Uh oh! Looks like my time outside yesterday left me sunburnt — entirely my fault, of course, as I didn’t update my sunscreen application as the day went on. So now here I am with hideous white stripes on my back where my tank top was and bright red patches everywhere else the sun hit. I partially blame the unusually nice weather in mid September for my screw up. Shouldn’t it be Fall right now? I haven’t even broken out my sweaters yet.

Don’t have an aloe plant? Here are some other around-the-house tips for treating a sunburn without having to invest in nasty chemicals or lotions. They worked very well for me, try them out yourself!

• Use honey as a salve — put a healthy smear of it onto the burnt areas. It apparently helps ease the pain and helps to encourage the healing process.
• Liquify some potatoes. I know, sounds weird, right? But potato paste can be applied to the sunburn and when it dries, it sucks all the excess moisture (what’s keeping it hot and burning) out of your skin.

These more eco-friendly ways to treat a sunburn have the added benefit of having great odds of being in your home just when you need them. I don’t always have pain killers or burn spray in my medicine cabinet, but 99% of the time I have potatoes!

I don’t eat much of this stuff. I’m not actually a big fan of vinegar based coleslaw. Maybe I’m not selling the recipe well… so, why post a coleslaw recipe? Because everyone in my family loves this recipe – it’s in high demand at my house. It’s rare when there isn’t some made up in a container somewhere in the fridge.

And I’m told you’ll like it too, readers. I will guarantee it’s like to coleslaw you’ve had before. Are you brave enough to try after that ’sales pitch’?

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Organic Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/3 cup Organic Apple Cider vinegar
• Parsley
• Herbamare
• Pepper
• 1/4 large white cabbage
• 1/4 large red cabbage
• 1 shredded carrot
• 1/4 large onion chopped
• 1/4 cup sliced black olives (optional)
• 1 inch feta cheese crumpled (optional)

Method:

1. Thinly slice the white cabbage. Then chop to pieces of one to two inches. Put in mixing bowl.
2. Do the same with the red cabbage.
3. Add the shredded carrot and chopped onion to the red and white cabbage.
4. Pour the Olive Oil over the contents of the bowl. Then add the Apple Cider Vinegar. (The oil is added first or the vinegar just pools on the bottom.)
5. Season to taste. Add the optional black olives and feta cheese.
6. Mix. Let sit 10 minutes before serving for enhanced flavor — let the vinegar soak in a bit or else you’ll have vinegar cabbage soup!

There is no flavour I love more in the world than dill. Really. Cucumbers, however, as much as I like them, cause me much pain and grief, thanks to my diverticulitis. Do you suffer from the same? Try cutting all of the skin off the cucumber. It helps, trust me.

These sandwiches go perfectly with a nice hot cup of jasmin tea — great flavour combination!

Ingredients:

• 2 small (preferably seedless) cucumbers
• 2 teaspoons of kosher salt
• 1/4 cup organic cane sugar
• 1/2 cup cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon of dry mustard
• 1 tablespoon of fresh dill chopped
• 6 slices of rye or whole-wheat bread
• 8 oz of semi-soft cheese or cream cheese

Method:

Slice cucumbers crosswise into 1/8 – inch – thick slices. Place cucumber slices in a medium bowl and toss with salt. Let cucumbers stand 15 minutes. Rinse and drain cucumbers. Pat dry with paper or tea towels (using tea towels saves the paper waste!).

In another bowl whisk together, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and dill until sugar is dissolved. Stir in cucumber and let stand a minimum of 5 minutes — it thickens!

Spread cheese on 6 slices of bread in a thin layer. Layer cucumber slices on top of 3 slices of bread in a thin layer. Top with remaining bread and remove crusts. Cut sandwiches into halves, quarters, or triangles.

My house is actually full of candles in beautiful glass jars. I’ve always loved candlelight. But after reading about how toxic some candles can be (here and here and here), I’ve decided to switch to soy, non-toxic, clean burning candles.

There are a variety of candles that fit the bill out there, but the ones I’ve ordered are called Pure Malie Candles. Out of all the reviews online, these candles seemed to have the most positive feedback. And they come in delightful scents, too: Pikake, Plumeria, Coconut Vanilla, Koke’e, Organic Mango Nectar.

The candles are made from clean-burning waxes and are petroleum-free with 100% cotton wicks.

I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new Coconut Vanilla candle and will definitely let you know how it works out!

I wish you could smell things through the internet. Their website is quite pretty though and I can almost taste/smell the fruit in the banner!

I was really surprised to find out that they really are all the rage.

When I think of Miami, I think of 5-star resorts, yachts, beaches with scantily clad men and women, and fake tans. I definitely don’t think of Miami as a hugely environmentally concious place, but maybe that’s me believing in stereotypes.

Apparently zen lifestyles are all the rage – and that includes being kind to each other, 100% natural products, organic foods and materials, and cruelty-free products. Spas like Uhma Spa, Emena, or Mandarin Oriental Miami are all eco-chic urban santuaries.

Mandarin Oriental Miami’s spa plant a tree in the nearby Everglades National Park for every single time that they perform an “Herbal Thai Compress Ritual” on a client. What a great idea!

Now that’s a fad I can get behind.

Up in Northern Ontario here, it’s quite cold today so I’m going to make one of my most grandparent-impressing soups. I don’t know about your grandparents, but mine are all about root vegetables.

