Chewing gum

I didn't even know there was such a thing as an organic chewing gum, but Chicza apparently made one. Made of chicle and natural waxes and mixed with organic sweeteners and flavours this gum really tastes good. The texture is slightly different from regular gum, but once you get used to that it feels just the same.

Chicza is totally biodegradable and can be put on your compost together with branches and leaves. The brand also has multiple eco-labels including the FSC to show it's commitment to nature. Read more about that and the interesting way to make the "gum from the rainforest" on the homepage.

Seriouslyorganic

Just discovered this chocolate from Seriouslyorganic, and it's sooo good. 72% cocoa, organic, vegan and Fairtrade. And there are many more flavours to try.....

I keep telling myself that because it's dark chocolate and that's healthy I can eat a whole bar at once (yes, by myself, what kind of a question is that?).

My precioussssssss........

Meat Free Saturday

More ricotta. This cheese is lovely!

We made pizza. Very easy to do, healthy and vegetarian.

For 4 persons

1 roll of puff pastery (500gr)
2 eggs
250 gr ricotta-cheese
2 tablespoons of finely-chopped fresh thyme
350 gr of tomatoes (it looks really nice if you mix the colors)
1 pot of chervil
olive-oil
salt
Freshly ground black pepper

- Heat up the oven to 200C
- Put the puff pastery on a baking sheet on top of oven paper. Tuck up the edges about 1cm and brush them with a whisked egg.
-Mix ricotta, thyme and one egg. Spice with 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and 2 pinches of black pepper.
-Put the paste on the puff pastery and spread it evenly.
-Bake it in the middle of the oven about 20-25 minutes until the puff pastery gets golden-brown and crispy.
-Put sliced tomatoes and chervil on top of it and add some salt, pepper and olive-oil

Meat Free Monday

Tonight we had beefs made of ricotta cheese. They were really easy to make and soooo delicious!

4 persons

50gr parmesan cheese
500gr ricotta cheese
2,5 tablespoons of flour (I used wheat flour)
1dl chives
1tablespoon of fresh thyme
1 egg
oliveoil or butter
salt
freshly ground black pepper


Grate the parmesan cheese and chop the chives and the thyme. Mix it together with ricotta, flour and egg yolk and season with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 2 pinches of pepper.

Whisk the egg-white until it becomes a compact foam, then gently toss it into the cheese-paste.

Put 2dl flour on a plate and put about 1/2dl of paste onto it. Put flour on your hands and shape the beefs.

Fry the beefs in a lot of oil/butter. Appr. 3 minutes on each side.

We ate it together with a salad made of spinnach, radish, rocket, tomatoes and cucumber sprinkled with olive oil.

Fast Food

In the fast lane of life, grabbing a quick lunch at the local restaurant usually leaves you with two or three choices; Big M, BK or Fried Chicken from Kentucky. Not very healthy options, and the more you eat of sugar, trans-fats and salts the more addicted you get. If you've ever tried to stop drinking Coke, you know what I mean.

That's why the new (opened in October 2011) restaurant (soon to be an entire chain)  Lyfe Kitchen is really interesting. They want to mix the organic gourmet restaurant with the concept of fast food, and the combination of a former CEO at McDonalds and two of the best chefs in the industry; Art Smith and Tal Ronnen, sounds really exciting.

You can look through the entire menu on the website and even se photos of some of the dishes. The entire concept feels fresh and new. Haven't been there yet, but looking forward to try it on my next trip to U.S.

You can read an intereqsting article about the concept here. It all sounds high-tech, highly effective and forward-thinking. 

One huge questionmark remains... When is Lyfe coming to Sweden?

Ella's Kitchen

Ella's Kitchen is the coolest brand for kids right now. It was invented by a dad who wanted to provide his kids with nothing but the best; organic food with a great taste. In addition to being organic, their products contain no sugar, salt or nuts and of course there are no E-numbers or GM products.

There are a lot of different types of food to choose from, from fruits to full meals to desserts and snacks. The meals come adjusted for certain ages and also special diets like lactose or vegetarian.

