Category — Simple Changes September

Tonight for dinner, Matt and I set out to make Eggplant Parm.  Instead of breading and frying, we grilled – what a great way to make a parmesan! 

First we peeled and sliced two eggplants (in the process I lost a nice chunk of skin from my thumb – ouch)

Then Matt salted the eggplant and we let it sit on a dishtowel to allow the bitterness to be “sweat” out.  Finally, he rinsed the eggplant and squeezed the water out of the slices with a new dishtowel (we went through a lot of dishtowels tonight).

Matt shook the eggplant in a bag with olive oil and on our hot indoor grill the eggplant went. 

Meanwhile, I diced garlic to make “homemade” sauce – in a sauce pan went a little olive oil and garlic.  We sautéed that for a few minutes and then added Muir Glen Tomato Sauce, some dried basil and oregano. 

When everything was done, I started assembling my panini.  In my whole wheat wrap went a layer of sauce, eggplant and reduced fat mozzarella cheese. 

Tasted much better then it looked!

Matt, on the other hand, chose to eat his eggplant stacked with melted cheese in between each layer.  He claimed his dinner was much more “blogworthy”

I may agree with him tonight.

I loved my panini though – the eggplant was perfectly grilled and had a wonderful flavor. 

Simple Changes September

September 30, 2009:  Stop Using Water Cooler at work

Right outside my office door, one will find this

Please note, that is a “how to stop the swine flu” poster. 

I typically bring my Sigg waterbottle from home filled with water using my Pur water filter.

I have given up bottled water (although I did drink a bottle of water after my race on Saturday – I couldn’t wait long enough to get my waterbottle out of the checked bag area!) but yet I still drink water from the water cooler.  Isn’t that a giant bottle of water?  Granted it is MUCH better then normal bottled water, but still.

I am now the proud owner of a Brita water pitcher. 

Now that the water filters are recyclable, using the Brita water filter is just like drinking water from the tap (no waste!). 

Do you use a water filter? 

I can’t believe this is the last day of Simple Changes September!  I have learned a lot this month – I hope to do a reflection of the month in the next few days.

I needed a quick dinner before my meetings and yoga tonight. 

Meet course 1: Grapes

These are some of the best grapes I have had in a long time – crispy and sweet!

Meet course 2: Soynut butter and Jelly sandwich on a Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat Deli Flat

With a view of my notebook – and my Sigg bottle in the background.  Very Rose- like. 

Why is soynut butter and jelly one of the most comforting meals?  I always feel more content after I eat one. 

Yoga was great today – we did a lot of hip opening exercises – boy can I feel it.  The last few minutes, our teacher walked us through a breathing exercise to help us relax, and clear our heads.  I felt great after this – with a more comfortable bed and a blanket, I probably would have fallen asleep. 

Simple Changes September:

September 29, 2009:  Stop Using Straws Silly

When I enjoy my weekly or biweekly smoothie, I use a straw.  Something about the straw makes it feel more milkshake-like.  After seeing re-usable straws last week on Tina’s blog, I knew I needed to get them.  Re-usable straws that are dishwasher safe – yes please. 

I ordered my straws and used them for the first time today!

In my Peachy Green Smoothie

How wonderful are these straws – so much less wasteful! 

Not only am I going to stop using straws at home, but try to reduce by straw usage over all at restaurants.   

Are you a straw user?

Yesterday afternoon, while planning meals for the week, I decided to take a Vegetable No-Noodle Lasagna out of the freezer.  We had lots of leftovers from this dish – instead of throwing them out, I froze them in single serving portions.  Matt was working tonight so I thought it was a great time to defrost one. 

Last night, my boss asked me to work a little later tonight then I had anticipated so instead of wasting my already defrosting dinner, I brought it with me. 

I was craving some carbs, so I added a side of whole wheat pasta, PEAS and marinara sauce to my vegetable no-noodle lasagna. 

All warmed together

I ate about 3/4 of this – all the veggies but a lot of the pasta was left behind. 

Simple Changes September:

September 28, 2009: Iron Less!

I have a severe dislike of this.

