Recently I've noticed these gumball machines that dispense seed bombs placed around town, and had to do some investigating to see what the deal is. I'm so excited about what I found out!

These seed bombs were created by Daniel Phillips and Kim Karlsrud, who met while students at Otis College of Art and Design. The idea behind the machines is that everyday people can make a difference in their community and beautify their neighborhoods. Some people have even gone so far as to form guerilla gardening movements. I just found this great article in the LA Times that explains more about the movement. The seed bombs are made from clay, compost and seeds. Check out these photos to see how to make your own seed bombs!  

As designers, Daniel and Kim wanted to design something new and revolutionary but not bring unnecessary stuff into the world. So what they did is take existing technology (repurposed gumball machines) and mix it with their idea to populate grey space (vacant lots, parking medians, etc...)

The result of their idea was the seed bomb, and it's been so successful that new dispensers are being placed all across the country. You can find a complete list of machine locations here - also make sure to look at Daniel and Kim's website and watch the video above of them explaining their idea!

Do you have any great ideas for greening urban landscapes?

Now that fall is in full swing, I wanted to share some photos from my garden that were taken over the summer. The tomatoes are still going crazy, and the berries are still coming along.

The kale has gone bye bye, so it’s time to replant.

I’m so happy to be back home in LA. I can’t wait to garden!

What are you going to be growing this winter?

I was in the garden before I left for Detroit to shoot Vamps, and while harvesting food, I used some of the food plants for arrangements in vases around my house.

Borage flowers which are edible and great in salads, are also super pretty in a vase.

Sweet peas (pictured above) are so yummy and also produce really pretty flowers.

Lemon verbena (pictured above) smells so good and looks pretty in a vase as well. People often make tea with the leaves too.

Dandelion (pictured above) is so good for you (see my previous post about dandelion here) and the flowers of course look lovely in a vase. Nasturtiums (red flower in the salad above) are another edible flower. They add a beautiful pop of red color to salads! What are you favorite flowers?

Recently I was sent some pictures from home showing some of the fruits and veggies harvested, plus a cute little visitor who was hanging out on the sweet peas!

This past month yielded kale, celery, sungold tomatoes, strawberries, borage, and sweet peas. After taking pictures of the caterpillar, he was put on the ivy so he wouldn't eat all the goodies!

These pictures make me a tad homesick, but so happy too. I don't mind sharing some of my garden treats with the caterpillars!

Growing dandelion is super cheap and is so good for you! Try it in summer salads or stir-fries! When you buy it from a farmer’s market or the store it costs something like $2, and it goes bad if you don’t eat it in a week. But when you grow it yourself, it grows constantly, like a weed. It doesn’t go bad in the ground, so there is no pressure to use it up, and you can get the exact amount you want. Plus it looks pretty and it is soooooo good for you!
 
If you haven’t eaten dandelion before, here are a couple of ways to try it:

• Put 4 or 5 leaves (chopped or cut in large pieces) into a salad
• Stir-fry it with other greens and serve warm

Have fun experimenting, and let me know if you invent any yummy new dandelion dishes along the way!

A few Sundays ago, when I was still in LA, we went to the farmer’s market. When we got home, we cleaned out the fridge – which means that the dogs got lots of stuff to eat! We composted some stuff, and ate the stuff that needed to be eaten. On Sunday, that was some cabbage, the leftover red onions from my garden, some leeks, a leftover tomato, and some of our farmer’s market finds, including a porcini mushroom (look how beautiful it is!). 

We had a great day  – we cleaned out the fridge, started to cook, took care of the dogs, listened to music...the whole clean out/cooking process took 2 hours. Not bad!

Here is what we made that day:

Nori Rolls -
I made a variation of the Toasted Nori Burritos recipe from my book (p. 219). Just FYI, you never have to roll them as fancy as they look in my book... I never actually roll them like that. Mine usually look like this...I make them quick and easy!

It’s more of a fold-over-and-grab! So on Sunday I made them with Green Olive Pate (you could also use whole olives and cut or rip them into little pieces), some of my big salad for the week (recipe below), some avocado from my tree, and my Tahini Dressing recipe from the book (pg. 263). It was so delicious!
 
You can also make the roll with all of the stuff I listed above, and add this cabbage dish that Christopher created. Very yum. Here’s how we make this Cabbage dish: take some cabbage, some leeks and some onions and saute it all in oil until al dente. Then squeeze in a little lemon and throw in some salt, pepper and balsamic vinegar.

