Cheesy Corn & Carrot Chowder

This is an adaptation of the recipe for "Cheese and Corn Chowder" from The More with Less Cookbook produced by Doris Janzen Longacre for the Mennonite Central Committee. This cookbook, as I've written in the past, espouses values of healthier, more economic cooking through the use of basic ingredients. I also love the companion cookbook, Simply in Season.

This adaptation is *spicy*, but you can always eliminate/reduce the peppers if you want. Also, if you intend to freeze the soup, omit the cream and add it back in when you thaw and reheat.

Sauté in a Dutch oven:
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 serrano peppers, chopped (mine were actually dried from last summer)
--About 5 minutes on med-low, or until onions are translucent.

Add:
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
--Cook another minute on med-low.

Add:
 1 cup water
2 cups chopped carrots
3 cups potatoes cut into 1 cm cubes
1/4 teaspoon pepper
Turn the hotplate onto high, cover the saucepan and bring contents to the boil then simmer for 10 minutes.

Add:
4 cups cream‑style corn (or just use a 2 large cans, which isn’t quite 4 cups)
Simmer 5 minutes.

****If you are freezing the soup, this is where you stop.*****

Add:
2 cups milk
2/3 cup grated cheese (I used Tillamook Cheddar)
Stir until the cheese melts and the chowder is heated through. Do not boil.

At this point, you can choose to leave it chunky. I used an immersion blender to mix it somewhat, but not so much that it was perfectly smooth. 

Reduce: Food and Eating

It has occurred to me recently that I have been eating less, and I am really excited by this. I have tried to do this intentionally before in the name of eating only my fair share or being healthy, but the thing that has really whipped me into shape has been cooking for myself and buying in bulk.

I didn't cook for myself at school, and the cafeteria was "all you can eat." I took whatever I wanted. I tried not to waste food, but it still happened sometimes when I didn't like a dish.

Now that I cook for myself, I know that I have to eat what I cook because there just isn't another option for lunch or dinner, etc. I know that I can't eat as much as I want, because the food comes at a price and it comes from somewhere.

For example, take bread. Now that I make my own bread, every piece has the feeling of time and effort attached to it, and I am much less likely to OD on it.

My lunch today consisted of: one slice of bread, a half cup of cooked lentils, a couple tablespoons of tuna salad, one 1/4" slice of cheese, a carrot and an apple. That's like...epically healthy in my world.

Live Simply.

A couple of weeks ago, I renewed a personal goal that I have: "Live Simply." I am now trying to define what this means to me, and I thought I'd share some of those thoughts here. "Live Simply" may look different in practice for someone else than it does for me, and I'm not trying to judge any particular behavior. Here is what has been working for me.

Personal Care & Appearance

The fact that this aspect of living simply comes easily to me is perhaps indicative of my inherent laziness, but let's hope not. I have worked throughout the last decade of my life to trim time and effort from the routines of my day, and to work towards caring less about conforming to society's hopes and dreams for me.

1) Shower: I only used shaving gel for the first couple of years of shaving my legs, and then I ditched it because it was expensive and a hassle. I initially used body wash to shave my legs, but now I've ditched that, too, and just use bar soap. I had a fancy razor at first, but then switched to disposables. I saw the error in that thinking, and now have a Preserve Razor. I used to use shampoo and conditioner every day, but then switched to 2-in-1. Then, I ditched conditioner and now I only use shampoo every three or four days. Surprisingly, my hair looks better (not worse), and I save a ton of time (and water!). I also used to have a loofah, but then switched to a washcloth. Lastly, I take shorter showers and turn off the water when I shave my legs or wash my hair.

2) Hair: I used to straighten my hair or blow dry it, but then I ditched those routines for a simple air-dry, take-it-as-it-is approach. I used to put various detanglers or smoothers in my hair, but now I just brush it carefully and let it go. I used to get my hair cut in a salon and layered, but now my aunt cuts it for me at home, and I leave it in a simple cut. I have a couple of simple, versatile clips that I have learned to use in a variety of ways.

3) Make-up: I tried to get into make-up, but it never happened. I occasionally wear some blush and eye shadow, but this is rare. Because of this, I only have one thing of blush and one compact of four eye shadows, and that's it. I always have chapstick with me - Burt's Bees in the metal tin.