And the containers are just the cutest! No glass that can break, they are completely chemical-free and can easily be re-sealed and finished later. If you stock up, they can even be put in the freezer. Perfect when you're on the run since they are so easy to bring and the kids can eat straight from the container. Good news for all parents I think.

Another great thing is that you can easily bring the products on the plane when travelling. British Airways has actually included Ella's Kitchens fruit-smoothies in their child breakfast meals. How cool is that?

Ella's won the Grocery brand of the year award in 2011 in Sweden and they have recieved several other awards for their products.

When the containers are empty, you can recycle and reuse them with TerraCycle. So far only in the U.K, Ireland and Sweden.

Strawberries

In Sweden strawberries are the biggest sign that summer has finally arrived. Ask any Swede and he/she will tell you that there is absolutely no strawberries anywhere in the world as good as the Swedish ones. We eat them for breakfast, lunch and dessert and we put them in salads for dinner together with grilled meat. We eat them as snacks, as appetizers together with feta-cheese, or in smoothies. The best thing ever is to go to your local farmer and pick them yourself. You spend hours in the fields eating as many as you're picking and leave sunburnt with red fingertips and many, many liters of bright red berries. Those get in the freezer to enjoy wintertime or they are turned into jam or cordials.

Pesticides used when growing strawberries in Sweden are Betanal SC/Kemifam SC. The company that sells these products in Sweden (Bayer CropScience) writes on their own website that whatever is left of the pesticide after spraying the fields shall be kept away from children and animals and separated from food. I really don't see how that goes together since we serve those sprayed strawberries to our children later....

In a test carried out in 2009, 94% of the conventionally grown strawberries (Swedish and others) contained traces of pesticides. Several of the pesticides discovered are suspected to cause cancer.

The good news is that the industry is working to find solutions that allow less harmful farming, so I hope it will soon be easier to find organic ones. Strawberries grown organically will meet challenges like weed, fungus and different pests, so you need to grow tough species and to put in more work to keep your plants free. It's definitely worth doing so though since studies have shown that organic strawberries can actually prevent cancer. Makes the choice quite easy... You can read more about this at krav.se. 

According to a recent study made at Lunds University in Sweden, bees really like organic strawberries. They pollinated 45% of the strawberry-flowers on the organic farms and only 17% on the conventional farms. So you can basically turn one wrong into two rights and have bee-hives next to your strawberry-farm.

Eat!

Eat! Ekostore is a fantastic little store in the centre of Stockholm that has everything you need, just as your regular supermarket. You can find milk, meat, juice, vegetables and grains. They have a selection of schampoos, detergents, baby-products and sunscreens as well as chocolate, candies, nuts and much much more. So there is nothing you can't find in here. It feels good to know that you don't have to check for the organic labels, instead you just buy what you need and you'll know it's not harmful in any way. They are open 7 days a week with really generous opening hours, so there's no reason to shop anywhere else. It's also nice to support the local community and to make sure we keep wonderful places like this one open.

If you're a company they're able to deliver fruit to the office; a nice and easy way to care about your employees. They will even bring coffee, milk or other products if you want to. Of course your shopping will be delivered in a car that runs on biogas.

As an ECOmmunity member you'll get special deals and invitations to events, and if you're on Twitter or Facebook you'll get all the latest news and offers. Also, check out their website were you can read their blog and find some delicious dinner inspiration in the recipes section.

Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves

Indoor air pollution is not something we come across very often in the western world. But according to WHO, indoor air pollution kills over 2 million! people each year from diseases like pneumonia, lung cancer and heart disease. More than half of them are children under the age of 5. That's 5500 persons each day or 230 persons each hour that dies because they are cooking a meal for their family.

This is due to the fact that half of the worlds population cook their meals on open fires or stoves that burns biomass (wood, agricultural waste, charcoal, animal droppings etc). When cooking on inefficient stoves in poorly ventilated homes the fumes is highly toxic to both people and the environment. It can reach up to 200 times the level of toxins that's safe to breathe. In you own home!

Apart from being dangerous to your health it also highly impacts our environment. When those fuels are being burnt it creates carbon dioxide and methane which is a factor to climate change. Cutting down trees to use as fuel also leads to deforestation and erosion of the soil.

