The latest Weekend Herb Blogging roundup can be found at A Fridge Full of Food. I wrote a short post on organic rosemary tea which is no where near as interesting as the recipes on offer here. Here are some of my favourites:

Daily Unadventures makes a zucchini gratin. I love pretty much anything ‘gratin’ but seeing I love zucchini and tomatoes, this definitely gets a thumbs up from me.

What Did You Eat seems to be a pretty popular blog based on the huge number of comments and it’s not surprising if you take a quick look at the recipes on offer. This Thai Chicken dish looks amazing. I’ve never cooked Thai food myself but it looks like it’s time to give it a go.

Kalyn is the founder of Weekend Herb Blogging and she always contributes a great recipe. I’ve tried lots of her recipes and am yet to be disappointed. Check out her blog if you are looking for healthy meals to cook at home.

Once Upon a Tart makes a fantastic looking pizza topped with apple and pecorino cheese. Well worth a try if you ask me.

For the pasta lovers out there, try this tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, basil, and thyme. This is a really simple but flavourful recipe. I love mushrooms in pasta. This is a must try for me.

The Chocolate Lady writes about pineapple sage:

Pineapple sage (salvia elegans) is a revelation. The leaves have the unmistakably vivid and heady aroma of pineapple. How do they do that? The flavor is very like that of garden sage, with just the tiniest bit of the fruitiness promised by the scent.

I never even knew that existed. Amazing!

Don’t forget to use organic ingredients where possible to create a really healthy meal. Enjoy!

I couldn’t think of anything worse when I first heard that you could make tea from rosemary. I do like rosemary as a herb but I find it to have a very strong flavour and the thought of drinking tea tasting of nothing but rosemary was not very appealing. Rosemary tea is believed to have numerous health benefits so I decided to give it a go.

Surprisingly this tea is really nice. It’s not overpowering at all and has become one of my favourite herbal teas. You can add a teaspoon of honey to the tea if you prefer but I drink without any sweetener.

How to Make Rosemary Tea

I bought some organic rosemary tea from the supermarket but there is no reason to go to the expense of doing so. Rosemary is very easy to grow and many people have it in their garden so you can use fresh rosemary or dry it especially for tea.

Place 1 tablespoon of rosemary leaves in a teapot and add boiling water (around 500mL). Let it infuse for around 20 minutes and the tea is ready.

Benefits of Rosemary

Rosemary can be used to treat various symptoms including:

• headaches
• body aches
• bad breath
• poor digestion
• stress
• muscle stiffness

This post is part of the Weekend Herb Blogging event being hosted this week by A Fridge Full of Food.

Lily Loves Pearl is a Melbourne based company producing organic skin care which they like to call skin food in a jar:

The range is made from pure, organic ingredients which feed the skin. We liken our range to skin food in a jar as opposed to the hope in a jar. Lily loves Pearl is truly a divine experience, our Rose hand Creme contains 480 roses in one jar and is truly a treasure. Our range is potent, delicate and the textures and scents are exquisite.

Their products include:

• Purify Me Cleanser

• Dew Drops Hydrating Toner

• Sole Revival Peppermint and Honey Feet Creme

• Rosehip Repair Rosehip Oil

• Vintage Delay Avocado and Rosehip Facial Creme

• Vital Revival Calendula and Rosehip Facial Creme

• Potent Lift Green Tea and Rosehip Facial Creme

• Revive Me Vanilla and Honey Organic Body Creme

• Vanilla and Honey Organic Body Oil

• Restore Me Three Roses Organic Body Creme

You can find Lily Loves Pearl organic beauty products in various locations around Melbourne:

• The Second Blessing 73 Anderson Street, Yarraville
• Detail 50 Glenferrie Road, Malvern
• Detail 80 Church Street, Brighton
• Organically Yours 2/385 Belmore Road, Balwyn
• Glo Health 358 Glenhuntly Road, Elsternwick
• Project 174, 174 Victoria Street, Seddon

You can visit Lily Loves Pearl for more information such as their philosophy, prices, and the ingredients used in their products. However, I warn you, their Flash site is a nightmare to navigate. So if you are interested in these products you might be better off heading to one of the stockists to try them out.

I read quite a few blogs on various topics but a great one for those of you interested in environmental issues is One Change. They post lots of helpful tips on ‘going green’ as well as comments on the latest news. The latest post of interest is a list of things you should never buy again. Here’s the list with my comments added:

1. Styrofoam cups
Styrofoam is forever. It’s not biodegradable.
* I can’t remember the last time I used a styrofoam cup but for all those takeaway coffee drinkers, it’s worth finding an alternative.

