• Sleep mode is good enough. While the sleep mode in today’s computers uses minimal electricity (15 watts or less for Energy Star–certified ones, and as low as 2W for laptops), it’s intended for when you step away from the computer for a couple hours, not overnight.
• Turning computers off at night wears them out. A computer today is designed to be turned off 40,000 times. At a rate of once per day, it would take 109 years to fail.
• Quitting documents is the same as quitting applications. Applications idling in the background still use power (as I discovered when I asked the Apple store about my battery’s short lifespan). According to my laptop’s Activity Monitor, Photoshop uses 2% of my CPU and Word uses 1.5%, even with no documents open.
• Screensavers save energy. Screensavers were never intended to save electricity, just to prevent burn-in on old CRT monitors. They can use twice as much energy, and even stop the computer from going into sleep mode.
• I’ll remember to turn it off. You might most of the time, but not always. So use your computer’s automatic settings as a backup. On Macs this is found under System Preferences, Energy Saver. The EPA recommends putting hard drives to sleep after 30–60 minutes and monitors after 5–20 minutes.

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Many of these suggestions will end up saving only a few cents a month, but they take less effort than picking up a penny on the sidewalk. Why wouldn’t you use them?

One year ago: Microfibers Cloths Actually Are Miracle Cloths

A couple articles about energy generation this week. I found the Scientific American article (from 2009) especially interesting because of the chart showing how solar and wind can complement each other, with one generating the most energy while the other is generating the least.

• A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030 – Scientific American. Stanford professors explore the possibility of generating the world’s energy entirely through renewable sources. (Thanks, Lucas!)
• Tougher rules rile “green” power producers – Boston Globe. Massachusetts’s energy efficiency standards (40-60%) effectively outlaw new biomass plants (generally 25%).
• Supermarket Produce Labels – Good Guide. Not sure which fruits and vegetables in the supermarket are organic? Conventionally grown have 4-digit PLUs and organically grown have 5-digit PLUs that start with a 9.
• What’s the Deal with Castille? – The Greenists. I like the idea of Castille soap, but it always seems to leave my hands dry…
• The World’s First Organic Dairy Rap Video – Grist. Am I lame to think this is hilarious?
• Meatless Mondays: Autumn Explosion Bake – Change.org. I think I might try this with quinoa instead of millet.
• 20 Cheap, Healthy Dishes Made from 10 Pantry Staples – Cheap Healthy Good. Some recipes to keep in my back pocket.
• Are CFL Light Bulbs Dangerous? – The Good Human. No. In fact, the mercury in a CFL light bulb is less than the mercury emissions from a coal power plant needed to power an incandescent light bulb.
• Digital eBook Lending Coming to Amazon Kindle – Zatz Not Funny! You knew it would happen eventually. (Thanks, Jason!)
• Single Stream Recycling Comes to Cambridge – Boston Globe. Yay!

That’s all for this week. As always, if you come across anything interesting, send it my way.

I don’t know if I’d ever had Brussels sprouts without cheddar cheese before joining our CSA. But they’re surprisingly good. I went to a Boston Vegetarian Society dinner a few weeks ago (at Veggie Planet) where the main course was Brussels sprouts and chestnuts in brown butter sauce, and it blew my mind. It was so savory that for a second I wondered if the chestnuts were meat. This version (via Smitten Kitchen) isn’t quite that good, but it’s close.

There's something about getting them on the stalk that makes the whole thing more fun.

Mmmm... Buttery...

Brussels Sprouts and Chestnuts in Brown Butter Sauce

2 lbs Brussels sprouts, halved
4 tbsps butter
1/2 cup thinly sliced shallots
3 tbsps flour
2 cups stock
2 tbsps lemon juice
salt, to taste
pepper, to taste
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup roasted, peeled chestnuts, halved

1. Boil Brussels sprouts 10 minutes. Drain.
2. Melt butter in saucepan. Cook shallots over medium heat until light brown. Strain butter into a dish. Set shallots aside.
3. Return butter to saucepan and cook until brown. Whisk in flour and cook until light brown. Whisk in stock and cook until thickened. Add lemon juice, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir in chestnuts and Brussels sprouts.
4. Pour into 8-cup baking dish. Scatter shallots on top. Bake 15 minutes at 400 degrees.

Chestnuts are surprisingly hard to find at this time of year. Apparently stores only stock them around the holidays. I did find a jar of pre-roasted ones at Whole Foods, but they were imported from France and cost $14. That kind of goes against the whole point of eating seasonally… So I’d definitely make this recipe again, but only when I have both on hand.

