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If you’ve seen “binishell homes” popping up across architecture feeds this year, you’re not imagining it. The iconic inflatable concrete house—originally invented in the 1960s by architect Dante Bini—is suddenly back in global headlines. And there’s one big reason: climate resilience. And hey, Robert Downey Junior lives in one. 

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If you’ve seen “binishell homes” popping up across architecture feeds this year, you’re not imagining it. The iconic inflatable concrete house—originally invented in the 1960s by architect Dante Bini—is suddenly back in global headlines. And there’s one big reason: climate resilience. And hey, Robert Downey Junior lives in one.

As heatwaves intensify and disasters become more frequent, governments and aid agencies are searching for housing solutions that are fast, affordable, low-carbon, and structurally strong. In Calfornia you can use hemp concrete and they are fire retardant.

Binishell is a dome-shaped building created by inflating a giant balloon and spraying reinforced concrete around it. The technique delivers astonishing speed—often under an hour per unit once the form is in place—and excellent durability, especially against earthquakes, cyclones, fires, and possibly even floods.

Search interest for binishell cost, binishell homes, and inflatable concrete house cost has jumped as engineers look for alternatives to slow, expensive, and carbon-heavy conventional construction. While full pricing varies by size, reinforcement type, and location, Binishells consistently reduce materials, labor hours, and waste.

Their air-form method uses up to 30–50% less concrete than a traditional box-shaped building and requires fewer skilled trades—an increasingly critical factor during emergency rebuilds when the local workforce is strained.

Inflatable concrete homes excel where disasters hit hardest. Their aerodynamic shape resists wind uplift, their monolithic shell minimizes weak points, and their thermal mass keeps interiors cool in summer and warm in winter—essential in regions struggling with both heat stress and energy scarcity. Concrete itself is not sustainable but new innovations using materials like hemp can make it so.

A growing number of countries and regions such as Gaza, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan are Muslim and are naturally attracted to dome-shaped building, making Binishells an excellent idea if some company can actually make it happen.

What makes this approach especially valuable is reusability: once the crisis passes, these strong, permanent structures can transition seamlessly into long-term public assets. They could be used as housing units for boarding schools or facilities where small businesses or artisans can work. If made moveable, they could function as a second space for homes in the region.

Turkey, for example, repurposed post-earthquake emergency housing built years ago with the help of Israel into into student dormitories. Binishells fit perfectly into this model: fast when needed, durable for decades, and flexible enough to become schools, healthcare posts, or creative workshops once families are resettled.

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“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl

For years, I thought something was wrong with me.

No matter what I was doing—sitting in a meeting, walking the dog, or watching TV—my brain was busy debating food.

Should I eat? Shouldn’t I? I could just have one more bite, couldn’t I? What should I eat next? I’ve blown it today, haven’t I? I’ve failed again. Shall I just eat whatever I want and start again tomorrow?

The chatter was constant. It left me exhausted, ashamed, and convinced that …

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response.” ~Viktor Frankl

For years, I thought something was wrong with me.

No matter what I was doing—sitting in a meeting, walking the dog, or watching TV—my brain was busy debating food.

Should I eat? Shouldn’t I? I could just have one more bite, couldn’t I? What should I eat next? I’ve blown it today, haven’t I? I’ve failed again. Shall I just eat whatever I want and start again tomorrow?

The chatter was constant. It left me exhausted, ashamed, and convinced that I was weak.

I told myself it was a lack of willpower. If I just tried harder, surely I could silence it. But the harder I fought, the louder it became.

The Night Everything Changed

One night, after a long and stressful day, I stood in the kitchen with the fridge door open.

I wasn’t hungry. My stomach was full from dinner, but my mind was shouting at me to grab something, anything.

The noise in my head felt unbearable. It was as if I couldn’t relax until I gave in.

In that moment, for the first time, I paused. I asked myself a simple question: What am I really hungry for right now?

The answer wasn’t food. It was comfort. Distraction. Relief from stress I hadn’t dealt with.

It hit me that food wasn’t the real problem. The problem was the mental chatter about food, what many people now call food noise.

What I Discovered About Food Noise

Food noise isn’t hunger. Hunger is physical: your stomach growling, your energy dipping, your body asking for fuel.

Food noise is mental: urgent, repetitive, often specific. It pushes you toward food even when you’re not hungry, convincing you that you need it to cope or to feel better.

Learning this was a turning point. For years I had labeled myself a failure. But food noise wasn’t about failing at all. It was about how the brain works.

Every time I ate in response to boredom, stress, or fatigue, my brain logged it as a “reward.” The next time I felt the same cue, the noise grew louder. The loop repeated itself until it became automatic.

Understanding this gave me something I’d been missing: compassion for myself. I wasn’t broken. I was human. And if my brain could be trained into these loops, maybe it could be retrained out of them too.

How I Began to Quiet the Noise

I didn’t wake up one morning free of food chatter. It quieted slowly, through small practices that I repeated again and again.