2. Paper towels
Paper towels waste forest resources, landfill space, and your money.
* I couldn’t imagine going without paper towels. I do buy the eco friendly variety but I should probably use old clothes or towels to clean up.

3. Bleached coffee filters
Dioxins, chemicals formed during the chlorine bleaching process, contaminate groundwater and air and are linked to cancer in humans and animals.
* I’m not a coffee drinker which looks to be a good thing if this is what is used to make coffee.

4. Overpackaged foods and other products
Excess packaging wastes resources and costs you much more. Around thirty three percent of trash in the average American household comes from packaging.
* A LOT of products seem to have too much packaging, with layers and layers of plastic. The main way to avoid this is simply to buy less packaged food and to go for fresh food instead. Also look out for products packaged in recycled or recyclable materials.

5. Teak and mahogany
Every year, 27 million acres of tropical rainforest (an area the size of Ohio) are destroyed. Rainforests cover 6% of Earth’s surface and are home to over half of the world’s wild plant, animal, and insect species. The Amazon rainforest produces 40 percent of the world’s oxygen.
* I vote for switching to bamboo products, the production of which causes less damage to the environment.

6.Chemical pesticides and herbicides
American households use 80 million pounds of pesticides each year. The EPA found at least one pesticide in almost every water and fish sample from streams and in more than one-half of shallow wells sampled in agricultural and urban areas. These chemicals pose threats to animals and people, especially children.
* You all know my view on this one - Buy Organic!

7. Conventional household cleaners
Household products can contain hazardous ingredients such as organic solvents and petroleum-based chemicals that can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into your indoor environment, positing a particular danger for children. The average American household has three to ten of hazardous matter in the home.
* Avoid nasty chemicals by buying eco friendly cleaning products or making your own.

8. Higher octane gas than you need
Only one car in ten manufactured since 1982 requires high-octane gasoline. High-octane gas releases more hazardous pollutants into the air, and may be bad for your car.
* I don’t know too much about cars but they recommend buying the lowest octane petrol your car requires. If you say so…

9. Toys made with PVC plastic
70% of PVC is used in construction, but it is also found in everyday plastics, including some children’s toys. Vinyl chloride, the chemical used to make PVC, is a known human carcinogen. Also, additives, such as lead and cadmium, are sometimes added to PVC to keep it from breaking down; these additives can be particularly dangerous in children’s toys. PVC is also the least recycled plastic.
* I recommend you choose organic cotton toys.

10. Plastic forks and spoons
Disposable plastic utensils are not biodegradeable and not recyclable in most areas.
* These are pretty convenient for when travelling but I think you can get recyclable utensils now or just forget about the convenience and take some regular cutlery with you and wash them afterwards.

Tim Worstall discusses some dodgy practices going on in farmers’ markets in Britain:

Consider, for example, Isle of Wight Tomatoes, one of the most established stallholders at London’s numerous farmers’ markets. It looks like a small, traditional enterprise and claims to sell its own homegrown produce. Think again. Its tomatoes, aubergines and cucumbers are bought from a separate company, Wight Salads, the bulk of whose £60m turnover comes from supplying supermarket chains.

Worse, as far as many green consumers may be concerned, many of the tomatoes are actually experimental genetic crossbreeds that Wight Salads is engineering to try to find the “next best thing” for the supermarkets. In short, these tomatoes are a far cry from traditional British produce homegrown in a smallholding.

It’s a very good business. Nonorganic cherry tomatoes bought from Isle of Wight Tomatoes and weighing 455g (16oz) fetch £3.50 at the Pimlico farmers’ market stall. At Tesco you can pick up the equivalent weight oforganiccherry tomatoes for £1.78. Ordinary tomatoes like the ones The Sunday Times bought from the market cost even less and the equivalent weight can be bought at Tesco for £1.26.

I hope this kind of thing isn’t standard practice, although I’m not surprised that this goes on, but I am definitely disappointed to hear about it.

If you’re not sure why you might want to save water around the home, Melanie from Bean Sprouts has brief explanation on why it’s something we should all be doing:

In one sense, water is an infinitely renewable resource. It never runs out because it just cycles round and round. You drink it, but it isn’t gone - sooner or later you’ll pee it out, it will get processed and return to the rivers and seas. You spill it, it evaporates and goes back to the clouds, to rain down and return to the reservoirs. Your pipes leak? So what? It all goes back to the groundwater where it was pumped out of in the first place.

Think of the resources needed to collect the water (how much energy does it take to build a dam?), to clean the water, to store it and to pump it to where it is needed. When you think of all the energy that has gone to produce each pint of tapwater, it seems much more important to conserve it.