In a larger perspective, having a better way to cook food would benefit the economies of developing countries. Instead of spending up to 20h a week collecting fuel, women could work and children could go to school. That would benefit the entire family and in the end the entire country.

Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is an initiative started by U.N. in 2010 and is meant to bring together governments, the private sector and other actors in a joint effort to develop and produce new stoves that will be cleaner, more efficient, more durable and cheaper. Their goal is that, by the year of 2020, there will be 100 million households using this kind of stoves.

In an effort to empower women it's also one of the goals that selling and repairing these stoves will create new business opportunities for women all over the world.

To work locally and share your knowledge globally is the best way to sustainability I can think of.

Read more and work together with Julia Roberts and Hillary Rodham Clinton and many many more to reach the goal by 2020 on Clean Cookstoves.

Meat Free Monday

Today we had pancakes à la LCHF with fresh strawberries.

4 pcs/2 persons

4 eggs
2dl cream
2dl almond powder or shredded coconut
2 pinches of salt
1 tablespoon of baking soda

Whisk eggs and cream together och add the rest of the ingredients. Fry in i pan with a generous amount of butter. Serve with whipped cream and fresh berries.

They are really good but you don't eat as many of them since they are quite filling.

Goodstore

Goodstore is located in Stockholm and committed to organic and vegetarian merchandise. It's a cosy place with a wide range of food, cleaning materials, candy and beautyproducts. If you don't live in Stockholm they even deliver for you. Visit their webshop to see the complete range.

As well as providing you with everything you need for dinner you can also buy ready to go meals, smoothies and fruit. If you want a vegetarian wedding or birthday party they'll help you with the menu and cater the event.

Goodstore sell produce from a lot of different brands such as Kung Markatta, Saltå Kvarn, Ellas and Clipper. They also have their own brand, Goods, which provides organic produce at good prices. If you're a member, Goodfriend, you always get 3% off every purchase.

Meat Free Monday

Today we had italian/american inspired vegetarian burgers with fresh vegetables and feta-cheese mix.

For four persons you need;

8 burgers
8 large leafs of lettuce to be used instead of bread
freshly sliced cucumber
freshly sliced tomatoes
toasted onion
sliced cheddarcheese

Fetacheese-mix;
2dl turkish yoghurt
150g fetacheese
1/2 jar of sundried tomatoes
1 clove of garlic
salt and pepper
fresh basil

Crush the feta-cheese into the yoghurt. Chopp the sundried tomatoes into small pieces and put that in the mix together with pressed garlic, salt and pepper. Add a teaspoon or two of the oil from the sundried tomatoes to add flavour. Finish the mix with a few leaves of chopped basil.

Put your burger together and enjoy!

Power of consumption

Nobody can do it alone, but with the small steps and choices we make every day, we can all do our part. That's the most important thing I want to show with this blog. We can really do it together. All consumers of food, drink, clothes, fuel, skincare etc etc can put the pressure on our governments and all companies to work for a better and more sustainable future for all of us simply by choosing what we spend our money on.

-Buying organic milk/wine/juice/coffee instead of regular shows our farmers that we don't want to drink chemicals and hormones.
-Buying toys painted with non-toxic paint or made of non-toxic plastic shows our toy-stores that they need to produce and sell things that won't give off poison when our children put them in their mouth.
-Buying organic skincare will tell the producers that we don't want to rub chemicals on the biggest organ we have; our skin.
-Using public transportation whenever possible and buy cars with alternative fuel-sources will show the oil-industry that enough is enough.

If we keep asking at our local stores for those products and keep buying the things that are good for us those things will be produced in a larger scale. We can make the power of money work in our favour.

Yes we can!

Meat Free Monday

It's monday again and today I'm going to make tagliolini with lemon, feta-cheese and basil. It's a recipe from Gordon Ramsey that we've tried before and it's one of the most fantastic pastas I've ever eaten.

