Eight Sustainable Eco Gifts $30 or less

What to give if you want something nice but don't want to trash the planet? Check out the items below - they're some of the things we feel strongly about, and really love. We think your recipients will, too!




To-go Ware Tiffins - $23.00 - $25.00
Stylish and sturdy, these stainless steel food carriers are a fabulous way to keep styrafoam out of the system. Simply bring one of these along for leftovers, and then carry them in to work the next day. Produced by a Fair Trade company.


To-go Ware Bamboo Flatware in recycled plastic case – $12.00
I always have one of these sets in my bag – I HATE using plastic flatware for both environmental and aesthetic reasons. The knife, fork and spoon are strong and feel good in one’s hand – the spoon is especially fun to use, and the chopsticks have a lovely twist design. The snap-holder is made of recycled PET plastic and has a carabiner so that you never forget to bring it along!



Klean Kanteen Stainless Steel Beverage Bottles – $15.00 - $28.00
Safe, durable and no disposable plastic. Now available in an insulated version, that keeps hot drinks hot for six hours, and cold drinks cold for 24. What’s not to love?



The Best Rechargeable Batteries on the Market – eneloop
Starting at $20.00, including charger






Recycled Cotton Shopping Bags – with dual handles, the same “footprint” as a brown paper bag, and super tough fabric these bags are a steal at $6.00






Glass Food Storage Containers $6.00 - $17.00 See-through, safe (no leaching from plastic) and dishwasher safe, these borosilicate containers are simply the best.



Organic Essential Oils to add to home-made cleaning products $6.00. Recipes on the Essential Oils page on our store.

New Leaf Paper Products – 100% Post Consumer Waste
$3.00 - $8.00
If you have to use “new” paper, this is the kind to use!

Heavenly Breads - for you, or to share!

Cranberry Orange Bread
Photo credit: Heidi @ Mt Hope on Flickr

In the midst of the holidays, when we're all swimming in fudge, Christmas cookies and divinity, it is often nice to be able to present a simpler, less sugary option. Below are two of my favorite VERY EASY bread recipes - and while they might be a bit less dazzling than colored sprinkles they are no less delicious!

Cranberry Orange Bread

This recipe is adapted from James Beard’s Beard on Bread. It’s a great way to use fresh cranberries. The use of melted butter saves the labor of beating fresh butter and makes for a more evenly tender loaf.

Ingredients

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup melted butter or canola oil
• 1 ¼ cup milk OR ½ cup orange juice and ¾ cup Milk
• 1 ¼ cups raw cranberries, washed, dried and picked over, roughly chopped if preferred (frozen is fine)
• 3 Tb. Grated orange rind (optional)
• 3/4 cup walnuts or pecans, chopped

Directions

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease two loaf pans.
• In a large mixing bowl, blend together the flour, soda, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, mix together the eggs and sugar.
• In a small saucepan, melt the butter (if using) and let cool before adding it to the egg-sugar mixture; otherwise, stir the canola oil into the egg-sugar mixture. Stir in the milk or milk-and-juice mixture.
• Stir in the dry ingredients until just moistened, then fold in the cranberries. The batter will be thick.
• Scrape the batter into the two loaf pans and spread out evenly.
  
• Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a loaf comes out clean.
• Cool on a rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

English Muffin Loaf (No Knead)

Ingredients

• 2 packages active dry yeast
• 6 cups unsifted flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup water
• Cornmeal

Directions

• Combine 3 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt and soda in mixing bowl.
  
• On the stove, heat liquids until very warm (120 to 130 degrees).
  
• Add liquids to dry mixture. Mix well. Stir in the rest of the flour to make a stiff batter.
• Spoon into two 8-1/2 by 4-1/2 inch loaf pans that have been greased and sprinkled with cornmeal.
  
• Sprinkle tops lightly with cornmeal; cover and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes.
  
• Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes or until golden.
  
• Remove from pans immediately and let cool. (These loaves freeze very well).

