General cooking tips

Buy Organic Foods : Organic food helps protect the planet.
Organic farming ensures that bio-diversity remains available in the foods we eat and the wildlife that live on the farms.

Fruits and vegetables are naturally available in 100's of varieties. Commercial growing limits the variety of each food available by mass producing only a handful. Many species of birds, insects and other animals are affected by the chemicals and farming conditions used in growing commercial foods.

Organic farms grow a mix of crops and promote a balanced ecosystem including insects that protect crops from pests and worms and other micro-organisms which fertilize the soil.


Buy Organic Foods : There are 12 foods where buying organic makes even more sense than normal.
According to the EWG (Environmental Working Group) the 12 most contaminated foods are:
  • apples
  • bell peppers
  • celery
  • cherries
  • imported grapes
  • nectarines
  • peaches
  • pears
  • potatoes
  • red raspberries
  • spinach
  • strawberries
All tested positive for pesticide residue – even after having been washed! Sweet bell peppers were the vegetable with the most pesticides overall, with 39 pesticides detected on a single sample. Conversely, if you're going to buy conventional, peas, broccoli, onions, pineapples, mangoes, bananas, kiwi and papaya had the lowest occurrence of pesticide residue.


Buy Local Food : Cultivate an awareness of how far your food travels. When Rich Pirog, Food Systems Program Leader for the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University, tracked the miles traveled for 16 types of produce, he found that locally sourced fruits and vegetables such as apples, lettuce and tomatoes traveled an average of 56 miles, compared to 1,494 miles — nearly 27 times farther — for the same fruits and vegetables delivered through conventional retail channels. Things get stickier with combination foods, strawberry yogurt for example. Pirog came up with 2,216 miles by adding up the distance traveled for the yogurt’s milk, sugar and strawberries. That figure could be slashed by 90 percent if you buy plain yogurt and stir in some locally grown honey and fruit.









No Peek Stew Recipe
No Peek Stew Category Slow Cooker Recipes 
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Ingredients And Procedures

2 pounds stew meat

1 package onion soup mix -- dry

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can ginger ale

1 pound carrot

1 pound potato

Mix the meat and soups together. At this point I will divide into 4 portions (cooking for 2 adults and 1 toddler) and freeze in ziplock baggies.

The night before cooking day, I'll pull the baggie out of the freezer and pour into crockpot and cover with 1/2 can of gingerale (I have done this with the meat mix frozen, but thawed is probably healthier). Then I'll add carrots and potatoes and let cook all day on medium heat. If I know that I'll be in a major hurry on cooking morning, I'll cut the potatoes and carrots the night before and have them in the 'fridge in water with a little lemon juice to prevent the potatoes from browing.

 
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