Reusing vegetable scraps

A few experienced cooks in our group - thank you Mitzi and Ayliffe - have introduced us to a new way to reuse our vegetable scraps by turning them into a delicious soup stock. This is especially great for us Michigan people in the winter, when every time we add scraps to our compost buckets we know that eventually we have to put on the high boots and track it back to our compost piles. Right now, the end of February here in Michigan, the boots will have to be pretty high to get us there without getting our legs snow covered. So any time I can keep the scraps inside for reuse is a bonus for me.


The recipe is so simple it boggles the mind that I have never come across it before. Basically, you take any clean vegetable scraps, like a broccoli trunk or carrot shavings, and put them in a gallon freezer bag. Once the bag is full, you take the frozen lump and put it in a stock pot and add 12 cups of water, 2 bay leaves and 12 peppercorns. Put it on your smallest burner and simmer about 2 hours, taking care not to let it boil. Then you pour this stock through a colander and into a large bowl, and then through a strainer. In a blender, mix a 28-oz can of stewed Roma tomatoes with a can of navy beans and some of the broth (I do this is 3 segments). Add this and the rest of the stock back to the pot, and you now have the best stock you've ever tasted. You can make this into vegetable soup - the recipe is on our Recipes page. This is a wonderful recipe to make on a cold winter day - the entire house smells fragrant. What's also interesting about this stock is that, because each bag is comprised of a unique set of scraps, it will never taste the same. This freezes well.


Ahhhh......

A salute to the public library

When you think of a sustainable lifestyle, many people don't fully recognize the contribution of the public library. I use mine all the time as a substitute for buying books and magazines. Most libraries now have a system where you can search for a book and put it on hold if it is unavailable. Once the book comes in, they will put it aside for you, send you an e-mail that it has arrived, and you just have to pick it up. I have a list of about 7 books that I am waiting for right now, and just picked up one a few days ago. The same applies to CDs and DVDs. So instead of spending hard earned money on a book or DVD that you will read/view once, you can borrow it and return it for someone else to use. I can't think of a more sustainable way to use all forms of media.

Libraries are also becoming in-demand computer centers. Our library, Troy Public Library, has devoted quite a bit of space to their computer center, and from my unscientific observations, it appears to be consistently full. I sometimes wonder why, until I think about the monthly expense of running high-speed internet in our home and realize that not everyone can afford this luxury. There is a economic justice component to sustainability, and the public library levels the playing field for us. No matter what type of income you have, if you live in a community you have equal rights and access to information, in the form of books, periodicals, electronic media and computer access.

I remember reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands quite a while ago. I recall that although his personal life was sometimes less than perfect, he was responsible for developing a public library system in the U.S. in 1731, along with his other achievements. At a time when books were scarce and expensive, he recognized the fact that if people pooled resources, they could afford to purchase books from England. Since then the public library system has been an integral part of all of our lives.

Libraries couldn't be more important than in times of scarcity, like now. Many people stop buying books, end magazine subscriptions and stop internet in their homes in an economic downturn, so the need for a good community library system becomes more important than ever. Unfortunately, when people stop working and businesses pull out of communities, tax revenues go down and libraries feel the effects. Right now my community, Troy, is threatening to shut down the library if a millage is not passed on Tuesday. People understandably don't want to pay more money when they don't have it themselves. But I do think back to Benjamin Franklin's time, when most people in the colonies were without many of life's necessities, and admire their desire to pull together resources for the common good. I hope our ancestors' example helps us understand our own priorities now.

Life without the TV

About a month ago, right in the middle of what I'm sure was a superb program, the picture tube on our TV died. It was actually quite an entertaining demise - the picture began to squiggle around a bit, then all of a sudden it shrank down to a small colorful circle before disappearing completely, kind of like a Big Bang in reverse. And since this was our only TV, that was that.

Now, here's what I find interesting. At first, as in 'the day it died', I was pretty anxious to replace it. I mean, what are we going to do for that last hour of the day if we have no TV? But we decided to wait a while because we have points on our credit card that we can use to buy a new one. So we applied for the points, and within the week they arrived. In the meantime, though, we went to the Sony store at the mall to check out what was available. We decided that since we watch a fair amount of programming on our computers, it made sense to get a TV with internet capability, so we could stream things like Netflix movies onto our new TV.

Now, as I said, the points arrived, but we have not had the time to return to the store to cash them in, in part due to a recent vacation up north, and in part to general busyness. But in the meantime - in the meantime - we have experienced life without a TV for about a month and we either don't know what to make of it or kind of like it, I'm not sure which. But we don't feel the withdrawl that I felt that first day. In fact, it feels somewhat like a liberation. I think I need to explain.

We had gotten into the habit of turning on the TV after dinner, and first up was a program that Tom always recorded called 'Pardon the Interruption.' I never took to the program (a sports gabfest), so I usually went somewhere else until it was over. But I never realized just how much I HATED this program coming into the house every day until I finished dinner one night and realized I was freed from these 2 guys chatting up sports micro-topics in very loud voices. And I'm sure Tom felt the same way about programs I watched, like American Idol.

I had another moment of enlightenment a couple of weeks ago when I was picking up some soup at a local restaurant and I saw, on their TV, video footage of Tiger Woods and his wife, with 3 bars of text scrolling across the bottom of the screen and one scrolling above. I thought: I just don't want this as a part of my life! Really! No Tiger Woods. No scrolling breaking news reports. I think I'm losing my tolerance for it.

Then today it occurred to me that TV, in recent years, has been more of a source of frustration for me that entertainment. If you think of it, there are about 100 channels, and for the most part, they are worthless. I do understand why - revenues to stations have dipped dramatically because no one can attain the share numbers of yesteryear due to the proliferation of channels people have to choose from. So less money turns into cheap programming (meaning they can't pay talented writers), and things spiral downhill from there. That is why you can flip through 100 channels and not find one thing to watch, which continues to surprise me, and finally leads to frustration.

One last point on this. This past month I have experienced a little of what my life was like in Japan. We had pretty much one channel there - CNN International - and that was it. In addition, we lived in a city where English was not the primary language spoken. So I spent a lot of time with my thoughts. I learned to like this, and found that I could do a lot more reading and writing when my mind was cleared of excess stimuli. In many ways, it was a better quality of life. This hiatus from TV has been a little like that.

With all of this, you probably think we'll never get a TV again. And you would be wrong. We've got our points, we'll get our TV, but it does have us thinking about using it differently. Tom has characteristically decided not to watch any TV any more even when we get the new set. And I do appreciate this, as I don't think I can take PTI even for one minute more. But I do like to watch some things, particularly movies. So our compromise says that I'll wear headphones when watching, so Tom can work nearby without being disturbed. And since this is a flat screen instead of a traditional TV, I'll be able to close the doors of the cabinet when it's not in use. We'll see how this goes. I have to concede now that I'm glad the tube decided to die....we've been given a chance to shake things up a bit, and that's not all that bad.