Naming it

When the thoughts started, I said to myself, “That’s food noise, not hunger.” It may sound simple, but naming it gave me distance. It reminded me I wasn’t my thoughts.

Pausing before reacting

At first, I felt powerless against the urges. But I began experimenting with a short pause. Just two minutes. During that pause, I’d sip water, stretch, or step outside. Sometimes the craving was still there afterward, but often it had already passed. That pause gave me back a sense of choice.

Refuting the chatter

The hardest part wasn’t the food itself. It was the voice in my head.

It would say, “You’ve already ruined the day; you may as well keep going.” Or, “One more won’t matter.” I believed it every time, and each binge ended with guilt and shame.

I finally found help with a cognitive behavioral tool I’d never heard of before: the refutation.

A refutation is simply answering back to the thought—calmly, clearly, without judgment. It’s like shining a light on a lie.

The first time I tried it, I wrote my food noise down on paper: “You’ve ruined today, so you may as well give up.” Then I wrote my response underneath: “One moment doesn’t ruin a whole day. If I stop now, I’ll feel better tonight. If I keep going, I’ll feel worse.”

It felt strange at first, almost like arguing with myself. But slowly, those written words became a voice I could access in real time.

Now, when the chatter starts, I can hear both sides: the urge and the refutation. And with practice, the refutation has grown stronger.

Some of the ones I use often are:

Food noise says: “One bite won’t hurt.”
Refutation: “One bite keeps the loop alive. Every time I resist, I weaken it.”

Food noise says: “You can just start again tomorrow.”
Refutation: “If I wait until tomorrow, I make waiting a habit. The best time to start is now.”

Food noise says: “You’ve earned this.”
Refutation: “I’ve earned peace of mind, not more noise.”

At first, I had to write them down. Over time, they became automatic.

Self-kindness

For years, slipping up meant spiraling into guilt and shame. Now, when I give in, I remind myself, “This is hard, and I’m learning.” That kindness keeps me moving forward instead of sinking deeper.

Each of these practices was like a mental rep in the gym. The more I repeated them, the stronger I became.

What Quiet Feels Like

The first time I realized I had gone an entire morning without obsessing about food, I almost cried.

The silence in my head felt like a gift.

Quiet doesn’t mean I never think about food. It means food has stopped being the background soundtrack of my life.

I can work without constant distraction.

I can sit with my family without guilt.

I can enjoy a meal without a running commentary in my mind.

Most importantly, I’ve started to trust myself again.

The Bigger Lesson

What I learned from food noise applies far beyond eating.

Our minds are noisy places, full of chatter about success, relationships, fears, and the future.

If we treat every thought as urgent and true, we end up exhausted. But if we learn to pause, to name the chatter, and to choose differently, we create space for peace.

The greatest gift wasn’t just a quieter relationship with food. It was discovering that not every thought in my head deserves a reaction.

That lesson has changed more than my eating. It has changed how I live.

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Candy, vinegar, and zero waste explained using orange peels Winter is citrus season, and the markets are full of golden oranges. Don’t even try to resist them. What could be more heavenly than the sweetness of a good orange? As juice, in salads, cooked with chicken or fish, or eaten out of hand, oranges are […]

The post What can you do with orange peels in the kitchen appeared first on Green Prophet.

Building back home and dignity can work with local, sustainable materials

Somalia faces one of the world’s most persistent displacement crises, with millions uprooted by conflict, drought, and climate-driven instability. As emergency camps grow into semi-permanent settlements, the need for long-term, affordable, and culturally grounded housing becomes urgent. A new proposal, Shelters of the Future, offers precisely that: a mud-brick modular framework rooted in Somali building traditions yet designed for resilience, dignity, and community.

Developed by designer Rabie Al Ashi in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with Kengo Kuma & Associates, Shelters of the Future won first prize in an international competition led by Somalia’s Ministry of Public Works, Reconstruction and Housing (MoPWRH), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Young Architects Competition (YAC). It stands out for its elegant simplicity: a shelter system that relies on local materials, local skills, and local cultural logic.

With so much goodwill going into designing new refugee shelters from the western world –– see our 2014 article on refugee shelters from IKEA and designers in Jordan, we are still seeing Gazans and Somalis living under tarps.

Read our article: Refugee shelters we hate to love

Still, we celebrate ideas and appreciate this design because it works with vernacular materials and takes into account the local.

At the heart of the design is a flexible 4×4-meter module, a human-scaled unit pairing two enclosed rooms with a semi-open central space and a private garden. This small footprint is deceptively powerful: it gives each household privacy, a safe outdoor space, and the ability to arrange interior life according to Somali social norms. The module becomes a building block—units can be combined into courtyards, linear clusters, or circular compounds that echo traditional Somali settlement patterns. Compare this to the shelters Somalis have built in Yemen, below.

Materiality grounds the system firmly in place. Structures are built from mud bricks, acacia logs, palm leaves, and earth-based plasters—materials that are renewable, inexpensive, and readily available. Mud bricks in particular offer thermal mass, keeping interiors cooler during the day and warmer at night, an essential feature in Somalia’s hot, arid climate.