Gifts from the Heart, not the wallet

What are the gifts you remember most? I’ll wager that it is the most thoughtful ones, rather than the most extravagant or expensive. There’s just something about knowing that someone took the time to craft, create, think about you that means more than a big price tag.


Now, I’m not talking about making a crocheted skirt for a Barbie doll that hides a roll of toilet paper (unless someone actually wants one of those). What I mean is taking a few mintues to sit down and think about what the recipient might actually like, need and appreciate. It’s a bit harder than running down to the mall or going online to shop – you really have to pay attention. But once you start listening, you’ll be amazed by how many tips your friends and loved ones inadvertently pass along!

Below are some examples. The Gift Certificates do not have to be “official” documents or gift cards from a store – they’re actually much better if you make them yourself. You get to add the particulars (“valid any weekend in January” or “call one week in advance to make your appointment”) and they reflect your personality much better than some corporate plastic card.

Off the top of my head:
For a baker: does someone you know like to bake? Quality ingredients are tremendously expensive. But what if you purchased some nuts still in their shells, cracked them, and presented the ready-to-bake-with-gems them with a bow? Or one perfect, beautiful bar of organic Fair Trade Chocolate? Yum!

Photo credit: Sonicwalker on Flickr

For a movie buff: Gift certificate for a movie rental, with popcorn and drink of choice included. Perhaps the person gets to choose the movie, and you pick it up and pop the popcorn. Or buy a used DVD – there are zillions of fantastic films that are just waiting to be watched. You could even include a meal to go with the film ( Indian food to go with Slumdog Millionaire , a big organic salad for Food, Inc., champagne and cucumber sandwichs without crusts with a side of Gilbert & Sullivan for Chariots of Fire, fish & chips and Guinness for Millions , a vegetarian meal for Babe , fish sticks for Finding Nemo, and last but not least, how about ladyfingers for Shaun of the Dead?

Photo credit: Food Pornographer on Flickr

For a pet lover: How about a Gift Certificate for a dog walk, or a week’s worth of litter box cleanings? Some homemade dog treats, poop bags (any plastic bag will “doo”) and a dogwalker’s leash pouch?
For a tired mom (are there any other kind?): a certificate for an hour of baby-sitting, or for doing a load of laundry (wash, dry & fold). Or what if you just brought dinner over one night, and then stuck around to wash the dishes?

Photo credit: Ferrous on Flickr

For a picky eater: Do you have a niece or nephew who is a picky eater? Who only eats, say hot dogs? Or top ramen? Or some other ghastly thing? What if you got a package or three of the favorite item, tied up in a bow? This would take the heat off the kid for at least one meal, and also provide entertainment during gift-opening time.
For a book lover: What about gifting your latest favorite book? Similarly, what about compiling a list of everyone-in-the-family’s favorite book to give to the family bookworm? It’s a nice way to connect with folks with whom you may have little in common.
For a vegan: Vegans are some of the easiest people to please that I’ve ever met. Often faced with a dearth of choices at family get-togethers, what if you brought a vegan dish with extras packed to go? Vegan baking is really quite easy, and most recipes can be made with ingredients already in your kitchen. Find recipes at Post Punk Kitchen, or VegWeb.
For someone with gluten intolerance: what about a gluten free treat (recipes here) and/or a bag of rice flour?
For an art lover: a trip to a museum, accompanied by you, lunch included.

Photo credit: ShutterBRI on Flickr

For a sports fanatic: a gift certificate for exclusive use of the TV during a particular game (i.e. Super Bowl), with snacks provided for X number of friends.
Someone who commutes on a limited budget: a month's worth of transit passes.

Photo credit: Thomas Hawk on Flickr

For home-sick me: a trip home...

Photo credit: shutterBRI on Flickr

See what I mean? Once you get started, it gets easier. Good luck, and happy not-very-much-shopping!

Climate Change = Culture Change = Personal Change

This post is part of the Green Mom’s Carnival, hosted by Diane of Big Green Purse.

