Recycling.....well, sort of....

I have started to recycle much more seriously now. No, I'm not trying to "save the planet". There is no need to do that as far as I can see. I don't believe man can destroy this earth anyway. God specifically said that He has reserved that privilege to Himself, and rightly so - He made it in the first place.

We are told in more than one place in the Bible that the Lord God Almighty intends to bring this earth to its' final end Himself. I will only quote one instance since it seems most appropriate to me for this discussion. Peter 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

I like that! We don't need to fret over what "might" happen to the earth in 200 thousand years if we drive too much or throw our plastic wrappers away carelessly or incinerate the old newspapers we cleaned out of our grandparents' house. There is great liberty in those verses from the scare tactics that are forced upon us today.

Ought we to be good stewards of God's creation? Yes. But, man, whether capable or not, is not going to be permitted to destroy this earth! God will attend to that Himself; and, by the way, He intends to destroy this place He created out of nothing with a Big Bang (evolutionists just got theirs at the wrong end) and one huge fire (think, major "pollution").

Whew! Now that we don't have to sweat that any more, why am I recycling?

Well, first off, I'm not recycling according to the "accepted" method. I am not dividing my trash into several piles and making trips to dump certain types at "special" recycling locations. If you want to do that and feel it's a good use of your time, go ahead. You're welcome to it. I have enough sorting with just our laundry. ;-)

What I am doing is what my parents and grandparents did in the past. I'm saving things and reusing them for other purposes. Now, before you visualize cupboards full of flimsy butter containers, piles of old pizza boxes, and bags and bags of bags and bags let me say this - that's not exactly what I'm doing either. :-)

My main interest in reusing things effectively is to save some of my husband's hard earned money for other things. We're talking budget conscious recycling and reusing, not fanatical collecting or saving the earth. My aim is to save a little money, but not go to excessive effort nor to collect things randomly just because they "might" be useful sometime. Most of my ideas are probably pretty well known in general, but I thought it might be interesting to share some of my little projects in that line here with you. I also may include some other ideas for "waste management" in the home. :-)

I am reminded of an old poem I first saw in one of my craft books:

Use it up,

Wear it out,

Make it do,

Do without.

This pretty much sums up my "recycling program".

Strawberry Coffee Cake

A week ago on a Saturday morning my brother called over the two way radio and asked if any of the rest of us had eaten breakfast yet. None of us had, so he suggested that we combine all our breakfasts and eat together. This is one of the great perks of having three households in a 10 acre area! It was a great family time.

On the spur of the moment I decided to make a strawberry coffee cake to contribute to the meal. It was something I'd had in the back of my mind for a while, and I just decided to see if I could pull it off in time. It made us a little late, and we got some ribbing for that, but it was a big hit with the family. :-)

I used the Banana Brownie recipe and made some changes using some frozen strawberries that I had thawed. (They were home frozen and were quite mushy when they were thawed out, which probably helped.)

Anyway, I thought I would share my changes here so you can try them if you like. Or maybe it till inspire you to venture your own alterations to create something "new"! :-)

Strawberry Coffee Cake

Mix together:

2/3 C. sugar

1/2 C. whole wheat flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla

2/3 C. frozen strawberries, thawed and mashed

1/4 C. quick oats

2 eggs lightly beaten

Pour into a greased 8x8 inch pan. Bake 20-30 minutes at 350F or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes. Cut and serve warm directly from pan.

Banana Brownies

This is a recipe that I found in a diet cookbook, but they taste so good your family won't notice! I altered the original, though so they're not exactly the same.

Banana Brownies

Mix together:

2/3 C. sugar

1/2 C. flour (all purpose or whole wheat)

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. vanilla or almond flavor

2/3 C. mashed, over ripe bananas

1/4 C. cocoa powder

1 egg lightly beaten

Pour into a greased 8x8 inch pan. Bake 20-30 minutes at 350F. Cool 5 minutes and remove from pan to a wire rack to continue cooling.

With white flour these brownies will be more like cake, but with whole wheat they are heavier like true brownies should be, and healthier like true brownies usually are not. :-) If you do not have, or want to use, bananas use unsweetened apple sauce and increase the sugar to 3/4 C.

