Another Meatless Monday!

For Meatless Mondays I made a recipe I've been drooling over ever since I saw it on the Fat Free Vegan's Blog. It's called Eat The Rainbow Black Bean Soup. There are tons of veggies in it: red cabbage, mushrooms, black beans, canned diced tomatoes, and you chop up a full onion, dice carrots, and red or yellow peppers chopped and then saute them all like this:

That's it. That's the only photo I can show you.

The very last thing you do with this wonderful soup (which I made in my slow cooker) is to add in spinach (she says lettuce is okay, too, but I just can't see it).

And every drop of this soup got put up for lunches and dinners and stored (except for the soup I had today, and it's gone).

Photos? Nope. Sorry. Look at her blog - her photos are prettier anyway!
*wink*

Back to Meatless Mondays

After a ton of reading about the intermingled serious issues facing the world today - such basic issues! - I'm recommitting to Meatless Mondays (and Meatless, Most Days - heheh) and so here is a sample menu I've enjoyed:

Roasted Winter Squash: cut smallish squash in half, scoop out seeds and pulp, spray a glass casserole with olive oil spray and place face down, then fill with 1 inch or so of water, cover and bake at 400 for about 45-60 minutes (this is be dependent on how small your oven is, I used the 60 minutes without checking and my small toaster oven gets HOT, so I think I could have gone with less time, but it was delightful anyway and just peeled away from the skin easily)

Mustard greens with olive oil and red wine vinegar. I bought fresh, but will use frozen during the winter.

The last two items are from a couple of local spots: I went out to Jameson's Orchards (which is a lovely farm not far from me) and picked up a couple of rice mixes they had prepared. The Brown Rice and Lentil mix is shown above. It makes six 3/4 cup servings for a very Weight Watcher's friendly 4 Points Plus, and is just wonderful! Then I wanted a corn muffin but wasn't in the mood to make my own, so when I shopped for my mustard greens, I picked up a couple of these. A tad pricey, but just simply wonderful. I love my Fresh Market grocery. I also picked up 4 MacIntosh apples that I think might not be local, but if they're Vermont Macs? So much the better for my tastes!

Today is MM's Food Day which focuses on healthy, affordable, sustainable food choices so I'll be participating today and all year with the Meatless Mondays project (at least that's the intention...hopefully I can get posts up each week in time...)

With concerns about the use of water in agriculture, and diminishing farmland and grazing land (see below and the link to the Institute for the Environment in the sidebar), the less meat I can eat, the better.

I should make that, "the less meat WE can eat, the better!

This Is Where My Head Is These Days...

That video shows a highly complex issue in an extraordinarily succinct manner.

Food production. Water preservation. Population explosion. Environmental degradation.

Can we all (and I do mean ALL) get along long enough to solve this issue? When I look at the US political divide, I can't help but be pretty pessimistic about it.

And it's never been more important that we get along.

Local Fibershed...

I'm here, I'm reading a lot, when I can, and this popped up on my radar just in the past day or two. I couldn't help but bring it to your attention as well...
Fibershed: Grown & Sewn Close to Home.

She has a blog and a video, too. You can check them both out here.

I've decided that, while I can't grow most of my stuff (either to eat or to dye with, or even to bring from one season to another to shear for the fiber), I can strive more and more to use fibers made locally.

The first step is to source the fabric and the fiber. It might be easier than I think (or not)...