I inherited this severe dislike from my mother.  She hates ironing too.  In my effort to conserve energy, I ran across this:

…a clothes iron consumes a lot of power as well. The typical wattage from a clothes iron is 1000–1800 watts…

To maximize the use of your iron:

Collect as many pieces as you can to press at the same time.

While the iron is heating up, press the thinner clothes that require less heat first. When the iron is hot, press the more difficult ones. If you have thinner items again you can turn off and unplug the iron and press the clothes that need less heat again to end.

Unfortunately our apartment, although it has great closet space, does not have enough to keep my clothes hanging far enough apart that they don’t get smooshed and horribly wrinkled. 

To make up for that, I am going to practice the “iron as much as you can at once” technique.  In the past, I ironed every day.  Tonight, on the other hand, I ironed enough clothes to get me through the week.  Not only does this save energy, but saves me time – and my ironing is done for the week.  Sweet!

Do you iron every day?  Weekly?  Not at all?

Matt and I woke up this morning glad we had a more relaxing day ahead of us.  While I attempted to straighten up our apartment (which looked like a tornado had gone through), Matt got to work on some Sunday morning/afternoon waffles (it was about noon when we ate them).  Using our favorite waffle mix, Hodgson Mill Instabake, Matt created some delicious waffles (they may have had mini chocolate chips in them too). 

I enjoyed my first two waffles with some Stonyfield Farm Fat Free French Vanilla yogurt mixed with 1/2 a banana (really trying to reduce my banana consumption)

I also ate two more waffles with a little bit of buttah – no need for syrup – the chocolate chips are sweet enough!

On the side, 1/2 a Bartlett pear

After lunch, I did 5 loads of laundry and went to the grocery store.  I also got dinner in the slow cooker!

I bought this cookbook about a year ago yet have not made anything from it yet. 

I had been itching to try the Mac and Cheese recipe and today was the day. 

In the slow cooker went evaporated skim milk, skim milk, lots of cheese and 8 oz of whole wheat elbow macaroni.  After cooking for 3 hours, dinner was ready. 

To add some veggies to this meal, I steamed some broccoli and cooked some spaghetti squash.  I mixed the veggies with my mac and cheese – I am definitely a food mixer.

Not the prettiest of meals….

Or unfortunately one of the tastiest. 

The spaghetti squash and broccoli were great but the mac and cheese was kinda bland.  I used a combination of sharp cheddar and swiss cheese which I thought would be great – but sadly did not lend a very strong cheese flavor.  The pasta was also more dry and less ooey gooey cheesy like I thought it would.  I do want to try this again – but perhaps add some mustard or garlic powder to the slow cooker. 

For dessert, two cookies

Simple Changes September:

September 27, 2009: Use Slow Cooker once a week

According to this website: Slow-cookers use substantially less energy than a conventional electric oven.

Makes sense – your dish is surrounded by the heating element.  Less energy is used to heat your big oven. 

I have 3 slow cooker cookbooks – a great challenge to try some new recipes. 

What is your favorite slow cooker recipe?

Long time no blog!  I have had a crazy busy but exciting weekend – I am going to start with Friday and catch-up to today in a few blog posts.  I hope you have been having a great weekend. 

Friday, Matt and I headed into Boston to pick up our race bibs for Saturday – we were running the Susan Komen Race for the Cure.  Last year, this 5k was my first race ever – I accomplished a lifelong goal of mine to run an entire 5k.  While in Boston, Matt and I decided to have dinner.  We were both starving and the Legal Seafood Test Kitchen was nearby so we walked over.

We had never been there, so had no idea what to expect.  The restaurant is very different then the regular Legal Seafood.  Then menu is very creative and features some interesting combinations. 

We started with the Montauk Calamari

This was great calamari – I loved the garlic aioli – I wish there was more!  I ate about 4 pieces.

For my entree, I ordered the Lobster and Linguini

There were HUGE lobster pieces in this dish – the sauce was a little odd – but not in a bad way.  I loved this pasta – enough that I ate the entire plateful.  The parmesan cheese shavings added a great saltiness that nicely complimented the lobster. 