When asked to write about Climate Change, I never really know which tack to take. I sit here at my desk, in my home built of reclaimed lumber and strawbales, at my computer powered by solar panels and a wind turbine (not connected to the grid) and wonder if I am really making a difference. I periodically go downstairs to stoke the wood fire that heats our home, and to stir the soup on the stove (organic split pea), and ponder my many friends living "normal" lives - air conditioning in the summer, central heat in the winter, two to three vehicles per family, two adults commuting by themselves to different jobs every day, new cool clothes, lavish vacations, and I wonder why the hell am I doing this?

And I always come back to the same conclusion: because I cannot live any other way. I don’t mean just ethically or morally. I mean for me, the selfish, this-is–what-I-really-need part of me. I love my life here.

"Walk softly and carry a big stick" ~ Teddy Roosevelt and Baloo E. Milkweed

I get to spend lots and lots of time with my husband, whom I adore. I get to hang out with my beloved dog all day long - we take long walks, and he accompanies me on my various errands around the village, and then snoozes at my feet in between. I can sleep as late as I like each morning, and go to bed whenever I want - I don't have to worry about getting on the road to punch a time clock. When there is an ice storm or a blizzard, I am able to sit in my nice warm house and enjoy it, instead of worrying about being able to drive safely to work and back. I get to grow, and then eat, much of my own food. And while I work a lot, and much harder than I ever have at any other “job,” it feels good.

Friends in the Milkweed Mercantile during construction: left to right - Amy Borla, Alline, Meadow (aka Amy Carleton) and Amy Radford...hmmmm, does a girl have to be named Amy to get into Dancing Rabbit?

I feel that, however imperfect Dancing Rabbit and its inhabitants may be we are at least attempting to make a difference. This difference is not about preaching to anyone else. It is an experiment with our own lives. (Do I have time to do everything I want to do? Is my life exactly as I want it to be? Nope. But I figure it is a work in progress, and I’ll continue to figure stuff out as I go along…)

I also realize that this is an incredible luxury. I recently watched the No Impact Man documentary, and then read Colin Beavan's book. He spent a year in New York City trying to make no environmental impact. He received a lot of criticism, and sneering, for his efforts. But in return he got to spend time with his family, became healthier, discovered he liked gardening, and found new passions. The Beavans, and all of us at Dancing Rabbit, can choose to turn off electricity, to use solar, to limit our consumption, to eat locally and organically. This is the gift of privilege. Those in the world with no power to turn off, not enough food to eat are not able to make these choices. I feel strongly that because we have the choice, we need to make it.

No one says this better than Derek Jensen. Excerpts from a recent article in Orion (read the entire article here):

"The most common words I hear spoken by any environmentalists anywhere are, We’re fucked. Most of these environmentalists are fighting desperately, using whatever tools they have—or rather whatever legal tools they have, which means whatever tools those in power grant them the right to use, which means whatever tools will be ultimately ineffective—to try to protect some piece of ground, to try to stop the manufacture or release of poisons, to try to stop civilized humans from tormenting some group of plants or animals. Sometimes they’re reduced to trying to protect just one tree.

…But no matter what environmentalists do, our best efforts are insufficient. We’re losing badly, on every front. Those in power are hell-bent on destroying the planet, and most people don’t care.

Frankly, I don’t have much hope. But I think that’s a good thing. Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth.

To start, there is the false hope that suddenly somehow the system may inexplicably change. Or technology will save us. Or the Great Mother. Or beings from Alpha Centauri. Or Jesus Christ. Or Santa Claus. All of these false hopes lead to inaction, or at least to ineffectiveness. One reason my mother stayed with my abusive father was that there were no battered women’s shelters in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but another was her false hope that he would change. False hopes bind us to unlivable situations, and blind us to real possibilities.

