Category: SF

How to Pickle Anything Like a Pro – Infographic

Did you pick a peck of peppers with Peter Piper this summer? Pickling your summer harvest will not only preserve your bounty, but will also give it an entirely new and delicious flavor – not to mention all the added health benefits.

Pickling vegetables is a relatively easy task, but there are a few tips and tricks you can use to ensure pickling perfection. For starters, it is very important that you follow the recipe exactly. If you alter the quantities you risk the spread of spoilage-causing bacteria. It is also important to clean all cooking utensils and jars in hot, soapy water.

There are also some ingredients that are better suited for pickling than others. If you don’t have access to garden-fresh vegetables, make sure you select produce that appears blemish-free and crisp. Keep in mind if you wish to pickle cucumbers, there are different varieties. Pass on salad cucumbers or ones that are waxed and look for pickling cucumbers.

When making pickling brine, opt for pickling salt over standard table salt. The iodine found in table salt will darken your pickles and the anticaking agents can cause your brine to appear cloudy. Using cider and malt vinegars can also darken light-colored vegetables. You can avoid this by using commercial white vinegar with less than 5% acidity. If you prefer your pickles sour, use vinegar with 7% acidity.

Once you have gathered all the necessary ingredients you can begin the pickling process. Stainless steel bowls and pots are best suited for these recipes. You want avoid containers and utensils with copper, iron, zinc, or brass because they may react with the salt and acidic vinegar.

Use our easy-to-follow guide below to ensure you don’t land yourself in a pickling pickle. Don’t forget to send a jar to Peter; he did do all the picking, after all.

how to pickle anything like a pro

Infographic and Article courtesy of Fix.com

15 Effective Ways To Make Your Home Energy Efficient – Infographic

If you thought the great BP oil spill of 2010 wasted a lot of energy, then you should realize that 75,000 average American households squander just as much energy every year. This stunning fact helps you get a better perspective about the enormous amount of energy wasted by the U.S. In fact, Americans waste 130 billion dollars of energy annually, which is enough energy to provide power to the entire United Kingdom for seven years.

Something needs to be done about this situation because it affects everyone. Fortunately, there are many things that you can do as a responsible global citizen in order to help put an end to this massive amount of waste as per this infographic by 99SmartHomes. First, there are a lot of daily habits that you can adopt that will allow you to not use quite so much energy every day. In addition, there are also a lot of eco-friendly products now available on the marketplace that will help you to control the total amount of your personal energy usage.

15 Effective ways to make your home energy efficient

The Holy Trinity of Modern Day Housing: Environmentally Friendly, Sustainable, and Energy Efficient Houses

We no longer worry about whether our home is keeping up with the Joneses. These days we are concerned with our impact on the planet and future generations. The environmentally friendly home that’s sustainable and energy efficient has become the sought after ideal. But finding or creating the “holy trinity” (environmentally friendly, sustainable, and energy efficient) house isn’t a simple matter. This guide will help steer you in the right direction. To give you a kick start of inspiration, I’ve also included a couple of examples of funky and stylish houses that  tick the green boxes.

Choose Your Location Wisely

‘Location, location, location,’ is an apt usage of the phrase when it comes to building an environmentally friendly home. Choosing wrong can have catastrophic consequences for your dreams of an environmentally friendly and energy efficient home.

For example, think about whether there will be a place for solar panels to get plenty of sunlight. Consider air drainage and wind currents if you’re thinking about wind turbines and your gardening options. If you plan to have a plot of organic veggies, select a site that will be suitable for growing foods.

Install Solar Panels

Don’t think that just because you’re making your home environmentally friendly you’re going to be losing out financially. These days, you can actually save money by going green.

Solar panels are a perfect example. They used to be prohibitively expensive, but it’s now cheaper to install solar panels than it is to buy the average car. Solar can provide as much as 85% of your home’s energy. It’s a no-brainer for those looking to be a little more eco-friendly.

Focus on the Roof

When it comes to the roof of a green home, most people limit their thoughts to the aforementioned solar panels. But making your roof green goes beyond that. For example, did you know that white roofs are the most energy efficient? This all goes back to the lesson you probably had while in grade school. White is a reflective color, which means the hot sun rays won’t impact your home as much. This in turn keeps down air conditioning costs by keeping your home cooler during the summer.

Insulating Your Home

If you want to get close to net-zero performance, insulation is a key factor. You can keep your bills low by ensuring your home doesn’t lose energy in key places. For example, you can use GreenFiber Cocoon to insulate your home. This eco-friendly solution is made almost entirely from recycled newspapers that have been treated with a natural fire retardant to ensure safety. It’s also super practical for existing homes, as you can simply blow the material into walls through very small holes.

