This Sunday, March 1, was a double whammie of awesome.  Not only was it the 1-month birthday of this little baby blog (aw!), but more importantly, it was the kickoff of my marvelous 30-day RAWxtravaganza.  Yay!

Saturday was all about preparation and, I must admit, nervous anticipation.  I consider myself exceptionally healthful, but I’m still a devoted foodie, a shameless sweet-tooth, a hot sauce-aholic, a bit of a boozer, and a connoisseur of caffeine.  So suffice to say, this is going to be a big change for me.  And, it’s important to me to do it right.

Saturday morning I set off with a friend to attend an ‘Uncooking’ Class hosted by Laurie from the Healthy Kitchen.  What an amazing experience!  We learned how to make the most delicious creations, from ‘refried beans’ to a chocolate ganache torte, many of which I’ll be posting here over the next month.  It was very inspiring and certainly informative, and I left the class excited to get this experiment underway.  

Buuuuut, not before my last cooked meal!

After an evening of shopping for fun and fancy raw delicacies (to be reviewed), it was time to enjoy my final hot meal.  I chose a Thai feast from our favorite vegan Thai joint.  We got an appetizer plate, pineapple curry, and spicy yakisoba noodles. It was divine, mmmmm oh yes, simply divine.

And then, suddenly, it was Sunday morning, and time to commit.  I skipped my usual delicious Earl Grey and agave, and instead set about fixing my first ‘Green Smoothie’.  A Green Smoothie is simply a blend of fresh fruits or vegetables + some dark leafy greens, like spinach, kale, or chard.  People add all manner of extras, from soy/nut milks to sweeteners to nut butters to supplements, but all you really need are greens and fruit (for flavor).   And yes!, I had never made a Green Smoothie before, which is sort of unbelievable.    It was pretty fun to prepare, and definitely fun to drink.  My husband grimaced at the sight of my concoction, but was kind enough to take pictures.

My First Green Smoothie:

• 1 banana
• 1 orange
• 2 giant collard green leaves, de-ribbed
• a few ice cubes

Okay, it wasn’t the most exciting tasting beverage on the planet, but it was my first attempt!  I’m easing in to the process, and I want to be able to correctly taste my alterations as I make them.  This recipe isn’t stellar on it’s own, but I think it’s an ideal base.  Today I added a tomato and some lemon juice, which was also okay, but still not great.  It’s okay – I’m willing to work on it, and willing to drink my ‘mistakes’ in the process.  I’ll give up the good recipes once I uncover them!

This is what I ate on my first day RAW:

• Green Smoothie
• a banana
• 2 large carrots
• a date
• 1/2 a bottle of Kombucha
• a cacao truffle
• a handful of walnuts
• bean-free hummus (made w/ zucchini).  I made little ‘hummus tacos’ with romaine leaves and sprinkled vinegar, salt, and pepper over them.  I also just scooped the stuff up with carrots and celery. 

I wish I could say that I felt great and light and fresh and clean and all that happy jazz, but it just isn’t so.  No caffeine means a hardcore headache, and I am in full-on detox now.  It’s not fun, but it is important.  Before I did my Master Cleanse I was drinking a lot of coffee, so I wasn’t surprised by the painful detox I experienced.  But these days, I have almost entirely omitted coffee from my diet, and rely on tea instead.  Color me naive, but I did not expect this kind of a caffeine headache coming off of tea.  It’s surprising to know my body is so reliant on it.

And now?  I have a crisper packed to the brim with fresh fruits and veggies, plus a plethora of strange and exciting raw products to sample during this journey.  I’m looking forward to posting plenty of recipes and product reviews along the way! Here’s an idea of what I’m working with:

From Left: Kombucha, vinegar, romaine, sun dried raisins, jalepeño, flax seeds (whole), bananas, sunflower seeds, coconut oil, sea vegetable salad, fresh-crushed almond butter (ooh fancy!), tomato, 2 Larabars, seaweed noodles, miso, raw agave, pineapple, raw tahini, extra virgin cold-pressed olive oil, orange, zucchini, lemon, garlic, sauerkraut, collard greens, carrots, kimchi, and walnuts.  Whew!

Oi there!  It’s time to get interactive!  This blog is about you, too, which is why I’ll be offering a space for your comments, critiques, thoughts, support, and suggestions, at the end of every week.  