Construction is intentionally low-tech: shelters can be built by residents themselves, strengthening local craftsmanship and reducing reliance on imported humanitarian products that often fail in desert climates.

The design also incorporates passive cooling strategies—cross-ventilation, shaded openings, and breathable walls—to make life more comfortable without the need for electricity. Gender-sensitive layouts support safety and cultural expectations. Small gardens, livestock spaces, and shaded communal zones help rebuild livelihoods and social cohesion.

We’ve spent weeks in Sinai in the simple hushas there made from palm fronds and bamboo. They can be remarkably comfortable even at night when the cold winds blow.

Rather than treating displacement as a temporary emergency, this project is reframed as a human condition requiring stability, community, and dignity. By combining vernacular wisdom with adaptable modular planning, the project offers a model for refugee housing that is scalable, low-carbon, and deeply respectful of local identity.

For Somalia’s displaced families, a mud-brick home may be the most modern solution of all.

::IOM

The post Emergency housing and refugee shelters made from mud appeared first on Green Prophet.

Heat pumps don’t create heat — they move it. In winter they pull warmth from the air or ground and bring it indoors, and in summer they reverse the cycle to cool. By shifting heat instead of burning fuel, heat pumps use significantly less energy than conventional HVAC systems.

The post Heat pumps and why you should get one to save the planet appeared first on Green Prophet.

Building back home and dignity can work with local, sustainable materials

Somalia faces one of the world’s most persistent displacement crises, with millions uprooted by conflict, drought, and climate-driven instability. As emergency camps grow into semi-permanent settlements, the need for long-term, affordable, and culturally grounded housing becomes urgent. A new proposal, Shelters of the Future, offers precisely that: a mud-brick modular framework rooted in Somali building traditions yet designed for resilience, dignity, and community.

Developed by designer Rabie Al Ashi in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with Kengo Kuma & Associates, Shelters of the Future won first prize in an international competition led by Somalia’s Ministry of Public Works, Reconstruction and Housing (MoPWRH), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Young Architects Competition (YAC). It stands out for its elegant simplicity: a shelter system that relies on local materials, local skills, and local cultural logic.

With so much goodwill going into designing new refugee shelters from the western world –– see our 2014 article on refugee shelters from IKEA and designers in Jordan, we are still seeing Gazans and Somalis living under tarps.

Read our article: Refugee shelters we hate to love

Still, we celebrate ideas and appreciate this design because it works with vernacular materials and takes into account the local.

At the heart of the design is a flexible 4×4-meter module, a human-scaled unit pairing two enclosed rooms with a semi-open central space and a private garden. This small footprint is deceptively powerful: it gives each household privacy, a safe outdoor space, and the ability to arrange interior life according to Somali social norms. The module becomes a building block—units can be combined into courtyards, linear clusters, or circular compounds that echo traditional Somali settlement patterns. Compare this to the shelters Somalis have built in Yemen, below.

Materiality grounds the system firmly in place. Structures are built from mud bricks, acacia logs, palm leaves, and earth-based plasters—materials that are renewable, inexpensive, and readily available. Mud bricks in particular offer thermal mass, keeping interiors cooler during the day and warmer at night, an essential feature in Somalia’s hot, arid climate.

Construction is intentionally low-tech: shelters can be built by residents themselves, strengthening local craftsmanship and reducing reliance on imported humanitarian products that often fail in desert climates.

The design also incorporates passive cooling strategies—cross-ventilation, shaded openings, and breathable walls—to make life more comfortable without the need for electricity. Gender-sensitive layouts support safety and cultural expectations. Small gardens, livestock spaces, and shaded communal zones help rebuild livelihoods and social cohesion.

We’ve spent weeks in Sinai in the simple hushas there made from palm fronds and bamboo. They can be remarkably comfortable even at night when the cold winds blow.

Rather than treating displacement as a temporary emergency, this project is reframed as a human condition requiring stability, community, and dignity. By combining vernacular wisdom with adaptable modular planning, the project offers a model for refugee housing that is scalable, low-carbon, and deeply respectful of local identity.

For Somalia’s displaced families, a mud-brick home may be the most modern solution of all.

::IOM

The post Emergency housing and refugee shelters made from mud appeared first on Green Prophet.

Rather than treating displacement as a temporary emergency, this project is reframed as a human condition requiring stability, community, and dignity. By combining vernacular wisdom with adaptable modular planning, the project offers a model for refugee housing that is scalable, low-carbon, and deeply respectful of local identity.

For Somalia’s displaced families, a mud-brick home may be the most modern solution of all.

The post Emergency housing and refugee shelters made from mud appeared first on Green Prophet.

Building back home and dignity can work with local, sustainable materials

Somalia faces one of the world’s most persistent displacement crises, with millions uprooted by conflict, drought, and climate-driven instability. As emergency camps grow into semi-permanent settlements, the need for long-term, affordable, and culturally grounded housing becomes urgent. A new proposal, Shelters of the Future, offers precisely that: a mud-brick modular framework rooted in Somali building traditions yet designed for resilience, dignity, and community.

