A Non-Toxic Approach to Shower Mold

I noticed some mold spots growing on my brand new pebble shower floor and of course didn’t want to clean it up with a harsh, toxic commercial moldicide. Even the word is scary! So I consulted The Naturally Clean Home – 150 Super-easy Herbal Formulas for Green Cleaning book and tried the following recipe. The mold wiped right off!

Here it is:

Mold Deterrent

1 1/4 cups white vinegar

3/4 cup water

4 drops cinnamon essential oil

6 drops patchouli essential oil

2 teaspoons tea tree essential oil

Combine all ingredients in a plastic bottle.  Spray surface well.  If you have mold buildup, allow the spray to rest on the surface for a few hours.  Wipe off with a soft cloth, then respray and let dry without rinsing.  You can use this recipe as the name suggests as a mold deterrent and spray surfaces without rinsing.

I used peppermint essential oil in place of the cinnamon and patchouli since I didn’t have the others.

A Little Information About Tea Tree Oil

Tea tree oil comes from the Australian paperbark tree and is an all-around remedy long valued for its anti-fungal, antibacterial, and antiviral properties.

Some Common Uses:

Around the house tea tree oil can be used as a toothbrush cleaner, mold treatment, natural pest control (the strong smell naturally repels ants and other insects), and laundry freshener.  For body care, tea tree oil helps control acne, fights fungal and bacterial infections, treats athlete’s foot, dandruff, lice, and gingivitis.  In aromatherapy, tea tree oil can be helpful in alleviating chest and head congestion, stuffy nose, and other symptoms of colds and flu, especially when used in steam inhalation.

A bottle of this little household wonder can be found at Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods or other natural food stores.

Vinegar

White vinegar (and apple cider vinegar) besides its obvious uses in cooking, is a completely safe all around cleaner, disinfectant, weed killer, pet cleaner, odor neutralizer, clothes whitener, glass cleaner and many more.  No pantry should be without a huge container of vinegar!  

For more green cleaning tips, click here.

Some information compiled from: http://articles.mercola.com/herbal-oils/tea-tree-oil.aspx

For more green living tips, visit greenwithbetsy.com.

Gardening with Baking Soda

 

 

Cheap, effective and OG (the original “green”), baking soda bakes, cleans, heals, disinfects, scrubs, deodorizes, exfoliates, and brightens just about everything in the home.  But did you know baking soda works in the garden too?

 

 

I recently came across the following fabulous tips from plantcaretoday.com.

1. Make a Non-Toxic Fungicide

Mix 4 teaspoons of baking soda and 1 gallon of water. Use on roses for black spot fungus and also on grapes and vines when fruit first begins to appear.

2. Spray to Treat and Prevent Powdery Mildew

Powdery mildew is causing major problems with impatiens this year, but also can be a problem for other plants, like lilacs, cucumbers, squash and zinnias.

Spray Recipe: 1 tablespoon of baking soda, 1 gallon of water, 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon of dishwashing liquid

Mix all the ingredients together and spray plants weekly. Apply on overcast days to prevent any potential foliage from burning.

3. Discourage Gnats In Soil & Fungus on Leaves

Mix in 1 gallon of water, 4 teaspoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon biodegradable soap. Mix well, spray infected foliage or soil as needed.

4. Discourage Weeds

Pour or sweep baking soda in a thick layer into cracks on a sidewalk or patios. The baking soda should kill any small weeds already sprouted and prevent new ones from coming up.

5. Kill Cabbage Worms

Mix equals parts flour and baking soda and dust plants (cabbage, broccoli, kale) being eaten by cabbage worms. They munch on the leaves and die usually in a day or two. Repeat as needed.

6. Kill Crabgrass

Simply wet the crabgrass, pour a heavy dusting of baking soda on the weed. The crabgrass should start dying back in 2 or 3 days .CAUTION: When applying baking try NOT to get it on your grass as too much baking soda can burn and kill it.

7. Clean Your Hands

After a day in the garden and dirt, clean your hands by rubbing and scrubbing wet hands with baking soda. Rinse.

 

To those comprehensive tips, I add:

8.  Garden Mildewcide 

Another simple recipe to combat powdery mildew on cucumbers, zucchini, melons, roses, and lilacs.  Fill a spray bottle with 1 teaspoon baking soda in 1 pint water.  Spray as needed.

