Hello, I'm Katie

WATERMELON AND TOMATO GAZPACHO

Ingredients

• 6 cups fresh watermelon
• 2 large tomatoes 
• 1 cucumber
• 1 serrano chile, minced
• 1 lime, juiced
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh basil, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• A pinch of salt
• A pinch of fresh mint

Method

1. Carefully cut your watermelon in half. I prefer my watermelon with seeds to those without because you can roast them. 

2. Cut the watermelon half into layers and then cube it.

3. Measure out six cups and purée it. Reserve the remaining cubes for garnish or just to snack on, because who doesn’t love watermelon? Yum!

4. Slice the bottom off each tomato using a serrated knife.

5. Using the same knife, make “C” cuts to the tomato. The key here is to cut off the flesh and to avoid the seed membrane.

6. Purée the tomatoes in the food processor.

7. Peel the cucumber and cut away the seeds with a knife, very carefully.

8. Purée the cucumber. Remember, food processors work best when the pieces are evenly cut.

9. In a large mixing bowl, add together the puréed tomatoes, cucumber and watermelon.

10. Put the tomato-cucumber-watermelon mixture through a sieve to remove the extra pulp. You, of course, do not have to do this. For me, a filtered gazpacho really accents the delicacy of watermelon.

11. Add the cilantro, basil, serrano pepper, sugar and lime. Salt to taste. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

12. To serve, place some of the remaining watermelon chunks in a shallow bowl and fill with gazpacho. You want the chunks to still be visible. Finish with some fresh mint leaves.

13. Enjoy!

via TreeHugger

STRAWBERRY TUXEDO RECIPE

A fun way to dress-up your strawberries!

Ingredients

• 15 strawberries
• 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate
• 3 ounces white chocolate

Method

1. Chop chocolates and place in separate bowls.
2. Place these bowls over a pot of barely simmering water and let stand until melted.
3. Stir until smooth, set aside and let cool for a few minutes.
4. Dip strawberries in white chocolate and place on a baking sheet. Refrigerate for 10 minutes.
5. Dip sides of the strawberries in bitter chocolate. Back to the refrigerator for 10 more minutes.
6. Dip a thin paint brush in bitter chocolate and draw the bow tie and buttons.

via Strawberry Tuxedo : Cafe Fernando 

Bring Food Education Back!

A great inforgaphic! Together we can change the way people eat by educating every child about food, giving families the skills and knowledge to cook again, and motivating people to stand up for their rights to better food. Add your voice at Food Revolution Day.

Food Revolution Day on 19 May is a chance for people who love food to come together to share information, talents and resources; to pass on their knowledge and highlight the world’s food issues. All around the globe, people will work together to make a difference. Food Revolution Day is about connecting with your community through events at schools, restaurants, local businesses, dinner parties and farmers’ markets. We want to inspire change in people’s food habits and to promote the mission for better food and education for everyone.

Local Events

Food Revolution Day London ON - May 19

Infographic Source  http://visual.ly/bring-food-education-back

Suit-Up: Penguin Cuteness!

mabelmoments:

Picture: Jenfu Cheng/Solent News & Photo Agency

Fresh out of the oven Peanut Butter Cookies! Vegan Style Goodness.

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 Cup Smooth Peanut Butter
1/2 Brown Sugar
1 Egg Replacer ( 2 tbsp Water and 1 tsp Egg Replacer)

PREHEAT 
Preheat oven to 325 F or 320 F for (small apartment size ovens like mine)

MIX
Mix ingredients in a bowl until smooth until well blended.
 
ROLL
Roll in 24 balls, place 2 inches apart, on ungreased backing sheet. 

BAKE
Bake 15 minutes or until lightly browned. (Don’t over bake as they do burn easliy) 

COOL
Remove cookies from the oven and let cool for ten minutes. These cookies can be very fragile when transporting them when they are still hot. Store in an air tight container to keep them fresh. Enjoy!

TIPS

1. Most peanut butters use vegetable oil, but aways read the label to ensure it is vegan-friendly before you buy.
2. Most grocery, health food and specialty stores carry Egg Replacer.
3. I use wet parchment paper on my baking sheet for baking these peanut butter cookies, as it makes it easier to transfer your cookies off the baking sheet to cool and reduces the chances of your cookies from burning on the bottom. 

(Taken with instagram)

HD Downtown Ottawa Footy Freestyle

Finally some YouTube videos that are actually interesting. Great talent.

Starring:

Dylan Lawrence & Stephen Veenema.

(by BuffAzzNinjas)

Buckwheat Vegan Pancakes

1 Cup BuckWheat Pancake Mix

1 Cup Rice Milk

1 tsp. Sunflower Oil

1 Egg Replacer ( 1 tsp. Egg Replace and 2 tbsp. Water)

2 tsp. Vanilla

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

Mixing

Combine all ingredients with a wire whisk until smooth. For thinner pancakes add more rice milk.

Cooking Instructions

Cook over med to high heat in a skillet with vegan margarine or sunflower oil.

Serving

Makes 4 large pancakes. 

(Taken with instagram)

Eco-Pirate: The Story of Paul Watson

The film follows “professional radical ecologist” Captain Paul Watson as he repeatedly flouts the law so he may apprehend what he sees as the more serious law-breakers: the illegal poachers of the world. Part high-octane adventure, the film follows Watson and his crew and seamlessly segues in and out of a wealth of archival footage from decades of confrontational activism.

From the genesis of Greenpeace to sinking a pirate whaling ship off Portugal, this film chronicles the extraordinary life of the most controversial figure in the environmental movement;the heroics, the ego, the urgency of the world’s original eco-pirate.