Salad for the Week -
I always make a big salad to keep in the fridge for the week. This one came entirely from my garden. I picked Nasturiam flowers, purple Borage flowers, dandelion, kale, lettuce, chives and basil. It’s a bitter, but soooo healthy salad. I also put some radish in there, and threw in an avocado from our tree. I found some green beans in the fridge that needed to be used up, and put them in as well. My Tahini dressing goes great on this salad! I made a huge batch, and kept it in the fridge (without any sauce or dressing on it), and would just pull from it during the week when I was in the mood for salad.

Heirloom Tomatoes -
We got some Heirloom Tomatoes at the farmer’s market, so we just put some olive oil and basil from the garden on them, and added a bit of salt. Yum!!!! Seriously delicious...

French Mushrooms -  
This recipe is great to make for your meat loving friends! Christopher either makes it with Mataki or Porcini mushrooms. It’s fancy pants and delicious! And is great for flirts!!! Here is how we make it: heat some oil in a pan. Add the mushrooms (which ever kinds you want, we used Mataki the other day and Porcini most recently), and a healthy amount of Earth Balance butter (or any plant based butter substitute) it should feel like you are cooking French food...so it should be pretty oily and buttery...but don’t go crazy! Cover the pan for about 5 minutes on a medium to low flame. Uncover the pan, and add some more butter or oil if needed (those mushrooms like to stick to the pan). Then, add one clove of chopped garlic, a few shakes of organic, good quality shoyu, aka soy sauce, and a squeeze of grated ginger juice. Sprinkle on some salt, and sauté the mushrooms until they are soft and yummy. Then get it in ya!!!

I get so happy when Sunday rolls around because it's my farmers market day.  But while I was running around preparing to leave for Detroit to shoot Vamps (by the way thank you to Wendy Kirchoff, Claire and Cheryl Koots for the great restaurant suggestions in Detroit), I didn't feel like doing anything, and when I went to make breakfast for myself, I just didn't feel like it!!  So I had some almonds.  Oh my gosh, almonds can be so delicious!  They're like candy!  I have to be careful with almonds though because once I start I can't stop (I sound like my mother... she always says that about nuts!)!  But I had less than a cup, 'cause let's face it - too many almonds is no bueno.  Then I made a smoothie and put it in a bowl and I was eating it with a spoon. Breakfast dessert!!! Sooo not superhero but I was happy with it at that moment.  

I feel like sharing this with you all to show how delicious something so simple can be. Also, if you are having PMS or feeling naughty sometimes a smoothie can do the trick! So instead of reaching for ice cream next time or something else with nastier ingredients, reach for something much healthier like fruit! It makes me feel like I'm getting away with something naughty while not going too crazy!

Smoothies are easy and fun -  so I went on a hunt through my kitchen to find what ingredients we had lying around...and there wasn’t much. I looked in the freezer, and discovered some Beverly Hills Juice Club Sunflower ice cream! My husband must have bought a bunch. Beverly Hills Juice Club makes a sunflower seed or almond, dairy-free "ice-cream" in tubs – and it makes a great smoothie base. So I used that...I also used strawberries from our garden, a cinnamon stick (I love the crunch and flavor!), three drops of Stevia, and rice milk vanilla flavor (no sugar). And it was the best smoothie! Like I said before, definitely not superhero but it tasted great and served its purpose. I was left feeling a little tired and spacey which is perfectly fine for a lazy Sunday.

After my delicious smoothie, I felt I needed to balance myself out for the rest of the day, so for lunch I made a big soup using lots of ingredients from our garden.  We didn't have much food in the house so I just worked with what I had.  I started with celery and leek from our garden. The leek was so sweet and yummy.  Then I added the following:

• leftover kabocha
• frozen corn and peas
• some leftover onion
• a little garlic
• a little miso (both dark and lite)
• little organic shoyu (had a packet from M Cafe I wanted to use up)
• ginger juice squeezed from fresh ginger
• a little veg stock...I used a little cube

Along with some rice, that fed me for the rest of the day!  It completely balanced out the smoothie effects, and it made for a very happy Sunday. After some lunch we went on a walk with our dog The Pig (pictured), then I did some dancing to prep for Vamps... and did some other work - all thanks to the soup and rice that fueled me for the day!  

So, see how easy it is to throw some quick, tasty meals together using what little ingredients you have sitting around the kitchen or garden!  What meals do you throw together like this?  

