Pumkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

These are one of my family's favorites. I made some last night and this is hands-down a top 10 recipe, especially during the fall season, so I think I should share. Don't you? Enjoy!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins:

4 eggs
3 cups of flour
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 teaspoons of baking soda
1/2 teaspoon of salt
15 ounces of punpkin (make sure it's straight pumpkin, not the pie filling)
12 ounces of chocolate chips

Mix the eggs, sugar, and oil together in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, mix the remaining dry ingredients. Combine the mixtures and add pumpkin and chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Nutrition and Community

My favorite day of every month is known quite affectionately as Distribution Day. I am a member of the Community Food Co-Op of Utah and on the last Saturday of the month I walk to my local distribution center (about 2 or 3 blocks from my home) and pick up a wonderful array of food. On these special Saturdays I can expect to pick up a healthy assortment of fresh fruits and veggies along with some grains, too. This month I was happy to bring home:

• 1 loaf of locally made whole wheat bread
• 1 5 lb. bag of red potatoes
• 1 lb. of brown rice
• 1 package of Utah's Own mushrooms
• 8 kiwis
• 6 apples
• 6 oranges
• 2 bunches of green onions
• 1 bunch of red leaf lettuce
• 1 bunch of asparagus
• and, my favorite treat this month, 4 artichokes!

And what did I pay for this beautiful bounty of healthy foods? $14. Can you believe it? I have been ordering food from the Co-Op for almost 3 years now, and I still can't believe it sometimes.

The mission of the Community Food Co-Op of Utah is to "provide quality, healthy food at a substantial savings through cooperative purchasing; and to build a sense of community and to promote volunteer service." The Co-op is for anybody and everybody. The catch? There is a one-time membership fee, of which value you may choose, and then each month you must volunteer 2 hours of your time. The Co-op provides many opportunities to do so and through their needs the Co-op community is built. But, if you can't volunteer with Co-op and already volunteer with another organization, then that counts too. It just has to be 2 hours of your time volunteered for a cause other than for members of your family.

Since I'm a vegetarian, I always order the Harvest Share. But, for the meat-eaters the Standard share comes with plenty of good meat from local butchers. There are all kinds of add-ons that you can get with your order, too. For instance, this month I purchased some local fresh apple cider for $2. They have team sites all over the Wasatch Front, from Park City to Tooele from Ogden to Nephi, where you can pick up your orders. (And if you don't live along the Wasatch Front, I'm sure there is a similar service in your area. I encourage you to find out.) I think this is a fantastic system for tackling some of the issues that concern me such as healthy eating and getting to know your neighbors.

One of my favorite things about the Co-Op is that we don't just get apples, oranges, and bananas every month. We get different things, depending on the season. Tomatoes, corn, squash, and peaches come in the late summer and fall from local growers. This month we received artichokes, which proved to be an exciting adventure as I have never even thought of buying and cooking an entire artichoke. (Which is DELICIOUS, by the way.) Sometimes we even get eggplant. Participating in the Co-Op has definitely inadvertently expanded my taste buds' appetite and my cooking abilities over the years.

So, if you want to purchase a healthy balance of foods for the next month (and embark upon a peregrination of the palate), I suggest you print out an order form, find a pick-up near you, and enjoy!

Note: If you are thinking about trying this out, order forms are due by March 13th!


Credits:

• Peppers
  
• Leafy Greens
  

A Not-so-amazing Amazing Idea

Do you ever have those days when you have an amazing idea? Then you realize that the idea wasn't that great, but you're still really proud of it?

I have been trying to reduce my plastic consumption. It's nothing drastic, but I am trying to pay attention to what kinds of products I'm purchasing. Packaging is an issue, but so is buying so many of the products that are out there from toothbrushes to toasters. One thing that's easy to do is stop using plastic grocery bags, which I have done. The next logical step in that process is also to stop using the plastic bags that stores provide for putting produce in.

Deciding that it's okay for your tomatoes, apples, and oranges to roll around in your cart takes a little bit of getting used to. And what about things like broccoli? I got some little mesh bags that have a drawstring at the top for putting in produce. I find that I only need a couple and when they're full, I can let my apples roll around a little bit. So far this plan is working nicely. The only "problem" I've run into is what to do with the lettuce. That flimsy plastic bag seems to keep it so clean and fresh and keeps the rest of my groceries dry. (The misters always seem to go off right before or during my lettuce picking experience.)

Photo Credit

When I get home, I like to wash and chop up the lettuce first thing and mix it all back in the plastic bag so when it comes time to making salads to take the work the next day, I just have to reach in and pull out a handful. But I'm trying to use less plastic, so this plan is no longer viable. Solution? I had two half-full bags of tortilla chips. I dumped one into the other, rinsed out the bag and let it air dry. By the time I got back from the store and prepared all of the lettuce, the bag was clean, dry, and ready to go. It still smelled a bit salty, but what can you do?

Now I have a tortilla-chip bag full of chopped lettuce. When my friends open the fridge they laugh and think it's a little silly, but I'll tell you what, my lettuce has never stayed crispier!

Tip: Throw in a paper towel with the lettuce before wrapping it all up in the bag. This keeps the lettuce crispy and rust free by soaking up extra moisture in the bag. Then, clean something up with it when you're done with the lettuce, or save it for the next batch.