This warming and tangy soup has a really pretty muted-orange glow, and has just a touch of spice. I’m a big fan of lively soup! Be sure to try this recipe with organic carrots, potatoes, onions and celery, as their flavor is so much better than those grown on industrial farms.

Organic root vegetables like these are considered seasonal no matter where you live, and are found easily in health food stores and plenty of grocery stores, too. Choosing organic oranges is especially important when you make an orange zest, so as not to ingest the surface pesticides found on industrially-grown orange skin. Nothing good about pesticide soup, folks!

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Time for a very unconventional recipe. I’m pretty sure i’m the only one that eats these sort of treats — I’m one of those “what do I have left in the fridge and how well will it combine to form a mega snack” kind of people.

That being said, this is delicious. Well, I think so at least. Let me know if you’re brave enough to try it

Ingredients:

• 4 Flour tortillas
• 2 tb Butter, melted
• 2 tb Cane Sugar
• 3/4 ts Cinnamon
• 2 c Strawberries, chopped
• 1 tb Chopped fresh mint
• 1/2 ts Grated lime rind (I’ve used lemon rind and juice before and it tastes just as good, I promise)
• 1 tb Lime juice
• 1 1/2 ts honey

Method:

Brush both sides of each tortilla with butter. Combine sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over each side of tortilla. Bake on lightly greased baking sheet in 375 degree F oven for about 10 minutes or until crisp and golden. Cut into quarters.

Combine strawberries, mint, lime rind and juice and honey; cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.

Put the salsa in a bowl and dip your tortillas in it. Yummmmy!

This recipe really speaks for itself. Show me a person that dislikes warm goat cheese, toasted pistachios, and caramelized onions and I’ll show you a person that hasn’t lived.

Okay, maybe that’s extreme. But this is really good salad. And that’s extremely truthful.

Ingredients:

• One bunch of arugula, washed and dried
• 2 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 4 Tbsp fresh goat cheese
• 4 Tbsp green pistachios, shelled (or walnuts)
• 3 Tbsp blueberry balsamic vinegar
• 3 Tbsp olive oil
• Fresh black pepper and sea salt to taste
• Optional: Red onions, pears

Method:

1. Divide the greens and goat cheese between two plates. DO NOT eat all of your goat cheese right now impatiently, you need it for the salad. PUT IT DOWN.
2. Now, put a dry frying pan on med heat and toast the pistachios until golden and fragrant. Again, don’t eat all of your pistachios right now, save them for the salad. Trust me, you don’t want to eat too many pistachios anyway. Your stomach will hate you for it.
3. Remove from pan and place to one side. Melt the butter in the same pan and slowly cook the onions over low heat for about twenty minutes.
4. Add the maple syrup and let it thicken. Whisk together the vinegar and oil and set aside.
5. Divide the pistachios between the plates and top with the onions and dressing. Add pepper to taste.

My better half comes from Russian ancestry and on occasion I have to make foods that I would certainly not make if I were only cooking for myself.

Now, having said that of course, I will say that I love this dish. My experience with beets before learning of this particular recipe was with my family dinners as a child when my grandmother used to try and make me eat beets. Like every child, I complained constantly that all the foods that were good for me were also terrible tasting. I felt like it was some sort of punishment!

But now? I love beets! They taste delicious, they’re good for you, AND I can touch-up my hair colour with the left over red beet juices! Not many of you can say that, I bet.

Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 good sized beets, peeled and then shredded
• 1/4 cup minced red onion
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar1/2 lemon squeezed
• 4 tbsps olive oil
• 1 tbsp maple syrup (homemade is best, but I don’t expect all my readers to be pioneers)
• salt and pepper to taste

Method:

Wisk together the vinegar, olive oil, lemon juice and maple syrup. Pour over beets and onions and toss. Taste and add salt and pepper as desired.

Makes about 4 to 6 servings, depending on how delicious it ends up being.

So why eat organic foods anyway? Why are they better than your average grocery store fare? Well, for one, organic foods are foods that aren’t covered in chemicals such as insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. I, for example, am violently allergic to a lot of preservatives and a lot of these spray chemicals trigger the same reaction: sore stomach, headache, nausea, blurred vision, cold sweat… I could go on. And it can be a bad scene for those who aren’t even allergic to any chemicals, too!

Plenty of EPA-approved pesticides were approved a long time ago –before research linked these chemicals to cancer and other debilitating diseases. Currently the EPA considers 60% of all herbicides, a whopping 90% of all fungicides and 30% of all insecticides to be potentially carcinogenic.

Taste is an individual matter, but many gourmet chefs are choosing to use organic foods in the recipes, due to the superior flavour and quality of these products. A growing number of consumers — including yours truly as part of my attempt to go green — are also claiming that organic food tastes better.

I mean, doesn’t it make sense to you that foods grown naturally in well-balanced soils and ripened by the big, happy summer sun will be healthier and tastier than products raised on a diet of smelly, wildlife and bug-killing chemicals? Then they’re sprayed with preservatives that allow them to sit for months in storage (I could make a really easy movie star joke here, but I’ll leave that one along). What are these chemicals and preservatives doing to your insides? Do you think it’s possible that they’re strong enough to kill pests, make plants grow faster/bigger, and last for weeks on a shelf without having a negative affect on your insides? I don’t know first hand, but I’m sceptical at best.

Try organic food for yourself and see what you think — is it tastier? Does it smell better? Check out the ‘Organic Recipe Friday’ section and try out some of the recipes. I guarantee you’ll find some that you love!

Drop me a line and let me know!