Which section would you like to see expanded? (the food? the fashion? the farm?) What sorts of recipes would you like to see posted? (breakfasts? entrées? cupcakes? maybe less recipes altogether?)  What sorts of articles would you like to read? What are YOU interested in?

This is your community, so go ahead and have your say!  The Feedback Forum will hang out at the top of the page all weekend, every weekend.  So if you have an idea or a question or you just want to introduce yourself and say ‘Oi!’, this is the place to do it.  Now, go forth and have a fabulous weekend!

Itty Bitty Bonzai is a collection of tiny tips and tricks for living a life more mindful.  Small actions, collectively and compounded, become a powerful force of change.  

#2  If there’s two things I love, it’s wine and recycling!  Sound random?  Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve been saving my wine corks for a while now, waiting to find some creative repurposing that’ll keep them from going to waste.  Now, I seem to have found my answer.

Yemm & Hart is an organization focused on salvage innovation, and they want your corks!  Currently in the collection phase, once they accrue 6 tons of corks they will begin converting them into retail floor tiles.  All cork donors will receive a discount on the finished product – plus a sense of relief regarding all their boozy by-products!

Read all about the project here, or just take my word for it and send your corks to: Wine Cork Recycling, Yemm & Hart Ltd., 610 S. Chamber Drive, Fredericktown, MO, 63645.

BONZAI!

Going veg*n was the best mistake I’ve ever made, an accident that has affected every aspect of my life in a purely positive way. I never, ever thought this would happen to me. It was certainly never my intent. So, I praise serendipity. This is my story.

I was raised omnivorous, and although I was always an avid animal lover, I never gave much thought to the inherent contradiction of my diet. As I matured I became interested in nutrition, and started eating a less processed, more whole foods diet. Thanks to a rare disinterest in cheese and a lactose intolerant roommate who got me swilling soymilk in my morning coffee, I had almost entirely omitted overt dairy by my mid twenties. Of course, I smoked like a fish and I drank like a chimney, but c’mon, it was college! I still ate ‘better’ than everyone around me.

In college I studied biology and conducted research in parasitology. No mincing words here: I participated in animal testing. I personally trapped, euthanized, and dissected dozens, if not hundreds, of fishes. I suffered horrible nightmares about what I was doing to those fish, but I told myself that I was following standard protocol, and that there was no suffering. And it was not without purpose. Our findings are in queue for publication, and have significantly affected the field of parasite ecology. I am still quite proud of my contribution to science.

I had wrestled with my feelings about animal testing and vivisection at the beginning of my stint in the lab, and had decided I fell ‘on the side of Science’. Once I had drawn that line, my brain shut down around the issue. I used my imaginary line to justify not just animal testing, but my omnivory as well. It’s strange, because in college I was very politically engaged, an activist in fact. I fought for social justice, I marched for peace, I petitioned for the right to choose, and I rallied for marriage equality. But animal rights causes, all around me and available for participation, were something I always avoided. I consider myself a fairly open-minded individual, and so looking back at my lifestyle choice is a bit dismaying. In retrospect I recognize my absolute and essential disconnect in regards to behavior and diet. My own history is proof that our moral-override can be fearsome powerful, when acting in the name of convention and convenience. Now, I try to remember this when navigating conversations with non-vegans. I recall my own past, and use it to ground me in humility, to stimulate my sensitivity.

Fast forward a few years: post graduation, post engagement, post move to Portland, and my partner and I were quitting smoking. This miserable, gut-wrenching process, I would not wish on my own worst enemy (if I had one, that is). It took an entire year of my life to disentangle myself from cigarettes, and for a whole year that’s pretty much all I could focus on. Like so many, I used food as a coping mechanism. Hey, it works! But food-as-medicine meant a lot of peanut m & ms, a lot of pepperoni pizzas, and more midnight donut runs than I care to admit. Emerging from the other side of that year I was a non-smoker, true, but I also felt as though I had poisoned myself from the inside out. It was time to clean up my eating act, and to facilitate this, I planned a cleanse. A week long, ‘vegan cleanse’.

In my most candid moments, I had always conceded the ethical superiority of a vegan lifestyle, because I could not with intellectual honesty argue otherwise. There is just no denying the extreme wastefulness, the ecological devastation, the human hunger impact, the environmental destruction and the grievous misallocation of resources associated with the meat and dairy industries. I could admit to all of this, but somehow still maintain my cognitive dissonance. I told myself it was an impossible life choice, debilitating in its restriction and malnourishing without constant attention. I was an adventurous epicurean, a ‘foodie’, and much too exciting for rigorous meal planning. Veganism was just not practical, man.

