Friends, lovers, trash men and women of the world:

It’s time for we, your loyal Love&Trash editors, to move on to new projects. This whole experience has been amazing and life-changing, and has made us endlessly happy — but we’re fiery creative types, and we’re ready to do new things.

Funksteena, for example, is out Occupying D.C.

Raggedy Annarchy is Occupying Stockton and making skirts out of t shirts.

Pissyrabbit is stepping away from the computer to enjoy the time she has left living in Costa Rica.

Father Mayhem is busy sowing seeds with a future generation.

The Hun is writing for Organic Authority, Shareable and Burning Man. And thinking about Occupying Reno.

So that’s that! Thanks for being a part of this little project, and keep on doing great things. We love you and believe in you. Keep in touch, will ya?

If cooking had an Academy Awards, zucchini would be Hey! It’s That Guy – the reliable character actor with the muscular chops to play anything but not enough ego to be a star.

Now that zucchini and I have

been together for many seasons, I’m beginning to love it for the strong ensemble player it is. Zucchini and I relate, it’s backstory and journey mirroring my own,(as does its affinity for Mediterranean spices and heaps of butterfat.)

Ricotta Cheese is beautiful and alluring just being itself. It needs a strong partner to keep from over-acting.

The following dish is a cold-reading dialogue between ricotta and zucchini Like You’ve Never Seen Them Before.
The grilled zucchini slices are the Wise Gay Neighbor whose strong reflective acting holds down all the scenes where the Kooky Free-Spirited Heroine exposits about love.

Together, Fresh Ricotta and Good Old Zucchini make an Oscar Night oven meal that is cheap, filling, and delicious. Also, it is kitchen-tested to be easy enough to put together even after the champagne gets popped.

5 Minute Fresh Ricotta Cheese

from Serious Eats – The Food Lab, (edited- we suggest reading through the whole article- it’s great.)

Ingredients -
2 cups whole milk
1/4 teaspoon table salt
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar or lemon juice

1) Boil.

Combine milk, salt, and vinegar or lemon juice in microwave-safe glass 1-quart liquid measure. Microwave on high heat until lightly bubbling around edges, 2 to 4 minutes

2) Drain.

Using slotted spoon or wire skimmer, transfer curds to prepared colander, cover exposed top with plastic wrap, and allow to drain until desired texture is reached. (‘Resist any temptation to poke the curds’)

Perfect served warm with a drizzle of olive oil and a float of pesto.

3) Serve.

Yes, I KNOW it’s amazing.

But we didn’t forget the zucchini.

For this zucchini lasagne, I just sliced some zucchini lengthwise, grilled in a dry skillet for a few minutes each side, and layered in a casserole with soy crumbles, organic diced tomatoes, parmesean, and of course, the ricotta.

Bake in a 400F oven for about 30 minutes, or until browned and bubbly.
If you want a more comprehensive recipe, this one is the best I’ve used.

Lo-Carb Zucchini Lasagne from the Food Network

Just for fun – 25 Famous Oscar Snubs

photo credits – Little Nelly, Indabelle

originally published Feb. 27, 2011

I love lemons. I love them so much I sometimes eat them with sugar or honey. I have a niece who since she was old enough to sit up in a restaurant has been eating her parents discarded drink and seafood lemons straight up. So you know. When this popped up on my radar last week, I died. The end. (Not literally, I have to tell my nine year old.) This recipe from becks & posh doesn’t require refrigeration, but it takes a whole month to make. So start early. There’s also a lovely looking tarte au citron that I’m almost literally dying to make.

Preserved Meyer Lemons:

• 6-7 juicy, ripe meyer lemons
• 1/4 cup salt
• 1 cinnamon stick, snapped in half
• 6 coriander seeds
• 4 black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• [extra lemons to make up juice]
• 1 sterilized half litre jar.

Put one tablespoon of the salt into the bottom of the jar. Cut crosses in the lemons to within the 1/2 inch of the bottom so that they are still joined as one. Sprinkle salt on the exposed flesh. Squoosh the lemons into the jar, packing down tightly as you go, adding the spices and more salt evenly between layers. If there is not enough juice expelled by the lemons, to cover them all sufficiently, then add more fresh lemon juice until they are all submerged. Leave a little airspace at the top and seal the jar.