 Baking Soda Bonanza by Peter A. Ciullo

 

And I really like this ingenious tip:

9.  Test your soil PH. 

Wet the soil and take a small amount of baking soda and sprinkle it onto soil.  If the baking soda bubbles, your soil is acidic with a PH level under 5.

http://thegardeningcook.com/, 

 

You clearly can’t go wrong with tried and true baking soda, in the home and garden!

 

For more green living tips, visit greenwithbetsy.com.

 

 

Hot Tea!

Tea is tasty, nutritious, medicinal and “hot” right now.  So is compost tea for your lawn, trees, gardens and shrubs!

What is compost tea?

Compost tea is a natural organic fertilizer made from compost, or more specifically a water extract of compost that is brewed to give the bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes a chance to increase in number and activity using the nutrients present in the water.   It is also a highly effective natural insect and disease inhibitor.  Compost tea is inexpensive and often an easier method of applying compost, especially to your trees and shrubs.

How is compost tea made?

Aerobic water steeps the biology off of the compost through an extraction process. Food-grade molasses, garlic, kelp, and fish emulsion are then added to the mix. The foods activate and cause the biology to multiply, creating a powerful, nutritious food for your plants.

How do you apply compost tea?

Compost tea can either be applied as a foliar spray or as a soil drench. As a foliar spray, nutritious compost tea deposits beneficial organisms to plant surfaces so disease-causing organisms cannot find infection sites or food resources. As a soil drench, compost tea develops a biological barrier around roots to prevent root disease-causing organisms from being able to find the roots. The tea introduces organic matter, which provides nutrients for the roots to improve plant growth and moisture retention.

Where can you get compost tea?

If you are in the Boston area, our tree care company, Boston Tree Preservation, offers compost tea treatments and serves as a tea center where homeowners can purchase the tea to apply themselves.  As the organic movement grows, many tree care and landscape companies understand the value of compost tea and are starting to offer compost tea treatments.  You can also find recipes on-line to make it yourself if you have access to healthy, rich compost.

Click on the video below for a demonstration on how to make compost tea.

Compost tea is vibrant, alive and wakes up your soil!  This spring, give your garden a treat with compost tea.

For more green living tips, visit greenwithbetsy.com.

Information compiled from bostontreepreservation.com.

Are Frozen Dinners Worth the Convenience?

We live in a busy, fast-paced society where taking the time to prepare a delicious and healthy meal is not always possible.  Pre-prepared foods and frozen dinners offer a quick and easy alternative, but at what price?

Typical frozen dinner

Most frozen meals are loaded with sugar, sodium, and preservatives with low vegetable and fiber content.  Though we need sodium in our diet, about one teaspoon a day or 2300 milligrams, for fluid balance, muscle strength and nerve function, most of us get far more than that with our consumption of frozen and processed foods.  We are all well aware of the dangers of too much salt and sugar!  The right kind of salt is important too.  Click here for more information about salts.

Certain frozen dinner brands, and specific meals produced by those brands, are worse than others.  Hot pockets, chicken potpies, and turkey and gravy dinners are among the worst.  Usually organic frozen meals are better, but it’s important to take the time to read the labels carefully, as with all processed foods.  Just because a product says “natural” doesn’t mean it is, even with frozen veggie burgers. Be on the lookout for salt’s various disguises like sodium alginate, sodium ascorbate, sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), and sodium benzoate, as well as added sugars under the name of high fructose corn syrup or natural cane sugar and unhealthy fats.

As Oscar Wilde said, “everything in moderation including moderation”, so the occasional frozen dinner won’t hurt you.  There is no substitute however, for a fresh, home cooked meal seasoned properly with healthy herbs, enhanced with a small amount sea salt, and prepared with love.

For more green living tips, visit greenwithbetsy.com.

 

Information compiled from: http://channels.isp.netscape.com/,

http://www.webmd.com/

Recycling Batteries and Winter Bird Feeding

Continuing my series on subjects of interest to men, but obviously pertinent to all, below are two questions from a male reader.

Question:  What can I do with old batteries?  Is it necessary to recycle them? Alan C., Loon, NH

Answer:  In 1997 Congress mandated a mercury phase-out plan for all types of batteries. Some people think since they no longer pose as great a threat to the environment as before, they can simply be thrown away with your trash.  Some communities even recommend throwing them away.

Regardless of whether there is less mercury, it is important to recycle all single-use batteries –  AA’s, AAA’s, C, D and 9-volt.  The batteries still contain trace elements of mercury as well as other possibly toxic materials; they don’t biodegrade and they take up space in the landfill.  Any batteries from earlier than 1997 contain 10 times the amount of mercury in newer batteries and should be taken to hazardous waste collection in your town.