Developed by designer Rabie Al Ashi in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with Kengo Kuma & Associates, Shelters of the Future won first prize in an international competition led by Somalia’s Ministry of Public Works, Reconstruction and Housing (MoPWRH), the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Young Architects Competition (YAC). It stands out for its elegant simplicity: a shelter system that relies on local materials, local skills, and local cultural logic.

With so much goodwill going into designing new refugee shelters from the western world –– see our 2014 article on refugee shelters from IKEA and designers in Jordan, we are still seeing Gazans and Somalis living under tarps.

Read our article: Refugee shelters we hate to love

Still, we celebrate ideas and appreciate this design because it works with vernacular materials and takes into account the local.

At the heart of the design is a flexible 4×4-meter module, a human-scaled unit pairing two enclosed rooms with a semi-open central space and a private garden. This small footprint is deceptively powerful: it gives each household privacy, a safe outdoor space, and the ability to arrange interior life according to Somali social norms. The module becomes a building block—units can be combined into courtyards, linear clusters, or circular compounds that echo traditional Somali settlement patterns. Compare this to the shelters Somalis have built in Yemen, below.

Materiality grounds the system firmly in place. Structures are built from mud bricks, acacia logs, palm leaves, and earth-based plasters—materials that are renewable, inexpensive, and readily available. Mud bricks in particular offer thermal mass, keeping interiors cooler during the day and warmer at night, an essential feature in Somalia’s hot, arid climate.

Construction is intentionally low-tech: shelters can be built by residents themselves, strengthening local craftsmanship and reducing reliance on imported humanitarian products that often fail in desert climates.

The design also incorporates passive cooling strategies—cross-ventilation, shaded openings, and breathable walls—to make life more comfortable without the need for electricity. Gender-sensitive layouts support safety and cultural expectations. Small gardens, livestock spaces, and shaded communal zones help rebuild livelihoods and social cohesion.

We’ve spent weeks in Sinai in the simple hushas there made from palm fronds and bamboo. They can be remarkably comfortable even at night when the cold winds blow.

Rather than treating displacement as a temporary emergency, this project is reframed as a human condition requiring stability, community, and dignity. By combining vernacular wisdom with adaptable modular planning, the project offers a model for refugee housing that is scalable, low-carbon, and deeply respectful of local identity.

For Somalia’s displaced families, a mud-brick home may be the most modern solution of all.

::IOM

The post Emergency housing and refugee shelters made from mud appeared first on Green Prophet.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘bad kid’—just angry, hurt, tired, scared, confused, impulsive ones expressing their feelings and needs the only way they know how. We owe it to every single one of them to always remember that.” ~Dr. Jessica Stephens 

All children look up to their parents from the moment they enter this world. They have this beautiful, pure, unconditional love pouring out of them. Parents are on a pedestal. They are the ones who know what’s best! They are the grownups showing us how to do life!

We don’t think for one moment that they could be …

“There’s no such thing as a ‘bad kid’—just angry, hurt, tired, scared, confused, impulsive ones expressing their feelings and needs the only way they know how. We owe it to every single one of them to always remember that.” ~Dr. Jessica Stephens 

All children look up to their parents from the moment they enter this world. They have this beautiful, pure, unconditional love pouring out of them. Parents are on a pedestal. They are the ones who know what’s best! They are the grownups showing us how to do life!

We don’t think for one moment that they could be showing us the wrong way.

I, like many others, adored both my mum and dad. I could not see their flaws, their pains, or their trauma. I just loved them and wanted to spend time with them. If they shouted at me and told me I was wrong, I trusted that they were right, no question.

When I had non-existent self-esteem, anxiety, and suicidal ideation because I believed I was not good enough, I blamed that 100% on myself. I had unconsciously recorded all those moments when their behavior had made me feel not good enough as my own fault for being ‘bad,’ not considering they could have had something going on themselves.

When I struggled in romantic relationships, always chasing unavailable men, I held myself responsible and never for one minute thought that this pattern of behavior stemmed from my relationship with my parents. I believed what they had told me in different ways—that I was the problem!

The reason I struggled in relationships, I later discovered, was that my parents were not actually okay when they were parenting me because of their own traumas and were emotionally immature.

Here are five signs you had emotionally immature parents and how may it impact you.

1. Their feelings and needs were more important than yours.

Emotionally immature parents can be incredibly self-absorbed and distracted by their own feelings and emotions, and they want their child, you, to regulate them.

For example, when my mum was upset, I would be affectionate toward her and soothe her. As I got older, she would be angry with me if I was not there to soothe her when she needed it, saying I was selfish and she had no one. I believed her.

I was off playing with my friends and being a child, but this was not allowed if it meant I couldn’t meet her needs and calm her emotions. As a result, I learned it was not safe to choose my needs over hers, as she would withdraw her love from me, which felt so scary. My heart would race, and I would feel terror take over my body.