Clearcut Forest in Newfoundland. Photo Credit: boreal on Flickr

Does anyone really believe that Weyerhaeuser is going to stop deforesting because we ask nicely? Does anyone really believe that Monsanto will stop Monsantoing because we ask nicely? If only we get a Democrat in the White House, things will be okay. If only we pass this or that piece of legislation, things will be okay. If only we defeat this or that piece of legislation, things will be okay. Nonsense. Things will not be okay. They are already not okay, and they’re getting worse. Rapidly.

But it isn’t only false hopes that keep those who go along enchained. It is hope itself. Hope, we are told, is our beacon in the dark. It is our light at the end of a long, dark tunnel. It is the beam of light that makes its way into our prison cells. It is our reason for persevering, our protection against despair (which must be avoided at all costs). How can we continue if we do not have hope?

…The more I understand hope, the more I realize that …it serves the needs of those in power as surely as belief in a distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more than a secular way of keeping us in line.

Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane. I say this not only because of the lovely Buddhist saying “Hope and fear chase each other’s tails,” not only because hope leads us away from the present, away from who and where we are right now and toward some imaginary future state. I say this because of what hope is.

More or less all of us yammer on more or less endlessly about hope. You wouldn’t believe—or maybe you would—how many magazine editors have asked me to write about the apocalypse, then enjoined me to leave readers with a sense of hope. But what, precisely, is hope? At a talk I gave last spring, someone asked me to define it. I turned the question back on the audience, and here’s the definition we all came up with: hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.

I’m not, for example, going to say I hope I eat something tomorrow. I just will. I don’t hope I take another breath right now, nor that I finish writing this sentence. I just do them. On the other hand, I do hope that the next time I get on a plane, it doesn’t crash. To hope for some result means you have given up any agency concerning it. Many people say they hope the dominant culture stops destroying the world. By saying that, they’ve assumed that the destruction will continue, at least in the short term, and they’ve stepped away from their own ability to participate in stopping it.

Coho Salmon. Photo Credit: Peggy Collins on Flickr

I do not hope coho salmon survive. I will do whatever it takes to make sure the dominant culture doesn’t drive them extinct. If coho want to leave us because they don’t like how they’re being treated—and who could blame them?—I will say goodbye, and I will miss them, but if they do not want to leave, I will not allow civilization to kill them off.

When we realize the degree of agency we actually do have, we no longer have to “hope” at all. We simply do the work. We make sure salmon survive. We make sure prairie dogs survive. We make sure grizzlies survive. We do whatever it takes.

When we stop hoping for external assistance, when we stop hoping that the awful situation we’re in will somehow resolve itself, when we stop hoping the situation will somehow not get worse, then we are finally free—truly free—to honestly start working to resolve it. I would say that when hope dies, action begins.

…I have no patience for those who use our desperate situation as an excuse for inaction. I’ve learned that if you deprive most of these people of that particular excuse they just find another, then another, then another. The use of this excuse to justify inaction—the use of any excuse to justify inaction—reveals nothing more nor less than an incapacity to love.

At one of my recent talks someone stood up during the Q and A and announced that the only reason people ever become activists is to feel better about themselves. Effectiveness really doesn’t matter, he said, and it’s egotistical to think it does.

I told him I disagreed.

Doesn’t activism make you feel good? he asked.

Of course, I said, but that’s not why I do it. If I only want to feel good, I can just masturbate. But I want to accomplish something in the real world.

Why?

Because I’m in love. With salmon, with trees outside my window, with baby lampreys living in sandy streambottoms, with slender salamanders crawling through the duff. And if you love, you act to defend your beloved. Of course results matter to you, but they don’t determine whether or not you make the effort. You don’t simply hope your beloved survives and thrives. You do what it takes. If my love doesn’t cause me to protect those I love, it’s not love.

A WONDERFUL THING happens when you give up on hope, which is that you realize you never needed it in the first place. You realize that giving up on hope didn’t kill you. It didn’t even make you less effective. In fact it made you more effective, because you ceased relying on someone or something else to solve your problems—you ceased hoping your problems would somehow get solved through the magical assistance of God, the Great Mother, the Sierra Club, valiant tree-sitters, brave salmon, or even the Earth itself—and you just began doing whatever it takes to solve those problems yourself.

