How to Dispose of Old Medicine

Whether you have wee ones with wandering fingers or not, one of the best things you can do is clean out your medicine cabinet, or wherever it is you store your medicine--prescription and over-the-counter. For us, it's a shelf on one of our kitchen cabinets, which I figure is pretty child-safe, in close proximity to the water and glasses needed to take most medicines, and somewhere in plain sight so we actually remember to take said meds! My husband and I are pretty med-free...or so I thought. But a quick rifle through the various bottles clogging up turned up a lot of old stuff (pain medication prescribed after my son's birth via caesarean two years ago!) that just needs to go. Flush those puppies right on down the toilet, right?

WRONG. So, so wrong. All that lovely medicinal sludge leaves our homes and makes its way into our water system.

[C]ommon sense and some worrisome signs — such as the appearance of fish with both male and female characteristics in the Potomac River near Washington, D.C. — call for keeping our waters as drug-free as possible. USA Today, April 22, 2007.

Instead, it is recommended that we: "Crush pills or dissolve them in water; dilute liquid medications, too. Then mix the drugs with kitty litter, coffee grounds or other unappealing materials. Place the mess in a sealed plastic bag and discard." On the one hand, that's a lot of steps to have to go through...on the other, it's easier than trying to find a pharmacy or doctor's office that will accept old prescriptions and dispose of them properly!

Arlington County Hazardous Materials Guidelines

DC Hazardous Materials FAQs

Northeast Maryland Hazardous Materials Guidelines (Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Frederick County, Harford County, Howard County, Montgomery County and Baltimore City.)

Image thanks to these folks.

At Work and Have 5 Minutes to Find Something Good for Dinner Tonight?

If you're like me, it's often in that hour or so before lunch that your thoughts turn to food. Since what I have for lunch is never very exciting, I usually find myself heading for the web to find something new and fun--and healthy and cheap--and preferably with ingredients I already have--to make for dinner. Here are some of my favorite places to go, and some other great recommendations I've gathered along the way.

Online Recipe Sources:

• Many rave reviews for the Six o'Clock Scramble, a weekly email newsletter that "provides five family-tested dinner recipes and a corresponding grocery list to its subscribers. Most take 30 minutes or less to prepare and have fewer than ten ingredients." Six months of menus and grocery list for $26.50.
• Along the same idea, menu-mailers from Leanne Ely at Saving Dinner. This one includes 6 recipes each week, and you can select a "theme" (vegetarian, frugal, crock pot, heart-healthy, etc.) for your recipes. Her site has lots of freebies as well. She doesn't provide the grocery list, and a 6 month subscription costs $17.95. A 3 month trial subscription is $9.95.
• For a free weekly newsletter, try Eating Well, which also has searchable recipe archives. Here's a sampler of their Seasonal Desserts. Okay, desserts aren't exactly the point here, but what's a good dinner without a good dessert to follow?
  
• Moosewood Restaurant Cookbook and online recipe archive is a good source for low-fat, often vegetarian recipes.
• My fave TV channel (or one of them!), The Food Network. If you're a fan of The Next Food Network Star, here's where to find the recipes they made this season.
  
• www.allrecipes.com is also a great site with good search capabilities--you can even list the ingredients you want to use, and the ones you don't want, and see what pops up. So, if you want a great quiche recipe but hate mushrooms, just list eggs as an ingredient you want and mushrooms as one you don't, and voila!
  
• Try the advanced search at www.cookinglight.com. They have zillons (okay, thousands at least) of delicious, healthy recipes.
• If you're looking for fancier fare, try Epicurious, the online home of Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines. Or head over to the Epicurean recipe exchange--search by main ingredients here as well, always helpful.
  

Eat Your Greens! Some Recipes...

Along with the general advice to just throw whatever veggies you have in the fridge into on on top of whatever it is that you are cooking, here are a few easy recipes that work well with most any vegs you have on hand.

"HOMEMADE" PASTA SAUCE

You may think that making pasta sauce takes too long and is too much "cooking" for you. I beg to differ! The best thing about making your own sauce is that you really can't go wrong, no matter what you end up throwing in there.

• First, the meat. Optional. Cook a pound or two of ground beef or turkey in a large skillet until brown on the outside. Or, chop up some chicken breast into small squares and cook until done (when you press on the chicken with the back of a spoon, the juices should run clear, not pink or cloudy).
  