Matt ordered Tuna with a side of rosemary fries and fried pickles.  He also got a skewer of scallops because I was debating between the scallops and Lobster and Linguini

Oh my gosh.  I have never had fried pickles in my life and think they may be one of the best things ever.  The saltiness of the pickles combined with crispy dough – perfect.  The scallops too were out of this world – tender, moist and just subtly flavored. 

The Legal Test Kitchen is a restaurant I HIGHLY recommend.  Matt and I will probably go back there again in the future. 

Simple Changes September:

September 25, 2009:  Buy new laundry detergent!

Ladies and gentlemen in the next few days I will be making a big change in my life.  Ever since I started doing my own laundry (freshman year in high school) to today (many years later), I have been using

In a few days (this bottle is close to empty), I will be using

Interestingly enough, when checking out my Tide bottle, there were no ingredients listed.  I even consulted the website and found no further information. 

Mrs. Meyer’s has it right on the bottle.

I am going to assume that this is just slightly better then the unmentionable Tide ingredients. 

I also owe you a change from last week so here it is!

September 20, 2009:  Start using new Powerstrip!

A few months ago, I read about this powerstrip.  It is great for TV entertainment centers because it controls which appliances are getting power – one appliance (in our case the TV), controls when the other appliances (DVD player, Wii, stereo) get electricity.  Obviously, the other appliances do not need energy if the TV isn’t on – you can’t watch a DVD or play Wii without the TV.  But first, because this is Simple Changes September, I wanted to see how much energy we were currently using. 

Here is our current setup:

I learned having all of these plugged in and using “phantom” electricity (using electricity even when they aren’t on) was costing us:

• $0.25 a day
• $1.78 a week
• $7.63 a month
• $92.87 a year

A few days ago we plugged all gadgets in the smart strip and started calculating our energy usage:

• $0.16 a day
• $1.12 a week
• $4.82 a month
• $58.65 a year

The cost of the smart strip was $28.58.  Looks like the cost of the powerstrip will pay for itself in a year – with $5.64 added to our pocket!  That’s what I call a deal and a very simple change. 

How many gadgets do you have in your TV Entertainment Center? 

I left work a little later then I had anticipated to make it home to complete my 55 minute run before dark.  Part of it I think was my desire not to run this afternoon.  I walked in my apartment and got changed – I then decided to check out Google Pedometer to try and find a new route.  On my way home, I drive by a few streets that I thought would be great for running – long enough that I wouldn’t need to cross the street and with enough cross streets that I wasn’t running up and down the same street 10 times. 

Today, I found the perfect neighborhood.  About a 5 minute drive from my apartment, and has enough territory to cover that I never need to cross a busy street. 

Being in a new neighborhood, as it was getting dark, made me nervous I would never find my car again.  I did a lot of running out from my car and then running back.  It was great though – and a welcome change of scenery.   

I did something I have never done before – brought a water bottle with me – the water bottle had about 1/4 Gatorade, 3/4 water.  I left it in the car and stopped at about 30 minutes for a few sips.  Wow did that sugar give me some extra energy.  I definitely got a small boost and my fastest pace of my entire run was in my 4th mile. 

In the end, I am VERY glad I made myself do that run this afternoon.  I feel very accomplished and now have tomorrow off (from running that is)! 

On to dinner…I arrived home very sweaty…ready to nix our planned dinner and make some Mac and Cheese.  My live-in-chef (otherwise known as my super husband Matt) was already in the process of working on dinner.  He was mincing garlic and after a brief discussion, he continued on and I took a shower. 

Look at what he made

He used a frozen package of seafood from Trader Joes (package contained shrimp, calamari, and scallops). 

In the sauté pan went:

• Package of seafood
• Clam Juice
• Can of Whole Clams
• Sauvignon Blanc Wine
• Little bit of butter
• dried parsley
• Garlic (lots) – chopped and dried
• Oregano
• Olive Oil
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Spinach

He sautéed the garlic in a little olive oil.  Then added the seafood and let that cook for a few minutes.  Next, went the clams, clam juice and wine and that cooked for a few minutes more.  Then he added the butter and herbs and lastly, the tomato and spinach. 

