Ever wonder if your favorite restaurants are sustainable? Me too. Turns out, restaurants can opt into a certification system created by the Green Restaurant Association (GRA) to show the world how green they are. In this post, I'll tell you all about the GRA and Certified Green restaurants.
Read MoreGlobally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) are agricultural communities that are internationally recognized as sustainable. These sites are super important and most def deserve more publicity than they get. In this post, I'll tell you all about GIAHS and how these sites are making the world a better place.
Read MoreI stumbled on this recipe while searching for dishes to make good use of the amazing summer sweet corn that has infiltrated the Midwest. Admittedly, I got a bit sidetracked when I saw a recipe for "toaster corn cakes" (which don't contain sweet corn) in my King Arthur Flour cookbook. After reading King Arthur's description of these as "English muffin-sized, sort-of-sweet cornbread rounds can be split, toasted, and slathered with butter and jam," I was sold.
Read MoreWhen a mish-mash of past-ripe beets, tomatoes, pears, zucchini and blackberries are scattered around your kitchen, it can be difficult to whip up a meal that incorporates them all. In this post, I'll tell you all about my favorite foods that put leftover produce to good use in under 30 minutes.
Read MoreI expected this recipe to be good, but I didn't anticipate it becoming my new favorite scone recipe. The batter is moist (sorry, not sorry), tender, fluffy and flavorful, while the plums add just the right amount of sweet and tart.
Read MoreSmoothies were one of the first foods I learned to prepare on my own as a kid since making them is as simple as chucking a bunch of produce into a blender and zhuzhing it up. The smoothies of my youth often featured slightly freezer-burned strawberries and peaches, along with some orange juice.
Read MoreYes, "zucchini potato cheese" is just a string of three separate foods. And yet, these three words mean so much more. I'm not sure what the original name for this dish was (if it ever had one at all) but in my childhood house, we just called it "zucchini potato cheese." Turns out, those are the only ingredients you need to make magic.
Read MoreIf you're a meat eater, you've probably happened upon beef or steaks labeled "free-range." In the U.S., many free-range cattle are born and raised on the western plains, called "rangeland." In this post, I'll tell you all about the ecology, economics and politics of rangelands of the U.S.
Read MoreProduce absolutely pops off during summer in the Midwestern U.S. Farmers markets are thriving and farm stands seem to occupy the corner of every other block. In this post, I’ll tell you all about my favorite summer fruits and veggies and how I like to eat them.
Read MoreLight-weight plastic wrap has a pretty marginal environmental impact compared to other environmental woes in the kitchen (hello, food waste - definitely not pleased to meet you). Nevertheless, decreasing plastic waste is a noble goal, no matter how small you start. In this post, I'll tell you all about that best swaps for the most common uses of plastic wrap in the kitchen.
Read MoreWhen I was younger, my Grandma Betty’s blueberry muffins were the star of every family gathering. One Easter, I ate 5 of them (all buttered up, natch) in lieu of ham. In her muffins, my grandma always used blueberries from my grandpa's garden, which were tarter than any blueberries I've ever tasted and pinker than any bluebs I've ever seen.
Read MoreMonoculture agricultural fields only contain one type of crop, while polyculture agricultural fields contain several types of crops interspersed with one another. The vast majority of modern agricultural fields are monoculture fields. In this post, I'm going to break down the pros and cons (mostly cons, lesbehonest) of industrial monoculture farming.
Read MoreI used to take my yogurt plain (like a maniac), but recently I've gotten super into the granola life. The crunchy texture, clump factor and endless flavor combinations make granola one of my heavy rotation recipes. Homemade granola is especially great because you can make a lot of it for not a lot of cash, making it a perfect rent week recipe.
Read MoreIf you've moseyed into a Whole Foods lately, you may have noticed the "EARTH University" label on some of your groceries. In this post, I'll tell you all about EARTH University and its products.
Read MoreLast summer, toasted sourdough topped with cashew cream and thinly sliced nectarines was on my heavy rotation. The crunch and tang of the sourdough paired with the creaminess (duh) of the cashew cream and the freshness of the nectarine was just perfection.
Read MoreIf farmers don't protect their plants against pests, their crops will be destroyed before they make it to your plate. This where Integrated Pest Management (IPM) comes in. IPM basically just entails using existing ecosystem processes to fight pests rather than introducing synthetic pesticides to the ecosystem.
Read More