Leave the jar in a warm place for 30 days, shaking the jar each day to distribute the juices throughout the jar. To use the lemons, first rinse them and then remove the pulp. The lemons do not need to be refrigerated.

If you don’t like that one, here’s another at Simply Recipes (our Raggedy Anarchy recommends it!)

photo by flickr user jules:stonesoup

Apparently, this is a goldmine of free material. Ciggie detritus by question_everything/flikr

While no where near as pure in content as Jésus Bubu Négron’s cigarette butt street rug, Alexandra Guerrero’s creations are noteworthy nonetheless. Being composed of 10% purified cigarette butts and 90% natural sheep wool, Alexandra’s Mantis line of clothing is a very nice upcycling of cigarette butts, those ubiquitous flecks stippling the waste landscape across the globe.

Good show Alexandra! Thanks for helping to beautify such thoughtless litter.

La Mantis by Alexandra Guerrero

originally published Oct. 13, 2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/shelbychicago/3252313922/

I started early on my textile design career.

My best friend in elementary school was a little clumsy and her mother was a nag. Every day she would find me after lunch to ask me a panicked, “how do i get (insert gross cafeteria food here) out of my shirt/pants/sweater?!?!?”

Im not sure how it was that i did know since I certainly had no shortage of stains that my clothing was unable to recover from, but I was always able to tell her what to use.

Having remembered this the other day when I came across this list of things that vinegar will clean, I decided that a round-up of some common stains and what gets them out would be in order.

Rule #1- Get some soap on the stain as soon as humanly possible. Even if its not the thing that you will ultimately use to clean the stain out for good, soap and water will keep the stain from drying and setting.

Rule #2- Dont rub or scrub. It causes fraying and damage to the fabric. It can also cause color damage.

Rule #3- dont give up right away if the stain doesn’t come out immediately. Sometimes it takes time to dissolve the stain.

Rule #4- heat sets stains. Always use cold water and dont put the item in the dryer until the stain is entirely out.

Rule #5-if its a piece of clothing make sure to put a towel inside to prevent the stain from spreading to the opposite side of say, the teeshirt.

Rule #6- as you will notice below, vinegar is a very common way to get rid of stains. Throwing a 1/4 cup in with every load of laundry is also a great preventative for things like sweat stains. Also not that when i say “vinegar” I mean distilled white vinegar. Not red wine or apple cider vinegar. Im just sayin’…

1. Blood- leave the fabric to sit in really really cold water for about 30 minutes then wash with dish soap.

2. grass- strange but true: digestive enzymes (sold in health food stores in powder or liquid form) will remove grass stains. If you have the powdered form, make a paste with either vinegar or water and brush onto the stain and leave it over night. if its liquid just pour it on, leave it for 30 minutes and rinse. Continue this process until the stain is gone.

3. ketchup/ tomatoes/ wine/ coffee- pour vinegar directly over the stain and let it stand. rinse and continue until stain is gone.

4. urine- on rugs: absorb the bulk of the spot  spray vinegar on it. Leave to sit for 5+ minutes. Blot and press with a paper towel to absorb excess moisture. Continue until the stain is gone.

5. pen ink- continually blot denatured alcohol on the the spot. It works wonders but not right away. You have to give it some time. Blot with the alcohol, leave it for a minute then blot it with a dry paper towel to suck out some of the ink. Continue this several times until the stain is gone. then wash regularly in cold water

6. grease/oil- mix a slightly wet paste of a natural orange cleaner and baking soda (if you dont have orange cleaner you can also use vinegar). brush it onto the stain and leave it over night. Scrape it off the next day and wash

7. underarm stains- This is the one and only exception to the “no hot water” rule. Mix a 1/2 cup of lemon juice (you can use the stuff in the bottle) with a gallon of the hottest water the fabric will stand. Let the garment soak in the mixture over night. wash in the same temperature of water.

What good stain removal tips do you have?

originally posted Jul 24, 2010

Delicious homebrew. Get your own.

Hi folks! So it’s been a week or two since how to make beer part 1, and you must be wondering what to do next. Just in time, here I am with the rest of the story.

You’ve surely noticed that your fermenting beer makes a lot of noise as it releases pressure through the airlock. However, after a week or two that noise will stop. You can take readings, but Quiet Earp says you really just need to wait until it’s been quiet for a few days. Then you’re ready to start bottling!