Many parts of Australia are still in drought and the problem of diminishing freshwater supplies is far from being resolved. Current water supplies cannot support the growing population and it is just a matter of time before we start to run out of water. There are many water saving tips we can implement which will help reduce our consumption but that alone won’t solve the problem. What needs to be done to solve the water crisis? A few options are:

• significantly reduce consumption
• recycle water
• build desalination plants
• use storm water
• build more dams

There isn’t one solution to our water supply problems, multiple solutions need to be implemented by the Government and by individuals. The worst thing we can do is take no action now.

Organic yoghurt always tastes much nicer than other yoghurts to me. I’m not sure if it’s due to the ingredients or the recipe or perhaps it’s both. I never even imagined making my own yoghurt but apparently it’s pretty easy to do so I’ll have to give it a go. At least I’ll know exactly what has gone into it.

How to Make Organic Yoghurt

This method from the ABC is probably the easiest although you do need to use a thermometer to check the temperature of the milk.

Ingredients:

• Small tub of organic yoghurt.
• 1 litre of organic milk.

Method:

• Heat the milk to 90 degrees.
• Let it cool to 44 degrees.
• Mix a spoonful of organic yoghurt into half a cup of warm milk.
• Remove the skin from the 44 degree milk.
• Whisk in the diluted yoghurt and milk mixture.
• Pour into a jar and place the lid on without screwing it down.
• Leave overnight.

You can then flavour the yoghurt with fruit and berries of your choice or with organic vanilla.

Mercola has a slightly more involved recipe but it does include an instructional video to help you. Personally I like to keep things simple so would stick with the ABC recipe.

If you’re not interested in making your own yoghurt you can try the following brands of biodynamic or organic yoghurt which are readily available throughout Australia:

• Paris Creek
• Barambah Organics
• Mungalli Creek
• Gippsland

This list is part of the Blogging Mistakes group writing project. If you have a blog or are considering writing one, you might want to have a look through this list. There are some great tips here on common mistakes to avoid when starting your blog. I recommend using to Blog Carnivals, especially when your blog is new. Here are the other submissions:

Green Llama write about starting too many blogs at once:

By trying to juggle a total of 5 blogs ( remember, this is a very-much part time for me, with 80 hour day-job weeks and a family at home to take care of ) , I was losing focus on all of them. My posts were spread out very thin, and the content suffered pretty badly at times.

Denise suggests getting your own domain name straight away rather than starting with a hosted blogging account like wordpress.com:

I started my blog under the name/URL, themarketing411.wordpress.com. Then 6 months later I changed the blog name and the domain (to ViralVoice.net). All of the links gone. Visitors dropped off and it took several months to rebuild.

Dfinitive suggests updating on a regular basis and I agree that this is very important:

I have only been blogging since the 15th January 2007 and started with the best intensions, within a day the second post was live, great I thought. But then other jobs got in the way and before I knew it nearly six weeks has passed, oops.

Ways to Save Money suggests writing a few blog posts at once and then setting them to post over the coming weeks - another great idea.

I spend a day or two each week to write enough posts to last me a week. I schedule them in advance so that I don’t have to worry about whether or not I have posts going up today, tomorrow or for the next week. During the next five days, I am at liberty to think about what other things I should be writing about.

Life Rocks reminds us that it is best practice not to open links in a new window:

One of the mistakes which I did while blogging is opening links in new windows. Initially when I was blogging using Blogger, all links were opened in same window, but when I moved to Wordpress blog, it gave me an extra feature for selecting the target and I always used “Open in new window”.

Mapelli’s biggest mistake was not blogging and I couldn’t agree more. Get blogging now!

Getting the right permalink structure from the start. I couldn’t agree more and regret my current permalink structure. I’ve corrected this for new blogs but do regret how I set up this blog.

When I did start to figure out how to use a smart link structure after reading some about it, I set up the pretty ‘common’ and simple structure ‘/%postname%.html. While this works pretty good - in fact, it’s close to ideal, as it displays the post title and still looks a bit like a static page because of the .html postfix, which is my own favorite, but I doubt it has any ‘real’ purpose.