Photo Credit: Si1very on Flickr

When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there’s a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you’re dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.

And who is left when that you dies? You are left. … The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no. The you who is a part of the land where you live. The you who will fight (or not) to defend your family. The you who will fight (or not) to defend those you love. The you who will fight (or not) to defend the land upon which your life and the lives of those you love depends. The you whose morality is not based on what you have been taught by the culture that is killing the planet, killing you, but on your own animal feelings of love and connection to your family, your friends, your landbase—not to your family as self-identified civilized beings but as animals who require a landbase, animals who are being killed by chemicals, animals who have been formed and deformed to fit the needs of the culture.

When you give up on hope—when you are dead in this way, and by so being are really alive—you make yourself no longer vulnerable to the cooption of rationality and fear that Nazis inflicted on Jews and others, that abusers like my father inflict on their victims, that the dominant culture inflicts on all of us. Or is it rather the case that these exploiters frame physical, social, and emotional circumstances such that victims perceive themselves as having no choice but to inflict this cooption on themselves?

But when you give up on hope, this exploiter/victim relationship is broken. You become like the Jews who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

When you give up on hope, you turn away from fear.

And when you quit relying on hope, and instead begin to protect the people, things, and places you love, you become very dangerous indeed to those in power.

In case you’re wondering, that’s a very good thing.”

So do something. Take action. Stop hoping and become impassioned. Because it all starts with us. You. Me. All of us. Let's continue to work, and make change happen.

Your Chance to Make Difference: Send Diane to Hopenhagen

12/03/09 URGENT Update: HuffPost in conjunction with Hopenhagen.org is sending one person to Copenhagen for the UN Climate Change Conference to both represent concerns of people around the world and to report back daily as a HuffPost citizen journalist.

Please take a minute to vote on the Huffington Post web site to send Green Mom Diane MacEachern to Copenhagen for the Climate Talks. She would be an excellent ambassador to carry the messages we care about. To learn more about her, please check out the interview she did with Beth Terry of Fake Plastic Fish. I have the pleasure of blogging with Diane in the Green Mom's Carnival each month - she is an amazing advocate for the environment and for human health. VOTING ENDS DEC 4!!!

Thanks all!

Black Friday, Bah! Or, Bringing Sharing, Laughter, Creativity & Personal Renewal back to your holiday season

Handprint Wreaths Photo: Birmingham Public Library on Flickr

While this may be odd coming from a shop owner, I fully support National Buy Nothing Day. More importantly though, I am excited about the “Simplify the Holidays” Guide put out by the Center for a New American Dream.

Here is how their guide begins:
If you were asked to describe the ideal holiday season, chances are you would include the company of loved ones, good food, fun and relaxation, and maybe an inch or two of snow. It seems so simple, but for many of us, this could not be farther from reality. Too often, the holidays seem to exhaust rather than uplift us. Do you sometimes feel trapped by the shopping, spending, and frenzied preparations? Do you want your holidays wrapped more in meaning and less in stuff? If so, you’re not alone.

According to a recent national survey, more than 3 in 4 Americans wish that holidays were less materialistic. Nearly 9 in 10 believe that holidays should be more about family and caring for others, not giving and receiving gifts. And in today’s economy, many Americans are feeling the need to cut back. Consumers spent less during the 2008 holiday season than in prior years. A national survey revealed that the majority of Americans are planning to spend even less in 2009. This year, you don’t have to rack up credit card debt or get swept up in the season’s commercialism. Instead, consider creating holidays that instill more meaning into the season and encourage more sharing, laughter, creativity, and personal renewal.

Let me just repeat those last few words: sharing, laughter, creativity, and personal renewal. How much more would we ALL enjoy our holiday season if we could concentrate on those?