• Second, dice a whole bunch of veggies, whatever you have, and throw them in a pan with some olive oil to saute them just a bit. Or, toss in some frozen veggies (frozen spinach works great) or canned veggies. I usually do at least one onion
  
• Last, the sauce part--you can use plain tomato sauce or one of the jarred sauces (just watch to avoid the ones high in sodium). Heat and serve, that's all there is to it! If you want to get fancy, you can add fresh basil and parsley right before serving.

STIR FRY

Basically the same principal as above, only don't add tomato sauce. Instead, add some spice! I usually just throw some ground red pepper and salt on mine, or soy sauce, but there is a plethora of Asian-inspired sauces out there to experiment with and find what your family likes.

I also hear rave reviews for Trader Joe's frozen stir fry veggies, although I haven't tried them yet. I'm usually shorter on money than time, so I go for the cheaper but more labor-intensive option of just buying veggies separate. If you're more concerned about getting in and out of the kitchen quickly, or with having something on hand that just needs to be heated up, then these ready-to-eat bags are probably great.

QUESADILLAS

What could be easier than a tortilla, some cheese, and some veggies/meat? Grill up some chicken breasts, (or, to save more time, get a rotisserie chicken from the market). Layer a flour tortilla, cheddar cheese, chicken, peppers/onions (optional), another tortilla - and heat in a frying pan or George Forman grill like a grilled cheese sandwich. Easy, fast, neat enough to take in the car...it's the perfect food!

(Leave off the tortilla, add eggs, and you have a Veggie Frittata!)

PIZZA

Another very easy at-home fix that sneaks veggies into a kid-appealing package. Rumor has it that Trader Joe's sells the dough (plain or wheat) for $0.99, although I can't vouch for it personally. I can highly recommend Wegman's pizza dough, especially the whole wheat variety. It's in their prepared foods section (by the bakery) and it's only $2.50 (approx.) for a package, which for us makes 2 pizzas that serve 4 each. Toppings, like all the other recipes on this page, can be anything. Chicken and onion is a favorite in my family, but thinly sliced tomato, bell peppers, leftover slices of eggplant parmesan, olives, canned artichoke hearts, broccoli crowns, thinly sliced zucchini and other squash all work well.

Bon Appetit!

The Big C

One of the scariest words on the planet, for me anyway, is the big C. Cancer. I'm scared even writing it. As a (relatively) new mom, I still have those wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night fears that something will happen to take me away from my babies, and this one rates pretty high up there for me.

And yet--and YET--I know I don't do all that I could to make sure that I'm healthy. My mom keeps at me to have a colonoscopy done. (Yes, it's what Bush just had done last weekend). It's probably about as fun as it sounds. But, with our family history, and the fact that by the time you have any symptoms it's very likely too late, as it was for my uncle who passed away nearly 30 years ago, leaving a wife and baby son...well, let's just say that it is something I need to so, and am stupidly remiss in not doing.

To that end, a virtual listserv acquaintance has just been diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, an evidently very fest-moving, very dangerous form of breast cancer that I, at least, had never heard of. So, please take a minute to check out what she has to say, and pass on the word. You never know whose life you might save.

Inflammatory breast cancer is often misdiagnosed as mastitis because many doctors have never seen it before and consider it rare. “Rare” or not, there are over 100,000 women in the U.S. with this cancer right now; only half will survive five years. Please call your OB/GYN if you experience several of the following symptoms in your breast, or any unusual changes: redness, rapid increase in size of one breast, persistent itching of breast or nipple, thickening of breast tissue, stabbing pain, soreness, swelling under the arm, dimpling or ridging (for example, when you take your bra off, the bra marks stay – for a while), flattening or retracting of the nipple, or a texture that looks or feels like an orange (called peau d’orange). Ask if your GYN is familiar with inflammatory breast cancer, and tell her that you’re concerned and want to come in to rule it out.

http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/2007/07/23/inflammatory-breast-cancer

Veggie Frittata

Here's a sneaky way to get more veggies in your diet. Or, more likely, in your kid's diet. It's also wonderful for using up veggies that are teetering on the verge of going bad--because the vegetables are sauteed, it doesn't matter if they are slightly soft or cut in uneven chucks.

Preheat the oven to 375.

Put a little olive oil in a large skillet* and then put in whatever kind of cut-up veggies you'd like. I like tomatoes in slices, onions, pre-boiled potatoes, eggplant, corgettes, any kind of squash...pretty much anything works! You can also toss in some crumbled or sliced pre-cooked sausage. Brown everything for about 5 minutes.

