What I did with Mammoth...

Mammoth was a large zucchini (If you have no idea what "Mammoth" is, scroll down to the last posting). To think that there are others like it in my garden scares me. But my challenge this past weekend was to cook that son of a gun, and I was (mostly) successful.


Here are the zucchini recipes from this weekend:


Blueberry-Zucchini-Chocolate Chip Bread

Ingredients:
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups all-purpose flour (I used all whole wheat, it's much more filling)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 pint fresh blueberries
Handfull of chocolate chips

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 2 loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, applesauce, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans. Top with chocolate chips.
3. Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.


Stuffed Zucchini (an original - so simple and delicious!)

Ingredients:
1 medium zucchini, slices in half, cored
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup Boca crumbles or ground turkey
1 onion and 2 cloves garlic, sauteed in olive oil
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
1/4 cup parmesan cheese


Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix 1 cup tomato sauce, boca crumbles, onion, garlic, breadcrumbs, egg and parm in a bowl.
Place zucchini in pan. Stuff with mixture. Top with tomato sauce.
Bake for 45 minutes.


I also made roasted vegetable lasagna, but I really don't feel like explaining the recipe since it's pretty long. But here's one that's pretty similar.


All this cooking and I still had some zucchini left. I ended up putting it into the compost pile because it had lots of seeds at the end and was pretty tough. I guess my sister Ashlee was right - I shouldn't let my vegetables get so big. But anyone else who has a garden knows that once the vegetables start coming, it's hard to keep up with them.

Is That a Zucchini in Your Garden (Or Are You Just Happy to See Me)?

Knock, knock...who's there? It's me - Green Kristine. I know it's been a long time, and there may not be anyone left reading my blog. I completely understand. I hate when blogs are sporadic - it's very frustrating.

But I now have two topics on which I must blog. Get ready for a comeback!

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a avid gardener. In fact, it's one of my biggest sources of happiness and stress relief. Some days I just sit on our porch staring at my garden. It's amazing how from something so small as a seed, such wonderful things are produced.

Anyway, I was out in the garden yesterday for my daily harvest, and I stumbled upon what I thought was a dead animal. To my amazement and surprise, it was the biggest zucchini I've ever seen - 5.5 pounds to be exact.

While some say that my garden does wonderfuly well because of dog pee, Morris and Zoe are not peeing in the garden. I like to think it's just a little extra TLC that keeps my garden growing - including lots of watering, composting and regular attention.

"Mammoth" will be turned into a wonderful dinner of stuffed zucchini Sunday night.

And check back next week for the recipe and, who knows, I may have a new posting up by then.

I'm a Member of the "Soda Club"

I receive lots of emails from National Geographic green list, local greeny orgs, etc. One email promoted a product called "Soda Club." The Soda Club is a home seltzer and soda machine. The biggest benefit that I see, aside from a money savings - about which I'm still skeptical, is the green aspect.

My husband Dan and I drink tons of soda water, seltzer, carbonated water. While we recycle these bottles, their life is pretty short. With Soda Club, we'll be able to reuse our bottles at home and work. That ultimately means less waste. And less production of plastic means less burning of fossil fuels, less chance of plastic contaminating the water stream and so on.

So I urge you to check out Soda Club. My friend Kelly is a proud owner and also can attest to the joy it's brought to her life ;)

Green Nay Sayers: I Don't Get 'Em

Cleveland Clinic - my employer - is a founding member of a new organization, The Cleveland Carbon Fund, which hopes to reduce carbon emissions in Cleveland. Unlike most carbon-emission offsetting companies, Terra Pass, etc., The Cleveland Carbon Fund will use donations to invest in local carbon reduction projects - such as planting trees, switching out traditional light bulbs for CFLs, etc.

The new organization was announced in The Plain Dealer, Cleveland's newspaper. While comments to news stories tend to be about 60 percent negative, I swear that Clevelanders are 99 percent negative (it may have something to do with our weather!)