Supplies:

• Auto-siphon. This is a pump dealie that starts the siphoning action to move your beer from one container to another. This is important because you don’t want to put your bacteria-filled mouth on your tubing. It keeps everything sanitary and working well. Earp says this is WORTH THE MONEY (unless you want bad-tasting beer)
• Bottling wand – also WORTH THE MONEY. This is designed to fit into the bottle, and it has a valve that only opens when you press it against something, e.g. the bottom of the bottle. This allows you to start and stop the flow of beer, so you can fill bottles accurately without spilling precious ale everywhere.
• Food-grade vinyl tubing, 4-5 feet long. It should be a diameter that will fit your auto-siphon and your bottling wand.
• 60 bottle caps or so
• 60 bottles or so. You can buy bottles new, but why would you do that? Just re-use old beer bottles. They should not be screw-on caps, and you need to clean and sanitize them. Use a bottle brush to get all the goop out of the inside, then sanitize them using iodophor, boiling water or bleach (iodophor is the best because you don’t have to rinse them or deal with a large amount of boiling water).

Your bucket of beer should be about 5.5 gallons if you followed our method, which will net about 55 bottles of beer. If you did a standard 5-gallon recipe, you’ll get about 48 bottles’ worth.

How To Brew Beer, Part 2:

Click the photos!

[Show as slideshow]

originally published June 21, 2010

Making your own cheese is easy. At least according to the internet (specifically this tutorial by Collin Dunn on Planet Green). Have you tried it?

Supplies

• 1 gallon (or larger — this recipe uses a 6 quart stock pot) stainless steel or other non-reactive (e.g. non-aluminum, non-cast iron) pot, with lid
• dairy thermometer
• colander
• slotted spoon
• long knife
• rubber gloves (optional, but recommended)
• cheese cloth (optional, but also recommended)
• 1 gallon milk – not ultra-pasteurized. If using raw milk, and you aren’t absolutely, positively sure it is free of pathogens, heat the milk to 145 degrees Farenheit and keep it there for 30 minutes to pasteurize it. If using store-bought milk, be sure you go with regular “pasteurized” milk, and not “ultra-pasteurized” (it will say on the label) as the latter has been heated to a very high temperature that destroys all the organisms you need to make cheese.
• 1 1/4 cup cool chlorine-free water. Note: Chlorine free water can be obtained from many sources. A well, bottled water from a well source or distilled water. If your local water treatment uses chlorine, there are several ways to evaporate chlorine. Leaving chlorinated water uncovered 24 or boiling water for 15-20 minutes will evaporate chlorine. If your local water treatment facility uses chloramine, it will not evaporate and will need to obtain water from a non-chlorinated source.
• 1 1/2 teaspoon citric acid
• 1/4 teaspoon (or 1/4 tablet) rennet
• 1 teaspoon cheese salt (or salt substitute). Optional, but, again, recommended.

Turning milk to cheese

Step 1. Dissolve the rennet in 1/4 cup of the cool (chlorine-free) water; stir it up and set it aside.
Step 2. Mix citric acid into the remaining 1 cup of water, and stir until dissolved.
Step 3. Pour the milk into your pot. Stir it continuously while adding the citric acid solution.
Step 4. Continue stirring the milk over medium heat until it reaches 88 degrees F.
Step 5. Remove the pot from the heat, and slowly stir in the rennet solution, stirring up and down for about 30 seconds.
Step 6. Cover the pot and leave it undisturbed for 5 minutes.

Curds & Whey

Step 7. Take off the lid, and – voila! – you should have the beginnings of cheese. The curd (solid) will have separated from the whey (liquid), and the curd should look like custard, with a clear separation. If the curd is still too soft or milky, give it a few more minutes to set. If you have something that more closely resembles ricotta cheese, you may have stumbled into some ultra-pasteurized milk by mistake. Time to start over — sorry!

Cutting the cheese

Step 8. Cut the curd with the knife — be sure that it’s long enough to reach the bottom of the pot. You want to create little cubes of curd, so cut parallel lines, about an inch apart, at a 45 degree angle. Since the goal is creating curd cubes, you’ll want to make four sets of cuts; after the first set of slices, rotate the pot 90 degrees, and repeat until your one solid curd has been sliced and diced into a bunch of floating cubes. Click the photo at left to see what it looks like when you’re done.