There are some great ways to dress up or vary this recipe as well. Sprinkle nuts, chocolate chips, or drained maraschino cherries on top and gently push into the batter in the pan before baking. Once I left out the cocoa powder and added spices instead to make a banana spice cake. To do this measure the spices you want (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc.) into a 1/4 C. measuring cup. Add enough flour to make up the difference and add in place of the cocoa. Be sure to use vanilla extract for this change, and nuts are a nice addition. You could also add some orange zest for an interesting flavor. (I wonder what this variation would taste like made with canned pumpkin instead of the bananas. Hmmmm.) Also you could try using other flour mixtures for a healthier brownie - 1/4 C. oat flour plus 1/4 C. whole wheat, etc. (Not all flours respond the same in recipes, so remember to make appropriate alterations accordingly.)

Mock Cherry Crispy Treats

Here is a recipe for crispy rice treats that I found on the Internet. The person who posted it had made some changes to the original, and I made some changes of my own. One thing I did was to substitute dried cranberries for dried cherries and add almond flavoring instead of vanilla. This makes you think that it really is cherries in the treats. For some reason almond flavoring will fool the taste buds that way when combined with dried cranberries (I use Crainsins® brand which are pre-sweetened). My family liked the results quite well!

Mock Cherry Crispy Treats

3 Tbl. butter

1 (10 oz.) bag of marshmallows

1/4 C. white chocolate chips

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. almond flavoring

5 C. crisp rice cereal

1 C. dried cranberries

1/2 C. semisweet or 60% cacao chocolate chips

1 Tbl. butter

Line a 9x9 baking pan with aluminum foil leaving excess foil to hang over the edges of the pan. (Thinner treats may be made by using a 9x13 pan). Butter or grease foil.

Melt butter in a large pot over low heat. Add marshmallows, white chocolate chips and salt. Cook, stirring constantly about 8 minutes, or until melted and smooth. Stir in almond flavoring.

Remove from heat and stir in crisp rice cereal and cranberries until well mixed. Scrape mixture into prepared pan and press into the corners with a greased spatula or spoon. (Use the back of the spoon.) Let cool for about 1 hour.

Melt chocolate chips and 1 Tbl. butter over low heat in a sauce pan stirring constantly just until smooth. Drizzle chocolate over the cooled treats. Allow to cool, about 45 minutes. Using foil overhang, lift treats out of pan to a cutting board. Cut into squares. Sever or store in an air tight container in the refrigerator.

Strawberry Craft - Fabric Berries

Here is a link to a cute craft that can be adapted for the kitchen. The instructions are for making these fabric strawberries up as pincushions, so they call for filling them with emery or sand for sharpening pins. However, since I've been working on decorating my kitchen with strawberries, I thought they could easily be made up with polyfiberfill instead. My thought is to make some and either fill a glass bowl with them or make a sort of garland to hang over the white valance at my kitchen window - or maybe both! Anyway, you might enjoy making some of these, either as the pincushion/sharpener or as kitchen decor. They could also be made into some cute fridge magnates without too much effort.

Strawberry Pincushions:

http://www.marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem.0e0eb51a2e6b5ad593598e10d373a0a0/?vgnextoid=b61676ecfd22f010VgnVCM1000003d370a0aRCRD&autonomy_kw=strawberry%20pincushion&rsc=ns2006_m1

Mary's Fake Caramel Dip

I invented some dip tonight after looking online for a recipe for caramel dip for apples and realizing that I didn't have time or the ingredients to make "the real thing".  It turned out really well, if I do say so myself.  My husband, Peter, and I had eaten a fairly large dinner in the middle of the afternoon so we weren't very hungry tonight.  I thought a nice plate of apple and cheese slices, some crackers and pretzels and some caramel dip would be just about right.  It was.

Here's the recipe for the dip.

Quick "Caramel" Fruit Dip

2/3 C. sour cream

2 Tbs. packed brown sugar

Slightly more than 1/2 tsp. of vanilla

1/2 tsp. of lemon juice

Mix all ingredients till brown sugar is dissolved.  Add more sweetening (artificial, sugar, stevia, etc.) if it isn't sweet enough for you.

Makes 2-3 servings