Flat screen goes green

Just found out about the new "Eco TV" from Philips- a 42 inch flat panel LCD with 1080p resolution, that promises to sip rather than guzzle electricity. It's getting decent review on the gadget sites (CNET named it it's pick of the Consumer Electronics Show 2008), although some complain about it's lack of some of the bells and whistles (I think it has plenty, but I don't use a cable card anyway). Retails at about $1400, it is supposed to use less than 100 watts of power (less than a freaking lightbulb). It's energy star qualified, packed in recycled packaging, and meets RoHS standards (meaning it has low/no levels of some dangerous chemicals in it, like lead, mercury, etc).

A nice choice if we didn't buy a flat screen last year while I was on bed rest...

Costco Electronics Recycling and Trade-In Program

I just found out that Costco has a program through Greensight that allows you to "trade-in" your old electronics (MP3 players, computers, digital cameras and camcorders, games, lcd monitors, and PDAs) . The trade-in estimator online will tell you how much your item is worth, and then they pay for shipping for you to ship it to them. If your item has no trade in value, they will accept it for recycling, and still pay for shipping. (They also accept, for recycling only, fax machines, CRT monitors, and printers).

And the items really are truly "recycled"! Here's what they say about their recycling program: Our recycling program employs a zero tolerance landfill policy meaning all of the material that is subject to recycling is disassembled by hand, carefully separated and eventually utilized as feedstock for various raw material extraction processes (including smelting and refining).

You do have to be a Costco member...

Cheese

Our dairy forgot to drop off our cheese order, and the farmer's market was days away, so I went looking for some local cheese. On my way home from work, I stopped at Cowgirl Creamery, a place that looks way too hip for me, but is rumored to have excellent artisan cheese. I passed the front checkout area with its coolers and shelves of drinks, cheese accompaniments, and prepared sandwiches, and headed back to the counter identifiable as the cheese counter by the large hunks of cheese on pedestals (and the giant sign saying "cheese"). I was a little disappointed when the chef-jacketed cheeseman behind the counter explained that their local cheese options are a little limited (or more so than I expected), but they do have enough. I walked out with some creamy, local cheddar (I know the cheese snobs are thinking: boring. But we have a toddler! And I'm not as adventurous as I could be with my cheese choices). Anyway, it's on the higher end of price: I wouldn't say overpriced for gourmet cheese, but a bit pricey for our weekly shopping. I really like cheese but am not enough of a connoisseur that I appreciate all the nuance.

Strawberries & Pizza (but not together)

So the first of the pick-your-own season is upon us- coming late this year due to some cooler weather (so I am told), the local pick your own strawberries were not ready until after Memorial Day (my own few garden strawberries had come and gone by then, so I guess i have early bloomers).

Anyway, 2 flats of strawberries became:

• several desserts (including homemade strawberry shortcake, complete w/ homemade whipped cream and homemade "shortcakes")
• a quart of frozen (hull, cut, toss with sugar, put in freezer bag)
• 8 half pints of jam (next time I'm going to try a low-sugar pectin), and
• 4 pints of strawberry-lemonade concentrate (canned with lemon, sugar, and strawberry puree).
  

I think next up are the cherries. I may attempt pie, the baked dish I find most difficult to do right.

I also had some good luck making pizza this weekend (and some bad luck too- one of my pizzas fell to the bottom of the oven while i was taking it out and burned a bit- my friend graciously said, "it's just smoky"). Anyway, the pizza stone I got really helps make a nice crisp-outside, soft inside crust. I used my CSA spring onions in a carmelized onion/prosciutto one, and tomatoes, basil, garlic, olive oil, and homemade mozzarella in my "almost all local" one (farmer's market garlic, tomato, and garden basil).

Farmer's Market

The farmer's markets are all in bloom these days- in the past week I've picked up potatoes, shelled peas (turned into a side dish with butter from the local dairy and mint from the yard), cherries (early yet, but irresistible- turned into chocolate covered cherries, plus plenty eaten "as is"), lots of greens (mixed with garden lettuce, purple ruffles basil, and cinnamon basil for a salad), garlic scapes (made into garlic scape pesto with walnuts and olive oil, and also mixed with ground beef and local spring onions to toss with pasta). Quite a variety for this early.

The past week I made rosemary bread, raisin bread, drop biscuits, and two different kinds of cornbread. I bought yeast in bulk. I have plenty of flour. We'll see how productive I can be once I go back to work this week, but I've been learning recipes for good baked goods that are easy to make.

This promises to be a good week, work aside. The CSA box arrives on Thursday (with eggs), and on Wednesday our local milk, cheese, grass-fed beef, and chicken will be delivered to our milk box. Tomorrow we gather strawberries at a pick-your-own for eating, canning, and freezing. So more blogging about food adventures to come!

Homemade Mozzarella

Today I used the cheese kit to make mozzarella. It really did only take 30 minutes. Here were the things that suprised me:

• so much whey left over- not much cheese... this has nothing to do with the kit, but just the amount of solids vs liquids that make up the milk. I used the whey to make bread, and pizza crust for the pizza. The crust had a warm. sweet flavor. The bread didnt rise quite right, but also was sweet(er). Even with making a double batch of bread and two pizza crusts, I had about a half gallon of whey left over. Seems like a lot of whey-ste (sorry, bad pun).
• The milk and cheese have a very sweet smell while cooking- not really a smell I've associated with mozzarella before, more with hot cocoa.
• I think I need to add lipase powder- this is an optional powder that you can add to make your italian cheeses more flavorful. The mozzarella I made without it was fine, but kind of bland. I used a bit more salt than recommended, but it still needed something else. But it was great on the pizza.

For the pizza, I made the dough using the whey, shredded the cheese, and made a sauce from fresh tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, garlic and herbs from the garden (mint, basil). It worked out to be pretty tasty.

The kit

Heating the milk

The cheese

The pizza

How Does Your (Herb) Garden Grow

In other homesteading news my organic herbs arrived today from Mulberry Creek Farms. I love them because they have so many varieties of herbs, but I think next year I will try to buy from my local farmer's market instead. I've noticed some great options each time I go, but I've had to hold off on buying b/c I had already ordered with MCF. Next year, I'll go local and cut down on the fossil fuels and packaging (plus MCF does take a while to ship when they are busy in the spring- I ordered about a month ago and they just got here).

Anyway, because we joined the CSA for the summer, and the CSA has alot of tomatoes and cukes (what I usually grow), I've decided to focus most of my growing space (which is not much- our neighborhood has wonderful century-old trees that keep our yard in partial shade) on herbs.

I already had two kinds of rosemary that just keeps on growing and growing, as well as mexican oregano that grows like crazy. Added to that I locally bought peppermint and spearmint, and am trying chocolate mint from MCF as well (for brownies, ice cream, tea, coffee). The mint is the spread out because it grows anywhere, and can deal with the partial shade, and os I can try to harvest seeds that wont have hybridized mint flavors. In the sunny patch of garden, I have lots of pesto basil (mammoth and genovese), lime basil (for chicken, salads, fruits, etc), purple ruffles basil (more for looks), and cinnamon basil (again for fruits, salads, desserts?). There's cilantro (also makes coriander), and a compact dill. A small bit of chives that lasted the winter, and two stevia plants, which I plan to experiment with as a non-caloric sweetener. All in all 12 plants in the ground today- hoping that I can use these herbs in combo with the CSA stuff to make some good summer meals!