Heating the curds

Step 9. Put your pot of curds and whey back on the stove, and heat to 110 degrees F, slowly stirring the curds. Once you achieve 110 degrees, take the pot off the stove while continuing to stir for another 2 to 5 minutes — more time will equal a firmer cheese.

Separating curds & whey

Step 10. Ladel the curds into the colander (lined with some cheesecloth), folding gently to help drain off the whey. Repeat a couple of times until the curd begins to become more dense and less moist. Keep as much of the whey in the pot as you can — you’ll need it.
Step 11. Once your curds are more or less one solid mass, heat the leftover whey (or a different pot of water, if you got ahead of yourself and discarded your whey) to 185 degrees F. Put your curds back in the pot for 5 – 10 minutes, and don your rubber gloves.

Stretching the curds

Step 12. Remove the curds from the hot whey and stretch. If they don’t stretch like taffy, and fall apart, put them back in their bath — they have to be about 135 degrees F to stretch. Sprinkle the salt on as you stretch — you might get a half-dozen or so good pulls on it — and continue stretching until it’s cool. The more you work it, the firmer it will be, so less stretching will equal a softer cheese. I found that stretching roughly half of the curd at a time was a good workable amount.

Great Balls of Cheese

Step 13. Form your stretched cheese into pleasing shapes — I chose balls (the little one was the test to see if it was hot enough to stretch). If you go with a round shape, you can pull the edges up underneath (to hide any seams) and they’ll sort of melt into themselves. Other options: Braids, string cheese, rolled logs…the options are only bound by your imagination.

If you aren’t ready to eat your new cheese right away, give it a bath in ice water to cool it, and store it in the refrigerator for two weeks.

photos by flickr user kjunstorm

Quiet Earp has been teaching me how to make beer. It’s not that difficult! Plus, once you’ve paid for the equipment, it’s cheaper and way more environmentally friendly than storebought beer.

That’s Quiet Earp, dumping hops into a pot.

The first batch we made together (with Bustin Dustin, Earp’s roommate) turned out kind of gross (we drank it anyway) but this newest batch is a winner. I am enjoying a fresh home-brewed porter as I write this, because Earp brought me one and said I had to drink it while I make this post. It’s delicious.

So on to the beer.

Supplies

For the first part of the process, you’ll need:

• A 5-gallon bucket with an airlock, sanitized with chlorine bleach or iodophor
• A 3-7 gallon pot (you can work with smaller if you are creative, bigger is easier)
• Another smaller pot, 1-2 gallons
• A strainer (not a colander) big enough that you can pour boiling-hot slop from the pot to the bucket without spilling
• A hydrometer (thermometer for measuring the temperature of liquids)
• Hop sock – a cheesecloth-like sack. Some people use these when steeping grains or boiling hops, but we did fine without one.
• 1-2 gallons distilled water
• 1-2 packets of dry brewer’s yeast

You’ll also need hops, grains, malt extract, and other ingredients, which will change according to the type of beer you’re making. You can find a ton of beer recipes at BeerRecipes.org.

How to Brew Beer

Click on any of the photos below to learn about the first (and most involved) part of making beer: the brewing. NOTE: I am a rank beginner, so when you are ready to make your own beer you should do more research. This is just to give you an idea of how it all works.

[Show as slideshow]

12►

Next time: fermentation and bottling!

Originally published Jun 3, 2010

Gasification has been around since the 1800′s and powered vehicles during WWII. It may not be practical for widespread use… but for the brave, it’s a real possibility.

The concept from fossil.energy.gov

Would you consider converting your car to run on trash?

Treehugger ran a piece on GE and Nexterra’s development of a Gasification power plant over a year ago and the skilled and tenacious individuals at All Power Labs have an open source, scalable DIY Gasifier Experimenters Kit available right now.

Check out the hacked Honda that was their proof of concept in the above video.

Check out All Power Labs on facebook for up to date information on their “get ‘er done” Gasification excellence.

For more Gasification in the political spectrum, The Gasification Technology Council is putting on a conference in Washington DC later this year.

Originally published July 27, 2010

[photo by flickr user little blue hen]