4) Lotion, etc: I used to use lots of fancy lotions, but now I only have one thing of lotion which I use sparingly and seldomly. I do have a quasi-vat of some special lotion that Karen gave me from her swim years that I use on my hands when they crack and bleed in the wintertime.

5) Eyes: I used to wear contacts, but I recently switched back to glasses. This means that I no longer have to juggle my contact case, solution, spare pair, and glasses when I travel - I can take my glasses and go. This also cut time off of my morning routine.

Food

1) No meat: I've been a vegetarian for a long time now, and that has simplified my life a lot. I know that it may seem counterintuitive, but being a vegetarian has made everything from eating out to cooking at home a lot easier. When I go out to Olive Garden, for example, I only have three or four choices in the first place, so my decision process is drastically reduced.

2) Less plastic: Since I've started grocery shopping to avoid plastic, my trips have become far cheaper and quicker. As soon as I got used to my new options, I was able to quickly navigate the bulk produce and the bulk bins.

3) More-with-Less: Since I've adopted the More-with-Less philosophy, my meals revolve around cheap forms of complimentary protein. For example, I can form complimentary proteins like rice and beans or mac & cheese, and I pick a veggie to have alongside it. My meals have really, really simplified.

4) In Season: Now that I buy veggies in season, I don't have to wade through aisles and aisles of veggies in the store; I head right to the stand with the in-season veggies, and I buy what I need.

5) Avoid convenience foods: I now avoid so-called "convenience foods," which means that I no longer eat without thinking, and I avoid a lot of waste from packaging.

----

These are the two biggest areas that I've been working on lately, but I am thinking about simplifying across many areas of my life.

It's interesting to me that "live simply" has meant reducing choices in my life. I think that for me, less choice = less stress. I don't feel boxed in by the lack of choice; instead, I find that it frees up my mind to think about other things.

How do you live simply?

Noitalever: Fast Food? Really?

Hello, all! I have very pleasant news, though it's a bit taunting to those of you who do not live in the Pacific Northwest.

Burgerville has long been my favorite fast food restaurant. It's puzzling, perhaps, because I'm a vegetarian and yet I harbor this love affair with a fast food restaurant with "burger" in its name. However, Burgerville has two (TWO!) amazing vegetarian burgers. One is a simple garden burger with all of the goodies, and the other is a black bean burger with chipotle sauce.

Burgerville is expensive, averaging $4-6 per sandwich and $3-4 per milkshake. What it has always had going for it, though, is that all of the food is local. The onions are Walla Wallas, the cheese is Tillamook, and the milkshakes are always made from in-season nuts or berries (chocolate hazelnut, anyone?). Basically, great ingredients.

On Tuesday, Jesse and I went into Burgerville and I kind of had a very sad moment as we walked up. I realized that this would be the first time that I could not have a milkshake because this is the first time I've been there since becoming hardcore-no-plastic. I sighed, and accepted this as we walked in.

As we ordered, the straws caught my eye. The wrappers said "100% Compostable." I scoffed, thinking it was the el-fake-o "biodegradable" plastic that isn't really biodegradable at all. The cashier, however, assured me that they were made from corn. He told me that Burgerville was "going green."

And then, I challenged him. Rapid-fire, I examined the restaurant. Cups? (Corn) Lids? (Corn) To-go containers? (Biodegradable - he showed me one) Wrappers? (Paper)

(At this point, I got teary and ordered a milkshake. I actually cried a little...)

All Burgerville restaurants are powered by wind, he told me. (I looked it up - they buy wind credits that equal 100% of their energy use!)

Okay, I said, gearing up for the ultimate challenge. Here is where many people fall short: they wrap up their compostable goodies in plastic trash bags and send those to the landfill, where even food will never break down if it isn't exposed to wind and rain.

"And your trash bags?"
"Corn."

GASP!!!

Okay, okay...I only had one more question...

"Do you have a composter?"
"Not yet," he said, "As we're the farthest south. We get everything last. But half of the Burgerville locations have composters, and we should be getting one soon."

---

I am going to write a letter to Burgerville, thanking them for giving me a reason to love them. I went ahead and got a gift card for my cousin (plastic, but really...that would have been too good to be true, right?) in order to support the company and give Vaughn tasty foods.

Burgerville only has locations in Oregon and Washington, so it is unfortunate that plastic-free fast food is not the norm for all of us. However, as Burgerville continues in this business model, we can lift them up as an example to the other "Burger" chiefs of the world.