That is of course, until I tried it. And it was easy. It was really just so easy. Not just easy, but to my surprise, it was rather . . . delightful. And so in that first week it became very clear to me that, if it really was so effortless (it is), and so pleasurable (oh yes), then it would be morally incorrect of me NOT to go vegan.  And I thought, “Damn, I can’t ‘un-know’ this”.  There was only one way that I could proceed while keeping my integrity intact.

On my list of reasons to go vegan, animal rights was at the very bottom, and I decided to give the lifestyle a ‘trial’ period of 6 months. And because I am a scientist to my very core, I approached my veg*nism as such – with exhaustive research and experimentation (kitchen, that is). I scoured discussion forums all over the Internet, I read literature including Skinny Bitch, I watched documentaries including Earthlings, and I listened to the Vegan Freak and Food For Thought podcasts. Very quickly, and admittedly unexpectedly, a new and beautiful compassion began awakening inside of me. I was moved – quite shaken – by a blossom of empathy that seemed to fill me in a place that I hadn’t even realized was empty. I am not kidding when I say that within just a few short weeks, I was a changed person. I knew I could never go back.

The longer that you live without contributing to the suffering of innocents, the stranger and more violent an act it seems. These days I could no more imagine eating meat or milk than I could imagine beating my dog. I see the world differently, and I move through the world differently as well. I experience mental clarity, bodily energy, physical ‘lightness’, and emotional stability. I have big healthy poops! (don’t be squeamish, you cannot talk about health without talking about poop) I am noticeably happier, internally derived happiness. I attribute all of these changes to my veg*n lifestyle. It is difficult to describe this feeling without sounding like an Evangelical kool-aid sipper, so you’ll just have to trust my intellectualism. This choice is unparalleled in its positivity.

Wait, seriously?  Seriously??!  Why, in the name of all that is good, would you ever have want or need for a veganized version of that crazy concoction?

Well celebration, of course!  Regional and ritualistic foods are critical to our cultural traditions, our religious ceremonies, and our most important festivals.  They are often where we turn first for nostalgic ‘comfort foods’, and unfortunately, they usually contain animals.  So it’s pretty safe to assume, if ever there’s a peculiar cultural staple, a veganized version exists.  After all, the children of immigrants do want to carry on their family’s heritage – albeit in their own modified and modernized way. 

And thus I present: a vegan Haggis.  This traditional Scottish dish (I doubt even the Scots would dare call it a delicacy) is made from a mixture of oatmeal and organ meats, spiced with ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.  I actually had the occasion of sampling Haggis back in my omni days, while attending a conference in Glasgow, Scotland:

2006 - Haggis and High Tea at the Willow Tea Room

Haggis has many functions in Scottish culture, including the starring role of the Burns Night celebration.  A Burns Supper is held in honor of Scotland’s greatest poet, Robert Burns, most often on the night of his birthday – January 25th.  However, a Burns Supper is not restricted to this date, and parties are held at random (blame the Whiskey) throughout the year.  So get to celebrating!

The supper itself is a long and intricate ritual involving multiple incantations and recitations, an official ‘Entrance of the Haggis’ (accompanied by bagpipes), a formal ‘Addressing of the Haggis’ (an 8-stanza poem that is read to the dish itself), and absolutely ridiculous amounts of whiskey.  Here is a more thorough account of a customary Burns Supper.

This was my first attempt at a vegan Haggis, which I adapted from this recipe.  Haggis is most frequently served with bashed neeps and tatties (that’s mashed turnips and mashed potatoes, served separately) and a generous dram (that’s Scotch whiskey, of course).  Here, I plated these stacked high, Haggis over tatties over neeps, finished with a sweet creamy whiskey reduction, and skirted with wilted kale.  This meal came out wonderfully – better than I remember authentic Haggis tasting – and it makes me look forward to hosting a large and proper Burns Night celebration next year. 