*Cast iron, if you have it, works really well, as the skillet will go directly in the oven. Cast iron skillets in general are great for even cooking, and will even add minute amounts of iron to whatever is cooked in them, ensuring that eaters in your house get enough iron—which the body needs to produce red blood cells—as it seeps off the cookware into food in small amounts. See here and here.

In a large bowl, stir 6-8 eggs with ~1/2 cup of cheese (any kind, but I like mozzarella and swiss). The amount of eggs & cheese can be adjusted for how much food you want to make.

Pour the egg/cheese mixture into the frying pan and shake it a little to get the eggs distributed evenly over the veggies. Immediately place the frying pan directly into the oven for about 15 minutes.

Then transfer the frittata to a plate and cut it like a pizza. Ta-da!

Eggplant Parmesan

My Fave Eggplant Parm Recipe

I love this recipe, but I recognize that fried eggplant isn't the heathiest way to go...so I'll be trying a baked-only version sometime soon, and I'll let you know how it turns out!

Ingredients

Serves 8

• Olive oil, for baking sheets
• 3/4 cup plain dry breadcrumbs (or the pre-spiced "Italian Breadcrumbs," and skip the next two ingredients)
  
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon dried basil
• Salt and ground pepper
• 2 large eggplants, (2 1/2 pounds total), peeled and sliced into 1/2-inch thick rounds
• 3 cups (more or less) Tomato Sauce (can make your own or use store-bought)
• 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella (or mixed "Mexican" cheese--I've used it all)
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese for topping (optional)
  

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a wide, shallow bowl, combine breadcrumbs, spices if using, and season with salt and pepper.

Peel eggplants in stripes (this is to get rid of some of the chewy skin but not all of it, as the skin helps hold the eggplant together as it is fried. If you don't mind the chewiness, just wash the eggplant). Slice into 1/2 inch think rounds. I usually slice on the diagonal to get larger pieces of eggplant; you can still fry the small "leftover" pieces to eat while waiting for the rest to cook!

In a large saute pan, heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil over medium heat. (On the oil, use olive, vegetable, what have you. If you must, use spray oil, but recognize that the lovely golden crunchy exterior come from being well-fried!)

Dip an eggplant slice in breadcrumb mixture, coating well; slide into hot oil and fry for approximately 5 mins on each side, or until breadcrumb mixture browns. As you remove each slice, place on a baking sheet.

Once you've fried all the eggplant, top each round with a dollop (or more, to your taste) of tomato sauce and some cheese. Put into the 375 degree oven. Bake until golden brown on bottom, 20 to 25 minutes. Turn slices; continue baking until browned on other side, 20 to 25 minutes more.

Serve with pasta; add extra tomato sauce if desired or just sprinkle some parmesan cheese over the top.

I am a LOHAS!

Who are we?

Did you know that we are an ever-growing, aggressively courted market? Nope, I didn't either. Falling as we do in between the aging force-to-be-reckoned-with known as the Baby Boomers and the yet-to-be-reckoned with "Millenials" (born 1982-2000), I always figured us Generation X/Yers (born 1963-1978/1981, depending on definition) were destined to be lost in the middle. Perhaps not!

According to the magazine Fast Company, the LOHAS market segment (for "lifestyles of health and sustainability"), is

"a $227 billion domestic market for goods and services focused on sustainable living, social justice, and alternative health care. These are the consumers, in other words, who are eating organics, driving hybrids, and buying fair-trade morning lattes. And there are 63 million of them out there, making up 30% of the American market. They are not necessarily wealthier than other Americans, but they have proven themselves willing to spend up to an astounding 20% premium on clean, green products over the non-sustainable alternatives." Source

A 20% premium for clean, green products? That figure astounded me, until I did a little looking at my own purchases lately.

Gallon of Whole Milk...................$2.65 at Costco (DC Metro)
Gallon of Whole, Organic Milk........$3.45 at Wegmans (Fairfax, VA)
.....................................................30% difference

3 Plastic Gerber Baby Bottles...........$3.75 (Amazon.com)
3 Glass Evenflo Baby Bottles............$8.00 (ingeling.com)
...................................................113% difference


Granted, there are many other ways in which we do save money. But, clearly, even though we're just as tight with finances as any other young family with two kids under 2, we do choose to spend a little more when and where we think it matters.

Why does this matter?

Just think of the possibilities...in a world where women age 25-44 are being so aggressively courted by both traditional venues (child- and household-care) and, increasingly, non-traditional (automobile makers come to mind), we hold the buying power!