Sweetgreen’s Recipe for Salad Success

Sometimes, business seems too easy: Spot a need in the market, fill the gap, profit. That’s certainly how the Sweetgreen story reads. Three college friends realized they couldn’t get a quick, healthy meal near Georgetown University’s Washington, D.C. campus, so they opened a healthy fast-food restaurant after graduation. Four short years later, they’re opening their 11th location.

Of course, that story belies the sleepless nights and customer-less mornings that Nic Jammet, Jonathan Neman and Nathaniel Ru faced getting their company off the ground, and the persistence they needed to convince customers, landlords, suppliers, and investors—like New York restaurateur Joe Bastianach and Honest Tea co-founder Seth Goldman—to take them seriously as fresh-from-school entrepreneurs.

Sweetgreen has thrived thanks to its brand, which the founders call the “Sweetlife.” The story of their company and its image of youth, health and hipness—leveraged by the founders’ taste in music, their commitment to eco-friendly design and sustainable practices, and their focus on locally-sourced, healthy food—has put the company on the map without breaking their marketing budget.

Of course, you can’t avoid the blocking and tackling of business: Location has something to do with their success, and Sweetgreen has capitalized on the founders’ original insight by placing locations near other colleges, including George Washington University in D.C. and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

They do well by their employees, too, with free salads during each shift and a tenure program that recognizes employees with free t-shirts; after two years at the company, workers receive an iPod; after three, a Sweetgreen bike.

The company is also involved in the community, partnering with local schools to encourage healthy eating through nutrition education and activities like salad-making competitions. Not only are they battling childhood obesity, a growing public health concern, they’re also introducing the next generation of customers to their salads and frozen yogurt.

That’s a pretty sweet win-win.

Via GOOD

Hanging Gardens Make Sleek Use of Small Balconies

Designer’s rendering of the Skyfarm on a kitchen balcony. If you’re an urban dweller with a typically tiny balcony, it can be a tough choice: Set up a garden, or have a nice little chair and table where you can sit outdoors. Now, a new design innovation promises to allow you room to grow your arugula and eat it too.

The ever-increasing height of buildings in the city often means more balconies, German designer Manuel Dreesmann writes. No matter how small, he says, these balconies “offer a lot of unused space above your head. This is the space for the Skyfarm!”

‘Farms’ Floating In The Sky

Dreesmann’s “Skyfarm” concept shares a name with ideas for massive vertical farms that would cover the sides of entire skyscrapers, but his is a more modest approach meant for individual households. It is also perhaps a bit more poetic — these “farms” appear from a distance to be floating in the sky.

(via Hanging Gardens Make Sleek Use of Small Balconies : TreeHugger)

Saving Food From The Fridge: It Will Taste Better, May Even Last Longer And Reduce Your Energy Bills

@TreeHugger

People Are Awesome: Man Embarks on Year of Random Kindnesses

Feb. 13-19, is National Random Acts of Kindness Week, an annual event designed to prompt Americans to give back to one another in simple but significant ways. We, of course, encourage you to participate, particularly because our GOOD 30-Day Challenge this month is to be a better citizen. But one man in Chicago says a single week of self-improvement through kindness, or even a month, is too easy. That’s why he’s going for a full year. It all started in December 2011, when Ryan Garcia was considering what his New Year’s resolution would be. He thought about weight loss and other standard resolutions before looking at his five-month old daughter, Isla, and decided he wanted to do something that might one day inspire her. “I wanted to be a better person,” Garcia told the Dayton Daily News. With Isla on his mind, Garcia decided he was going to embark on a year of good things, during which he’d better the world—and himself—by doing a kindness per day for friends, strangers, and anyone else in need. He quickly got himself a blog and a Twitter account, which he’s used to document each of his 38 selfless acts thus far. On Day 21, Garcia cleaned the snow off all the cars on his block, while Day 33 found Garcia taking an Iraq war veteran and his family to a Northwestern University basketball game. Some of Garcia’s charities are bigger than others, but the overall effect as you click through his blog is awe-inspiring, and it will only become more so as the days go on. If you’d like to support Garcia’s project, or simply offer him words of encouragement, you can email him here. Photo via (cc) Flickr user SweetOnveg (via People Are Awesome: Man Embarks on Year of Random Kindnesses - News - GOOD)

Most Creative Music Video

OK Go set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles.

The new music video from OK Go, made in partnership with Chevrolet. OK Go set up over 1000 instruments over two miles of desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car. The video took 4 months of preparation and 4 days of shooting and recording. There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they’d play the right note no matter where they were struck. For more information and behind-the-scenes footage, see http://www.LetsDoThis.com and http://www.okgo.net. Many thanks to Chevy for believing in and supporting such an insane and ambitious project, and to Gretsch for providing the guitars.

Director: Brian L. Perkins & Damian Kulash, Jr.
Director of Photography: Yon Thomas
Editor: Doug Walker
Producer: Luke Ricci

OK Go - Needing/Getting - Official Video (by OkGo)

How could you not love this cute face?

A cutest Gracie moment, snuggling with Allie her Alligator.

London at Night | Timelapse of London Ontario | StoryBox Productions

This video was created with over 20000 still images all shot in London Ontario at night, in about a weeks time in November and December 2011. This is the Launch video and Introduction to our new commercial cinema company StoryBox Productions.

(by StoryboxProductions)

Western unveils their new brand to the world!

Check out Western’s New Visual Identity and Brand page: http://communications.uwo.ca/brandnew/

How to explain and promote a brand update clearly:

Why the new identity?

Western is a complex organization with multiple identities and symbols, which sometimes hinders our ability to communicate the impact of the university as a whole. A more unified visual identity for Western will strengthen our ability to gain greater recognition for our world-class research and teaching at home and abroad.

What is graphic design?

(via TwinFish Design Blog)