Do You Need the Space?

Many of us dream of large and spacious homes, but this is often in direct contrast of the eco ideal. Small homes are far easier to keep energy efficient and they’re also far more manageable.

A small overall space doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll feel cramped or boxed in. Architects and designers know that people are asking for homes that fit the environmental bill, which means that many seemingly compact homes are actually surprisingly spacious inside.

Use Eco-Friendly Materials and Products

Building a sustainable and environmentally friendly home isn’t always easy, especially when most companies don’t place planet earth at the top of the priority list. But luckily the pot of options is growing increasingly larger.

Paint: When choosing your new home’s paint, always go for a brand that is low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds). These chemicals are incredibly harmful to both you and the environment, but, unfortunately, they are still quite common in your average pot of paint.

Reclaimed & Recycled Materials: Many people hold the misconception that recycled or reclaimed products won’t look as “nice” as their brand new equivalents. These days, however, the recycled trend has given us funky products that end up being excellent talking points over a dinner party. For example, why not use a doormat made of wasted float rope? Or how about a lamp made out of agricultural waste? You can even buy stools made of a mixture of sand, bacteria, and urine!

Steel: Steel is an ideal building material for several reasons. It’s incredibly resilient (It won’t rot or twist. It’s termite resistant). It has an impressive strength to weight ratio. And it is very versatile.

Steel is also an environmentally friendly choice. Its lightweight nature means little of it is required compared to other material. Steel is also 100% recyclable and will go the distance It’s extremely unlikely you’ll ever need to replace or do any structural work to houses built with a steel framework.

Energy Star: When buying electrical products for your home, always look for the Energy Star. This guarantees that your chosen item is energy efficient, which can make a huge difference to the amount of energy your home uses.

Energy Star products are now common. Most are affordable and perform to perfection. In other words, there’s no excuse!

Examples of Awesome, Sustainable Homes

Sustainable homes aren’t yet the norm, but they’re no longer rare futuristic sights or impractical pipe dreams of the eco-friendly. There are countless examples across the globe of homes that aren’t just soft on the environment, but also have the wow-factor and are sustainable to boot.

Waste House in Brighton, UK was Built entirely (well, almost) from discarded waste. This Brighton abode is the seminal example of the sustainable home. It’s amazing what 20,000 toothbrushes and 4,000 DVD cases can do!

Energy Neutral Residence 2.0 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, is the perfect weapon to the argument that style and sustainability can go hand in hand. Its insulation is based on a NASA prototype and uses a discarded tree as part of the design. An on-site wind turbine provides the little energy used.

Further reading:

The Top 5 Eco-Friendly Ways to Travel

Travel is good for the soul. Not only is it fun to experience new places, but it’s also fulfilling on a personal level. Taking a trip with your family or with friends can also bring you closer together. The benefits of changing up your environment are many, but the problem is that traveling can often have a negative effect on the environment. Mitigate your travel-related carbon footprint by choosing conscientious methods of getting from here to there.

Choose the Most Direct Flight

Airplanes in flight release a lot of carbon dioxide.  A round-trip flight from New York to San Francisco emits a staggering two metric tons.  Most of these emissions occur during takeoff and landing. If you’re flying from here to there, choose the most direct route possible. Nonstop flights can sometimes cost a little more than connecting flights, but the tradeoff is that you’ll save time and ensure a more comfortable travel experience, in addition to helping the environment.

Fly Conscientiously

Air travel has become a lot more efficient in the past 15 years. According to a professor at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, airlines all over the world have worked tirelessly to come up with new ways to save energy and, in turn, save themselves money. As of the year 2000, the average amount of energy per passenger it takes to move an aircraft is now lower than the amount it takes per passenger in a car.

There are other ways to make sure your flight makes the smallest possible environmental impact. For instance, fly economy instead of business class. Because they take up more space, first-class seats leave a carbon footprint up to nine times larger than those in coach. Additionally, planes with more seats produce smaller per-passenger greenhouse gas emissions, and — fortunately for consumers — these seats tend to have the lowest ticket costs.

Take the Train

If you’re traveling a relatively short distance, air travel may not be the most environmentally friendly option. Many regions have created enormously efficient train travel systems. For example, if you’re traveling between European countries, you can choose between any of a number of high-speed electric rail lines, which reach all across the continent. Studies have also shown that non-electric passenger trains are a greener choice for shorter trips of 500 miles or less. However, as with planes, the efficiency of train travel depends on the number of riders. A higher passenger count means fewer fossil fuel emissions per passenger.