Haggis Ingredients:

1/2 cup steelcut oatmeal

2/3 cup lentils (any color will do)

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 carrots, grated and then chopped

2 stalks celery, finely diced

1 tablespoon canola oil

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/8 teaspoon cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon cayenne

1/8 teaspoon cardamon

1 tablespoon soy sauce

One can of Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

2 cloves of garlic, finely minced

Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:
Well before you are ready to begin cooking, place the oatmeal in a bowl and cover it with boiling water. Let it soak for at least an hour, (it can go much longer if you need). Drain all the water later, when you use the oatmeal.

When you are ready to begin cooking, boil 4 cups of water in a saucepan.  Add the lentils and continue to boil, 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally (watch the water level!). While the lentils are boiling, chop all those veggies.  When the lentils are soft, rinse them and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 375º F. In a large pan, sauté the onion, celery, and carrots in canola oil, until they are soft. Add the spices, the soy sauce, the cooked lentils and about a quarter of the Canellini’s.  Stir to mix thoroughly and turn of the heat.

Either by machine (food processor or blender) or by hand (potato smasher) purée the rest of the Canellini’s to form a thick paste (you may need to add some liquid). Then, fold this into the lentil and vegetable mixture, along with the soaked oats and the garlic. Mix well and add salt and pepper to taste.

Scoop your Haggis into a casserole dish and bake it, uncovered, for 30 to 40 minutes.

Sweet Creamy Whiskey Reduction Ingredients:

1 cup Scotch whiskey

3/4 cup almond or rice milk (avoid   soy – it may curdle with liquor)

1/4 cup agave syrup

salt and fresh-ground pepper (white would be nice), a dash of each

Instructions:

In a small saucepan, get the Scotch to simmering and reduce by about half. Then add the milk and agave, stirring and simmering until it thickens up a bit (it will not get super thick).  Add your salt and pepper, and drizzle over Haggis just before serving. 

Bashed Neeps and Tatties:

Bashed Neeps and Tatties are just mashed potatoes, which I’m sure you know how to prepare (boil and then mash with vegan butter and vegan milk), and mashed turnips (which are made the exact same way).  Keep them separate, and serve them side by side or underneath your vegan Haggis.

Happy Burns-ing, and don’t forget to cross off #4 on The Vegan’s Hundred!

In the coming weeks and months I’ll probably be writing a lot about chickens – why I love them, why they’re awesome additions to any [veg*n] backyard farm, and why I could never imagine eating them, ever again.

But before all that, I wanted to take a moment and introduce you all to my two little beauties: Miss Petunia Blue, and Miss Princess SweetPea.

Petunia Blue was our first little darling.  I got her during a feverish fit of ‘nesting-mode’ madness – an unexpected side affect of quitting smoking.  Something had to be done, and it was either getting my hands on a chick, or it was time to consider getting pregnant.  Luckily, I chose the former, and we brought home baby Petunia.  Although I know better now, and would never again support the poultry industry, she sure was a fun little wee one.  She was 1 week old:

Petunia (or ‘tunes, as we call her) is a Leghorn, that classic and quintessential American chicken.  She is small and white, slender with good wingspan and proud tail feathers, with a mighty scarlet-colored crown and waddle.  Of course, she didn’t look like that when she was just few weeks old.  This is her trademark bugeye glare:

Leghorns are also a particularly chatty breed (her nickname is very appropriate), so we were quite relieved when it was time to move Camp Chicken out of the bathroom and into the backyard.  ‘Tunes was a few months old in this picture, and having a blast exploring the new world of the great big outdoors:

That was in late spring, and it was right around that time that we brought home Princess SweetPea.  Princess is a furry-footed Light Brahma, an Asiatic breed that is closely related to Indian Jungle Fowl.  We rescued her off Craigslist from a family that was paring down its flock.  Apparently, the father had decided that he would become a producer of the perfect fancy chicken, and was on a quest to manipulate the ideal breed.  Poor Sweet Pea was one of the many byproducts of his experimentations.  She was half of Petunia’s age and weighed nearly twice as much: 

These days the girls rule the backyard, where they reside in their little red henhouse.  At night they roost in ‘trees’ made of old lumbar, safe in their enclosed run.  By day, they free range the backyard, much to the dismay of neighborhood cats (who are equal their size and can’t do anything but stare) and pesky garden slugs.  They fertilize our plants, they mow our lawn, but most of all, they are just plain fabulous friends.  

Chickens are delightful, independent, unique, and sassy creatures, and I look forward to sharing my adoration and understanding of them, as this project unfolds.

