Environment, Organics, Fair Trade & Recycling at Big Green Purse

Butter for Your Hands, Not Your Bread, Plus Much More from EcoCentric Mom

 It's that time of year when my hands are starting to feel so dry, you'd think I lived in the desert. Nope, it's just winter setting in, along with its prescription for cracking skin and painfully tight dryness. Happily, this month's EcoCentric Mom subscription box included butter - hand butter that is, made by The Seaweed Bath Co. from shea butter, neem oil and bladderwrack seaweed extract. I'm not sure what a bladderwrack is, but this balm feels great, and smells yummy, too, with a hint of citrus (or maybe that's what bladderwrack smells like...).

Not to leave lips at the mercy of winter, either, the subscription box also included both the 3 Little Girls Holistic Oange Pop Lip Gloss, and lip scrub and lip colour from Lauren Brooke cosmetiques. The organic sugar in the lip scrub helps smooth chapped lips, then moisturizes with organic lecithin and shea butter. The lip colour is infused with organic pomegranate and non-GMO vitamin E. And of course, the lip gloss is organic, too. Winter or summer, I actually put lip gloss on top of lip colour for extra moisturizing, so am glad to try out both these products.

Use the 'So Kind' Registry to Simplify Your Holidays

 If right about now you're really fretting about the commercialism of the holidays, take a deep breath, settle back, and click on the SoKind Registry. It's a one-stop way to give meaningful gifts without getting caught up in the expensive "more stuff" trap that often bogs down even the most conscientious among us.

The registry is the brain child of the wonderful Center for a New American Dream, the same folks who have been inspiring people to simplify the holidays by focusing on what's meaningful, not only on what can be bought. The So Kind Registry works in two ways. One, it encourages people to create their own non- or not-too commercial wish lists for things like music lessons, homemade dinners, museum memberships, babysitting help, or their favorite charities. Two, it allows gift givers to skip the mall and a bunch of "stuff" in favor of making gifts of time or donations to people who would really enjoy and value them. Like the idea but don't know what to put on your registry? The website offers this handy list of gift ideas to get you thinking. 

Quick, Homemade Jams and Applesauce in Beautiful Jars Make Special Holiday Gifts

Want to make your own food gifts for the holidays? Here are two recipes - one for homemade cranberry jam courtesy of Whole Foods, one for homemade applesauce courtesy of me - that are simple, delicious, and guaranteed to inspire anyone who receives them to lick her lips!

CRANBERRY JAM

 This recipe cooks up in minutes. I made a version of it as a cranberry chutney for Thanksgiving, adding a sprinkle of ground ginger rather than nutmeg to give it a little zing.  Spoon it into clean glass jars, and wrap in a lovely tea towel - or just crisscross a ribbon around it and add your personalized gift tag.

By the way, I make gift tags by recycling Christmas cards I received the previous year. If you cut out rectangles with pinking shears, they're quite cute!

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (16 ounces) bag fresh cranberries
• 2 apples (Fuji, Gala and/or Golden Delicious), peeled, cored and grated
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1 teaspoon grated orange zest
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

HOW TO PREPARE

Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium and simmer, stirring frequently, until cranberries have popped open and mixture is thickened, about 8 minutes. Let cool completely. Transfer to small jars, if desired. Store in refrigerator for up to two weeks.

You can find more DIY food gift recipes from Whole Foods here.

 

APPLESAUCE

INGREDIENTS

Apples. That's it. I usually use a combination of Honey Crisp and Winesap, but you should use whatever you like to eat. If you're not sure, just go to your farmer's market - chances are they'll have lots of apples and will be happy to cut you some slices so you can choose one or a combination.

HOW TO PREPARE

Peel all the apples. Cut out the core, then slice into eighths. Put into your food processor and puree.

That's it.

I like applesauce made this way more than cooking down the apples and then pureeing them or mashing them up. They're more flavorful, and easier, too, as it saves me a lot of time not standing over a boiling pot of apples making sure they don't burn.

One tip: Once I have a big pile of apple peels, I put them in a pot of water and add a couple of cinnamon sticks and some whole cloves. I turn the heat to low and just let the aroma from this apple "potpourri" fill the house. It's heavenly.

Holiday Traditions that Mean the Most to Me: Family, Friends, Food!

This weekend begins a chain of traditions I've been building with my family for twenty years.

Early Saturday morning, I'll climb up in the attic and pull down the holiday lights, bunting, evergreen trim, and ribbons and bows we use to decorate our house for Christmas every year. I'll tap my "inner Martha Stewart" as I weave the trim around the staircase and across the balcony railing, then thread white lights through the trim to turn our day-to-day home into a holiday wonderland. 

While I'm trimming the stairs, one of the kids will be out in the yard cutting holly branches bursting with bright red berries. The holly goes everywhere - in vases of other yard cuttings, around the base of lamps, behind framed photos on the walls, around the candles that are now sitting on the window sills and in the middle of the dining room table. All the while, apple cider, infused with cinnamon sticks and whole cloves, will simmer on top of the stove. In a matter of a couple of hours, it will look and smell in here the way it does every year about this time: which is to say, just like Christmas.

Sunday, we'll get our Christmas tree. We have a high ceiling, so we usually aim for a fir about seven feet tall. When we can, we buy our tree from a local farmer who grows it organically on his farm in Pennsylvania. It is not perfectly shaped; a stray bird's nest may be hiding in the crotch of a couple of tall branches. No matter. "Oh...that smells sooooo good," everyone says in his or her own time. We'll trim the bottom to fit into the Christmas stand, and save the branches to add more Christmasy smells to the house or put on the porch to make a bed for the candles we'll light there on Christmas Eve.