How do you recycle them?  Some towns accept single use batteries as household hazardous waste and many battery companies like Batteries Plus will take spent, disposable batteries for recycling free of charge.   Earth911.org is a great website for finding out how to recycle just about everything including batteries.  Go to “Recycling Guides/Electronics/Single Use Batteries/Recycling Locator” and enter your zip code to find locators near you.

Rechargeable batteries from cell phones, MP3 players and laptops, contain potentially toxic heavy metals and should never be thrown away with your trash.  Again, most communities have an outlet for recycling or disposal, but if not, go to www.call2recycle.org/program-info/.  Hope this helps!

Question:  I like to feed the birds.  Any suggestions for bird food other than seed?  How do you make seut?  Alan C., Loon, NH

Answer:  Bird feeding and bird watching are great entertainment, especially in winter!  Peanut butter, cornmeal, meal worms and fruits and fruit seeds can be food for birds.  Most kinds of beef fat, also called suet, can be safely fed to birds and is attractive especially to woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, jays and starlings.  Animal fat, a high-energy food, is easily digested and metabolized by many birds.  Beware – raw suet becomes rancid when temperatures are above freezing, so it should only be fed to birds in winter in a cold climate.

Below is an easy recipe from the Old Farmer’s Almanac for making your own suet.

Suet Cake

• 2 parts melted fat (bacon fat, suet, or lard)
• 2 parts yellow cornmeal
• 1 part peanut butter

Mix all ingredients together and cook for a few minutes.  Pour into small containers (tuna fish cans are perfect), and refrigerate or freeze until needed. Mixture can also be stuffed into 1-inch holes drilled in small logs to hang from trees.  The recipe can be made all year long as long as you accumulate fat.  Fasten containers securely to trees or feeders.  Enjoy!

Information compiled from: http://environment.about.com/od/recycling/a/batteryrecycle.htm

http://www.almanac.com/content/bird-food-recipe-suet

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/page.aspx?pid=1180

 

For more green living tips, visit greenwithbetsy.com.

Have You Heard About the Health Benefits of This Ancient Spice?

Turmeric is finally getting the attention it deserves.

A member of the ginger family, this orange-colored spice is the main ingredient in curry and has been used for centuries in Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian cooking.  It’s also a remedy in Ayurvedic and Chinese medicines and, along with ginger, is now being recognized as one of the most potent natural anti-inflammatories available.

Turmeric’s main healthful ingredient is curcumin and Western practitioners are acknowledging its possible healing properties with the following:

• Relieves inflammatory conditions like arthritis and joint pain
• Promotes a healthy immune system
• Supports overall brain health and memory function, helping to remove plaque and improve oxygen flow
• Improves digestion and stomach aches
• Powerful antioxidant properties which fight cancer-causing free radicals, reducing or preventing some of the damage
• Kills parasites
• Dissolves gallstones
• Alleviates menstrual problems
• Helps detoxify the liver
• Helps promote healthy skin
• Natural antiseptic and antibacterial agent and can clear infections

For non-medicinal uses, its potent orange color makes turmeric a great all natural dye.  Try it for tie-dyeing or dyeing Easter eggs! Ironically, it’s also used to whiten teeth.

Though it comes in supplement form, (consult your doctor before consuming supplements) it’s best to use it as a spice.  I try to add it daily to my diet, which is easy now that I discovered this delicious recipe for turmeric tea from 101 Cookbooks.  You’ll be surprised how good it is.

Turmeric Tea

Turmeric tends to stain anything it comes into contact with, so be careful.

1/3 cup / 80 ml good, raw honey
2 1/2 teaspoons dried turmeric
lemon
lots of freshly ground black pepper (helps with absorption)

Work the turmeric into the honey until it forms a paste. You can keep this on hand, in a jar, for whenever you’d like a cup. For each cup of tea, place a heaping teaspoon of the turmeric paste in the bottom of a mug. Pour hot (but not boiling water) into the mug, and stir well to dissolve the turmeric paste. Add a big squeeze of juice from a lemon, and a good amount of black pepper. Enjoy! Stir now and then as you drink so all the good stuff doesn’t settle to the bottom, or top off with more hot water as you drink it.