As an adult, this meant I believed I was responsible for other people’s emotions, and if they were angry or upset, it was my fault. So I would always walk around on eggshells just in case someone might attack me for upsetting them. Because I believed everyone’s pain was my fault, I attracted more relationships like the one with my mum. These relationships made me feel powerless.

2. Expressing your feelings or needs was not safe.

When you expressed a feeling and it was met with a negative reaction from your parent, it created a world of panic inside your body. For example, sharing how you were struggling could have been met with a comment about how their lives were so much worse and you should stop being so dramatic.

Expressing a need, like asking for a ride somewhere, could have launched an attack about how selfish you were—and didn’t you realize how hard your parents were working!

So what happened? You stopped expressing your feelings and needs and buried them deep. (For me, I topped them with ice cream and sugar for comfort.) As an adult, you may now be so cut off from your own emotions and needs that you act as if you don’t have any.

3. They did not take responsibility for their actions.

They’d say or do something that really hurt you, but they wouldn’t acknowledge it, nor apologize. In fact, they may have just carried on as normal.

Your relationship with them was not repaired as a result. You may have tried to resolve the situation, but you were the only one trying, and you may even have found yourself blamed for something you didn’t even do. The whole situation would leave you feeling crazy and like you didn’t know what’s true. You may even have started thinking it was your own fault.

As an adult, you might repeat this dynamic in other relationships, feeling powerless to repair and resolve issues that arise. This leads to resentment and staying in unhappy relationships because you don’t know it can be any other way.

4. They have no idea how to regulate their emotions.

They walked around triggered by their emotions all day. They had no idea how to bring themselves back into balance. They’d come home exhausted from work, but rather than doing something to discharge from the day, they’d get stuck in their chores and then take out their emotions on others due to resentment over being so tired.

They also might have had no idea what they were feeling. Maybe they were constantly angry because they lacked the self-awareness to recognize they were really feeling sad or anxious or overwhelmed. And because they didn’t know what they were feeling, they had no idea what they needed to do to feel better.

5. You were forced to grow up before your time.

It wasn’t okay for you to be a child. They found it way too stressful, so you were encouraged to be a little adult. Maybe even a little adult that parented them. It was also not safe for you to be a child. You couldn’t be loud or silly, as they could have lost their temper, so you walked around on high alert waiting for this. You may have learned to be the calm one because your parents weren’t.

I found myself getting involved in their very grown-up arguments as a child just to try and keep the peace in the house. This is not the role of a child. If you had the same experience, you may find yourself attracting similarly codependent relationships as an adult.

—

If this childhood sounds like yours, you are not alone. There are many of us. There is an inner child within you that missed out on so much love, nurturing, encouragement, and balance, which could be the reason you are struggling now as an adult.

It is not because you are not good enough or because you are to blame for everything. It is because you were raised by emotionally immature parents. Effectively, you were raised by children in adult bodies.

You could still be dealing with these patterns as an adult with your parents, as they could be children in even older bodies now!

Learning how to be emotionally mature yourself so you don’t repeat the patterns with your own children is a wonderful gift to be able to give them, but also it means you can have healthy relationships and find peace within. Healing and reparenting your inner child means you will be able to express your emotions and have boundaries so others don’t think it is okay to do the same to you.

I used to feel powerless when people treated me like this, not just with my parents but in other relationships too. I would try to be whatever they wanted me to be, but they would still react in the same ways no matter what I did. Stepping back from them and focusing on healing my inner child, understanding her feelings and needs, and holding space for her has changed my life. I was able to become the parent I always longed for.

I understand now that my parents were emotionally immature, as they were raised by emotionally immature parents too. They were mature with money and jobs, but with emotions, they were out of their depth because no one showed them how to manage them, and unfortunately, they never learned.

But we can be the generation that breaks this pattern by being the emotionally mature parent we needed. We can be the example of healthy relationship dynamics that we never had.

**This post was originally published in 2022.

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According to Elon Musk, the “next step” and long-term goal for human–AI symbiosis is to achieve a species-level  merger of human brains with artificial intelligence via his company Neuralink’s implantable brain-computer interface devices.

The post Neuralink implant shows man feeding himself appeared first on Green Prophet.

Winter is citrus season, and the markets are full of golden oranges. Don’t even try to resist them. What could be more heavenly than the sweetness of a good orange? As juice, in salads, cooked with chicken or fish, or eaten out of hand, oranges are delicious, and provide a good hit of vitamin C as well.

If you’re dedicated to zero waste in your kitchen, you might find yourself frustrated with all those squeezed-out oranges. What can you do with them? Compost them if you can, but if that’s not an option, here are five culinary ways to get the goodness in their peels. Naturally, pesticide-free fruit is what you want.

The first thing is to remove the rind by peeling or grating before doing anything else to the fruit. Much easier, and safer, than handling a slippery, squeezed half-orange.

