How to Make Violet Cordial

It’s that wonderful time of the year when violets make their brief appearance, and my yard is filled with the beautiful little deep-purple flowers. A few years ago, I posted a tutorial on how to make violet syrup, and I thought it would be fun to revive that recipe with a twist. I made the same basic syrup, but added some vodka to the mixture to make a lovely violet cordial that can be sipped by itself or added to other beverages to make a light floral cocktail. The variety of violets I have in my yard are only slightly fragrant, so the cordial has a mild floral flavor. Different varieties will yield different tastes.

I began by gathering 2 cups of violets, making sure to choose only those blooms that were open and free of bites and blemishes. When you are harvesting edible wild flowers, make sure that you are picking them from locations that are free from pesticide or other chemical applications.

I placed the violets into a colander and rinsed them thoroughly.

Then placed them in a Mason jar and covered them with 2 cups of boiling water. The water almost immediately began to turn a gorgeous sapphire blue! I let the violet infusion cool, then placed it in the refrigerator and let it steep for 24 hours.

After 24 hours, I strained out the violet blossoms, squeezing them to get out all the gorgeous purple hue. I placed some in a bowl so that I could show you what a brilliant color it made.

I placed the strained liquid into a heavy-bottomed saucepan.

Then added 2 cups of organic cane sugar and let this mixture come to a boil.

I then turned down the heat to medium and let it cook at a low boil for about 10 minutes, stirring often.

I removed the syrup from the heat, then added the strained juice of half a lemon. The acid from the lemon made the syrup go from deep violet to a beautiful magenta color.

I then mixed the syrup, 50/50, with organic vodka and bottled it in sterilized capped glass jars, which I bought at the Container Store.

After letting it sit for 2 weeks, it was ready to decant. It is very sweet by itself, but makes a lovely addition to champagne or sparkling water. Enjoy!

Cool Glass Straws and Hot Simple Syrup!

A couple of weeks ago, I struck up an Instagram friendship with the good folks over at fellow Green America certified sustainable business Glass Dharma, makers of the original glass straw. In talking to them, I mentioned that I would love a straw, so they sent me one!

It was beautiful and sturdy, and when I tested it out, I was struck by the fact that it doesn’t affect the taste of beverages the way plastic and paper straws do. It was also just fun to use! So the beautiful glass straw inspired me to try some new drink recipes.

I had recently bought a bottle of habanero lime syrup, and thought it would make an excellent sipping beverage. However, the habanero flavor was muted and tasted more like black pepper. So, I decided to try making my own.

In researching habanero simple syrup recipes, I came across Tipple Sheet’s habanero syrup recipe, which I adapted to make my own habanero lime drink.

Simple syrup ingredients:

• 2 habanero peppers
• 1 cup organic cane sugar
• 1 cup water

I found these gorgeous habanero peppers at my local hispanic market.

Trim off the stem , and slice the peppers in half. I wanted to have the flavor and some of the heat, but not have it overwhelmingly hot, so I removed the seeds and the white membrane. If you want maximum heat, leave the seeds and membrane intact!

Many instructions I read recommended the use of rubber gloves in handling habaneros. I chose instead to just be careful not to touch the cut edges of the peppers. If you do this, please be careful. And don’t touch your eyes or your family members until you have thoroughly washed your hands after handling these hot peppers!

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine 1 cup of water and 1 cup of organic cane sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. When the mixture turns clear, add the habanero peppers.

Allow the mixture to come to full boil, then turn the heat down and allow it to simmer for 10 minutes

Remove from heat and allow the syrup to cool. Strain into a clean glass jar. The syrup will keep for about 2 weeks if kept refrigerated.

To make the Habanero Lime Drink, add 1 teaspoon of the habanero simple syrup to 8oz of still water or sparkling water. Add the juice of one half lime and some sugar to taste. This makes a refreshing, yet spicy, drink. Enjoy!

Paper bouquets

By Outreach and Operations Associate, Lisa Seyfried

I’m planning a DIY wedding in a few months, and one of the crafts we decided on was to make all the flowers.  Instead of having real flowers that will surely wilt in the August heat, or pretending that our flowers were real when they were really fake, we decided to just scrap it all and announce it!

I found a whole slew of instructions and patterns on Pinterest, but I found this pattern to be the easiest, and the prettiest looking. And the great thing is that this pattern allows you to print out the flowers on any paper you’d like, in any size, cutting out the need to trace anything!

Printed patterns on colored cardstock

Cutting out all those petals takes a really long time.  I found it’s best to cut out a bunch of flowers at one time, so you can put them all together without having to stop and cut out more petals.

