Kale Stalks and Collard Stalks...

...are the new carrot stick. I brought a ton of these home from work and have been snacking on them a lot this week. Excellent. Simple. Very healthy. Very overpriced at the grocery store (the whole leaf that is). Also planning on making some stir fry out of it. Other finds include: mushroom water (yes, i finally safely made it home with intact gourmet mushroom water), papaya peels and seeds, won bok outer leaves, and mint stalks. Planning on making a nice mushroom rice dish with the water, grinding up the peels and concocting a face mask out of them which I will try and freeze so that it will keep longer, drying out the seeds for later planting and use(dried papaya seeds grow just great btw), and stuffed wonbok? I've also been thinking that the next thing I want to do is to begin making vegetable prints using interesting transecting cuts of the veggies I bring home. Such great geometrical patterns in so many veggies. Onions, lettuce, Won Bok, pineapple peel, green onion roots, avocado peels, and coconut husks all come to mind. Also, I looked up the uses of strawberry leaves as a tea and medicinal, here are some of it's uses.

Zucchini Peels and Papaya Skins...

So I've brought home and 'processed' two bags from work since my last writing.
The contents of the two bags that I sorted out as being potentially useful were:
lettuce leftovers
papaya skins and seeds
apple seeds
onion roots
avocado peels
onion skins
lime rinds
lettuce heads
daikon slices
thyme
basil stalks
thyme stalks
carrot peels
banana peels

And here are the categories I sorted them into:
for use as a fabric dye
for medicinal/tea use
for use as a beauty concoction
future stew or sauce base
garbage garden participants
spice/seasoning rack

So I'm gradually amassing a large plastic bag full of onion skins and banana peels for a future dye project...and I'm collecting avocado peels for their use as a parasite cleansing medicinal tea...and I'm keeping the lime rinds until I get a grater and can grate them into a tiny jar and keep that for seasoning purposes (mm coconut milk curry)...the papaya skins are facial material, though I may grind them up soon and use them for a shampoo base...the carrot skins I blended up and use as a facial...the garbage garden will be made up of green onions, papayas, apple trees, and a lettuce head experiment (I'm gonna see if the lettuce heads will grow at all..kinda overly optimistic, I know)...I've already had great success with potting and growing the last batch of green onions, though the papayas from last time never sprouted....so this time I'm drying the seeds out on the porch before i plant them...this also makes them useful as peppercorn like seasoning, as in papaya seed dressing...mm.

Mexican and Michoacan ideas for Avocado Peels

Tonight I made a carrot face mask, baked zucchini chips, spinach soup base, avocado seeds to plant, avocado peels for parasite tea and facials...froze thyme, basil stalks, lime rinds

According to a site I found on Michoacan medicine, you can boil the peel of an avocado in 1⁄2 quart of water, and drink a cup daily before breakfast, for two weeks to get rid of intestinal parasites. I've heard that a lot of us have these wormies in our guts, even here in the 'first world' and walk around not knowing it. Vegetarians and meat eaters both. There are different opinions on the presence of these parasites and it's ok-ness for your health. There was a girl in my massage class that had gone to energy healing school. In one of her healing treatments she discovered that she had some parasites and was of the philosophy that getting rid of them would be really great. A friend of mine that practices the primal diet tells me that many practicers of the diet (which eschews the eating of daily portions of raw meat and milk) believe that parasites are indeed good for your body, up to a point of saturation. They believe this to be true because parasites should only eat dead tissue, and by doing so they help you to maintain better health. I dunno. I think I lean towards trying a parasite cleanse though. Worms in my gut are not a pretty idea, healthy or no. An added benefit of avocado peel tea is that it supposedly gets rid of menstral cramps. Also it is said that the peel of the avocado can help to alleviate headaches. Apply it like a headache plaster on both temples, holding in place with a handkerchief
tied around the head.

Another thing I discovered on this site is a medicinal use for avocado seeds, which you can soak in alcohol as a cure for rheumatism. To prepare the infusion, soak three seeds in 1⁄2 quart of alcohol; then add 1⁄2 quart more and let the mixture sit for one week. Then rub the affected part with the concoction and cover the area completely with a piece of flannel.