What do you think? Are you a LOHAS? (LOHASer?) Is it all just marketing hype? Or do we Gen Y/X women really hold not only the buying power, but the power to change the world?

Water & Our Culture of Indulgence

I, like many of you, perhaps, have always felt somehow virtuous when purchasing a bottle of water rather than a soft drink. Sure, there was always that undertone of "I can't believe I'm paying money for something I can get for free at home," but at the same time I was just too careless to remember to bring water with me, and invariably I'd get in the car or get ready to go out somewhere and think, "I need to buy a couple bottles of water!" And I'd at least feel good about the fact that I was making a healthier choice, if not an altogether more responsible choice.

Well, no more.

This article (Message in a Bottle, on FastCompany.com) has a lot of good research into the bottled water industry, and ends with an intriguing challenge. The next time you reach for a bottle of water, instead of asking yourself "Does the value to me equal the 99 cents I'm about to spend?" ask rather "Does the value equal the impact I'm about to leave behind?"

So, no more bottled anything for us, that's my new plan. I'll just need to convince my husband that we really don't need sodas and juice (sob! I love juice!) at home. Which, of course, we don't. *I* definitely don't need the calories, and since we're both huge tea-drinkers, we should be fine without.

Clean up the Air: Buy a Houseplant!

It seems like such a no-brainer, really. Like, why on earth didn't I figure it out sooner? OF COURSE plants help make your indoor spaces fresher and nicer. And now I read that they actually remove chemicals from the air. Perhaps you all knew this already? Perhaps those of you lucky enough to keep plants alive longer than one season have noticed the long-term benefits? (Seriously, pre-kids I used to actually wonder what it meant for my future offspring that houseplants never lived more than a month or two. I reassured myself that, if only plants could cry, they would have a fighting chance.)

Experts say: "Common indoor plants may provide a valuable weapon in the fight against rising levels of indoor air pollution. Those plants in your office or home are not only decorative, but NASA scientists are finding them to be surprisingly useful in absorbing potentially harmful gases and cleaning the air inside modern buildings."

Plants most effective in removing formaldehyde, benzene, and carbon monoxide from the air:

Common Name	Scientific Name
Aloe Vera, Burn Plant	Aloe Barbabensis
Bamboo Palm	Chamaedorea Seifritzii
Chinese Evergreen	Aglaonema Modestum
Common English Ivy	Hedera
Dumbcane	Dieffenbachia
Elephant Ear Philodendron	Philodendron Domesticum
English Ivy	Hedera Helix
Ficus/Weeping Fig	Ficus Benjamina
Gerbera Daisy	Gerbera Jamesonii
Golden Pothos	Epipiremnum Aureum
Heartleaf Philodendron	Philodendron Scandens `Oxycardium'
Janet Craig	Dracaena "Janet Craig"
Marginata/Red-Edged Dracaen	Dracaena Marginata
Mass Cane/Corn Plant	Dracaena Massangeana
Mauna Loa	Spathiphyllum Sp
Mother-In-Law's Tongue	Sansevieria Laurentii
Peace Lily	Spathiphyllum "Mauna Loa"
Pot Mum	Chrysantheium Morifolium
Selloum Philodendron	Philodendron Selloum
Snake Plant	Sansevieria Trifasciata
Spider Plant	Chlorophytum Comosum
Warneckii	Dracaena "Warneckii"

Never heard of most of these? Me either. Some of them sound positively Potter-esque (“Dracaena Marginata” anyone?). Some sounds just scary. (“Mother-in-Law’s Tongue”? Oh, did you think I was going to say “Snake Plant”? Yeah, I meant that one…) However, even I know what an Aloe is, and I could probably find my way to a Ficus (see picture above) with only a little difficulty.

How Many Plants Do I Need?

As a rule of thumb, allow one houseplant per 100 square feet of living area. For the spatially-challenged (hand shooting into air), that means you should have one plant for every 10' x 10' space. So, a small bedroom or kitchen needs one large plant or two small ones, and your living room probably needs 2 or 3 big plants. Or, if you’re me, 8 newly purchased sproutlings in the hope that 2 will survive to adulthood in the big, bad world of my living room.

References:

http://www.blankees.com/house/plants/

http://www.cleanairgardening.com/houseplants.html

http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/h110indoorair.html

http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?action=howTo&p=LawnGarden/LivingAirCleaners.html