The instructions are really easy to follow – cut out the flowers, curl the edges, then glue onto a piece of wire about 12 inches long.  I’ve been using hot glue to glue them on.  I was afraid that the strings from the glue would get all over the bouquets, but it has been pretty easy to just get a drop on there and not have big clumps of glue all over.

The beginning of gluing the flower together. You can see the scraps in the background!

I really love the way these came out.  I think they are bright and sturdy and catch the light really well.  Against the bright colors of the women’s dresses, these flowers will really stand out.

I’ll be covering the “stems” with ribbon and a few beads to hide the edges.  I’m thinking about making the men some kind of pin on flower that is similar, but we’ll see if I can find a great pattern for that!

What I think I love most about these flowers is that they will last.  I’ve made a few out of recycled paper (mostly old grad school papers!) and they came out really lovely looking.  And they will stand out among the several bouquets that I’m sure people have from other weddings – at least I save them all!

The final bouquets!

 

 

Redefining Crafting: Eco-Friendly Yarn

The following was originally posted at Redefining Eco and was cross posted here with their permission. 

Over the holidays I picked up knitting.  So far I’m a clumsy knitter, constantly dropping stitches and paying more attention to to the television than my knitting needles, but I’m working at it!  My local fabric store carries hundreds of different options for sustainable knitting, so I thought that I would share a few ideas below to turn your latest crochet project into a sustainable work of art.

Photo courtesy of adiything’s flickr stream.

Why chose eco-friendly yarn?   Many synthetic yarns are plastic and chemical based — so not only do they not feel as soft as the real thing, they are derived from petroleum and tons of chemicals.  Some knitters might prefer vegan-friendly yarns and stay away from wool, and others might try to reincorporate gently used yarn from old sweaters into new outfits.  You can find yarn made from bamboo, corn, andorganic cotton.  You can also find yarn made from old plastic bottles, or old plastic bags.

Knit be Nimble even suggests to make your own knitting needles from chopsticks or wooden dowels.  If you are inspired to make your own knitting needles, let us know – we’ll post a picture of your knitting tools on our blog!

Are there any great eco-friendly yarns that you swear by?  Do you have any hot tips on great projects?  Let us know by posting a comment below!

Redefining Crafting: What to do when you love wine and crafting

Originally posted at Redefining Eco, and reposted here with their permission. 

Wine, Wine Everywhere…so what to do with the bottles?

In my house, we drink wine. Which is great, but it leaves us recycling a lot of wine bottles.  So when it came to indulging my crafty nature, I took a look at the wine bottles we had siting by the recycling bin.  And there are a ton of people who have had similar ideas.

My favorites are the ones that bring in color to the room. I love the idea of getting twice the amount of enjoyment out of something. I’ve done some of these crafts, and love my new home decorations!

4 Great Uses for Wine Bottles

1. Use the wine bottles as vases.

2. Use the wine bottles as planters, or a way to water plants.  I love this idea – it’s a great way to use the bottle and to use them in a practical way.
You can also use the wine bottles to plant plants on your wall, or to use as vases for fake flowers(or paper flowers you make from recycled material. But we’ll get to that!).

Photo courtesy of Design Sponge

3.  Use the wine bottles to make outdoor candle holders. They are pretty, bright, and let you burn candle outside in any weather.  This craft requires a glass cutter, but you can find those easily online for fairly cheap. And it’s pretty easy to use!

4. Table decorations. Over at CraveOrCreate, they have a great idea to wrap wine bottles in brightly colored twine and use them as table center pieces or great accent pieces around the house.

Here are a lot of other idea for how to use those extra wine bottles.  We’re using recycled wine bottles for candle holders for our upcoming wedding.  I’ll be sure to share pictures when they are done (as long as they turn out pretty…)

We Heart Hearts.com

We were recently introduced to Hearts by a fellow sustainable cosmetics company, and were immediately struck by the mission and aesthetics of this online shopping venue. Like many online stores, they offer a great selection of fashion and accessories, but unlike most others, everything they carry is made with the wellbeing of the makers, community and environment in mind. They see fashion as a vehicle for positive social change.

Each product for sale on Hearts comes with a story about its origin and its maker. Check out this great example of an upcycled necklace and the artist who created it.

Here is Hearts’ mission, in their words: “Hearts is a movement for change. Inspired to change the way products are designed, created, and sold. Hearts hopes to help people realize that they have the power to stimulate a shift by changing the way they spend their money. Hearts work with over 2,000 artisans from all over the world who along with our design team, co-create all of our handbags and accessories. Join Hearts in the sustainable fashion movement and use your purchasing power to create change!”