Here are some brainstorms I had about other things I could do with the avocado peels:
use as fertilizer
make candle boats
make regular miniature sailboats
use as a plant pot
make avocado wax (by boiling the peel?)
use as a face /elbow/knee scrub
sew together once dried, to make a textured bath mat
make it into a soup bowl by covering the inside with self-dry clay, or just by using while still fresh
chia island or organic kitchen sprout bowl
a turtle island for a pet turtle (that i don't have)
pumice soap
use the peel to texturize a box or a faux leather purse (could make the 'purse' out of cardboard)

and for the avocado seeds?
a bottle cork
a table cloth weight (when tied to a table cloth like a large heavy bead or sinker)
squeeze for oil

Papaya Skins

So what to do with those papaya skins?? I saw a site that mentioned a papaya vinegar recipe for skin and hair care, where you cover the papaya fruit over with apple cider vinegar and use it as a skin or hair rinse after it's soaked in the vinegar for a few days. I've also found several sites extolling the benefits of papaya for skin care. One recommendation that sounded simple was to use the skin the same way another site advised that we use the mango skin--apply the fruit to your face using the peel as applicator, and then wait until the fruit dries to remove it, making a nice facial peel mask. I think I will rub my face with the papaya peels, just as recommended by some with the mango skins. Then I will chuck it in the tub for a relaxing, skin nourishing bath. For future reference, I found that the juice from pineapple skins are also sometimes used for a nourishing skin mask. Turns out Papaya is antibacterial and acne-fighting. It is also wound healing and is used a lot in serious wound care to remove dead skin cells, as well as in the healing of smaller bruises. Papaya can also get rid of age spots and freckles, as it has whitening agents. It is often used in baby food and food enzyme pills because it helps with digestion and proper production of digestive.

My other thought is, natural dyes. This is something I have a burgeoning interest in. I think I will begin to experiment with things like papaya as natural dyes. I've researched some of this, and what natural dyes need in order to stick to clothing is a fixative of some sort. The household varieties of this are table salt, vinegar, or alum (which you can find in the pickling spice section of the grocery store spice rack), though one site I found also recommended aluminum salt as a good fixative, and as I was brainstorming on how to obtain an aluminum salt other than alum, it occured to me that deodorant might be a prime example of this. I switched my run-of-the-mill deodorant/anti-perspirant out for Tom's deodorant recently because I heard how the aluminum salt in it is bad for your glands and skin. Fortunately, instead of chucking the old deodorant sticks I saved them in the back of a drawer somewhere. I think a natural dye experiment would be a great use for them.

The procedure for making a fixative is to dissolve the fixative in water, then dunk the fabric you are going to dye in the mixture using a stick or wooden spoon, then raise the water to boiling, and let the fabric simmer for 20 minutes. Then remove the fabric, wring it out, and place it immediately in the dye bath. Dye baths can be made from natural sources by wrapping the organic substances in cheesecloth, covering it with water, boiling until the color really comes out into the water enough to seem useful, then remove the cheesecloth wrapped items and dunk the fabric in the dye for as long as it takes to really soak into your cloth. Line dry.

Mangos- The useful fruit.