The story about The Cleveland Carbon Fund was just posted this morning, http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/01/community_carbon_reduction_fun.html, so only three comments have come in. However, all three are from nay sayers of the green movement. I've mentioned before that I'm a self-proclaimed greenie; however, I'm no extremist. The Carbon Fund isn't taxing organizations or communities for polluting. Rather, it's giving our community and beyond the option to donate to a great cause.

If these nay sayers had the opportunity to see new trees go up in their neighborhoods, or were given free CFLs or free home weatherization, I bet they would suddenly have a change in heart. (Well, except for those who probably drive Hummers, and have never recycled a thing.)

My point is that everyone is passionate about something. What's so bad about a group of people coming together for the betterment of the environment? We're not forcing our beliefs on you, so keep your negative opinions to yourself.

Oberlin College a Green Leader

Oberlin College is know nationally (and possibly internationally) as a green leader. It's Center for Environment Studies (left) is an amazing - and georgous - building that operates on three fundamental principles of nature:

- waste equals food

- use current solar income

- respect diversity.

Building designer William McDonough led a workshop that I attended at Cleveland Clinic last year and presented this building as a best practice in green facilities.

From what I've read, the key to Oberlin College's success is its students. They are committed to making a positive impact on the environment. For example, the SEED House (Student Experiment in Ecological Design) is the home to eight sudents to strive to be environmentally conscious by using vermicomposting, timing their showers, sharing refrigerators and more.

The New York Times wrote a wonderful story and video about the house. To read the story, click here.

To find out how you can adopt some of the practices in use by the SEED House, click here.

A Halloween Tip: Reduce "Vampire" Electronic Waste

Appliances, cell-phone chargers and electronics consume energy even when they’re not in use. This flaw has earned these items the nickname “vampire” sources, because they are believed to contribute to as much as 10 percent of a household’s energy use. And not only does this wasted energy cost you money, but it contributes to our pollution problem. Unplugging items that are not in use is the best way to control this unnecessary waste and cut costs. New “smart” power strips on the market also help reduce energy waste via a variety of techniques, but ultimately, your electronics turn on when they’re needed and don’t use energy when they’re turned off.

Find out more at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/12/smart_power_str.php

**This tip is produced as part of my role as a member of Cleveland Clinic's Office for a Healthy Environment. As the editor of our weekly newsletter for employees, I often include information about our Office for a Healthy Environment. I'm also a member of our green team, which is working to make healthy changes for our employees, patients and environment.

The Tragedy that is the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch"

Texas - it's a pretty big state, right? The second largest in the United States and the equivalent size of the country Spain.

Imagine a floating mass of plastic trash twice the size of Texas. Unfortunately this isn't a hypothetical - it's what has been named the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs about 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, between San Francisco and Hawaii. Plastic is the main contributor and most commonly ends up in the garbage patch one of two ways: litter on land goes down a sewer and ends up in the water stream; or, boats dumping into the ocean.

As you can imagine, the impact on marine species is devastating. Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. Birds swoop down and swallow indigestible shards of plastic. The petroleum-based plastics take decades to break down, and as long as they float on the ocean's surface, they can appear as feeding grounds. Animals die when plastic fills their stomach, and Greenpeace found that at least 267 marine species suffer from ingestion or entanglement with marine debris.

As our marine ecosystem continues to become more frail and more species are added to the endangered list each day, we must work to end plastic and other trash from finding its final resting place in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Unfortunately, in a story I read, experts say that there's not much they can do it clean the mass up. What's there now will stay there till it biodegrades - releasing toxic chemicals into the ocean, creating a toxic sludge.

But, environmentalists say that there are ways to prevent more trash from causing the garbage patch to grow:

- Use a reusable shopping bag when possible, and limit your use of plastic bags.

- Take trash with you when you leave the beach.

- Buy products in bulk to reduce packaging.

- Use reusable containers and drinking bottles whenever possible.

- Most obvious: DON'T LITTER; DO RECYCLE!

To find out more, visit http://www.greatgarbagepatch.org/