Hearts is offering a special discount for Herban Lifestyle readers and fan. Simply enter the coupon code Herban30 for 30% off your purchase at Hearts.com! (This offer is good through 5/1/2013)

Meatless Monday: Southwestern-Style Quinoa

I have to confess that I have never been much of a quinoa fan, even though I know it is a superfood high in fiber, iron and protein. Unadorned quinoa tastes too earthy to me, but, out of necessity, I’ve finally created a quinoa dish that I not only tolerate, but love!

Home after traveling for several days, we were longing for a health home-cooked meal. In advance of our travels, we hadn’t done any grocery shopping and were completely out of all of our usual staple grains. The one thing in my cabinet, which had been there a while being ignored, was a bag of Alter Eco Organic Royal Rainbow Quinoa, which my husband had purchased because it looked interesting. I also had a bag of organic corn in the freezer, which inspired me to try making a southwestern-style dish. The end-result was so good that I wanted to share it with you!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup quinoa
• 2 cups filtered water (plus water to soak the quinoa before cooking)
• 1 vegetable bouillion cube
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chipotle powder
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• 1 bag of frozen organic corn

Soak the quinoa in water for ten minutes, then drain thoroughly. Place in a saucepan with 2 cups of filtered water and the bouillion cube. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes.

While the quinoa is cooking, saute the onion in the olive oil until translucent, then add the spices and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the corn and cook for another 5 minutes and remove from heat.

When the quinoa is finished cooking, remove from heat, add the corn mixture and almonds and stir until well-blended.

Serve with a salad, for a simple well-balanced meal! This dish can be enjoyed hot or cold.

How to Make Vegan Welsh Rarebit (aka Rabbit)

A while back I posted a recipe for vegan mac and cheese. And although it was the best recipe I had produced at the time, I have to admit that I haven’t been quite satisfied with it.

Recently, I had a craving for vegan nachos with cheese sauce, so I did some searching on and found this excellent recipe on Food.com. This one has a higher proportion of cashews, which results is a rich, creamy texture.

Ingredients*

• 4 cups of filtered water
• 2 cups raw cashews (roasted won’t give you the nice creamy texture)
• Another 2 ½ cups of filtered water
• Strained juice of 1 lemons
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (regular works, too, but smoked provides a deeper flavor)
• 1 teaspoon mustard powder
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
• ½ cup of beer (a dark beer, like porter, is preferred)
• 4 slices of whole grain bread, toasted

Directions

1. Soak the cashews in filtered water overnight.

2. Drain the water from the cashews and place them in a blender with all of the ingredients, except for the beer and bread, and blend until smooth.

3. Pour the blended mixture into a saucepan, add the beer and heat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently

4. Spread over the toasted bread and serve with a salad for a simple, delicious meal!

To make nacho cheese sauce, eliminate the beer, replace the mustard powder with garlic powder and add 1 tablespoon of chili powder.

*Most Welsh Rarebit recipes call for Worcestershire Sauce, but this contains anchovies. If you are not a strict vegan, this adds a nice depth to the flavor.

airbnb enables a new class of tourism: the anti-tourist!

The following post is by Katie Peige, Herban Lifestyle’s Sustainability Associate.

With each New Year comes a list of goals and resolutions that we hope to cross off our annual bucket list. My list and vision board for 2013 definitely includes travel. If yours does too, Airbnb is a great option to try if you are looking for a cool place to stay with a limited amount of funds, thanks to the joys of the sharing economy and our interconnected online social world.

Never heard of Airbnb? Don’t feel too bad I hadn’t either before last year (when they were named Inc Magazine’s runner up for Company of the Year 2012). Having lived as a poor student traveling around Europe and various corners of the United States, I considered myself to be quite the green and savvy traveler with a shoe string budget reputation. The number one way I managed to get around without breaking the bank was relying on my vast network of friends who have offered me their spare beds, couches, futons, and floors, so I could avoid the expensive and not-as-much-fun experience of staying at a hotel.

While planning a trip to San Diego for a conference, my plan to stay with a friend fell through. Since my California network was non-existent, I needed to consider other options. After all, I needed to make my journey to the Sustainable Brands Conference in a financially sustainable way. So I looked into three options: the first was to find a roomshare with another conference attendee; the second was to finally use my membership with couchsurfing.com; and the final was a newly suggested option of Airbnb.