PS – This got me wondering...why are too many nuts no bueno? Let’s see...they throw the body out of balance. For me, personally, I notice that they make my skin break out if I have too many of them. They are great, and an important part of my superhero diet when they are used as flavoring tools, but when I make them the main attraction (i.e., more than one cup), I usually notice some weird reaction. The thing about nuts is not that they are not in any way unhealthy, but the fat and calories can be problematic if eaten in excess.

Almonds have powerful cancer fighting compounds in them and are valuable to us in maintaining daily robust health, but it seems that if you eat more than a cup in a sitting, which is a lot, then the body struggles to assimilate the protein, fiber and fat in that volume. That would be true of all nuts, not just almonds. On the other hand, our digestion is made to handle nuts in any quantity, so feel free to enjoy them; the volume depends on our individual digestive capacity and ability to assimilate fats and protein.  

I remember back in my raw food days I ate so many nuts, and it kept me a bit chubbier than I like, and my skin was fully broken out all the time. Since nuts are calorically dense, they can keep us chubbier than we like to be...but they are an important source of fat and protein and so need to be enjoyed...you just have to figure their calories into your daily intake. If nuts make you break out, like me, well that could be one of 3 things: poor digestion of the protein, which turned to fat and discharged as pimples, or poor digestion of the fat – or if you have too many nuts in one sitting it could make for poor digestion of the fat AND protein. A sort of rule of thumb is to only have 12-15 almonds or other nuts in one sitting (but who can do that? once I start I can't stop! Yum!) and that can be daily, but that amount seems to go without reaction in people.

So except for my fun nut splurges...I try to use them as enhancers to dishes and as ingredients in a dish...that keeps me superhero. And I try not to dig my hands into the bag. But hey, every once in a while, you gotta do what you gotta do! So don't fear nuts. Just be wise about where they fit and how they feel to you!

Roger Doiron is the founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI), a non-profit devoted to promoting kitchen-gardening, home-cooking, and sustainable local food systems. He recently emailed me to give me a heads up about National Snack Food Month, a nasty marketing ploy by the Snack Food Association, whose members include companies like ConAgra, Fritolay, and ExxonMobil (apparently big oil permeates every industry, including food). Fortunately, Roger has the perfect antidote - World Kitchen Garden Day, happening this month on Sunday, August 22!

A tireless activist, Roger is perhaps best known for encouraging the Obamas to plant the White House Kitchen Garden on the South Lawn of the White House. Michelle Obama oversees the White House Kitchen Garden, with the help of local school children who help her to plant and grow food that is then donated to nearby homeless shelters. It's a great service to the homeless population in Washington, D.C., but perhaps more importantly, the White House Kitchen Garden educates the nation about sustainable food!
 
Here's what Roger has to say about World Kitchen Garden Day:

"Yes, it's hard to believe but we're apparently not eating enough potato chips, cookies and fluorescent orange cheese puffs, at least not according to the Snack Food Association (SFA) which has joined forces with the National Potato Promotion Board to address this national crisis. Their response: christening February as National Snack Food Month.
 
As advocates for healthy, sustainable and socially-just foods and gardens, we can't let this hijacking of the country's culinary calendar go unanswered. Although we won't be able to outspend the SFA and their 590 members...we can outdo them in terms of people-power, spirit and creativity with a food holiday of our own which is as local, healthy and sustainable as it gets.

World Kitchen Garden Day is an annual, decentralized celebration of food produced on a human-scale. It is recognized each year on the 4th Sunday of August.  It is an opportunity for people around the world to gather in their gardens with friends, family, and members of their local community to celebrate the multiple pleasures and benefits of home-grown and locally-grown foods. Please help us make this year's celebration of Kitchen Garden Day a success."

Here is how you can participate in Kitchen Garden Day:

• "Attend" the event on Facebook and invite your friends to do the same (5 minutes)
• Put your own Kitchen Garden Day marker on the global Meetup map (5 minutes) and use Meetup's tools to bring some like-minded people together in your area
• Share the event on your website, blog, or online calendar using text from this message and one of the graphics here. (10-15 minutes)
• Share this email broadly within your personal and professional networks (5 minutes)

What a great way to fight back against the purveyors of harmful foods! Thanks so much Roger for your dedication to such an important cause!

How do you plan to celebrate Kitchen Garden Day?

This picture of flowers from our garden in LA was sent to me last night... It makes me less homesick to see what’s happening at home while I’m away.

These are Sweet Peas and a Sunflower from my vegetable garden. So pretty.