For 4 persons you need;

500 gr of fresh pasta (preferably tagliolini)
zest and juice from one lemon (appr. 1/2 dl)
5 tablespoons of shredded parmesan
200 gr feta-cheese
1 pot of basil
2 tablespoons of toasted pine nuts
olive oil
salt
freshly ground black pepper

-Cook the pasta and pour it over the strainer. Keep 2 tablespoons of the water in the saucepan.
-Put the pasta back in the saucepan and add 4 tablespoons of olive oil, lemon zest, lemon juice and parmesan.
-Crush and add 3/4 of the feta-cheese and the basil and mix it all together. Season with 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and a few pinches of pepper.
-Top with the rest of the feta-cheese and the pine nuts.
-Serve and enjoy!

Organic Breakfast

Todays breakfast consist of;

Turkish yoghurt, bananas, fresh strawberries, and homemade cereal. The cereal is mixed with coconut flakes, flax-seeds, almonds, quinoa-puffs, sunflower-seeds, hazelnuts and pumpkin seeds. The ingredients are from Kung Markatta, Saltå Kvarn, ICA - I love eco and Biofood. A cup of  Pukka Vanilla Chai tea completes the meal. It is delicious!

Kung Markatta

Kung Markatta is a Swedish brand that has been working with organic food since 1983.
They sell about about 2000 different articles and 150 of them are produced under their own name Kung Markatta. The articles range from olive oil to bread to tofu to sweets and everything in between.

On their homepage you can read the fun story about how the company started with the driving spirit of Lennart that did it all in his own apartment in the beginning. There is a full list of their products and also recipes where you can choose if you want products without for example gluten or milk.

Apart from providing us with healthy food they are active in their own industry trying to influence their competitors and cooperation partners to do more. They are affiliated to several different eco-labels and they compensate for all their emissions during transportation.

Kung Markattas products can be found in most of the supermarkets in Sweden and also in health food stores of course. It always feels good to support a local brand and being able to be healthy while doing so is even better.

Meat Free Monday

It's monday again, and ok I haven't really gotten the cookbooks needed, nor do I have the (much wanted) ability to look through the kitchen and mix together what I find into something fantastic.

But anyhow this is what we'll have for dinner tonight;

Vegetarian schnitzel made of soy and wheat protein (frozen, not made from schratch). This is served with a large sallad made of spinach, tomatoes, bell peppers, broccoli and feta-cheese. Dressing is regular evoo (extra virgin olive oil) with a taste of lemon. Yummy!

Meat Free Monday

We have decided to join the Meat Free Monday movement and exclude meat on our plates on Mondays.

Today I'm making tacos with all the good stuff; fresh salad, sour cream, corn, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, spicy cheese, avocado and spicy sauce. We'll mix it up with the new vegetarian tacomince made of soy protein from Hälsans Kök.

Read more at meatfreemonday or in Swedish; köttfrimåndag.

Rosendal

The gardens of Rosendal is place of tranquility right in the centre of Stockholm.
You can walk around in the beautiful surroundings of Djurgården and finish off with a coffe, a glass of wine or a lunchbreak at Rosendal.

Their food is organic and delicious and in the summer you can enjoy it outdoors. In the wintertime you can sit inside one of their greenhouses.

It's a very popular spot, make sure you are there at the right time or that you have enough patience to wait. It's definitely worth your while. 

After you've finished your coffee you can spoil yourself with some new plants or bring home some chocolate, handmade pots or freshly baked bread from the shop.

Chicken Race

Bosarp Chicken is the only organic chicken-farm in Sweden. They sell their chickens to a lot of stores around the country, but since there are so few chickens it's really a race to get a hold of one or two.

Organic chickens are being brought up at a slower pace, in smaller groups, and they have larger areas to live in. They are allowed to be outside when the weather permits and they are given organic food without pesticides and hormones. A happy life for a chicken and the way most of us picture it.

It's not easy to start an organic chicken-farm which may be one of the reasons there are so few of them. Apart from the above, it's hard to find the correct food that contains enough protein. On the other hand, they may grow too fast with too much protein and that does not suit the two types of chickens we have in Sweden. They get too heavy and since they live longer, their bodies might not be able to take the extra weight.


Only 1 procent of the chicken we eat is organic. Organic eggs though has 11 procent of the market and can be found in every supermarket.

As consumers we have to ask for what we want to change this. Other types of chickens might be better suited for organic breeding, and there needs to be more research done on the food and other conditions needed to breed properly.