One of the easiest gifts to make that people enjoy and appreciate is desserts in a jar. Cookies, cakes, brownies, hot chocolate, and basically anything else that has dry ingredients can be made into a gift. All you need to do is layer the dry ingredients (appropriately measured out according to your recipe) in the jar, attach instructions for finishing the recipe and baking, and decorate it as you please.

Image courtesy of The Creative Junkie

There is room to be creative and not only use the recipe you are famous for, but also customize your choice based on your recipients taste and preferences. Just do not forget to keep in mind any allergies the person might have.

Image courtesy of My Recipes.com

They are also visually interesting and you can put your decorating and designing skills to work. They really remind me of making sand art as a kid with the different layers of colored sand. Plus, once your gift has been made and eaten, your recipient can use the jar you put it in.

It seems as though genetically modified organisms (GMOs) come up, a great deal of speculation and confusion soon follows. I for one have had assumptions of how ubiquitous GMOs are, but it’s completely different to see the startling figures in graphics.

Check back soon for a detailed look into GMOs.

Due to the fact that it is midterms, I did not have a ton of time to make anything for my friend’s birthday. In an attempt to make it as sustainable as possible with very little time or resources I ended up having to make cupcakes in papers as well as from a mix (which I am strongly against). Even though I did have to make them from a mix (and they do not taste as good as if I had made them from scratch), I made sure that they were organic and not full of preservatives or other unnecessary chemicals. 


What I could have done to make them more sustainable:
– Buttered the pan or used reusable silicon baking cups instead of cupcake papers.
– Made them from scratch to remove the plastic bags as well as the unnecessary waste from shipping the mixes. 
– Put them in a reusable container that is easy to cary and that my friend could keep.


Although they were not ideal, these cupcakes were still a way to celebrate his birthday without having to buy store-made cupcakes and waste even more resources and plastic packaging (plus all of the staff in the newsroom enjoyed them). 

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2. Stir.

3. Put filling into tortillas (I like the little ones better).

3. Place in a baking dish.

(we made a lot…)

4. Cover with canned  or homemade enchilada sauce (we like to combine 1 can of red with 1 can of green. We used some sauce we had in our freezer and two 15 ounce cans.You want the enchiladas completely covered in sauce or they crisp and burn. You can also sprinkle cheese on next.

In the past two weeks my life has been so busy that I never know what day it is. My life has turned into endless “to do” lists that seem to never end. With a challenging course load, a time consuming position on the school newspaper, and trying to make time to spend with friends, roommate, and at the gym, the time I have to feed myself is limited.

Over the summer I had all of these grand ideas that I was going to cook all of my own food. Now I can’t help but laugh at the naivety of my summer self. I don’t know how I ever thought I would have time to do everything.

I am one of those people that knows what they believe in and rarely change their mind, but unfortunately I have had to question my idealistic approach to daily meals. It is nearly impossible for me to find time to cook a few days a week, let alone every day. I have finally come to terms with the fact that things won’t be the exact way that I would like them to be, and instead accept that I may have to compromise.

I hate food packaging with a fiery passion, but at this point (especially today where I am running off very little sleep after a late night at the paper) I have come to terms with the fact that I will have to eat some food that comes in packaging I despise — if I don’t I will either starve or never sleep, and neither is a valid option. Instead, I have made a new game plan:

1. Buy as many fresh fruits and vegetables as possible to eat during the week. I will also wash and prepare them as soon as I get home. I find that if I make my salad and cut up my veggies for the week I am much more likely to eat them (mostly because I can just open the fridge and start eating).

2. Buy packaged foods based on the degrees of food packaging. I still cannot allow myself to buy frozen foods in hard plastic containers, but the paper containers hurt a little less. As much as I hate all plastic, I have also had to compromise a bit and buy a few things that come in plastic bags.

3. Be sure that the ingredients inside of the packaging are what I support — organic and as local as possible.

Even though buying packed food hurts every time I put it in my basket, I had to compromise a bit to make my entire lifestyle work. Perhaps when I have a real job and I am not spending all of my waking hours working or studying I can meet my goal of cooking all of my own food. Until then, I have to find a way to make a poor situation into something positive as possible.

My roommates and I decided that we would have a “family dinner” every Sunday where we would cook and eat together. Because this weekend is the first Sunday that we have all been together and settled, we had our first dinner. We made lemon pasta and sautéed green beans.

I had every intention of taking a really nice photo of what we ate and of all of us squished around our table, but I had to get to a meeting and we ended up having to rush.

With all of our insane schedules we wanted to set aside a time that was just for us. We plan on cooking together, catching up, and making necessary arrangements for the rest of the week (like who is cleaning what, the items we are running out of, and anything else that we would like everyone to know). Although this may not be a necessary sustainable practice (although we did eat home-cooked, organic food), it is still a way of sustaining relationships and a comfortable living arrangement (which is especially important in college).

I am officially moved in and chipping away at the days until winter break. With six girls living in our relatively small (for so many of us) condo, I have been shocked by the overflowing trash every morning. It is surprising that we fill a large trashcan so often. I decided to start digging through it and seeing if people were throwing away recyclables (which is a problem we have been having). Unfortunately for the most part everything in our trashcan was in fact non-recyclable. The majority of our massive mound of trash was food packaging.

With so many of us eating together many people had bought food from big box stores that seem to believe that we want all of our food hermetically sealed and wrapped in plastic. We have a dozen apples sealed in a massive plastic coffin, coffee creamer that is individually packaged in tiny plastic cups, dried fruit and nuts in plastic bags, and countless other plastic enclosed food items.

To avoid all of the packaging and still be able to get such large quantities relatively cheap food it looks like we will need to go to the farmers market for our produce and see what we can buy in smaller quantities without wasting money.

I love stumbling on local finds that have sustainable missions and delicious food, and INNA Jam is just one of those. The jams they make are made from fresh, organic, seasonal ingredients that are grown within a 100 miles from their kitchen in Berkeley. They make as many deliveries they can by bicycle. They also have a program where you can return your empty jars to them and get a discount on your next, delicious jarful. (Personally I love to use the jars to hold leftovers and small items around the house.)

I love this jam so much I have been eating it over ice cream. I am going to be sad when the summer fruits are gone.