Noitalever: Free Samples?

Today, I went to the Cheese Walk at the Moscow Co-Op. Whereas the cheese samples were very good, the procedural stuff disappointed me. There were about ten sampling stations set up throughout the store, and nine of them had serious shortcomings for a Co-Op sponsored event.

1) Each station had a “trash can” created from a paper grocery sack and lined with a plastic bag! Okay, Co-Op. Seriously. I think we’ll be fine throwing our trash into a simple paper sack, especially since we were throwing away things like toothpicks.

2) Were they composting? I couldn’t be sure. The lady at the first station assured me that the trash would be sorted later, but it seems like it would have been a lot easier just to separate it from the start. Additionally, she might have been saying that to appease me, and that thought makes me cranky.

3) Sometimes, there were wine and beer samples in plastic sample cups! Other stations had paper sample cups of roughly the same size – why couldn’t they just use those? The swig of wine or beer would be gone before it could degrade the cup anyways.

4) Cheese is almost always wrapped in cellophane or packaged in a plastic tub. I feel like it’s better to get the latter, because then you can either reuse the tub or recycle it.

5) They were inviting people to use plastic spoons to sample the soft cheese when they had bread available as well.

Are you wondering what the tenth station was? Well, it wasn’t really cheese at all! It was a coffee station, and they made the coffee in a porcelain coffee maker and poured it into compostable cups (which is really good, because I’d left mine in the car – shame on me!). The guy even told me to drink my coffee within the hour or the cup would start breaking down…lol! The shining crown on this coffee drinking experience, however, was the stir sticks. They were strands of pasta! This worked great, and I wish coffee shops all over would start offering this option. Starbucks would never do it, of course, but I bet that there are a lot of neighborhood coffee shops that would be up for this change.

Noitalever: Eating on Campus

Hello, all!

I would like to extend a special welcome to anyone who arrived here via fakeplasticfish. Because of this new traffic, all of the less-plastic entries are going to be public instead of the usual friends-only content.

So, in my first post about plastic, I mentioned that I was not attempting to make any changes involving food at the time being. My logic was that I didn't cook for myself, so there was obviously nothing that I could do.

Why didn't anyone correct my completely erroneous logic?!?

It's okay, I have since corrected myself. I came back to school and began to notice all of the plastic involved in the food that I eat. I live on campus and have a meal plan, and part of this meal plan is a certain amount of money that has to be spent in special food places. I discovered this semester (now that I was looking for it) that a lot of the "Grab and Go" salads and sandwiches and cookies come packaged in plastic! Oh no!

In fact, it's worse than that. As I look around to find things to spend my must-spend money on, I cannot find any convenience items that are plastic-free! What is a girl to do?

I have taken three major steps in dealing with this issue.

1) I have given up plastic cutlery! - The main cafeteria here has plates and cutlery that can be washed and reused, but the cafeteria in the main academic building has all plastic cutlery. The plates and bowls are compostable (and they have a composter!), but the cutlery isn't. I have started to bring my own silverware. If I happen to forget, I use a pair of wooden chopsticks (also compostable).

2) I have given up all "Grab-and-Go" and convenience foods. - I can spend my money on sit-down-and-eat things, so I simply plan more time to do so. This is actually better for me, too. Totally unforeseen benefit, but I feel better from not eating on the run. This was a hard change, though, because I love sushi and Sour Cream and Cheddar Ruffles, both of which come in plastic of some sort.

3) I buy in bulk and bring my own bags. We have Win-Co here, which is the most amazing store ever. It is a chain grocery store, but it has bulk bins for practically all dry goods, including spices. I bring paper bags to put stuff in, and then I can store it in tupperware and recycled plastic containers (left over from before I quit buying plastic) when I get home. Win-Co also gives you a bag discount, so I save at least a quarter whenever I go. Small incentive, but every little bit helps.

Next, let's talk about Going Trayless.

Many college cafeterias have started "going trayless" - stopped putting out trays for students to use. Studies show that it takes a half gallon of heated water to wash each tray, and also the detergent and manpower. Additionally, a third more food is wasted when trays are used. This is because students naturally take less if they have to carry the plates themselves.

You may be skeptical about this half-gallon concept. Well, I used to work in the cafeteria and here's the logic behind that. We had an industrial dishwasher that we could run racks of dishes through via conveyor belt. Trays and their unwieldy-ness could only go through eight to a rack, and dinners usually run 700-800 students. That's one hundred rounds of dishwashing for trays alone! Wow!