One year ago: Boston Organics Update

Cooking has always been something I struggle with (and usually surrender). When we decided to try to eat more seasonally and got a CSA, we upped the pressure. From-scratch meals take much more time and planning, and we can’t just fall back on the old stand-by recipes, because each week we get vegetables that we might not have ever used before.

Food blogs have been essential to figuring out what to do with these vegetables. Yes, I could search through How to Cook Everything Vegetarian or Betty Crocker, but there’s something about the pictures and the personality of blogs that make me want to use the recipes more. And since they’re constantly updated, they’re generally using the same fruit and vegetables that I have on hand, too.

Some of my favorites:

• Cheap. Healthy. Good. The absolute best source for vegetarian recipes, with nutrition facts and prices included.
• The Conscious Shopper. Unfortunately, Erin has stopped blogging here, but there are lots of great (and cheap!) recipes in her archives.
• Sustainable Pantry. Alexa and Matthew also don’t update their blog much anymore, but their archives are great.
• Cheap Like Me. Not entirely a food blog, but it often has veggie recipes.
• Kate Flaim (Girl Reporter). Kate hasn’t had much time for posting since her baby was born, but check out her archives for lots of recipes she made with the veggies from our CSA.
• A Year of Slow Cooking. Three years later, this blog is still going, with lots of easy crock-pot recipes.
• Healthy Slow Cooking. Lots of crock-pot recipes that Kathy’s developing for a cookbook.
• Change.org. Their Meatless Mondays feature always has easy vegetarian recipes.
• Eat. Drink. Better. Lots of seasonal recipes mixed in with bigger-picture info about food.
• Stone Soup. While I haven’t made any of these recipes yet, they look good, and each one is preceded by interesting food facts.

Wow. You’d think with all these resources I’d have no trouble cooking more often. I guess sometimes I fall prey to the Food Network illness—being entertained watching other people cook rather than doing it myself.

Any food blogs you like?

One year ago: Why I Switched to an IUD

Lots of links this week about how to communicate environmental messages to people. Apparently “retrofitting,” “weatherization,” and “climate change” don’t test well. And talking about how much people save money by saving energy doesn’t work as well as talking about how much they lose money if they don’t save energy.

• Don’t Call It Retrofitting – Green Tech Enterprise. Focusing on health or comfort motivates people more than focusing on weatherization.
• In Kansas, Climate Skeptics Embrace Cleaner Energy – New York Times. In conservative areas, environmental groups promote saving money and getting off foreign oil.
• How Going Out to Dinner Can Save a Kid’s Life – Change.org. A UNICEF program makes tap water more appealing at restaurants by donating to clean water in developing countries.
• Saturday Throwback: Weekly Menu Planning for Singles, Couples, and Working People – Cheap Healthy Good. We did this religiously for a few years, but now have gotten out of the habit. Time to get back into it.
• Winter Squash 101 (Plus 18 Recipes!) – Cheap Healthy Good. Just what we need: more squash recipes.
• Seven tasty ways to stop wasting food – Salon. I don’t go off-recipe very often, but here’s a good reason to.
• Where Does My Money Go? – Energy Star. Interesting stats on where energy is used in the home.
• Turning on the Fan and Turning off the A/C – Energy Savers. Time to switch the ceiling fan to its winter setting.
• A Kind of Hunt That Even Deer Can Get Behind – New York Times. This is interesting. If hunters really care more about the sport than killing things, I’d think they’d support this.
• Mass. gets ready to power electric cars – Boston Globe. Charging stations will be installed around Massachusetts, including at Boston’s City Hall.
• Offshore Wind Power Line Wins Backing – New York Times. A 350-mile line down the east coast would encourage windmill production.
• What is a “Benefit Corporation”? – Green Light Distrikt. They’re not non-profits, but for-profit companies that exist for a specific public good.
• A green guide to getting along for parents and the childfree – Grist. We’ve heard everything in the “What not to say to GINKs” column many, many times over.
• Insulation Made out of Gap Jeans: How’s That for Sexy? – Energy Circle. The jean trade-in is back. (Hopefully they’ll be able to keep up with demand this time.)

In other news, we were the Boston Globe’s Money Makeover for October! In exchange for the potential public embarrassment, we got some great advice. (Like if you’re worried that you might need the money you’re saving before retirement, invest in a Roth IRA—you can withdraw your own contributions penalty-free at any time.)

As always, send along any interesting green news that you see this week.