Brummet's Conscious Blog

Dehydrating Garden Harvests Owning a small dehydrator can avert a great deal of kitchen food waste, and you’ll never have to pass up people offering you their garden extras again. Also, leftovers from meals can be easily dehydrated and used later for on-the-go situations like backpacking or snowshoeing.  After dehydrating any vegetable, use a blender, or grinder, to create a fine powder, and store in separate jars. Every year we dehydrate at least one jar each of chopped sweet peppers, hot peppers and ripe tomatoes.  If any recipe calls for chopped chilies or peppers, fresh or 'sun-dried' tomatoes, we can easily substitute with a dried version. We also have a jar of mixed vegetable powder; using a few teaspoons of this mixture in homemade stocks for more flavour or to help thicken and enrich stews and soups. Simply reconstitute powders by covering in a little boiled water for a few minutes. (Reserving any excess water to use as stock.)  Adding tomato powder to hamburger p...

4 Ways to Be Green in the Kitchen There are many benefits to reusing water however we want to clarify this a little for you before we offer the 4 tips below. To avoid overwatering, attracting pests or causing disease: choose a different group of plants every day, working your way around the deck or patio and lawn or garden. You may find you no longer have to irrigate or fertilize. If you find you have excess water, pour it over the compost pile or give it to the boulevard tree outside your yard. That said - lets take a look at what a few changes in the activities around the kitchen sink can do. - After meals, scrape your dishes into the compost bucket before rinsing. While rinsing, place a large bowl in the sink and fill it with the most soiled dishes and utensils; as you rinse the dishes the water will begin to fill the bowl and starts the pre-soaking process - reducing labour and water use. Anything caught in the bowl can be dumped on the lawn or compost bin. ...

Easily Save Money, Time and Energy Part 3 of a 3-part article... click here: for part 1 and part 2   What started out as a simple blog post for saving time, money and energy turned into a 3-part article in the blink of an eye. …told you I could go on and on about this! Lol Hope you enjoy these next tips that will save you time, money and energy! ...  -    M ake sure the electric range burners and gas burners are working 100%, a worn out burner does not cook efficiently. -    D on’t toss out cooking water, keep it in a bowl and allow it to cool gradually. This releases both heat and moisture into the air during the cold months. Alternatively place the bowl outside to cool in the heat of summer – then use that water on your landscaping, garden, lawn or compost. -     Save potato water (boiling potatoes) for baking bread, buns, biscuits, etc. -     Use the broiler when possible in the sum...

-- Quote of the Day -- “… I am a mom, and I’m a normal person that just decided that I was getting really tired of the doom and gloom about the environment. ….I just decided that I wanted to make a difference; having my own children that are young, I wanted to hopefully leave the world a better place for them by making my small difference. …As a mom, sometimes you feel like you are not making a difference. But you really are, as hard as those days are, you know, when you are changing diapers and changing laundry. …a lot of people out there are cynical… a lot of people don’t want to change because they are so used to their lifestyle. …The children have power, they have choices, and they can make a difference. They are the ones who are going to be running the country for the next generation. …Animals are so in tune with the universe, whereas humans make everything just so complicated. …They teach us what true love is. …Ghandi used to say that if you want to see a change, you need to be t...

-- Announcements -- - A Book Inside blog has just published an article about book promotion and this included information about Dave & I :) Check it out at: http://abookinside.blogspot.com/2009/07/are-you-expecting-too-much-from-your.html - The New Book Review Blog also posted a blurb about our recently released book, Purple Snowflake Marketing on June 30th at: www.thenewbookreview.blogspot.com - The Sharing With Writers Blog posted a wonderful piece on Authors Read radio - http://www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com -- Saving Energy in the Kitchen -- The kitchen, with all its appliances, gadgets and heat, is a real hotspot for potential energy saving. As the oven uses the most energy and creates a vast amount of heat while cooking foods, it is a good place to start. For instance, when baking cookies use two trays. While one is in the oven baking, the other one is prepped with raw cookies – ready to replace the tray in the oven with no wasted heat and some time saved. When we bake...