In Interpreting A Label, Part I – Speaking The Language, I introduced the idea of learning to speak ‘Nutrition-ese’, and outlined the terms ‘organic’ and ‘natural’. Here in Part II, I conclude our lesson in label lingo.  I do suggest that you read Part I before continuing with this post.

Chemical Free:

Oh, you haven’t seen that on a label?  Yeah, that’s because it doesn’t exist.  According to the USDA, “The term is not allowed to be used on a label”.  Which is, I think, sort of worrisome.

Lipids:

There are all sorts of marketing phrases surrounding the fat content, or lack of fat, in your foods.  They usually indicate various levels of chemical mutilation, and I discourage anyone from falling into the trap of eating these altered ‘foods’, which are always more processed and subsequently, less real.  For one, they are so often dairy products and dairy derivatives, which we should all be avoiding anyway.  But secondly, this can trap you in a deceptively unhealthy, ‘quick fix’ mentality.  Fat is not bad!  Eat real, whole foods full of healthy natural fats.  The right fats are awesome, and essential too – so have at ‘em!  But, just to be safe:

Fat Free: For the sake of simplicity the contents of foods, measured in grams, are rounded up or down to the nearest tenth.  So, products labeled ‘fat free’ contain less than 0.5 grams of fat per serving.

99% Fat Free: This item contains more than 0.5, but less than 1.4, grams of fat per 100 grams of food.

Low Fat: This item contains up to 3.4 grams of fat per 100 grams of food.

Lean: This item contains less than 10 grams of fat (less than 4 grams of saturated fat), and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol per serving.  This label only applies to animal products.

Low Calorie: This item contains 40 calories or less per serving.

Cholesterol Free: Cholesterol is measured in milligrams, but the rounding principal still applies.  In this case, this item contains less than 2.4 milligrams of cholesterol per serving.

Low Cholesterol: This item contains less than 20.4 milligrams of cholesterol per serving, as well as 2 grams or less of saturated fat per serving.

*Here’s where it starts to get really creepy . . . *

Reduced Fat: In this item, the fat has been ‘reduced’ by a minimum of 25%, as measured against a ‘comparable food’.

Light/Lite: In this item, the fat has been ‘reduced’ by a minimum of 50%, and the calories have been ‘reduced’ by a minimum of 33%, as measured against a ‘comparable food’.

Sodium:

A lot of people need to avoid salt due to any number of health reasons.  As always, try to eat food that is as real (in it’s natural original state) and minimally processed as possible.

Sodium Free: Sodium is also measured in milligrams, and the rounding principal continues to apply.  This item will contain less than 5.4 milligrams of sodium per serving.

Low Sodium: This item will contain less than 140.4 milligrams of sodium per serving.

Very Low Sodium: This item will contain less than 35.4 milligrams of sodium per serving.

Getting What You Need (?):

This is where enrichment and fortification come into play.  You see, when food (say, wheat) is refined (say, to make flour), the vast majority of the beneficial vitamins and minerals are lost along the way.  So even though you are eating wheat bread, you are not getting the same nutrients as you would from eating real wheat berries.  This is an over-simplified example that is just meant to illustrate the importance of eating whole foods.  When the foods are processed they lose their nutritional value, so sometimes manufacturers will try to put those nutrients back in.  Some times they try to put in ‘nutrients’ that weren’t even there in the first place.  To which I say: Why not just eat a nice wide variety of food that hasn’t been screwed with?  But I digress.

Enriched: Items that have been enriched have had their original nutrients returned to them.  For each kind of product (like flour) there are specific levels of vitamins and minerals that must be added in order to qualify as ‘enriched’.

Fortified: Items that have been fortified have had their original nutrients returned to them, and then additional supplements have been included.  These extraneous elements are either added to products that did not originally have them at all, or else are added in quantities higher than naturally occurred. 

Good Source: This item contains at least 10% of the ‘daily recommended’ value for the indicated vitamin, mineral, fiber, or protein. 

Excellent Source/High In: This item contains at least 20% of the ‘daily recommended’ value for the indicated vitamin, mineral, fiber, or protein.

So that’s that, your crash course in label interpretation.  Hopefully, at this point you’re feeling bilingual and ready to tackle the supermarket like a native ‘Nutrition-er’.  But, just in case you think of anything I missed, please feel free to ask in the comments and I shall do my best to track down an answer! 

. . . To Be Concluded . . .

