Plastic-Free Strawberry & Apple Fruit Leather

Yesterday, as I danced around my kitchen… I once again realized one of the many rewards of striving to reduce our families plastic footprint.  The reward, of course, is the victory of figuring out how to make something that has been so commercialized that we think that we need special equipment to make it OR the only way to get it is to buy it.

But, what I learned yesterday as I turned apples and strawberries into fruit leather is that I don’t need fancy equipment and my kids don’t have to go without BECAUSE it’s one of the easiest (and best tasting) things I’ve ever made.  Seriously, no joke.

Excited with my creation… I carried the fruit leather to my daughter’s dance last night.  Of course, I shared.  The reaction was, “You should sell these.”  But… why sell something when you can share a recipe and people can make their own??  Everyone deserves to dance around their kitchen in sweet victory!!!

Cut to how you like… eat in strips… roll them up… however you eat them… trust me… you’ll be dancing

*Any berry would work to replace the strawberries.  Make this with seasonal berries

*Make sure to use parchment or a Silpat liner.  Always one to experiment whether or not lining the pans is actually needed… I lightly oiled a pan and tried it out.  Sure it works fine… but it takes (a lot) more effort to get the fruit leather off of the pan.  Save yourself the time and line the pans!!

*I was asked if a food processor could be used in place of a food mill.  My thought is “why not?”… as long as the mixture is thoroughly puréed, it should work fine.  If you try it with a food processor… let me know

Our Daily Ocean: Day 52

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you may know that I only decided to create this blog after a nudge from my friend Tracy.  She’s awesome like that… always giving me inspiration and encouraging me to do more.  On Tuesday, Tracy and her two kids joined me and my three kids at Access 36.

As always, our kids played A LOT while Tracy and I picked up litter for 20 minutes… BUT… it never fails that even while they’re playing they take the time to run to us with handfuls of litter.  It’s engrained in them…  when they see a piece of litter… they pick it up.  They understand that everything and everyone is connected…

My friend Julie and her family have been doing 20-30 minute clean ups at Wrightsville Beach throughout the winter.  Of course, they’re counting the cigarette butts they find.  On Sunday, Julie and her family went to Access 36 and removed LOTS of litter… and 412 cigarette butts!!!

For some reason, I was actually surprised by that number.  The last two times we had been to Access 36, the cigarette counts were 92 (Feb.) and 101 (Jan.). In fact, the last time we picked up over 400 was on New Years Day at Access 16. As we picked up over 300– on World Water Day– I began to contemplate what the difference is…. I’ve come to two conclusions.

2.  Spring is here…. but it’s been so gorgeous that it almost feels like summer.  80? temperatures mean lots of people heading to the beach.  (… and I’m one of them!!)  I’m loving the warm weather… not loving how some people are trashing our beach.  (ummm…..by “our”… I mean.. my… your… his… her… their… EVERYONE’s… including the animals we share it with )

Footprints.  Bird footprints.  And they’re everywhere…. in a mess they didn’t create.

Our Daily Ocean: Day 49

For the first time in a LONG time… on Saturday…while I was picking up litter at Access 16… a man– who happened to be walking his dog– stopped and said, “Are you picking up cigarette butts??…. thank you.”

Of course, if you’ve been reading this blog… I pick up cigarette butts and a whole lot of other litter off of my local beach.  The reason I have focused so much on cigarette butts is because there are SOOOOO many.  I feel like if we can change the mindset of this habit to flick cigarette butts to the ground… then it can help create even more consciousness to the entire litter problem plaguing our world.

Looking at the photo above… do you see what I see??  Condensed and trapped toxins in the cigarette filter.  To quote my friend Mark:  “Once that filter hits water– a stream, a lake, a river, an ocean– those toxins leach out.” Those toxins happen to be deadly to fish... and that’s “no bueno!!”

On Wednesday, my friend Mark– creator of The Bait Tank– visited us.  While he was here, he got to see the two Bait Tanks that are currently installed at Wrightsville Beach.  Here’s the newest one… donated to the Town of Wrightsville Beach by Butch and Bonnie.  YAY!!!

More Bait Tank news:  Mark is a finalist in the Green Awards!!  Voting is happening right now!!  Check out his video and vote everyday until March 27 at https://www.thegreenawards.com/Default.aspx?v=74

20 minutes on March 12, 2011

Litter by weight: 1 lb 2.1 oz

Cigarette butts: 103

It Starts With Me…  Co-op owner blog share

Back when my kids went to school (we’re homeschooling this year), my son always wanted me to buy him Lunchables (ummm… no way…. besides being nutritional crap… they’re way over packaged).  To give him what he wanted without giving into crap food…. I invested in a LapTop lunch** and would buy all the “ingredients” for my son to make his own “Lunchable”…including “Ritz-type” crackers…. my kids just LOVE those buttery crackers.  Now that I’m really striving to avoid plastics whenever I can… I haven’t bought them in a LONG time.

**If I wanted to purchase this today, I wouldn’t… unfortunately, LapTop lunches are made from plastic   I would, instead, purchase the stainless steel PlanetBox.

Soooo… you can imagine my excitement (and my kids excitement) when on Thursday, one of my favorite blogs to drool over– The Cupcake Project– posted a recipe for Homemade Ritz Crackers!!!!!!  Obviously, we made them…

Plastic-Free Ritz Crackers

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 6 tbsp cold unsalted butter
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2/3 cup water

Topping:

• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
2. Put the flour, baking powder, sugar, and 1/2 tsp of salt in the food processor and pulse to combine.
3. Add cold butter. Pulse to combine.
4. Add vegetable oil.  Pulse to combine.
5. Add water a bit at a time.  Pulse, until the dough begins to form a ball.
6. Roll dough out as thin as you can.  The thinner they are the more crisp and cracker like they are.
7. Use cookie cutters (or a ruler and knife) to cut the dough out.   Make whatever shape you like.

>> After rolling and cutting the crackers, I was left with a good amount of dough… I rerolled it all to see if the crackers would be as good as the first rolled batch… and they ARE!!!    So reroll the dough scraps!!! <<

8.  Poke holes in the dough.  We used a fork.

9.  Bake the crackers for 10 minutes or until golden in color. <– I baked mine a bit longer to get them more golden and crisper.  (The Cupcake Project recommends using parchment or     Silpat lined baking sheets… and I did a batch with and without… I like the coloring that the crackers get when baked on an unlined baking sheet. Don’t worry about greasing the baking sheet, the crackers don’t stick )