So I decided to take the veggie burger plunge and use my humble cooking “skills” to craft a mouth-watering black bean burger. But first, an eco-footnote…

It takes a LOT more resources to get a pound of hamburger meat than to make a vegetarian bean burger. GoVeg (a completely unbiased website) had this to say on the matter…

It takes 5,000 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year.

Gadzooks! Even if those numbers are skewed some, getting meat uses a heck of a lot of water.

Alright, enough with the eco-footprint lesson. Moving on to the…

Black Bean Burger Recipe

This simple veggie burger recipe (which makes 4 servings) calls for…

• 2 peppers (jalapeño, cayenne, or banana)
• About 8 teaspoons of olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 shallots
• 2 cups of cooked, drained black beans (a 29oz. can is a just about right)
• 2/3 cup quick-cooking oats
• 2 tablespoons mayonnaise
• 1/2 teaspoon oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Chop up the peppers (I used homegrown cayennes and banana peppers), shallots, and garlic. Use scissors for that extra manly touch.

Sauté the chopped-up peppers, garlic, and shallots in olive oil for about 5 minutes.

Put the fried vittles in a bowl, along with the black beans, mayonnaise, oregano, and salt n’ pepa.

Heck, while you’re at it, add the oats, as well.

Mash all the ingredients together with all your might. Take out your inner rage on that mashing. Make those ingredients pay.

Refrigerate the ingredients for about half an hour. Take this time to reflect on your day.

Alright, now form patties with this bean glop. Put some olive oil in a pan and gently place those veggie burger patties in said pan.

Fry them for about 5 minutes on each side. They should look a little something like this:

Congratulations, you’ve just made homemade black bean burgers! Put the veggie burger on a bun and move it toward your mouth.

Final Thoughts

The black bean burger was good, but didn’t taste anything close to a hamburger. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t have that special cow flavor.

If you have a better recipe for veggie burgers, feel free as a bird to let me know and I’ll try it out.

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1. Buy a Kraft Foods brand product from this list.

2. Scrawl your name and address on a 3×5 card. Sound out any big words.

3. Stuff that card and your original receipt (with the Kraft Foods brand item’s price circled) in an envelope.

4. Send that envelope to:
Every Day with Rachael Ray Magazine
16 East 34th Street
14th Floor
New York, NY 10016
Attn: Kraft Foods Promotion

5. Twiddle thumbs and prepare for the imminent arrival of a free reusable tote bag that’ll allow you to quit using disposable plastic bags.

You can only get one free bag per household. Also, this offer is only valid during May, so don’t delay, act today!

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From the incomparable Onion.

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So as not to be a complete scrub, I bought a cup o’ coffee there, insisting that the coffee wench use my handy reusable mug I had brought instead of one of those wasteful, disposable styrofoam cups.

To my surprise, she gave me a 15% discount for using my own reusable mug. She said she was only supposed to give a 10% discount for this, but she didn’t feel like that was enough. I thanked her profusely for this.

If every coffee place gave a big discount for people who brought in their own cups, think of how many disposable paper or styrofoam cups wouldn’t get used once, then thrown away.

So next time you’re going out for some coffee, try bringing your own mug and asking for a discount. If they don’t have one, suggest it (without being a jerk about it). If there’s a monetary incentive to bring your own cup, more and more people will do it.

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Grab a can of condensed soup from Campbell’s, and head over to this site.

Enter in the code it asks for, fill in your address, and voila, your free tomato seeds are on their way!

ALSO, while you’re there, click on the GROW button to donate.

That’s it for today; check back tomorrow for the Carnival of the Green, hosted by yours truly.

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Welp, it turns out there’s about a million ways to do it; here’s just one way to make your very own homemade granola.

Easy Homemade Granola Recipe

Here’s what you’ll need to make some scrumptious granola.

• 2 cups oats (not instant)
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 2 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts
• 1/4 cup coconut flakes
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup maple syrup
• 3 tbsp. oil (canola or vegetable)
• 1 tbsp. water

I ended up reusing some old vegetable oil that I had in the fridge. So delicious-looking, yeah?

Mix all dry ingredients (except raisins and chocolate).

Simmer the wet ingredients together for a minute or two.