Driftwood Wreath Photo: ~Mary on Flickr

Things covered in the 30-page guide are:

1. Are You Dreaming of the Perfect Holiday?
2. Retail Extravaganza
3. Getting Started
4. Time and Stress
5. Gifts and Spending
6. Budgeting
7. Waste
8. Talk to Your Family
9. Simple Gift Ideas
10. Homemade Gifts
11. Gifts of Time
12. Gifts of Experience
13. Gifts to Charity
14. What is an Alternative Gift Fair?
15. Gifts for Children
16. Gifts for Grandparents
17. Low-Waste Wrapping
18. Decorating Materials
19. Change Gift-Giving Traditions
20. Connect With Your Children
21. Remember Your Elders
22. Simpler Entertaining
23. Holiday Advice from Fellow New Dreamers

Click here to go to the page to download the pdf. You do have to sign up (sorry!) but you can always unsubscribe, and the guide is totally worth it.

Yarn Wreath Photo: Christine Domaniac on Flickr

So tomorrow, so-called “Black Friday,” just relax. You do not have to (literally) buy in to the craziness. You can have one of the best holidays EVER and do it consciously, inexpensively, and with joy in your heart.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes!

Thanksgiving Recipes for the Rest of Us

I love Thanksgiving. Food, friends, family squabbles - what's not to love?

Since moving to Dancing Rabbit Thanksgivings have gotten much easier - we have a potluck dinner with everyone from DR, Sandhill and Red Earth Farms who has not already gone away for the holiday. We all bring a dish or two; there are some very good cooks here.

The only snag is that more than Thanksgiving Day I love the day after, when we can make sandwiches with turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce, all between two slices of bread (or perhaps a brioche bun) slathered with mayo. So I often make a mini Thanksgiving for me and Kurt, and we nibble the leftovers for the rest of the weekend.


I always bring cranberry sauce to the potluck. It is super easy, and the sweet/tangy cranberry with a bit of orange zest seems to make every bite of mashed potatoes, yams, turkey and gravy taste just that much better. I was horrified, and then amused, to find that not everyone shares my opinion. Thanksgiving seems to bring out our most base, almost reptilian connections to food. For example, our friend Tereza insists that her cranberry sauce must come out of a can (and have those little dents in the side). It is not about the flavor; it is about the memories. For those folks, I bring a can of congealed cranberry sauce, complete with little indentations from the can.

RECIPE # 1: Cranberry Sauce
Makes 2 1/4 cups

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 4 cups (1 12-oz package) fresh or frozen cranberries
• Optional Pecans, orange peel, raisins, currants, blueberries, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice.

Directions

1. Wash and pick over cranberries.
   
2. In a saucepan bring to a boil water and sugar, stirring to dissolve sugar.
   
3. Add cranberries, return to a boil.
   
4. Reduce heat, simmer for 10 minutes or until cranberries burst.
5. At this point you can add all number of optional ingredients. I prefer about a half a cup of roughly chopped pecans with or without some orange zest. (The recipes all say that you can add a cup of raisins or currants, or up to a pint of fresh or frozen blueberries for added sweetness. Spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg or allspice can be added too.)
6. Remove from heat.
   
7. Pour into serving dish, and cool completely at room temperature. When it is cool, chill in refrigerator. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

Photo Credit: Michele Hume on Flickr

Memories are also behind Kurt's seemingly innocent request for Green Bean Casserole - you know, the kind with Cream of Mushroom Soup in it. Which created a dilemma of sorts. You see, when it comes to food (and just about everything else), Kurt is the ultimate good sport, an incredibly amiable, agreeable guy. I, on the other hand, seem to be a bit of a, um, snob. The Cream of Mushroom Soup request really threw me for a loop - how to make Kurt happy and not make myself crazy?