Meanwhile, he cooked some whole wheat angel hair pasta and when that was done, he added it to the sauté pan and cooked the whole mixture for another minute or two. 

We finished the plate with a little parmesan cheese. 

This was excellent – I could not keep my hand out of the pan.  I had the above plate and probably another one the same size.  It had such a great flavor. 

We were a little disappointed with the frozen seafood though – the scallops were so small you could barely taste them.  Some of the calamari was a bit chewy as well.  Something we probably wouldn’t eat again.   

Overall a great meal that came together in about 20 minutes – who says you can’t go gourmet on a week night?!?

Simple Changes September:

September 24, 2009: Reduce Banana Consumption

I eat bananas a lot – pretty much every day.  To me, they go with everything and are a perfect way to sweeten something up without adding sugar. 

While at a conference over a year ago, someone from Yale University was talking about how they don’t put bananas out in their cafeteria for lunch or dinner.  This obviously dramatically reduced consumption and because bananas are grown primarily in Central America, they would never be local produce to Yale (Yale has an amazing local food dining program).  I thought about the miles bananas travel to reach my kitchen counter in Massachusetts and realized that I eat a lot of bananas.

After some further research, I found this article that describes the farming practices used to grow bananas.  It astonished me how much pesticides are use and how poorly a lot of banana farm workers are treated.  I read one older article that talked about how a lot of men banana farm workers are sterile and how women were giving birth to children with birth defects. 

I would like to reduce my banana consumption to no more then 5 per week.  I hope to eat less then 5 but I need to start somewhere! 

How many bananas do you eat a week?

Sunday was my cousin Katie’s wedding, Saturday we have another wedding and tonight was Italian Wedding Soup!

Matt’s Mom made an amazing Italian Wedding Soup a few months ago and we have had it in our freezer ever since.  We are making a BIG effort to clean out the freezer so this was perfect for dinner.

The meatballs were made with turkey and were seasoned really well.  The soup was very flavorful and held up well after months in the freezer!

On the side, a Food For Life English Muffin with buttah (my second English Muffin today)

and some red pepper slices (Matt and I split these)

Simple Changes September 

September 23, 2009: Switch to Fair Trade, Organic Tea

I may not blog about it, but I drink a lot of tea (although not as much as my Mother).  I am not a big fan of coffee so I get my caffeine fix with my daily cuppa (or two or three depending on the day) tea. 

I have been a loyal Lipton user for many, many years.  I went through a Teavana phase, but unfortunately my wallet couldn’t support that habit.  I grew up watching my mom drink Lipton tea and find comfort in its stability – same cup every day. 

What is Fair Trade?

According to this website, Fair Trade:

The Fair Trade Certified™ Label guarantees consumers that strict economic, social and environmental criteria were met in the production and trade of an agricultural product. Fair Trade Certification is currently available in the U.S. for coffee, tea and herbs, cocoa and chocolate, fresh fruit, flowers, sugar, rice, and vanilla. TransFair USA licenses companies to display the Fair Trade Certified label on products that meet strict international Fair Trade standards.

How does Fair Trade impact the environment?

Fair Trade certification guarantees that farmers use eco-friendly practices. The result is responsibly grown products that are healthy for you, for farmers and for the world we live in

Matt and I watched a show on why it is important to buy Fair Trade Coffee – and I am proud to say, Matt has added some Fair Trade Coffees to his selection. 

Well today I am going to make the commitment to add more Fair Trade (Organic if possible) tea to my breakfast routine.  I started today with

Both Fair Trade and Organic – and not bad.  A little stronger then my Lipton, but something I could get used to. 

I know I owe you one Simple Changes September idea – I am going to head to bed though – my lack of sleep this weekend coupled with 2 early morning runs and one more tomorrow is making me cranky.  I need my sleep! 

Do you look for Fair Trade products?

Before yoga, I had my dinner – very simple yet very filling – I am still full!