Take a Road Trip

A road trip can be a great way to travel as a group, especially since it’s relatively inexpensive. Driving from one point to another can incorporate a number of fun and interesting stops along the way. Just make sure you turn off your car whenever you stop. Idling uses up to a half-gallon of gas per hour and doesn’t actually reduce ignition-related emissions.

To minimize your carbon footprint on the road, travel in an eco-friendly car.  Not only will great gas mileage save you money, it will also significantly lower your emissions. To improve prospects even further, pack as lightly as possible to reduce the overall weight of your vehicle, which can cause drag. If you can, keep luggage inside the car. Roof racks can reduce your fuel efficiency by up to 25 percent.

Travel Carbon-Neutral

Carbon offsetting has become a popular part of the solution. Start by estimating your trip’s carbon footprint. The calculator will also tell you how much it costs to plant enough trees to remove an equivalent amount of carbon from the atmosphere. For example, the cost to offset a one-way flight from New York City to San Francisco is just under $12, the equivalent of planting 21 urban trees.

Major airlines all over the world are beginning to do their part by implementing voluntary carbon offset programs. Delta was the first U.S.-based airline to offer a carbon offset program, but many others have followed suit. You can also invest in this solution on your own for other modes of transportation using other versions of the same calculator. For example, purchase carbon offsets to replace energy that was used via public transit or through driving.

Final Thoughts

While some of these methods involve spending a little extra, some can actually help you save money, which can free up finances for other things. For example, by flying economy instead of business class, you can contribute a small amount of your savings to a carbon offset program. Similarly, while an eco-friendly vehicle has a large upfront cost, the amount you’ll save over time in gas mileage will be worth it. Take the big picture into account as you make your plans, and you’ll find the right way to minimize your carbon footprint while sticking to your budget.

Further Reading:

Craving Carrots

It’s a beautiful colorful fall here and I’m happily celebrating root vegetable season! I always love how the Earth provides what we need in each season exactly as we need it.

Root vegetables are more energy dense than most vegetables that are ripe in summer. This extra energy provides the nutrients and extra calories we need for the winter months. (This was especially true back in the days before our modern conveniences.)

These roots bring us closer to the Earth and ground our energy, reminding us to turn inward and slow down along with the natural cycle of the planet, the nature of this season, and the months to come. While most root vegetables are available year round, the season in which they have the very best flavor and highest nutrient density is the late summer and fall.

Examples of root vegetables include carrots, rutabagas, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, parsnips, and beets. Root vegetables are delicious and can fulfill the natural sweetness you might be seeking this time of year.

Carrots

Carrots are a familiar root vegetable that is popular with both adults and children. This familiarity makes it an easy vegetable to add to a variety of dishes and a good vegetable to experiment with by trying new recipes.

Carrots are a great source of Vitamins A, K, C, Potassium, B6, Thiamin, and Niacin. They also offer a variety of carotenoids, which are amazing antioxidant phytonutrients.

When choosing carrots in the grocery store or farmers market, select firm, crisp vegetables that are bright in color. The depth of the orange in a carrot is directly related to the carotenoid nutrients found.

Store carrots in your refrigerator for up to two weeks in an airtight container or plastic bag.

Do not wash prior to storage and store them away from apples, pears, and potatoes to extend their shelf life.

When preparing your carrots for any recipe, consider scrubbing them rather than peeling. The outside skin will have protective qualities, though it will be slightly more bitter than the sweet inside.

How to Cook Carrots

I love to eat carrots raw and plain. They are filled with a crispy sweetness that satisfies most of my sweet and crunchy cravings. There are, however, a wonderful variety of recipes that include carrots or feature them as the main ingredient.

One easy and flavorful way to try carrots is in a salad mixed with other vegetables such as this easy recipe.

Carrot & Zucchini Salad

  • 6 medium carrots, thoroughly scrubbed and ends removed
  • 2 medium zucchini, peeled and ends discarded
  • ½ cup of scallions
  • ¼ cup cilantro
  • ¼ cup parsley
  • Approximately 3 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, or avocado oil
  • Juice from 1 lemon

Grate carrots and zucchini. Finely chop herbs. Toss all ingredients together and then toss with oil and lemon juice.

Serve and enjoy!

Cooked Carrots

The best, most nutrient-preserving cooking method is a light steaming for no longer than five minutes. The steam will tenderize the carrots a bit, but leave most nutrients intact. For added flavor, toss your freshly steamed carrots with a few tablespoons of feta and dill.

You can also add your carrots to any soup or stew or toss with olive oil and roast at 425°F with other roots until tender, typically about 40 minutes.

You can see many reasons to increase carrots in your diet! These are healthy and great for adding sweetness to your plate in a fun and colorful way!