You can imagine my delight when I found Robert St. John's cookbook, which comes with the lengthy subtitle "...how to survive in a southern kitchen without a can of cream of mushroom soup." Within its pages is the most divine recipe for Green Bean Casserole, bar none. The end result has the same just-like-mom-made comfort as the original (for Kurt) and yet contains nary a drop of cream of mushroom soup - it uses Béchamel Sauce instead - which satisfies my snooty inner gourmand. Besides that, it is relatively EASY, plus you get to throw around terms like "Béchamel." This year, I am adding Robert St. John to the list of people for whom I am thankful.


RECIPE #2: Ultimate Green Bean Casserole
4-6 servings
Inspired by Robert St. John's Deep South Staples. Changes made to original recipe by me (Alline) and are not indicative of Mr. St. John’s culinary talents.

Ingredients

• 1 quart chicken broth
• 4 cans green beans, drained (14.5 ounce cans)
• ¼ cup bacon, sliced
• 1 cup onion, medium dice
• 1 ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 2 cups Béchamel Sauce (recipe follows)
• 1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
• 1 6-ounce can French’s French Fried Onions

Directions

1. Make Simplified Béchamel Sauce (below)
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
3. In a large sauce pot, bring chicken broth to a boil.
4. Place drained green beans in the broth and simmer 10 minutes, Drain the green beans.
5. Meanwhile, in a separate skillet, render bacon until it just becomes crisp.
6. Drain excess bacon grease from the skillet and add the diced onions. Cook over medium heat for five minutes.
7. Stir in salt, pepper and Béchamel sauce.
8. Remove mixture from heat and fold in green beans, cheese, and ½ of the canned, fried onions.
9. Place mixture in a 3-quart baking dish and bake 30 minutes.
10. Remove from the oven and sprinkle the remaining fried onions over the top of the casserole and return to the oven for an additional 12-14 minutes.
11. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

Simplified Béchamel Sauce (modified from Joy of Cooking)

In a heavy saucepan over low heat, melt:
3 Tablespoons butter

Stir in:
3 Tablespoons all-purpose flour

Cook, uncovered, stirring occasionally with a wood spoon or spatula, over medium-low heat until the roux is just fragrant but not darkened, 2-3 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly.

Slowly whisk in:
2 cups whole milk

and return the saucepan to the heat.

Bring the sauce slowly to a simmer, whisking to prevent lumps, and cook, stirring often and skimming any skin that forms on the surface, over low heat, without boiling, until it reaches the consistency of thick cream soup, 8 to 10 minutes.

Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, if desired. Season with salt and ground pepper to taste.

Hmmm....why does this dark brown chocolate nut tart look RED? Probably because I haven't yet learned to mess with photos that were not taken by me...sheesh. For the real thing, check out the Vegetarian Times website!

RECIPE #3: Triple Nut Chocolate Tart
Vegetarian Times November 1, 2008
Serves 12 (we served 16, easily)

No one will guess this rich, elegant tart is vegan.
Crust

• 1 cup pastry flour
• ½ cup cornmeal
• 2 Tbs. sugar
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup vegan margarine (1 stick)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Filling

• 3 cups mixed walnuts, pecans, and almonds (1 cup each), coarsely chopped
• ¼ cup vegan margarine (½ stick)
• 5 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped or in chips
• 2 Tbs. pastry flour
• ¼ tsp. salt
• ½ cup maple syrup
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions
To make Crust:

1. Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in bowl.
2. Rub margarine into flour mixture with fingers until mixture is crumbly.
3. Sprinkle in vanilla, and stir.
4. Add 1 to 2 Tbs. cold water until dough clumps together loosely.
5. Press dough into pie dish or tart pan until sides and bottom are covered.
6. Chill in freezer 30 minutes.
   

To make Filling:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Spread nuts on baking sheet, and bake 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly browned.
3. Melt margarine and chocolate in saucepan over low heat, stirring until smooth. Sprinkle in flour and salt, and stir until smooth.
4. Stir in maple syrup and vanilla.
5. Stir in nuts.
6. Spread nut mixture in piecrust.
7. Bake 25 minutes, or until crust is golden and filling is firm.
8. Cool on wire rack at least 20 minutes before serving.

Have a wonderful holiday!