Filed under: BetterWay Blog
By Chef Randall Smith
Garlic is available all year long and has substantial health benefits and roast garlic is now served in many fine restaurants in place of table butter for bread. Once roasted, garlic loses its sharpness and becomes sweet, rich and tender. It is very simple and makes an elegant statement at a formal dinner or a healthier substitute for butter on your bread every day.
Yields: 1/2 cup roasted garlic
Ingredients
1 large head of garlic
Olive oil
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 F. Remove any loose papery skin from head of garlic. Brush with olive oil and wrap in a small piece of foil. Roast in the oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven and slice horizontally across the cloves with a very sharp knife.
Serve warm with bread or rolls on side plates with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkling of kosher salt. Garlic can be squeezed out of the heads or scooped out with a knife. They will keep 1 week in the refrigerator.
Randall Smith is the author of Farm Fresh Flavors: Over 450 Delicious Recipes Using Local Ingredients. Don’t miss his other recipes on this blog including Wilted Arugula Sauté and Poached Ramps with Mustard Vinaigrette.
May 18, 2012
By Susan Fay West
Organizing your home and organizing your schedule are projects that can be hard to take on. Why is that? I think one reason organizing seems difficult is because we go into it with a negative attitude about our situations.
You may not realize this, but start noticing how you talk to yourself or to others about your stuff or about your schedule, whichever you feel needs more organization. We often use negative metaphors to explain how our situation makes us feel. Here are some metaphors I’ve heard over the years:
Getting organized can seem like an uphill battle.
- It’s like my feet are in concrete blocks, just dragging me down, holding me back.
- Earth weights: My stuff is like earth weights, holding me down instead of letting me do what I want.
- It’s all just like a monkey on my back. I can’t focus on my hobbies and or having fun until that monkey’s gone.
- It’s like an excavation. There’s an archeological dig going on in my house.
- It’s a steep train ride to the top. I just don’t know how I’ll ever get there.
None of these are metaphors for a fun time. No wonder we have to ramp up our energy to start organizing. What would happen if we took each metaphor and flipped it to make it a positive statement? What if the concrete blocks were merely an anchor you were connected to by a rope? As you get organized, you’re untying that rope and setting yourself free. Focus on the solution and the freedom, instead of the weight and the burden.What about the monkey? What happens if we find him a new home, by sending the stuff we no longer want to organizations or people who will use and appreciate the items. The monkey will be off your back. How does that feel? Can you picture him swinging in the trees and having fun in his new home?
The key to getting organized and staying organized is focusing on the positive end result instead of being overwhelmed by the messy beginning or busy work in the middle. Anytime you’re organizing, it’s very powerful to think about what it be like when you’ve made progress towards your organizing goal.
Start any organizational project by knowing what you want the end result to look like and how you want to feel when you are organized. Then let that vision and feeling be your motivation throughout your organizing project.
Susan Fay West is the author of Organize for a Fresh Start.
May 9, 2012
by Creek Stewart
This is the third of 12 blog posts describing the 12 supply categories needed in a Bug Out Bag. The first two categories are water and food. The third is shelter and bedding.
Exposure to the elements is the number 1 outdoor killer—period. In extreme conditions, SHELTER can be (and often is) your number 1 priority. Humans can die in as little as 3 hours (or less) in extreme cold or hot conditions. There have been countless instances of hypothermia in temperatures as high as 50 degrees. Combine water, wind and cold temps and you have a recipe for death.
A sudden and violent disaster (natural or man made) can force you and your family from your home with little to no warning in any kind of weather conditions. When the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami struck Japan in March 2011 it forced tens of thousands of people from their homes with as little as 30 minutes warning. Many of them fled to the mountains in freezing conditions with what they could carry on their backs. There wasn’t an ‘evacuation safe-haven’ for these people to stay in and no one was waiting at the city edge to cradle them with warm blankets and hot chocolate. If it happened to them, it can happen to you.