Last night I cut up an apple and put it in a big bowl with some grapes. 

To my bowl ‘o’ fruit, I added a Stonyfield Farm Fat Free French Vanilla and some granola from the cafeteria.

I used about 1/2 the container of granola – it isn’t the greatest for you.

All together now.

I had a great time at yoga tonight – it was much more challenging then the first time I went.  I feel like I missed a lot last week.  The poses definitely stretched me out – and I will probably be sore tomorrow.

Simple Changes September:

September 22, 2009: Use water pitcher in fridge as opposed to tap.

Matt and I have had a PUR water filter on our kitchen sink since we moved into this apartment. 

We both have developed the bad habit of turning on the faucet every time we want a drink of water.  In order to get the “filtered” water, you have to turn the water on, then turn the black knob you see on the right hand side, and THEN wait 5 seconds for the water to filter. 

Matt just conducted a very scientific test and realized that we waste 2/3 of a cup of water EVERY TIME we want a glass. 

We do have this lovely pitcher we fill with the water from our PUR and keep cold in the fridge.  For some reason, we tend to only use this at dinner time.  Odd huh?

My change for the day is to STOP refilling my glass from the sink and start using water from the pitcher.  Considering how much water I drink (probably 3-4 glasses at home on a low water day), that’s a lot of wasted water. 

Our pitcher probably holds about 4 glasses of water so using the pitcher would save approximately 2 cups of water – over time, that’s a lot of water. 

Now I owe you one from this weekend:

September 19, 2009: Green Your Computer!

On September 5th, I committed to turning off my computer at night – and I have been.  According to Go Green, Live Rich, only 5% of desktop and laptop computers have their energy efficiency settings enabled.  The EPA estimates that enabling these settings can help conserve almost 80% of the energy that would be consumed (p. 118).

There is a great website where you can download a free program that manages your computer’s power usage when it is idle, saving energy and decreasing the demand on your power utility.  

I just downloaded the program and look forward to see what it can do – I will keep you posted!

Off to finish the Biggest Loser!  See you in the morning.

The past few days I have been CRAVING diner pancakes.  There is nothing like a New Jersey diner breakfast.  There is even a website dedicated to NJ diners!

Anyways, this morning, my parents, Matt and I headed out to the Americana diner near my sister’s house.

The Americana is what I would call an upscale diner.  Unlike a traditional diner, there was a specific breakfast menu.  Also, the Americana serves alcohol at night.  Breakfast was amazing though.  Here’s my plate!

The Breakfast Sampler – two pancakes, two eggs, two pieces of bacon and one sausage.  The pancakes were absolutely amazing – buttermilk – and just as I remember diner pancakes.  I ate all the pancakes, both eggs and one piece of bacon – Matt ate the sausage and the other piece of bacon. 

Matt would like to point out that he had fruit served with his breakfast.  He even took a picture as proof.  He had French Toast stuffed with blueberries and mascarpone cheese.  It was excellent!

We finished breakfast about 11 am and hit the road.  We were both stuffed but around 2:30 pm got a little car crazy and needed a break.  Matt wanted some lunch so we stopped at Boston Market. 

We split a Chicken Carver Sandwich.

and hit the road again!

We stopped at Hannaford on the way home to pick up our groceries for the week. 

Dinner time rolled around and I wasn’t too hungry.  Both Matt and I had no desire to make anything so he had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I had a Not So Peachy Parfait. 

I made a fruit salad with one peach, one nectarine, some green grapes and pomegranate seeds. 

Sadly, both the peach and nectarine were not the greatest – but not wanting to waste them, I ate them.

The finished product, layered in my tall glass with Oikos Vanilla Greek Yogurt and some smashed up Kashi Island Vanilla, Cascadian Farm Multi Grain Squares and Quaker Oatmeal Squares

Not my finest – but it hit the spot.

Simple Changes September:

I know I owe you two – don’t worry – I’ve got some ideas churning in my head.  Alas, on to today.

September 21, 2009:  Avoid the dirty dozen.