Other blogging tips:

• Beer Wine and Food writes why the blog looks the way it does.
• Tech Traction does an honest assessment of the blog.
• Didn’t You Hear writes about the importance of a name.
• You need a vision for your blog according to Shawn.
• Clever Dude writes on the perils of using other people’s images.
• Blog Talks make a couple of suggestions.
• Comment wisely suggests Hamelife.
• Madhur says to add images to your posts when you can.
• Daily Blog Tips advises to install your blog in the root directory of your site.
• You need traffic before you run a contest.
• Bill2me mentions a few regrets.
• How not to run a contest by Robert.
• 5 mistakes from Vijay.
• Be careful what you write about.
• Lack of predictability can be a problem.
• Don’t bother link begging.
• Blogging tips and tricks.
• Don’t monetise your blog too early.
• Finglish.
• Shankar’s Tech Blog writes about tagging your posts.
• Self discipline and blogging.
• Delete your first blog post.
• Don’t be vague.
• Get your own domain name. Don’t even think twice about it I’d add.
• Don’t underestimate the commitment.
• Learn from your mistakes.
• To make money online.
• Get your own domain name.
• Get your feed organised.
• Be careful when upgrading.
• Blogging is all about relationships.
• Comment on other blogs.
• Be persistent. It takes time to build a successful blog.
• Another vote for getting your own domain.
• JDsBlog tips.
• More domain advice.
• Now you’ve got your domain, what about hosting?
• Too many blogs is a common beginners mistake.
• Do your own thing.
• When you don’t have anything to say.

Well that’s it. Sorry this is off topic but a little marketing is required now and then so… Oh, before I forget (and while I’m off topic anyway) I’ll put in a quick plug for the Wonder Cooker which is an all in one cooker so it’s a slow cooker, steamer, grill and deep fryer.

It’s time for the March roundup. These are the top 5 articles written last month, based on page views. If you haven’t read them yet, take a look. Don’t forget that comments are welcome and encouraged. If you have something to add to the article, feedback on a product or don’t agree with what I wrote then say so in the comments.

1. Organic Box Home Delivery

Organic fruit and vegetable home deliveries are becoming a popular way for people to get their organic groceries. I’ve tried it a few times and, while I’m yet to find a supplier I’m completely happy with, I think it’s a great idea. You place your order online and it gets delivered to your door once a week or so. I can’t think of a more convenient way to get your groceries.

2. Certified Organic Cosmetics

Nvey Eco is a certified organic cosmetics brand which is now available online. Their products are made using natural ingredients and are therefore ideal for those with sensitive skin or allergies.

3. Organic Food in High Demand

The demand for organic food has been increasing rapidly over the last couple of years and that trend is expected to continue over the next few years too. A recent article in The Australian on the state of organics in Australia discusses the ever increasing demand for organic produce.

4. Alchemy and Akin Skin Care

Alchemy and Akin hair and skin care products are two of the most established natural beauty product brands available in Australia. While some of their products contain organic ingredients, they specialise in natural, chemical free haircare and skincare.

5. Why Shop at Farmers’ Markets?

I’ve received a few emails recently about the quality of certain farmers’ markets in Australia. Not just about the quality of the produce but also the variety or produce available and about value for money. Ed from Tomato has just written about his experience of farmers’ markets.

I honestly believe that the pesticide residues found on fruit and vegetables are doing harm to our bodies. Although only small residues can be found in our food, this can add up over time, over the years, possibly leading to cancer or other diseases. I read somewhere once that it can take up to 2 years from these toxic chemicals to be eliminated from our body once we convert to eating organic food.

Healthy Sundae writes about organic produce:

The more fruits and vegetables you eat, the more DAMAGE you could be doing to your body. Totally counter to what we have always been told, right? Well, if you consume inorganic produce, the more you eat, the more pesticides you are putting in your body.

That seems pretty obvious and seeing we are exposed to so many pollutants in our daily lives we can at least control the level of pesticides in our bodies by reducing or eliminating how much we consume. They also write:

“But I wash my fruits and vegetables,” you say. It’s not enough. Washing doesn’t remove all the pesticides and it can’t penetrate to remove the toxins that have soaked into the food. Also, take something like a banana - just having it in a fruit bowl contaminates everything the dirty peel touches. How often have you washed your banana before putting it in the bowl or handing it to your child?

While I agree that washing isn’t sufficient, it seems a bit extreme to suggest that an unwashed banana will contaminate your entire fruit bowl. I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

Besides the toxins you avoid with organics, organic fruits and veggies have higher levels of anti-oxidants and tend to have more flavor than their conventional counterparts.

The nutritional differences in organic produce is debatable and there is evidence going both ways. As for the taste, I have a friend who insists that organic food tastes better than conventionally grown food but I can’t tell the difference.

I think it’s great to promote eating organic food as ingesting small amounts of chemicals over the long term can’t possibly for good for us but we need to be reasonable too. Most of us don’t eat enough fruit and vegetables and that should be our priority. Of course I think pesticide free is better but I’d rather eat a bowl of thoroughly washed conventionally grown fruit salad than no salad at all.