Sprinkling turmeric on vegetables or in dressings is another good way to add this versatile and healthy spice to your diet.  Make sure you buy organic turmeric free from pesticides, heavy metals, artificial colors and lead.  The USDA recently recalled the brand Pran due to high lead content

Get healthy and stay healthy with turmeric!

Information compiled from http://www.mnn.com/food/healthy-eating/stories/the-amazing-health-benefits-of-turmeric, http://www.top10homeremedies.com/kitchen-ingredients/10-health-benefits-of-turmeric.html, http://www.101cookbooks.com/,and The Okinawa Program by Bradley J. Willcox M.D.,D. Craig Willcox, Ph.D & Makoto Suzuki, M.D.

 

 

 

 

Recipes for Safe Weed Control

Happily spring is here  – trees are flowering, flowers and shrubs are blooming and lawns are turning green.  Oh lawns, we love them and we hate them.  They add beauty to the landscape and are a playground for our kids and pets, but to maintain a “picture-perfect” lawn requires a lot of time, money, energy, and usually toxic chemicals.    A conventional lawn is the largest irrigated “crop” in the country.  With an organic lawn you mow less, water less, thatch less and skip high nitrogen-based fertilizers and herbicides.  Organic lawns are clearly the safer alternative, but you have to be able to tolerate a few weeds as your lawn transitions from a chemical free lawn to an organic one.  

What can you do about those dreaded weeds?  First of all, realize that a monoculture, like a lawn, is not usual in nature.  With the more natural approach, there will be some weeds.   Change your perspective about them.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “What is a weed?  A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”  Weeds are a messenger of problems in your soil and will grow where nothing else will. Many are an edible and nutritious food.  If you really can’t stand them, try the simple and safe recipes for weed control I’ve listed below using ingredients right from your kitchen.

VINAIGRETTE “DRESSING” FOR DANDELIONS

A well-placed shot of vinegar right on the plant can thwart dandelions or other broad-leaved weeds.  Be careful not to splash it on the turf or any plants you want to keep, because vinegar will kill grassy plants as well. A section of newspaper or cardboard can act as a shield for desirable plants.

Ingredients

Vinegar (as close to 10% acidity as possible); Dishwashing Liquid (optional); Pump Spray Bottle

Directions

Fill the spray bottle with undiluted vinegar (or mix 3 parts vinegar to 1 part dishwashing liquid).  Spray a narrow stream, dousing the weed’s leaves and crown (the area at the base of the plant).   Rinse the sprayer well with water, especially if it has metal parts because vinegar is corrosive.  This is a spot spray only!

ALCOHOL ATTACK

Rubbing alcohol is a simple way to kill a weed.  Mix it with water and it will dehydrate almost any weed.  This also works against spider mites, aphids, and scale, but may require some experimentation to find the right level of effectiveness.  Test spray on one leaf to check for burning.

Ingredients

1-quart water; 1 (or more) tablespoons rubbing alcohol; Pump spray bottle

Directions

Mix water and alcohol in the spray bottle. (Use 1 tablespoon of alcohol for weed seedlings or thin-leaved weeds and 2 tablespoons or more for tougher weeds.)  Spray weed leaves thoroughly but lightly.  (Avoid surrounding plants.)

SORRY, CHARLIE

Creeping Charlie is a low-growing, yellow-flowered perennial weed that can be a real nuisance in lawns.  If you have noticed it in yours, borax can be a very effective weed-killer, particularly in late spring or early summer when weeds are growing most actively.

Ingredients

5 Teaspoons borax, like 20 mule Team Borax, for every 25 square feet of lawn; 1-quart water; Pump spray bottle

Directions

Mix borax in water.  Measure exactly: Too little and it won’t kill the weeds, too much and you could kill the grass too.  Spray to cover a 25-square foot area.  Water and fertilize your turf after the treatment so that it rapidly fills in the space left by the dead weeds.

SPRAY AWAY BROWN PATCH IN LAWNS

Brown or yellow rings that die out in your lawn, caused by rhizoctonia fungi, which comes from poor drainage, too much rain and/or too much nitrogen fertilizer, can be treated with this simple solution.

Ingredients

1 rounded tablespoon baking soda or potassium bicarbonate  (a better choice since it has less salt); 1-tablespoon horticultural oil; 1-gallon water

Directions

Mix all ingredients thoroughly.  Spray lightly on your lawn.  Avoid overuse or drenching the soil.

