Veggie Teens

Celebrating Earth Day

Here are 9 easy ways you can celebrate Earth Day!

1. Garden or plant a tree.
2. Make nature crafts suchs as birdhouses and bird feeders.
3. Educate yourself about the Earth and ways you can help.
4. Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle!
5. Clean up litter and use Earth friendly cleaning products.
6. Look up Earth Day videos and songs.
7. Attend community Earth Day events.
8. Show your support by wearing brown and green and eat an Earth friendly meal (any of our vegetarian recipes are great for this!)
9. Save energy by turning off your lights and walking or biking.

Check out wikiHow's Earth Day post for more details!

Celebrate Earth Day by Eating Vegetarian

One of the best ways you can help celebrate Earth Day is by eating vegetarian! 

• It takes up to 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat
• It only takes 25 gallons of water to produce one pound of wheat   
• A large amount of fossil fuels are needed in the production of meat: from the fuels used to grow the animals food to the gas used to transport the food across the country
• About a gallon of fuel goes into producing one pound of meat
• 20 pounds of soybeans are used to feed cows to produce one pound of meat; those soybeans could be used to feed many people

Celebrate Earth Day with this Oriental Salad!

Oriental Salad with Mandarin, Edamame, and Almonds

This colorful, delicious, and nutritious salad is easy to make with whatever ingredients you have on hand!

Ingredients

Red leaf lettuce
Red pepper, sliced (see Culinary Techniques:How to Cut a Red Pepper)
Carrots, sliced
Cucumbers, cut in matchsticks
Green onions, sliced
Snow peas, chopped
Edamame, shelled
Mandarin oranges, drained
Slivered almonds (or peanuts)
Seasame dressing (bottled or homemade from Veggie Teens: A Cookbook and Guide for Vegetarian Teenagers)

Assemble the ingredients on a plate or create a salad bar and let each person assemble their own. 

 

Meatless Monday: Get out of the box

My family signed up to pick up a box of fresh, local produce from the farmers' market each week. We get whatever comes in the box so it challenges us to get out of our box and try new recipes! (Check out our recipe at the bottom of this post. It might sound too healthy or even too strange to taste good - but it does!)

Here's what we got in our first box:

• 8 assorted citrus
• Head of purple and speckled leaf romaine lettuce
• 2 baby fennel
• 3 bulbs of spring garlic
• Bunch of bright lights swiss chard
• 2 small sweet potatoes 
• Tuscano kale
• Spaghetti squash

Recipe: Winter Veg Korma

This is a vegan Indian dish made with garam masala - a fragrant mixture of up to 12 spices like black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, cardamom, dried chiles, fennel, ginger, mace, or nutmeg. It is a lot easier to buy a mixture than measuring out a bunch of different spices.

Culinary Technique: Keep fresh ginger root in the freezer. Just peel it and store it in an airtight plastic bag in the freezer. Cut off pieces as needed; grate, slice, or finely dice.

Sauce:

1/2 onion, diced
1 small tomato, diced
1 inch of fresh ginger, finely diced
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons of garam masala 
1/2 teaspoon salt

Winter Veg:

1 1/2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
2 small sweet potatoes (1 pound)
1/2 small butternut squash (3/4 pound)
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 1/2 cups of water
1/2 bunch of kale; remove leaves from stem and chop
1 can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), drained 
1/2 cup of light coconut milk 

Directions

1. Combine first six sauce ingredients (onion, tomato, ginger, water, garam masala, salt) in a small food processor or blender and puree until smooth. Set aside.
2. Heat large sauté pan then add 1 tablespoon of the oil. When oil is hot, add diced sweet potato and butternut squash. Cook until vegetables start to soften then move them to the edge of the pan.
3. Add another tablespoon of oil to the center of the pan, and when hot, add sliced red onion and sauté, combining vegetables when onion is soft. 
4. Remove vegetables to a plate.
5. Add 1/2 tablespoon of oil to pan; add sauce and cook until thickened, approximately 5 to 6 minutes.
6. Return vegetables to the pan and add 1 1/2 cups of water.
7. When mixture is simmering, stir in kale and chickpeas.
8. Cook until sauce is thickened then add cocunut milk and heat through.
9. Serve over brown rice.

Earth Day: 13 Things Teens Can Do to Go Green

Go Green Guide

(Excerpt from Veggie Teens: A Cookbook and Guide for Vegetarian Teenagers by Elyse May (aka Veggie Teen).

 Happy Earth Day! Remember to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle…in that order! Living a “greener” lifestyle today will help save our planet today for tomorrow.