Part III

Happy New President!  Damian and I couldn’t fathom staying home to watch such beautiful history, so we dragged our butts out of bed early and braved a Pacific NW winter morning, standing in line to experience the Inauguration on the big screen at a ‘Living Room’ theater.  They were serving a champagne breakfast, and the venue was packed with a crowd of people diverse in every way imaginable.  It was spectacular.

^ Waiting in line, excited and cold.                 Watching on the giant movie screen.^

• Obama ’08 Campaign T: barackobama.com
• Grey Dress: by Celebrity Pink
• Black Longsleeve Shirt: Target
• Black Zip-Up Hoodie: by Gap
• Black Leggings: Target
• Scarlet Thigh Highs: modified, from Claire’s
• Industrial Garter Belt: Sock Dreams
• White Knee-High Socks: organic, by  Sock Dreams
• Plaid Scarf: no label, at Buffalo Exchange
• Engineer Boots: secondhand, by Carolina

And for fun, another blast from the past!  This is me in DC at the Bush Inauguration, 2005.  I was there protesting, of course.  It was coooooold!

Truth be told, I had never made bread before I found this magical recipe on my favorite food blog,  Bread and Honey (although original credit belongs to the NY Times).  But I did, like many people, have fond memories of my mother doing so. And that smell of baking bread, mouthwatering slow in our old oven, is still one of the most comforting I know.  Unfortunately, that comfort seemed to come at a price – a whole lot of elbow grease, a whole lot of time.  

But now, with just a little planning and foresight, fresh baked bread is as easy as, well, this is a whole lot easier than pie!

Ingredients:

3 cups flour (I use whole wheat, but all-purpose or any other variety will work), plus more for dusting

1/4 teaspoon yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 5/8 cups warm water

optional: I have thrown in a handful of rosemary, I have tossed in sunflower, poppy, and sesame seeds, I have sprinkled in Italian herbs, and I have mixed in kalamata olives. The possibilities are endless; customize to taste!

Instructions:

In a large bowl, combine all ingredients until thoroughly mixed.  Dough should be shaggy.  Shaggy is a *really* great way of describing dough.

Cover dough with a pot lid or dish towel, and put it in a warm place to rest.  I usually hide mine in a cupboard.  Let the dough hang out for a good 12-20 hours.  Yep, 12-20 hours.

The next day, check your dough.  It’s ready when the surface shows tiny bubbles. Spread some flour on a cutting board or counter, and turn the dough out onto the surface.  With floured hands, fold the dough over onto itself (like a dough taco), and then fold it again (double dough taco?).  Let it rest there for about 15 minutes, and then cover it with a cotton dishtowel (non-terry cloth).  Let it rise under the towel for about 2 hours.  The dough is done when it has doubled in size, and no longer springs back when depressed.

A half hour or so before the dough is done rising, preheat the oven to 450º.  With floured hands, transfer the dough to a lightly sprayed or floured cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic pot – one that has a tight-fitting lid.  (Warning: DO NOT use teflon-coated or glass bakeware.  Teflon cannot stand this heat, and will make stinky smoky awefulness.  The first time I made this recipe I used a glass dish.  As I was leaning over to sniff my bread straight out of the oven, the glass dish literally shattered in my face, because it cooled too quickly sitting on top of the hot oven.  Don’t risk it!  Use Pyrex.)  Cover the pot with the lid and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove the lid, and bake another 15-20 minutes, until loaf is well browned.  Cool on a wire rack, or eat hot with lots of Earthbalance™, mmmmmmm.

I don’t actually have any pictures of a finished loaf, because it never sticks around long enough to to be photographed!  But I hope you enjoy, and get as much use out of this recipe as I have.  Homemade bread, containing only the simplest and purest ingredients, is truly a heart- and belly-warming treat.  

Itty Bitty Bonzai is a collection of tiny tips and tricks for living a life more mindful.  Small actions, collectively and compounded, become a powerful force of change.   

#1  Chlorinated bleach, when washed down the drain, degrades into a substance called ‘organochlorine’.  This compound is believed to be carcinogenic, as well as harmful to the reproductive, neurological, and immune systems.  Instead of cleaning with a chlorine containing bleach, try making your own solution. Fill one spray bottle with 3% hydrogen peroxide, and another spray bottle with white vinegar.  Spray to mix as needed (this is more effective if they mix on contact).  

BONZAI!