1. Make orange and basil infused vinegar. The ingredients are one orange, a large handful of fresh, clean basil leaves, and apple cider vinegar. Have a clean, dry jar at hand. Peel the rind of one orange into strips, avoiding the white pith. A vegetable peeler works well for this. Stuff the orange strips into the jar. Add the basil to the jar and pour vinegar over all. Stir the contents carefully to release any air bubbles. Cap the jar, store it away in the dark, and wait two days. A week is even better.

You can strain the infused vinegar if you want, or just leave it all in. I like to leave the peel and basil in, letting the flavor improve over time.

2. Make candied peel. That’s a sugary seasonal treat. It makes great gifts, if you can keep it around long enough. The procedure is simple; it’s just a little tedious. You use the whole peel in candying, pith and all, which requires boiling the peel three times, in order to get rid of the bitterness. But it’s worth the time if you love candied peel. There are plenty of instructions out there. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit also make great candied peel.

3. Cook up orange rice pudding. Use our rice pudding recipe and simply stir in the grated peel of a whole orange instead of the rose petals.

4. Dry the peel for cooking, as the French and many Oriental cooks do. It adds an alluring deep flavor to stews. Peel one or two oranges thinly and set the peel to dry. Clementines are good too, and are easy to peel. Some draw thread through the peel and hang it up to dry. I just lay the pieces down on a thin towel and put it in an out-of-the way corner, turning it over every few days.

How soon it dries depends on the weather and the ambient moisture. The peel will be brittle when thoroughly dry. You can snap pieces off with your fingers. It will last years, stored in glass in a dark place. I love to tuck a few pieces of dried orange peel here and there in a beef or chicken tajine.

Most people don’t identify the flavor as orange unless they get a piece in their stew. It’s not tart and bright like fresh orange; it’s a little musky.

5. Make orange vodka. It couldn’t be simpler. Pour out about a half-cup of vodka from a new bottle and set it aside for some other use. Peel an orange. Cut the rind into thin strips (any size) and cram them into the bottle. All the peel should be covered with vodka. If needed, top up the liquid with the vodka you’d set aside. Let the vodka infuse for three weeks. To serve, strain the vodka and dilute it with simple syrup. Add fizzy soda water to lighten the drink, if you like.

Bonus recipe: simple syrup is 50% water and 50% white sugar, boiled together 5 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Cool and store in the fridge. It lasts forever.

Citrus peels can be frozen in any shape and have many uses. Store frozen grated orange or lemon peel in a small container. Add a tablespoon to the batter of quick bread, muffins, pancakes, or more elaborate yeast pastries. Or stir a little into tea.

At the moment I’m freezing all my squeezed-out lemon halves to accumulate enough for candying. Although I might thaw out one to tuck into the cavity of a roasting chicken.

Another delicious way to use orange peel is letting a piece steep in hot, sweetened red wine for 5 minutes. What could be cozier on a dark winter’s evening?

Photo of candied orange peel via Daring Gourmet.

The post 5 Zero-Waste Ways With Orange Peels appeared first on Green Prophet.

You can go to a site or go online, order the tree and pick it up or if if possible have it delivered. A live tree doesn’t shed needles after a few weeks and it’s obviously the ecological choice to cutting down millions of 7 to 15 year old trees every year.

The post Rent a living Christmas tree in California appeared first on Green Prophet.

Winter is citrus season, and the markets are full of golden oranges. Don’t even try to resist them. What could be more heavenly than the sweetness of a good orange? As juice, in salads, cooked with chicken or fish, or eaten out of hand, oranges are delicious, and provide a good hit of vitamin C as well.

If you’re dedicated to zero waste in your kitchen, you might find yourself frustrated with all those squeezed-out oranges. What can you do with them? Compost them if you can, but if that’s not an option, here are five culinary ways to get the goodness in their peels. Naturally, pesticide-free fruit is what you want.

The first thing is to remove the rind by peeling or grating before doing anything else to the fruit. Much easier, and safer, than handling a slippery, squeezed half-orange.

1. Make orange and basil infused vinegar. The ingredients are one orange, a large handful of fresh, clean basil leaves, and apple cider vinegar. Have a clean, dry jar at hand. Peel the rind of one orange into strips, avoiding the white pith. A vegetable peeler works well for this. Stuff the orange strips into the jar. Add the basil to the jar and pour vinegar over all. Stir the contents carefully to release any air bubbles. Cap the jar, store it away in the dark, and wait two days. A week is even better.

You can strain the infused vinegar if you want, or just leave it all in. I like to leave the peel and basil in, letting the flavor improve over time.

2. Make candied peel. That’s a sugary seasonal treat. It makes great gifts, if you can keep it around long enough. The procedure is simple; it’s just a little tedious. You use the whole peel in candying, pith and all, which requires boiling the peel three times, in order to get rid of the bitterness. But it’s worth the time if you love candied peel. There are plenty of instructions out there. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit also make great candied peel.

3. Cook up orange rice pudding. Use our rice pudding recipe and simply stir in the grated peel of a whole orange instead of the rose petals.

