Monday, May 26, 2014

Making Tea

More information on brewing your own tea, both regular tea and herbal tea (herbal infusion).

(source)

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Dairy Substitutions

When my family can't eat a certain ingredient, my tendency now is to simply drop it, pick different recipes than I had before, and move on. But sometimes, you have a nostalgic moment and you want a substitution for an ingredient you had before. Or you have a recipe idea and you need to figure out what ingredients can serve the same purpose as the ingredient you can no long eat.

When that happens, it's nice to know substitutions.

Dairy Free Cream of Mushroom Soup

Thursday, May 1, 2014

For safer food: apples

At this point, I would be very careful about eating apples that you don't grow yourself.

1. Once again, apples are the #1 produce item on the 'dirty dozen' list of produce containing pesticide residue. In other words, they have the most pesticide residue of everything tested. Good to at least go organic. The dirty dozen list.

2. Some of them may have antibiotics used on them, including organic varieties:
Antibiotic use on apples and pears.

Considering the state of antibiotic resistance that the World Health Organization has just weighed in on after an international study, this is NOT something we want to encourage.

3. And in the USA, on average, apples are stored for 14 months before you ever get to see them. Which is likely why Europe may not allow them to be imported from the USA - too much residue used to keep them looking okay from such long storage.


I'm looking into getting my own apple tree, and if I DO buy apples, I get ones from local farmers now that I can interview, and only in season. :-/