Pour into the dry ingredients; squeeze to form lumps. Put the mixture into a greased a 9″x13″ pan, and turn the oven up to 275 degrees, Fahrenheit if you will.

Bake 30 minutes, then chuck the raisins in.

Bake for about 14 minutes more, and retrieve the granola from the sweltering depths of the oven.

Cool the granola, then stir the chocolate in.

Sha-bam, your homemade granola is complete. Eat n’ enjoy©, or store it for a week or two.

There are MANY other ways to make granola; let me know any cool recipes you dig up.

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Welp, it turns out that to make each cup o’ latte, it takes 200 liters of water. That’s over 50 gallons of water for each latte!! Hot dang!

Besides just the water you see, lots of water is also used for the coffee production, milk, disposable cup and sleeve, lid, and sugar. Check out this here video from WWF for more information…

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Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Let us begin with the pumpkin pie recipe. Now I’m not talking about pumpkins from a can, or frozen pre-made pumpkin pies. No. I’m talkin’ ’bout some made-from-scratch, down-home, honest-to-goodness, homemade pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin Pie Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1.5 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons nutmeg
• one half teaspoon ground ginger
• 4 large eggs
• 3 cups stewed pumpkin, mashed
• 12oz of evaporated milk

Here’s whatchu do:
* Find a pumpkin (a jack o’ lantern will do). After appropriately mourning its brutal death, collect all the parts that were cut out (eyes, nose, mouth, the works).
* Skin these pumpkin pieces, and cut them into “manageable chunk” size.
* Boil these in a microwave or on the stove until you can easily push a fork through them.

* Mash up the boiled pumpkin.
* Add condensed milk, sugar, eggs, and spices.
* Dump it all into a pie crust (filling to about 1/4″ below the top).
* Bake at 425 F for 15 minutes, then bake for about 50 minutes at 350. You can tell it’s done if you stick a knife in it and it comes out pretty clean.

* Let cool on rack
* Eat the delicious pie made from the flesh of the defenseless pumpkins, or you can wrap it up using some reused foil from a restaurant, like so:

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

* When you clean out a pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern, save the seeds.
* Rinse the seeds, removing any of that orange, stringy mess.

* Add a wee bit o’ oil, some salt, and any other flavors you want (hot sauce, honey, curry).
* Bake at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes (until they’re golden brown), stirring the seeds when they’re halfway done.

* Congratulations, you have now made a delicious and nutritious snack from the guts of a freshly killed pumpkin. I hope you’re proud of yourself.

These are great ways to use every part of the pumpkin, much like the Indians (these Indians, not these) used every part of the buffalo. Let me know if y’all know any other good pumpkin recipes. Thankee kindly.
Also, it is not too late to enter the free giveaway contest!! Click here for some details.

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1. Take bottle (lotion, ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, etc.)
2. Cut bottle in half using scissors (please wear goggles, gloves, elbow pads, and a mouth guard, and have your parents supervise you)
3. Use a spatula to get out the rest of the sauce, salad dressing, or what have you.

Simple. A tip that reduces waste while saving you money. Now that’s an EcoJoes© kind of green tip.

I’m EcoJoe and I approve of this message.

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Here’s the plethora of nutritious vittles that greeted me when I tore open the box. Please note the insulating lining that keeps the produce nice n’ cold.

• 3 big yellow peaches from NC
• Pint of grape tomatoes (NC)
• 2 slicing cucumbers (NC)
• 2 big eggplants (NC)
• 6 red dale potatoes (NC)
• and from California, a ginormous bag of red seedless grapes

Since I opened the box, I’ve tried all of the foods and have only an eggplant and some grape tomatoes left. It was dang good, with no messed up fruit or vegetables. The grapes and peaches were especially good. I’m about to finish up the eggplant and tomaters tomorrow.

Oh yeah, they reuse their insulated boxes. Each week, you put them outside on your doorstep, and they pick them up when they bring your new vegetables. A simple, efficient, non-wasteful system.

Anyhoo, if you live close to Raleigh, you should go check them out. Their website explains how you can start getting local, organic food delivered to your house this week. The best thing about it is that it encourages you to try some new healthy foods, plus support yo’ local farmers, all without leaving the comforting womb of your own home.

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