Shelter solutions MUST be included in your BOB and they MUST be tested to work for you and your Bug Out Crew.
As fun and cool as it looks, building a natural shelter should be your LAST option in the midst of a Bug Out Evacuation. Natural improvised shelters are labor intensive, time consuming and calorie draining, all of which you want to avoid when getting to a safe destination is your number 1 priority.
The shelter and bedding you have with you is your first defense against fighting the battle against exposure. While not very glamorous, this chapter in my book is extremely important. Shelter and Bedding is a critical supply category that should be carefully considered in EVERY Bug Out Bag.
It’s so important, in fact, that I encourage redundancy when it comes to Bug Out sheltering solutions. Even if you pack a lightweight tent in your BOB, the knowledge and supplies to construct a quick tarp or poncho shelter as a wind or rain break can save your life. I discuss many of these shelter options throughout this chapter. Your main shelter system might get damaged, lost or stolen. Back-up solutions to critical supply categories are important because nothing is guaranteed. The survival gain from a light-weight backpacking tarp is well worth any space and weight sacrifices you might make to include one in your BOB.
A “roof” over your head is only one aspect of shelter. In a disaster Bug Out you must be prepared for worst case scenarios. No shelter system is complete without bedding that can keep you warm in the worst of climates. Besides fire (which I will discuss in a later post) bedding is a key component to keeping your core temp in check during frigid night-time sleeping conditions.
Bedding consists of not only what is on top of you but also what is underneath you. Conductive heat loss into the cold earth below can render even the best sleeping bag and shelter system virtually useless. Understanding how the body loses heat in a wilderness environment is critical to selecting Bug Out Bag Shelter and Sleeping Gear. Even the simplest short-comings came prove deadly in extreme environments.
As with any critical Bug Out Supply category, what works for you may not be the best solution for the next guy and vice versa. Selecting gear is only the first step and it is very personal—there are no right or wrong answers. However, all human survival needs are the same and shelter is at the top of the list. Your shelter and bedding systems must be tested to work and must meet your expectations. If they do not, then it’s back at ground zero. Mother Nature & Mankind can be brutal and merciless adversaries. It’s important now, during moments of peace and normality, that you invest the necessary time into selecting gear that will withstand the conditions that only a Bug Out situation can present.
Remember, it’s not IF but WHEN,
Creek
Creek Stewart is the author of Build the Perfect Bug-Out Bag: Your 72 Hour Disaster Survival Kit.
April 26, 2012
By Melanie Unger
Like most other people, I know it is essential to balance aspects of “quality versus quantity” in life. It’s such a cliché anymore to hear these words, but I’ve been thinking about it a great deal lately, and I’m realizing that both of these are essential in life.
In the classroom, I want to promote this aspect of quality to ensure that kids are truly learning. For example, even if I do not complete all parts of my daily lesson plans, I can still be confident of the value I placed on the quality of my instruction. If I have worked hard to engage kids, helped them to think creatively, guided them to nourish their love of reading, or supported them to become more reflective about a particular topic, then I have honored quality over quantity, and can honestly be okay letting go of the fact that I didn’t cross off everything on my to-do list with my students. As I say in my book, Organized Teacher, Happy Classroom, ”addressing quality in our teaching never ignores the value of the activities we do with our students.”
Promoting quality over quantity in our personal lives equally important. I recently talked about this very concept with a friend. Most of us have realized that it’s so important to have a few close friends who support and care for you, and with whom you can also be a blessing in a multitude of ways. A few quality friendships contribute far more to our daily lives than all of our more peripheral friendships (those in a wide circle of friends and acquaintances). That’s not to say we can’t be friends with a large number of people, but who we gain daily encouragement from, and share our own support, care, and energy with, can usually be most meaningfully found with a few close friends in our lives.
However, as much as I value quality, I realize, too, the value of quantity. For example,
- In my classroom, I encourage students to read a certain number of books each year. My passion is supporting students to love and honor the wonderful act of reading. To this end, I talk endlessly about the value of voracious reading habits, and about the power of reading lots and lots of books. Quantity IS key here (quality of books is also important, of course, but quantity really matters in this activity).