So I've decided to start a daily trash journal at work. A list of the contents of our daily compost bin. I will then take the contents of this list and research and brainstorm about it's various uses. So I haven't started this yet, but in the meantime I want to blog about one of the frequent members of our compost pile: the mango. I always eye this sexy little fruit first of all, because we use excellent Tommy Atkins mangos here in Honolulu, Hawaii, and they smell--amazing--and they taste--amazing. As soon as they enter the bin, the smell intoxicates me. Beautiful aroma, beautiful orange colored fruits, syrupy sweet, perfectly tart, succulent fruit. It seems an absolute pity to waste even a tiny bit of this fruit. I think I could definitely scrape the mango stones and peels more finely, to produce at least a two person mango dessert of some kind-perhaps a mango lassi, vegan mango lassi , mango chutney
or raw mango soup of some kind. I've also been kicking around the web for ideas on what I could do with the rest of it, as I mourn the disposal of the mango peel and stone as well. Here are the suggestions I've discovered:
Mango peel, with a bit of the mango fruit still attached, makes an excellent face peel. Resplendent in Alpha Hydroxy Acid (AHA) , that many beauty companies tout as a quality ingredient in their goods, the mango fruit left on the peel can be smeared all over the face and left to dry, then peeled or washed off. Just make sure you aren't allergic to mango, by tasting a small amount. If it tickles your tongue, you may be allergic. Mangos contain some of the same compounds found in Poison Ivy, and some people will rash up in reaction to eating it, or coming in close contact with the peel. I feel the tickle on my tongue, but have tried it on small patches of my skin without rashing up. This week I will try the face peel and see how it does on me.
Mango peel is also used in Indian cuisine, to create interesting extra sweetness or tartness in a dish. This recipe from Scrumptious Street is for Thai Eggplant with Lime Chili Chutney and Mango Peels.
Here's another recipe using mango peel from Kate's Global Kitchen, for Corn-Husk Grilled Mango-Skinned Salmon.
Here's an article that mentions the use of mango peel to make a popular Indian soft-drink.
This is a more traditional style indian recipe for Mango Pickle (Karmbi Nonche) from Aayi's recipe's, which by the way, is a site that has lots of interesting indian mango recipes to explore.
I've also heard of a recipe for sauteed prawns and peppers which used the mango skin like one would use a stuffed pepper--as an attractive bowl for the dish.
Finally, a delicious sounding "Chocolate New Wave Mango Cake" from the star online.
From past tastings of my own, I'd have to say that mango peel is very bitter and much more astringent than the delicious mango fruit, yet taste aside, people in india and medical scientists all over the world say that the peel is in fact very nutritious
The Hindu, an online newspaper, says that mangoes might have positive benefits for diabetes heart conditions, and cancer. This may be because the compounds found in mangos (and most abundantly in mango skins) modulate receptor molecules called PPAR's, found in human tissue. PPAR's aid the control of cholesterol and glucose levels in the bloodstream, and are also related to some instances of cancer. Mango skin also contains quercitin, mangiferin, and norathyrion--all three are powerful anti-oxidants. Mango skin more than likely contains resveratrol, also found in the grapes which make red wine, resveratrol helps to lower cholesterol.
Mmm hmm.
So.. what else?
Well, this is an interesting link about some of the medicinal properties of various mango parts.
And, on this other site, I found it especially interesting to hear that ground up dried mango seed works to help stem bleeding and also, when ground into a powder and mixed with buttermilk, it helps with hemorrhoids.
There were four uses I found for the mango seeds we usually discard.


The first was as a medicine for bleeding and piles. The second was to grind the dried seed up into a flour that is commonly sold in India. The third was to expeller press the nut and to harvest the oil to make mango butter, which is healing to the skin, reduces wrinkles, protects from UV light, and has many other, mostly cosmetic uses. Finally, I found these awesome recipes from the Honolulu Star Bulletin on how to make Hawaiian-style mango seeds, and this recipe for mango rasam at ifood.tv
Some interesting things to try, ranging from easy to difficult. My other brainstorms include: carving the seed like some people carve peach pits, wood burning the dried seed and making a clamshell container out of it, drying and salting the peels and using them as containers, growing mangos from the seeds, using the seed as a bird feeder core by pasting birdseed and dough mix on the outside and hanging by a thread, or as a model boat (because it floats naturally), as a fishing bobber, xmas ornament, fish scaler, bolo style noise maker, wind chime, noise maker, an arch support, cementing several together using resin to make them into bedside table configurations or tv trays, using rope and bored holes, wood burnt reversible doll face, 2 candy bowls, door knocker, flute, organic raft (using some kind of organic binder to bind many together on water), acupressure foot path texturizer, bird beak sharpener, or perhaps a mango-scented firestarter.