Tortilla Chip Photo

Turkey-Day

Before the holiday weekend I was thinking about how great it was going to be to get in some extra time to put up some great posts...and well...you can see how that one went. The long weekend got going and I found myself spending a lot of time doing all types of fun things, but not posting. Here is a Turkey-Day recap:

I am a vegetarian. I have been so for about two years. My reasoning is not generally based on animal cruelty (though that is an added benefit) but more on environmental impact. The idea is to eat lower on the food chain. My decision also comes with various health benefits and, as it turns out, is much cheaper too. But for this Thanksgiving my family bought a free-range organic turkey from a farm not too far from where I live as a special treat. So I decided to go for it and honestly, it wasn't as exciting as I was expecting it to be. We did our own brine-ing (a process where the whole turkey is essentially marinated in our own concoction of spices and other good-li-ness) and it was very tasty, but after two years I thought it would be more of a to-do.

As the day went on, though, I remembered that when I did eat meat all of the time, turkey wasn't my favorite on Thanksgiving. Sure, it was good, but I was much more happy eating my grandmother's rolls, my step-father's green bean casserole, and delving into my mom's mashed potatoes. The only thing the turkey was good for was the leftover sandwiches (only made with white bread of course--the only time of year we had white bread) for days to come. And as this Thanksgiving, complete with Turkey, went by with plenty of delicious white bread turkey sandwiches.

Photo Credit

Plant Anatomy 101: Pumpkins!

I thought this one would be appropriate for the season. However, I have already posted this idea on my work blog, so if you would like to check that one out, here it is. I like the Plant Anatomy series. I get a lot of pleasure in looking up all of the information about the different kinds of plants. In college I worked in a botany lab where I did research on the tomato plant family, Solinidae. This includes tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, and eggplants.

My time was split between growing and taking care of the plants up in the greenhouses where I would pollinate the plants and then plant the seeds that came from those fruits. Then in the lab I would record my findings, run DNA tests on my plants, and otherwise coordinate with the other lab researchers. It was a great job and my advanced interest in plants directly springs from that.

I never had a garden growing up, but being in the greenhouse everyday was really a treat. The greenhouses were located up on the roof of one of the university's biology buildings. I was usually the only one up there. It was always so quiet and peaceful. I loved the days when it snowed. It would be snowing all around me, the flakes falling down on the roof, but I was inside a tropical wonderland. It reminded me of being in a reverse snow globe. And all of the bays were filled with such amazing plants. Some were from our own backyard and some were from foreign places. There were a lot of different plants up there. My favorite were the "living stone" plants. These are succulents that grow in Africa where they blend in with the rocks and soil by actually looking like rocks! They live in an arid region that has little water, a short growing season, and by looking like rocks they can avoid being grazed.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

But since this is supposed to be about pumpkins. Here are some links of fun recipes to try with pumpkins:

Cocoa Pumpkin Brownies

Toasted Pumpkin Seeds in 3 Ways

Homemade Pumpkin Pie (from a real pumpkin)

Enjoy!

Vegetarian Tacos!

In an effort to reduce my impact on this earth, I decided to become a vegetarian. The amount of resources it takes to create one pound of beef is amazing. Stats vary depending on your sources, but watering the grain so it can grow to feed the cattle to live and "beef up" to eventually make it to your plate requires thousands of gallons of water and gasoline. The idea of eating lower on the food chain essentially cuts out the middleman, or middle cow, pig, or chicken so to speak, and greatly reduces the environmental impact that the food you eat produces. So, for almost two years now I have been meat free...well, almost. I actually still eat certain kinds of fish. Fish, as it turns out, can turn grains and carbohydrates into protein much more efficiently than we can. The amount of resources it takes for a "vegetarian" fish to live and thrive is less than if I were to just eat those carbohydrates myself. That's the idea behind my reasoning so far.

One of the first steps I took in my vegetarian quest was to buy a good veggie cookbook. I picked up something that contained basic meals that could be cooked quickly, but used yummy ingredients. The first thing that I tried from my cookbook was vegetarian tacos, and so far they have been my favorite. I made them on Sunday night for dinner (and lunch left overs for the rest of the week) and they were as good as they always are! This has become a staple among my family and friends, so if you'd like to give them a try, here's the recipe:

Saute one chopped small to medium onion in olive oil and garlic
Add one chopped bell pepper (all of the colors are good, so you can pick this one!)
When the onion and pepper are cooked, add
1 can of black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup of frozen corn
and chili powder and cumin to taste (I don't use the recipe anymore, but I'd say about a tablespoon of chili powder and maybe a teaspoon of cumin. I love these two spices, so I tend to be pretty generous with them.)

These are good topped with chopped lettuce and tomatoes, or even some avocados, but the original recipe doesn't call for them. I think they are good either way and I usually decide just depending on what I have around. Cheese is a must as far as I'm concerned and sour cream is good too. I usually substitute the sour cream with plain yogurt to keep the meal a little more healthy.

Oh and don't forget to wrap them up in your favorite tortillas!

I hope you love these babies as much as I do! They're perfect when you need something simple, healthy, and really delicious! Enjoy!