DELUXE BAKING SODA SPRAY

For a very effective disease and insect fighter, go no further than your kitchen.  This concoction works best as a preventative, so spray susceptible plants before disease  symptoms start and continue at weekly intervals.

Ingredients

1 ½ tablespoons baking soda; 1-tablespoon canola oil; 1 cup plus 1 gallon water; 1-tablespoon vinegar; Backpack or pump sprayer

Directions

Mix the baking soda, soap and oil with 1 cup of water.  Add the vinegar.  Don’t mix the  vinegar in until last or the mixture may bubble over.  Pour the mixture into the sprayer and  add 1 gallon of water.  Shake or stir to combine the ingredients.  Spray plants, covering the bottoms and tops of the leaves.

PLAIN AND SIMPLE GARLIC JUICE

If you are a garlic lover, you may want to use this simple recipe to fight diseases and insects on your plants.

Ingredients

3 garlic cloves; A blender; Pump Spray Bottle; Molasses (optional)

Directions

Liquefy 3 garlic cloves in a blender that is half-filled with water.  Strain out the garlic, then mix the remaining liquid with enough water to make 1 gallon of  spicy concentrate.  Two tablespoons of molasses will help the mixture adhere to the leaves.

CITRUS KILLER FOR APHIDS

Aphids and other leaf-sucking insects can cause considerable damage if you don’t control them.  This mixture neutralizes aphids and can also act as a deterrent to ants!

Ingredients

1-pint water; Rind from 1 lemon, grated  (or orange or grapefruit rind); Cheesecloth; Pump Spray Bottle

Directions

Bring the water to a boil.  Remove from heat and add the grated lemon rind.  Allow the mixture to steep overnight.  Strain the mixture through cheesecloth, and pour into the spray bottle. Apply the mixture to plant leaves that are under attack.  (This mixture must come in contact with the insects’ bodies to be effective.)

WEEDS IN HOT WATER

Use boiling water to eliminate weeds from sidewalk or driveway cracks.  Be careful not to splash it on to neighboring plants or turf.

Ingredients

Teakettle or pan

Directions

Boil a full kettle of water.  Pour slowly and carefully, dousing both the weeds and the soil immediately surrounding them.

For more recipes, email me at greenwithbetsy.com.

Recipes for organic weed, insect pests and disease controls compiled from Great Garden Formulas, 1998 Rodale Press, Inc.

 

Information compiled from: lawncare.about.com/od/lawncarebasics/a/historyoflawn.htm

 

SodaStream

As a follow up to my post,  “Is Carbonation Good or Bad?”  I want to tell you about the SodaStream home soda maker.  Tired of lugging home, storing and recycling cases of heavy seltzer bottles, I thought I would give one a try.

Tall and sleek, it fits nicely on my countertop and under the overhead cabinets. I had heard that they are easy to use and they really are!  Once you set up the carbonator in the drinksmaker, you simply fill the carbonating bottle with cold water (I use filtered water.), screw it in to the carbonator, press the button on top three times (4 for more carbonation) and seconds later you have delicious seltzer water.  If you want flavored seltzer or soda, you add the flavoring afterwards.   Just slowly pour it into the tilted soda bottle, close and gently shake.  I tried the cola flavoring and the lemon line.  Both were good – the cola flavoring tasted just like coke.  While I avoid foods with artificial flavorings, I was glad to know they are made without high-fructose corn syrup or aspartame.

I noticed that the fizziness stays for a couple of days, though you’ll definitely finish the bottle of seltzer long before it goes flat.  Another plus, the carbonator bottles never need washing, only a quick rinse with warm water, if that.

When the carbonator is empty, you can take it to any participating retailer where they will sell you a full one for the price of the gas contents only.  Bed Bath & Beyond, Best Buy, the Bon-Ton family of stores, Crate and Barrel, Kohl’s, Macy’s, Staples, Sur La Table, Target, Wal-Mart, and Williams-Sonoma are some national retailers that carry exchange carbonators.

I try not to clutter my kitchen with extraneous gadgets, but SodaStream I highly recommend.  It’s practical, simple-to-use, no-fuss and good for the environment – no energy is wasted by transporting billions of gallons of soda and seltzer every day, nor are there empty bottles thrown into the landfill.   Give one a try – Starter kits start at $129.00 and include a home soda maker, 1 reusable BPA-free carbonating bottle with fizz-preserving cap, 1 60L CO2 carbonator which makes up to 60 liters or 50 cans, and a sodamix taste sampler with 6 flavors (they have over 50!)