My university has implemented Trayless Tuesdays, but I have given up trays altogether. I've noticed that a lot of students are doing the same - after a few weeks of going trayless on Tuesday, they've discovered that they just don't need a tray. Many students, however, view it as a huge inconvenience. I think they'll get over it. In five years, I hope that trayless is the norm and that students don't even think twice about not taking a tray.

Do you eat lunch in a cafeteria somewhere? Encourage your cafeteria to go trayless, at least one day a week. As we know, most change happens slowly. At the very least, try going trayless yourself.

Have a great weekend!

Noitalever: Long Day

The Burt's Bees Rosemary Mint Shampoo Bar that I purchased in Moscow may smell wonderful, but it is crappy. It worketh not at all. The reason for this, says Karen, is that it lacks shampoo's active ingredient. It left my hair just...grime-y. It gets an "A" for effort, though. I wrote Burt's Bees and they have promised to send me a product of equal value (I selected the Radiance Exfoliating Bath Bar because it intrigues me and is packaged in cardboard) as compensation.

I found out in this same correspondence that Burt's Bees is replacing the plastic seals on their lip balm (the non-tube kind) with paper ones. Burt's Bees is out of Durham, NC (where I'm going this summer), so if I can I want to go get products like these at some sort of reduced rate. I might do some sort of contest and give some away here.

Anyway, I seriously digressed from my point: I was on a mission. I needed to find replacement shampoo. I went to Natural Living in Lebanon, and was pleased with their overall store. It had a lot more stuff than I'd ever thought...I'd only been in there once before. They can order stuff, so if you're stranded in Lebanon due to high gas prices, perhaps a good option would be to work with Natural Living. One of their struggles right now is publicity, so we seriously need to let them know that we appreciate their efforts and we know that they're there (did you see that? All three homophones! That was hard to type!).

I did not find another brand of bar shampoo there, or shampoo in bulk. I was reluctant to try another bar anyway, so I tried to think around that. If I bought in bulk, I'd need a container to put it in. When I went to Goodwill on Tuesday, I found some canning jars that I plan to use until I can afford something different and more purpose-oriented. I also found two more canvas bags for groceries. One has a cow on it and says "potatoes." I kid you not.

I went to the Corvallis Co-Op today with Karen. I struck gold! Seriously. They carry three brands of shampoo in bulk. I chose the cheapest one after Karen confirmed that it had that special ingredient that would actually make my hair clean. I put it in my coffee cup from PDX because it's all I had...and they let me, so yay for them. I cannot remember the brand, and that's MY BAD, but you must forgive me...I was lacking in sleep. If this shampoo is successful, I will figure out what brand it is and pimp it like no tomorrow.

I was very pleased with the Corvallis Co-Op's attention to detail. For example, they had new plastic containers, but also an assortment of glass containers in every shape and size (almost). Additionally, they had used containers that had been sterilized for putting bulk food in for transit. I was won over when I found that I could buy Ketchup and Mustard in bulk. I don't use either, but the idea that I could really impressed me.

I was not very pleased with the prices. For example, the Eco-Dent Floss was twice as much in Corvallis as I'd paid in Moscow. However, I will take into account that everything is cheaper in Moscow. Still, I felt that the prices were still fairly reasonable based on how clean the store was, how helpful the people were, and how wide a selection that they stocked.

Much later today, Karen and I went grocery shopping at Safeway. I brought my own bag, but Karen had a hard time putting vegetables straight into the cart/bag. She confirmed an idea that had been floating around in my head - there is need for smaller canvas bags (in addition to the grocery bags) to replace the plastic veggie bags. I went to Wal-Mart on my way home and picked out lengths of four different 100% cotton, utilitarian fabrics. I made Karen (and J'Aime, just for kicks) an assortment of drawstring bags for fruits and veggies, or really whatever she wants to put in them. I plan to make some grocery bags too, but I have to do those by hand - they'll take longer.

Oh...BTW, I got cocktail glasses for the shindig at Goodwill. They are actual glass, but I figure J'Aime can keep them or whatever for future fun. And they're mismatched because I found some cool, one-of-a-kind ones there and I didn't want the other five or six to match except for those.

So? Less Plastic? Yes...slow and steady.