4. Dry the peel for cooking, as the French and many Oriental cooks do. It adds an alluring deep flavor to stews. Peel one or two oranges thinly and set the peel to dry. Clementines are good too, and are easy to peel. Some draw thread through the peel and hang it up to dry. I just lay the pieces down on a thin towel and put it in an out-of-the way corner, turning it over every few days.

How soon it dries depends on the weather and the ambient moisture. The peel will be brittle when thoroughly dry. You can snap pieces off with your fingers. It will last years, stored in glass in a dark place. I love to tuck a few pieces of dried orange peel here and there in a beef or chicken tajine.

Most people don’t identify the flavor as orange unless they get a piece in their stew. It’s not tart and bright like fresh orange; it’s a little musky.

5. Make orange vodka. It couldn’t be simpler. Pour out about a half-cup of vodka from a new bottle and set it aside for some other use. Peel an orange. Cut the rind into thin strips (any size) and cram them into the bottle. All the peel should be covered with vodka. If needed, top up the liquid with the vodka you’d set aside. Let the vodka infuse for three weeks. To serve, strain the vodka and dilute it with simple syrup. Add fizzy soda water to lighten the drink, if you like.

Bonus recipe: simple syrup is 50% water and 50% white sugar, boiled together 5 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Cool and store in the fridge. It lasts forever.

Citrus peels can be frozen in any shape and have many uses. Store frozen grated orange or lemon peel in a small container. Add a tablespoon to the batter of quick bread, muffins, pancakes, or more elaborate yeast pastries. Or stir a little into tea.

At the moment I’m freezing all my squeezed-out lemon halves to accumulate enough for candying. Although I might thaw out one to tuck into the cavity of a roasting chicken.

Another delicious way to use orange peel is letting a piece steep in hot, sweetened red wine for 5 minutes. What could be cozier on a dark winter’s evening?

Photo of candied orange peel via Daring Gourmet.

The post 5 Zero-Waste Ways With Orange Peels appeared first on Green Prophet.

Every year, Americans purchase 25–30 million Real Christmas Trees (according to the National Christmas Tree Association), directly supporting rural economies and preserving open green space, around 350,000 acres of it. Buying real means investing in American agriculture instead of overseas manufacturing.

The post The benefits of a real Christmas tree appeared first on Green Prophet.

Winter is citrus season, and the markets are full of golden oranges. Don’t even try to resist them. What could be more heavenly than the sweetness of a good orange? As juice, in salads, cooked with chicken or fish, or eaten out of hand, oranges are delicious, and provide a good hit of vitamin C as well.

If you’re dedicated to zero waste in your kitchen, you might find yourself frustrated with all those squeezed-out oranges. What can you do with them? Compost them if you can, but if that’s not an option, here are five culinary ways to get the goodness in their peels. Naturally, pesticide-free fruit is what you want.

The first thing is to remove the rind by peeling or grating before doing anything else to the fruit. Much easier, and safer, than handling a slippery, squeezed half-orange.

1. Make orange and basil infused vinegar. The ingredients are one orange, a large handful of fresh, clean basil leaves, and apple cider vinegar. Have a clean, dry jar at hand. Peel the rind of one orange into strips, avoiding the white pith. A vegetable peeler works well for this. Stuff the orange strips into the jar. Add the basil to the jar and pour vinegar over all. Stir the contents carefully to release any air bubbles. Cap the jar, store it away in the dark, and wait two days. A week is even better.

You can strain the infused vinegar if you want, or just leave it all in. I like to leave the peel and basil in, letting the flavor improve over time.

2. Make candied peel. That’s a sugary seasonal treat. It makes great gifts, if you can keep it around long enough. The procedure is simple; it’s just a little tedious. You use the whole peel in candying, pith and all, which requires boiling the peel three times, in order to get rid of the bitterness. But it’s worth the time if you love candied peel. There are plenty of instructions out there. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit also make great candied peel.

3. Cook up orange rice pudding. Use our rice pudding recipe and simply stir in the grated peel of a whole orange instead of the rose petals.

4. Dry the peel for cooking, as the French and many Oriental cooks do. It adds an alluring deep flavor to stews. Peel one or two oranges thinly and set the peel to dry. Clementines are good too, and are easy to peel. Some draw thread through the peel and hang it up to dry. I just lay the pieces down on a thin towel and put it in an out-of-the way corner, turning it over every few days.

How soon it dries depends on the weather and the ambient moisture. The peel will be brittle when thoroughly dry. You can snap pieces off with your fingers. It will last years, stored in glass in a dark place. I love to tuck a few pieces of dried orange peel here and there in a beef or chicken tajine.

Most people don’t identify the flavor as orange unless they get a piece in their stew. It’s not tart and bright like fresh orange; it’s a little musky.

5. Make orange vodka. It couldn’t be simpler. Pour out about a half-cup of vodka from a new bottle and set it aside for some other use. Peel an orange. Cut the rind into thin strips (any size) and cram them into the bottle. All the peel should be covered with vodka. If needed, top up the liquid with the vodka you’d set aside. Let the vodka infuse for three weeks. To serve, strain the vodka and dilute it with simple syrup. Add fizzy soda water to lighten the drink, if you like.