13 Things to Do to Make a Difference

1. Out to Lunch: Use a reusable lunch bag and containers instead of paper and plastic.
2. Watered Down: Don’t buy individually bottled water; refill bottles instead.
3. Class Act: Recycle and reuse school supplies, paper, binders and backpacks.
4. Wear Out: Share, trade, sell and donate used clothing and accessories.
5. Bag the Bags: Minimize the use of plastic bags. Take your own bags with you when you go shopping. If you only have a few items, skip the bag altogether.
6. Water Wise: Don’t leave the water running (I know this one is hard!). If it takes time to heat, collect the extra to water for your plants.
7. Lighten Up: Replace your old incandescent light bulbs with (CFL) compact fluorescent light bulbs. Better yet, use natural light when possible.
8. Black Out: Turn off lights and unplug appliances when not in use.
9. Eat Local: Buy produce and other products grown locally. Shop at farmers’ markets.
10. Back to Your Roots: Grow your own herbs, fruit and vegetables. You can’t get any more local than that!
11. Ditch the Dump: Compost organic materials like yard trimmings and food waste into rich soil.
12. Walk ‘n Roll: Walk, ride your bike, carpool and use public transportation to reduce your gas usage.
13. Close the Loop: Recycle paper, plastic and glass, and buy goods made from recycled materials whenever possible.

High school installing water refill system to reduce impact of water bottles on the environment

My high school, Desert Vista, and the whole Tempe Union High School District, is installing a Water Refill System. The info Dr. Battle our principal sent states:

"Recognizing the impact of water bottles on our environment, this strategy is one attempt to minimize the number of water bottles that enter waste systems. All schools in the district will receive three Water Refill Stations.It is our hope that more stations will be available throughout next school year."

It's a start!

I'm curious to know how you or your school is helping to reduce the use of plastic water bottles. Please share your ideas!

Family Garden: Step 4 Eating

The best part about having a garden is the food we get from it.

Now we have fresh herbs, tomatoes, peppers (well one, which we didn't get to before the pests), and soon, cucumbers. I can't get over the delicious flavor of a tomato right off the vine.

I had a garden salad for lunch, made with leftover grilled asparagus and peppers, romaine, kalamata olives, and two little tomatoes from our garden. Even if you don't grow your own, perhaps you'd like to try this simple garden herb dressing we created with the fresh herbs from our garden. Just emulsify these ingredients with a hand blender.

Garden Herb Dressing
Serves 4 to 6 depending on the size of the salad servings

1/4 cup seasoned rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Handful of fresh herbs (we used basil and parsley)
1 clove of garlic
Salt and pepper to taste

Enjoy!

Family Garden: Step 3 Growing

The plants we bought weren't supposed to grow produce for about 100 days, but just a month after we planted the green bell pepper, we had one growing! Our pepper plant was so slender that I had no idea how it could hold up the pepper. This photo was taken right after I noticed it but now it looks like it will be ready to eat soon.

We also have loads of tomatoes growing (five different types); the only plants we are waiting for are the cucumbers, squash, and artichokes.

We've also planted marigolds around the garden because they are supposed to be a natural insecticide. I'll write more about ecofriendly pest control in a future post.

Earth Day! Do your part and Go Green

Today is Earth Day. Here is a guide to help make your Earth Day the greenest it can be.

• Use reusable lunch bags and containers.
  

• Use refillable water bottles.

• Take canvas bag to the go shopping instead of using plastic bags.

• Replace light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL).

• Turn off lights and unplug appliances when not in use.

• Recycle paper, plastic, and glass and buy goods made from recycled materials

As an Earth Day activity, eat vegetarian for a day; if you're a vegetarian, try eating vegan.

By the way, Veggie Teens was selected as one of the Best Cookbooks For Earth Day!

Do your part and GO GREEN.

Family Garden: Step 2 Planting

Our next step was to plant. Our garden has a limited amount of space, so we picked vegetables that we eat often. We chose peppers (spicy and sweet), four different kinds of tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, and loads of herbs. Since this was our first time gardening and it was getting late in the spring planting season for Arizona, we decided to go with starter plants rather than seeds. We love salads, so we decided to try a pack of mixed greens' seeds because lettuce is supposed to be easy to grow. We water our plants daily and I'm eagerly waiting to see what happens!

Family Garden: Step 1 Preparation

On the side of our house there is a strip of gravel and our pool pump. We had been looking for a way we could use it and came up with the perfect idea: a garden! We built the frame out of redwood beams we found at the hardware store. We bought a special dirt for gardens to fill up the frame since our compost isn't quite ready. Now we're ready to plant.

Even our dog, Rookie, wants to help!