At the supermarket today, I was faced with many choices – do I go with the Honeycrisp apples (my fave) or the organic gala (more expensive).  The conventional vs. organic grapes.  Unfortunately, my wallet does not permit all organic purchases.  When I got home, I found this list of the “Dirty Dozen” fruits and vegetables that you should always buy organic.  If you have an iphone, you can even download an app with them. 

I guess I should have gone with the organic apples – at least I bought organic grapes. 

Do you look for organic produce?  How do you decide what to buy?

Today for dinner was another Clean Out the Fridge Night.  We are leaving tomorrow for NJ – we will be there through Monday for my cousin Katie’s wedding on Sunday. 

For dinner I had some leftover lentil loaf from Sunday.  Today I transformed the lentils into a sandwich melt. 

Using a toasted Pepperidge Farm Whole Wheat Deli Flat, I smooshed lentil loaf and covered with mozzarella cheese.  I then broiled the halves until the cheese melted.  MMMMM melty cheese. 

Look at that charred cheese – delicious. 

I think that may be the only time the Lentil Loaf is made in the runleangreen household.  It was good – not great.  Matt likes Snobby Joes much better and I think I agree.  This was pretty bland – I would need to do some recipe tinkering before recreating this again. 

I was intrigued by the Montana Whoppers cookies floating around the blog world.  Showing Matt the recipe was the only thing I needed to do to convince him that we needed to make them.  Fortunately Matt was off today, so he kindly made the batter while I was at work.  Matt would like to add that the batter was one of the best in the world.  Check out the original recipe here. 

Matt used soy nut butter so I was able to enjoy them (much appreciated).  He loved the batter so I am imagining these taste very PB like.  For chocolate, Matt used M&Ms, Chocolate-Caramel Swirl Chocolate Chips, and Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. 

We baked these delights after dinner.  Look at them (Matt made some of them rather large).  

Oh.my.gosh.  Let me just say – this may be one of my top 5 favorite cookies.  I am VERY glad we are going to NJ tomorrow – we need to get these out of our apartment before they end up in our bellies. 

Simple Changes September 

September 18, 2009: Switch to On-Line Bill Pay

My secret is out of the bag.  I still get paper bills and mail checks to pay them.  Could I be stuck in the dark ages any more?  I must admit, I like seeing my bills and sitting down once a week and writing out checks.  I clean everything off my desk and get a feeling of accomplishment.  I realize that all this paper I am generating is pretty wasteful when I can pull everything up on my computer. 

Using this website, I am able to calculate the environmental impact of my paper bills.  Look at the results:

That’s not as bad as I thought – but it’s still something.   

I am committing to on-line bill pay – and joining the 21st century. 

TOPIC CHANGE WARNING:

Did anyone catch Caitlin’s discussion about the “vegetarian” label this afternoon.  Recently, I have been thinking about some of the points brought up – in the last few months I have cut back on the amount of meat I eat.  Before I really got into reading food blogs, I had decided to reduce my meat consumption to only once per day (fish to me do not count as meat – I would eat fish and meat in the same day). 

Since beginning Simple Changes September, I have committed to eating meat only twice/week max.  This week in particular, I am having troubles with it.  Knowing that Matt and I are going to NJ this weekend and staying with my sister (where they are meat eat eaters), I decided to “ration” my two meat servings to this weekend so I wouldn’t cause issues eating in someone else’s home (there are 6 adults and one small child there this weekend).  However, Thursday was turkey day in the cafeteria – if you remember correctly – turkey is one of my favorite things!  Therefore I denied myself something that I really enjoy just so I could “save” my meat portions for this weekend.  Is that really what I want? 

I saw Food Inc and have seen how poorly animals are treated.  I realize how a meat-based diet is horrible for the environment.  Already I have done wonders with my diet – Matt and I have tried MANY new recipes and we both are eating less meat.  Do I need to feel guilty about wanting to eat turkey for lunch – especially when turkey is one of my favorite things? 

I don’t think I could ever become a complete vegetarian – I would safely say I am a flexitarian (only eats meat occasionally). 

What are your thoughts on food labels?  What would you consider yourself?