Going Organic?

I enjoyed and learned a lot from this Whole Living article. If you eat organic foods, do you really know what that means? Ever wondered what some of the government-stipulated mandates are for organic foods?

Did you know that the "Organic" label means that at least 95% of the ingredients are organic? "Made with organic foods" label can be only 70% organic! And what does that really mean?

Where do the extra costs come from?

Is local better than organic? It depends! The argument is not an apples to apples discussion.

This is one of the most informative articles I have read on organic foods, however this is only the tip of the iceberg! This doesn't address the colorings, additives, and preservatives that are allowed to be included in "organic" label foods.

For me, the conclusion is that locally grown, organically raised, whole foods are best!

I'm still here!

Well, it's been an extremely busy and jam-packed summer. I kind of fell off the blogging wagon, but I don't really care - it was nice to just enjoy the time doing other things.

However, I have been up to more craftiness lately and wanted to share! These are some of my latest projects:

No - Close Pillowcase

Last week, Chris and I decided it was finally time to buy some decent curtains for our living room. We picked out a fun-looking design, got home, and hung them up. Lo, and behold - we had an extra tie-back! I wanted to use it in a fun way, so I found an old pillow and created a new pillowcase for it out to the tieback and two new cloth napkins. The secret is that instead of sewing the pillow into the case, I decided to make it fold into the case just like a pillow sham for the bed:

This second picture shows the opening:

Homemade Peach Jam

Last week at the CSA pick-up, I was easily talked into buying a basket of fresh peaches. (It was not hard for them to convince me!) There was great debate in our house over what yummy method we should use to preserve them. Jam was the final option, and we really got a great system going. Now, we have 18 delicious jars of homemade peach jam! It was so good, I just started eating it with a spoon.