As their marketing materials say, “it just makes good sense”.  It really does.

 

Making Jam The Old Fashioned Way

Last weekend my friend and I spent a fabulous morning at a jam making class at the Green Briar Nature Center in Sandwich on Cape Cod.  This post isn’t exactly a green tip, but rather a description of class that is a true throwback to an era when life was slower and simpler, a time when you cooked with ingredients you or your neighbors grew, a time when people took the time to talk to one another without smart phones, without Facebook, without Twitter.

The Green Briar Nature Center is located in a charming old house near a pond and adjacent to the famous Briar Patch of the Thornton Burgess’s children’s stories.  There are nature trails, a spectacular wildflower garden and a natural history library.  The center also offers year round weekly jam making classes in an old-fashioned, turn-of-the-century (and I mean the 20^th century!) kitchen.   The recipes are the originals from the early 1900’s; we made cranberry hot pepper jam. The cranberries were local and came from the farm next to ours in East Sandwich.  The ingredients and jam making utensils were nicely laid out for each participant.

My friend is an expert jam maker, but even for a novice like me it was easy.  Friendly volunteers guided us through each step, making sure when the jam was ready to be jarred, we did it correctly.   Lined up one right after the other, we chopped and stirred, talked and learned about each other’s lives, and asked questions of the more experienced jam makers.  It reminded me of the old quilting bees when woman would gather and sew and chat.  In this jam making class, men participate too.

Making Jam at the Green Briar Nature Center

What a pleasant respite from the hustle, bustle of the holiday season and a special way to spend time with a friend.  What a lovely gift homemade jelly makes!  The center also has a gift shop with more homemade jams and jellies as well as other handcrafted items.    I can’t think of a greener holiday gift than a morning at an authentic jam making class!  Visit www.thorntonburgess.org for more information.

 

 

Raw Food Diet

English: A close up of a fresh raw food dish (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I recently attended a raw food cooking class. A raw food diet is just what it says – food that is eaten raw or heated to no more than 115 degrees. According to raw food experts, the advantages are that raw food contains beneficial live enzymes that make it more digestible and that it has a higher vitamin and nutrient content.   Heating or cooking chemically alters food causing it to lose its ability to provide energy.  Cooking also destroys certain vitamins. A raw food diet can cleanse and heal. The raw food diet as a health treatment was first developed in Switzerland in 1897 by Dr. Maximillian Bircher-Benner, the inventor of muesli, after he recovered from jaundice by eating raw apples.  His health center is still in operation today.

In summer when fruits and vegetables are abundant, preparing seasonal, local, raw food is easy. A strict raw food diet year round however, is more involved and does not include any processed foods.  To make crackers, breads and other “baked” goods can be time consuming and requires advance planning.  Blenders, food processors, juicers and dehydrators are all needed equipment.  Sprouting and soaking are necessary to eat grains, legumes and nuts.  Nuts are a large part of the raw food diet and are used to make cheeses, crackers, breads and soups.

What appealed to me about the class was its emphasis on creating warming uncooked meals.  We learned simple tips like bringing all food to room temperature for a couple of hours before preparation and using lots of warming spices like cumin, curry and nutmeg.  Our meal started with a delicious raw butternut and green apple soup, followed by zucchini chive canapés, a zucchini slice smeared with chive cream cheese made from cashews – even better than “real” cream cheese! For dinner we made a Brussels sprout and pumpkin seed slaw, a wild rice and chickpea salad, kale and shallot pizzettes with 3 kinds of cheese (again, cashew based; the crust was made from flax seeds and vegetables “baked” in a dehydrator) and a fresh fig and lemon tart for dessert.  The dinner was fabulous and you never would have known it was uncooked!

I could never be an extreme “raw foodie”, but I do love experimenting with new and healthy cuisine.  I read somewhere to make 50% of your diet raw, so challenge yourself and give it a try. Below is a simple recipe for Cashew Parmesan cheese that rivals the real thing!  Email me for more recipes…

½ cup dry cashews

1 clove garlic (chopped)

¼ teaspoon sea salt (coarse)

Grind cashews and sea salt in food processor (with ‘s’ blade) until fine, almost powdery.  Add garlic and pulse food processor until texture resembles Parmesan.  Use on everything!

Information compiled from The Raw Truth, The Art of Loving Foods, by Jeremy A Safron and Renée Underkoffler,  http://en.wikipedia.org/, onesmallpatch.com.