Pip's Plate

In the most recent issue of Bon Appetit magazine (Feb 2009), they have a really great article on 50 Easy Ways to Eat Green.

What I discovered is Text Fishphone – it’s utterly brilliant! It’s the easiest way to find out what fish at your local grocery store is good for you (mercury levels, farming methods) and good for the environment (sustainable, farming methods). And it’s so simple: text 30644 and enter FISH, followed by the name of the fish you want to buy. It’ll return a text telling you if it’s a good one or not.

Minnesota has been trying to pass a law that would all grocery stores to sell wine and beer. (Currently Minnesota has an asinine law that grocery stores can only sell 3.2% beer.) Wine With Dinner has not quite made it through legislation, but on a recent trip to Chicago, IL, I discovered something at Whole Foods that completely blew my mind.

Wine tasting in the grocery store! Check this out (sorry for the blurry pic):

You put money in (somewhere – I didn’t look for it), and you can select which wine you’d like to try. Whole Foods provides real wine glasses (ain’t no plastic waste in Whole Foods), and they display the price for a 1 oz. pour. I think there are about 12-15 wines at this kiosk.

Pretty cool. I was tempted to try some, but after all the karaoke singing the night before, I didn’t think 1pm on a Sunday was a good idea.

Mashed potatoes to me have always seemed to be a fun, easy and versatile side dish. I’ve often made them with garlic, fresh herbs, cream cheese, a different kind of cheese, wasabi, etc.

But the other night, I made the most incredible mashed potatoes and they were so simple. I discovered the next day when talking to a friend at pre-thanksgiving dinner that the unforgettable taste of those potatoes came from the actual potato I used: buttercream.

I bought them on a whim. Maybe I was nostalgic and thinking back to 2 years ago when my best friend got married and everything, and I mean everything, was buttercream. Buttercream bridesmaids dresses, buttercream purses, buttercream frosting…you get the idea.

So I thought buttercream potatoes ought to be worth a try. Whoa – it’s going to be hard to go back to any other kind after those mashed potatoes!

When I was talking with my friend about the potatoes and told her how delicious they were yet how simple, I was still incredulous over them. Once I mentioned I used buttercream potatoes, her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, “Oooooooh….buttercream potatoes!”

Needless to say, she said they’re great boiled just on their own. Oops. I guess the extra butter, milk and sour cream I added was unnecessary? I think not.

Oh Glorious Mashed Potatoes

2# bag of buttercream potatoes

2 garlic cloves, peeled

1 t salt

1/3 c sour cream

2 T butter

1/4 c milk

To prepare the potatoes you really have to do nothing other than wash them. However, I wasn’t really paying attention, so I peeled half of them and quartered all of them – this is unnecessary.

Place the potatoes and garlic in a pot with 3 quarts of water and bring to a boil. When the water starts to boil, check the potatoes to see if they’re done. Simply stick a fork or knife through one of them and if it slides in easy – you got it, like butter – then they’re done. They may need a couple minutes at a soft boil.

Drain then place back in pot. Add sour cream, butter, milk and salt and pepper to taste. Mash it all up and serve.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about people advocating for not using plastic bags. I wrote a post about this awhile ago, but I’m going to comment again because I found some great places to purchase cool grocery bags. And hey, these can be used for ANYTHING- not just groceries!

delight.com sells Envirosax for $34.50. This is the option I went for. They’re stylish, they wrap up and snap up small enough to keep in your purse or glovebox, and they’re pretty inexpensive. This includes a set of 5. I’ve given 2 to my sister to keep in her car too.

One other thing I love about these bags….they were delivered promptly in the mail with a handwritten thank you note. I mean, c’mon! No one does that anymore! I got all warm and fuzzy when I saw it.

Some other options out there:

magic-pony.com

blueq.com

bringyourownbag.com – and this one is organic cotton. isn’t this great? makes you want to use this at places other than just the grocery store, huh?

perpetualkid.com

  reusablebags.com – these nifty produce bags are a great alternative to loading up on plastic bags for single produce items. heck, i don’t use bags for any of my produce so i don’t have to worry about this at all.

do you have a favorite? please share your links for cool non-plastic grocery shoppers.

I’m back with more recipes. I’m finally feeling like cooking again and I was dead set on having salmon for dinner last night. (Even though the tilapia looked mighty good.)

I’m starting to explore a way of cooking that is somewhat new to me. Although I feel like I’ve done this in the past, I’m now doing it more intentionally- working with one ingredient and building a meal out of it. That’s how this recipe came to be.

I was in the grocery store last night at the fish counter picking out some salmon when I looked over at a small refridgerated section and realized we definitely needed some hummus. I asked D to go over and pick out some Holy Land hummus (my favorite) and pita bread.

Then I thought, “Hmm…what if we cooked the salmon with hummus on top of it?!” And we did. And it was excellent. This recipe is for 2 people, but to increase it, just buy 6 oz of salmon per person and then increase the spread to accommodate the amount of fish.

Hummus Feta Salmon

12 oz fresh salmon fillets

2 oz Holy Land garlicky hummus (or some other variety of garlicky hummus, or plain hummus with 1 minced garlic clove)

2 oz crumbled Greek feta cheese

2 t chopped fresh herbs (use whatever you have on hand- mint, tarragon, basil, thyme, any of those will work well)

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400. Prepare a baking sheet and place the salmon on the sheet. I like to put aluminum foil on my baking sheet when I buy fish with skin on it. This way when I take it out of the oven the skin stays on the aluminum foil and I get fish with no skin. (However, if you like salmon skin, which is VERY tasty, then don’t do this.)

Combine the hummus, feta, herbs, salt and pepper.  Spread over the salmon. Bake the salmon for about 15 minutes for medium and about 20 minutes for cooked through.

Server with steamed broccoli for a complete and healthy meal.

I went to Rainbow Foods last night to pick up some limes and cranberry juice for my sister last night. While I was in line to check out, I noticed a major difference between the shoppers at Rainbow versus the shoppers at the Wedge.

The shoppers at Rainbow bag every single produce item. I saw a shopper with 1 onion in a produce bag. 1 onion! Are you afraid your onion might touch your jug of milk?

I looked around and noticed that people were bagging limes, lemons, tomatoes, avocados, carrots, etc. I can understand bagging produce that you might buy in mass multiples – think green beans. But 1 onion? It seems so wasteful.

Next time you’re grocery shopping, think twice about bagging that 1 onion. You can save the plastic that you’ll probaby end up throwing away once you get home.