Bonus recipe: simple syrup is 50% water and 50% white sugar, boiled together 5 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Cool and store in the fridge. It lasts forever.

Citrus peels can be frozen in any shape and have many uses. Store frozen grated orange or lemon peel in a small container. Add a tablespoon to the batter of quick bread, muffins, pancakes, or more elaborate yeast pastries. Or stir a little into tea.

At the moment I’m freezing all my squeezed-out lemon halves to accumulate enough for candying. Although I might thaw out one to tuck into the cavity of a roasting chicken.

Another delicious way to use orange peel is letting a piece steep in hot, sweetened red wine for 5 minutes. What could be cozier on a dark winter’s evening?

Photo of candied orange peel via Daring Gourmet.

The post 5 Zero-Waste Ways With Orange Peels appeared first on Green Prophet.

Winter is citrus season, and the markets are full of golden oranges. Don’t even try to resist them. What could be more heavenly than the sweetness of a good orange? As juice, in salads, cooked with chicken or fish, or eaten out of hand, oranges are delicious, and provide a good hit of vitamin C […]

The post 5 Zero-Waste Ways With Orange Peels appeared first on Green Prophet.

Winter is citrus season, and the markets are full of golden oranges. Don’t even try to resist them. What could be more heavenly than the sweetness of a good orange? As juice, in salads, cooked with chicken or fish, or eaten out of hand, oranges are delicious, and provide a good hit of vitamin C as well.

If you’re dedicated to zero waste in your kitchen, you might find yourself frustrated with all those squeezed-out oranges. What can you do with them? Compost them if you can, but if that’s not an option, here are five culinary ways to get the goodness in their peels. Naturally, pesticide-free fruit is what you want.

The first thing is to remove the rind by peeling or grating before doing anything else to the fruit. Much easier, and safer, than handling a slippery, squeezed half-orange.

1. Make orange and basil infused vinegar. The ingredients are one orange, a large handful of fresh, clean basil leaves, and apple cider vinegar. Have a clean, dry jar at hand. Peel the rind of one orange into strips, avoiding the white pith. A vegetable peeler works well for this. Stuff the orange strips into the jar. Add the basil to the jar and pour vinegar over all. Stir the contents carefully to release any air bubbles. Cap the jar, store it away in the dark, and wait two days. A week is even better.

You can strain the infused vinegar if you want, or just leave it all in. I like to leave the peel and basil in, letting the flavor improve over time.

2. Make candied peel. That’s a sugary seasonal treat. It makes great gifts, if you can keep it around long enough. The procedure is simple; it’s just a little tedious. You use the whole peel in candying, pith and all, which requires boiling the peel three times, in order to get rid of the bitterness. But it’s worth the time if you love candied peel. There are plenty of instructions out there. Lemons, limes, and grapefruit also make great candied peel.

3. Cook up orange rice pudding. Use our rice pudding recipe and simply stir in the grated peel of a whole orange instead of the rose petals.

4. Dry the peel for cooking, as the French and many Oriental cooks do. It adds an alluring deep flavor to stews. Peel one or two oranges thinly and set the peel to dry. Clementines are good too, and are easy to peel. Some draw thread through the peel and hang it up to dry. I just lay the pieces down on a thin towel and put it in an out-of-the way corner, turning it over every few days.

How soon it dries depends on the weather and the ambient moisture. The peel will be brittle when thoroughly dry. You can snap pieces off with your fingers. It will last years, stored in glass in a dark place. I love to tuck a few pieces of dried orange peel here and there in a beef or chicken tajine.

Most people don’t identify the flavor as orange unless they get a piece in their stew. It’s not tart and bright like fresh orange; it’s a little musky.

5. Make orange vodka. It couldn’t be simpler. Pour out about a half-cup of vodka from a new bottle and set it aside for some other use. Peel an orange. Cut the rind into thin strips (any size) and cram them into the bottle. All the peel should be covered with vodka. If needed, top up the liquid with the vodka you’d set aside. Let the vodka infuse for three weeks. To serve, strain the vodka and dilute it with simple syrup. Add fizzy soda water to lighten the drink, if you like.

Bonus recipe: simple syrup is 50% water and 50% white sugar, boiled together 5 minutes to dissolve the sugar. Cool and store in the fridge. It lasts forever.

Citrus peels can be frozen in any shape and have many uses. Store frozen grated orange or lemon peel in a small container. Add a tablespoon to the batter of quick bread, muffins, pancakes, or more elaborate yeast pastries. Or stir a little into tea.

At the moment I’m freezing all my squeezed-out lemon halves to accumulate enough for candying. Although I might thaw out one to tuck into the cavity of a roasting chicken.

Another delicious way to use orange peel is letting a piece steep in hot, sweetened red wine for 5 minutes. What could be cozier on a dark winter’s evening?

Photo of candied orange peel via Daring Gourmet.

The post 5 Zero-Waste Ways With Orange Peels appeared first on Green Prophet.