Composting for a City Girl

Every Saturday, I head to my neighborhood Farmer's Market to drop off my compost. Every since I moved into an apartment in Manhattan, I just don't have any outdoor space to compost like I used to. I used to have a substantial backyard in Staten Island where I could compost like this, and like this. and like this. Just because I downsized and live in a smaller space it doesn't mean I stopped composting. Nowadays, I keep my compost in the freezer until I can bring it to the drop off at the farmers market.

This compost collection center is organized by GrowNYC. From their website:

GrowNYC is a hands-on non-profit which improves New York City's quality of life through environmental programs that transform communities block by block and empower all New Yorkers to secure a clean and healthy environment for future generations.

 

 Every week, I'm so impressed with how much compost is collected. This bin is completely full!

And so are all of these! Wow! So impressive! The City of New York's sanitation department picks up the compost and brings it to composting sites. The ready compost gets used through out New York City in all kinds of gardening and farming projects. Here's more info about the compost program here.

The farmer's market near me only collects compost on Saturdays. So for a one day collection... This is pretty impressive. Over 1000 pounds of compost that won't go into a landfill. Awesome in my book! It's great that 171 people voluntarily composted but can you imagine if they made it a city law? Now that would be something to look forward to!

Food Swaps: BK Swapper Event: Part 2

I meant to post this awhile ago, but I became extremely busy. Here are photos from the BK Swapper event that happened back in December.  This was the big Holiday food swap event so everyone brought their A Game.  Everything looked amazing, it was hard to choose what to swap for!

As always, I was so incredibly impressed with all the goodies that people brought. Like really impressive DIY foodies in Brooklyn!

Like seriously! Look at this table of homemade good! Wow and wow! I brought my homemade hot sauce to trade, here you can see people checking out my hot sauce in the middle of this photo. I had a little bowl of hot sauce for people to taste it. I find this helps with easier trading, because other swappers get to taste what you bring!

Doesn't this look just incredible? Lots of people had tasters as well. So many different kinds of pickles, hot sauce, jams, mustards, chutneys you name it.

There is also a table of pot luck items that guests bring, it is afterall a party!

And here is my haul! I got a bloody mary mix, a salsa verde, a hot sauce, pickled cranberries, banana nut bread, pickled jalapenos, and a bacon jam. I opened up a bunch of jars when I got home, yeah, really yummy stuff! I can't wait for the next swap!

Food Swaps: BK Swapper Event: Part 1

One of my favorite local foodie events are the food swaps hosted by BK Swappers. I've written about them before, here and here so I'm not going to get into full detail about what a food swap is. Essentially in a nutshell its where you make homemade food items to barter and swap your goods with other foodies. It's a lot of fun and a great way to try out some amazing food and meet some cool people. For this food swap, I decided to make this Indian relish and this new green hot sauce recipe I came up with recently.

I've always wanted to learn how to make Indian relish condiment that you get when you order Indian food. It's spicy and sour at the same time with a huge onion kick. So when I found this recipe, I was super excited.

It's super easy to make and looks and tastes just like the one you get from the Indian restaurant. I love the color of the Paprika.

Here are the ingredients for my Mean Mimi's Green Hot Sauce. Everything I put into this hot sauce is... you guessed it right.... GREEN.

The only thing not green in this recipe are the onions, garlic and honey. I love making this recipe because it's so easy. You roughly chop all the veggies and sauté it in a pan until soft.

Then you throw all the ingredients into a blender and puree until smooth.

Isn't this a gorgeous color? It tastes amazing too, hot, spicy and a little sweet from our local honey.

I bottled these up for the swap in these cute bottles I found from a local store.

And here are all the jars ready to go to the swap! A cute and easy way to decorate canning jars is to use cupcake liners. Easy peazy. :) Stay tuned for my next post about the actual food swap!

Your trash is my treasure!

On my way to the farmer's market today, I spotted this down the block from where I live. My eye zoned in on it. Amongst the garbage cans was this beauty! I literally almost jumped for joy. I think I actually skipped a little. I have always, always wanted one of these. Squeal!

A wooden box case for wine! I have always wanted one of these but liquor stores around here don't give them out. So when I saw this one out for the garbage, I scooped it up and brought it home. I love it! I am going to use it to hold some gardening supplies. I am so excited about this awesome free score!