawn with native plant beds, and then I'm going to use Ashley's raised-bed expertise to make one or two more beds for my fruits and veggies. I'd really like to grow a lot of my own produce!

Here's a list of some of the things I'd like to plant in the edible gardens:

Roma tomatoes
Raspberry bushes
Blueberry bushes
Strawberries
Peppers
Zucchini
Squash
Onions
Lettuce
Carrots
Herbs

Here are some of the plants I'm thinking about for the non-edible gardens:

Flower(ish) beds-
Columbine
Echinacea
Lupines
some kind of Phlox
Wild Geranium
Woodland Sunflower
Coral Bells
Beebalm (Wild Bergamot)
Foxglove Beardtongue
Little Bluestem
Indian Grass

Groundcover for the "pit of despair" next to the garage-
Creeping strawberry bush/Wild strawberry maybe
Flowering spurge
Cinquefoil
Black-eyed Susan
Pennsylvania sedge
Wild Ginger
Virgina creeper

I'm so excited!

All this planning has tired out the kitties- :)