I had seen Airbnb mentioned in the Sustainable Brands program – Christopher Lukezic, their Director of Communications, was one of the speakers – and decided to check it out. Airbnb is short form for “Air Bed and Breakfast” and allows people with a spare room to put that room up for rent on a per diem basis. Some people rent out their entire flat, airstream, tree house, train, and so on. In Christopher’s presentation he mentioned how one couple rented out their now grown children’s tree house and were able to retire early and use Airbnb to pay their mortgage. So if you have some spare space, you might want to give hosting a try.

Airbnb’s website and app are both very cool and user friendly. You need to create a profile so that other users can rate you as a guest or host. This allows hosts and travelers to get a sense of whether they will be a good fit. You can connect your account to your Facebook account, which allows you to see if you know people who know a person you are considering hosting or visiting. My favorite part of the website is that it gives you a map of the different listings for each city. This feature is one of the big reasons why I choose Airbnb over other sites.

For my San Diego trip, I was able to use Airbnb to find an apartment that was just one mile from the conference. It was a perfect scenario. My host was actually traveling in Europe, and her friend Ale was on sabbatical and was traveling for a year before her return back to Italy. Unfortunately I did not have a lot of time to spend with Ale, since I was at the conference starting really early each  morning to rather late each night. But when I did see her, we had great conversations and I learned a little Italian. I had my own room, closet space, and was provided towels to shower. I got all of this for half of the price of sharing a room at the resort where the conference was held. Very sweet deal!

Airbnb’s app and website are really fun to poke around even if you are not planning to travel anytime soon. They have a “popular” section that lists the coolest listings and you feel like you have traveled around the world after spending a few minutes browsing. Check it out for yourself and have fun traveling or hosting and contributing to the sharing economy. It might make 2013 one of your most memorable years.

The Benefits of a BYOB (Bring Your Own Bag) Habit

The following post is by Katie Peige, Herban Lifestyle’s Sustainability Associate.

You are sitting in a park enjoying a lovely picnic. You are taking in the peaceful moment: the birds are chirping, children are playing on the nearby swings, a butterfly flitters by, and then you look up and your stomach lurches. It’s the lurch you feel when you see a plastic bag stuck amongst the highest branches of the maple you are sitting under. You start thinking about the birds that could get tangled in the plastic, the turtle that thinks he is about to chow down on a jelly fish, and your mind starts flashing images you have seen of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and all you have your mind set on is how long it would take for that bag to eventually break down and where can you find the nearest ladder.

Plastic bag pollution is a serious problem the world over. It is estimated that 1 million plastic bags are used every minute of every day worldwide. Plastics in the ocean is a terrifying situation as today there are more pieces of ocean plastic than plankton (you know the little guys who are responsible for our every other breath). Of the 100 million tons of plastic that are manufactured each year, ten percent finds its way to the ocean, and only 20 percent by means of ships and platforms. That means that 80 percent of the plastic in the ocean comes from the land. With all of this plastic floating in the ocean that does not go away but rather break up into smaller bits (46,000 pieces per every square mile according to the United Nations Environment Program), it is no wonder that a million sea birds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles die each year from plastic bags and other plastic pollution.

Some quick facts about plastic bags and the environment

So what can you do and what should be done? The first thing you should do is bring your own bag to the store. It is estimated that one reusable bag can replace 1,000 plastic bags in the reusable bag’s lifetime. Keep a small foldable bag with you in your purse or on a keychain, so if you are out and about and decide to do some impromptu shopping, you are prepared. ChicoBags makes some really cute ones that fold up super small. Next, keep a stack of bags in the trunk of your car so you have them with you when you head to the grocery store or any other store where you would need more than one bag.  For the non-car owners keeping a stack by the door is a helpful reminder as well. For the ladies, you can get a little drastic and stuff them in your bra, however, I am not exactly sure what the most lady like method of removing the bags would be when you actually need them. Once you have the BYOB habit down, start bugging your friends to remind them as well, you have a vast, powerful network, use it to help the planet out (and while you are at it, get your friends to start a campaign to ban plastic bags in your city!).

If you have a ton of plastic bags under your sink, try to reuse them as trash liners or packaging material. And if you have a desire to get creative, check out these crafts that all use plastic bags! You can also take them to most grocery stores and Staples to recycle them.

Just remember, for every bag you refuse to take you are taking a direct action to help stop the plastic pollution problem and subsequently saving resources, animal lives, and keeping those plastic bags out of our trees and waterways!

Editor’s Note: For more information on the issue of plastic bags, presented in a fun, entertaining way, we highly recommend Bag It!, the movie.

A globe made of plastic bags, as seen at the 2012 Smithsonian Folklife Festival