- As a teacher I need to think of ways to honor every child’s learning habits and styles. I need to initiate lessons using more than one method or way of teaching. To this end, I have to have a quantity of methods in my lesson plans.
- Getting organized is another area of our lives in which quantity does matter. Surely, quality is key, because if we don’t choose an organizing system well enough, we won’t be any better off than when we first started. But, if we only have one way of ever doing something, we may become stuck, get in a rut, or grow ever more frustrated. That’s why it’s great to discover different methods to support us in our journey toward becoming more organized. Finding and trying out several ideas opens up for us a greater repertoire of ways to get organized.
So, it’s clear to me that both quality AND quantity really do matter. Though not a new concept or an amazing new discovery, it’s great to reflect in different ways about how both can make a difference in our lives.
In what areas of your life do you see both quality and quantity being important?
Melanie Unger is a professional organizer and classroom teacher. She is the author of Organized Teacher, Happy Classroom.
April 18, 2012
By Creek Stewart
This is the second of 12 blog posts describing the 12 supply categories needed in a Bug Out Bag. The first category is water. The second is food.
Though Food and Food Preparation is the second Bug Out Bag supply category detailed in my book, it certainly is not the second most important. ‘Important’, though, is a relative term when it comes to a Bug Out Bag. Every category is important. It’s just that some are more important than others. When it comes to a 72-Hour Survival Bug Out 
situation, Food and Food Prep would be fairly close to the bottom when it comes to survival necessities. We can survive for up to three-weeks (or longer) without any food at all. Notice my emphasis on the word survive. You can survive but it would get progressively more and more uncomfortable and difficult as your body slowly suffers the debilitating consequences of starvation.
BOTTOM LINE: The longer you go without replenishing the calories you burn the less efficient you will become.
Food, and by food I mean calories, is to the human body as gasoline is to an engine. You need to put calories in the human engine to run at peak condition. Without them, your body will putter out and eventually stop working all together. So far, this is pretty much common sense.
However, when it comes to packing food in your Bug Out Bag, it is anything but common. The food you carry has to be easy to prepare, light-weight, have a long shelf-life and be loaded with calories. Some food products make better candidates than others and these must be carefully and strategically selected—every ounce of weight and every calorie counts. With that said, this isn’t five-star dining, it’s survival food to get you through an uncertain time and place.
Your Bug Out Bag food doesn’t need to break the bank, either. You’d be surprised how many items fit into the Bug Out Bag food requirements mentioned above. I don’t have more than $12 worth of food in my personal Bug Out Bag and it all easily fits into a 1-gallon resealable bag with room to spare.
Food Preparation & Related Tools
In my opinion, every Bug Out Bag should also include items for Food Prep and Cooking. At the top of the list is a small, portable and efficient stove with fuel. Your stove 
can be used for heating foods or boiling water. My Bug Out Bag food items are all open-and-eat, meaning I don’t need a stove or fire to prepare them. However, I still carry a small Esbit stove with solid fuel tablets just in case. There are many factors to consider when selecting a stove.
A metal cook pot and cup are two other essential Bug Out Bag Food Prep items for a variety of reasons. In my book, I discuss how a Bug Out Bag is designed for a 72 Hour time period. However, I also stress the importance of including some items that can be instrumental in getting you through a longer period if necessary. Food prep items are definitely in this list. You can burn through a few meals in your BOB pretty quick, especially if you don’t ration them properly. Packing some key food prep items and tools gives you the option to gather, scavenge, hunt and prepare food along your journey if necessary.
America is 9 meals away from chaos.
I don’t remember where I heard or read that phrase but it’s always stuck with me. What this means is that your average American household has around 9 meals worth of food in their pantry. When people run out of food, things get ugly quick, hence, 9 meals away from chaos. While I’ve never personally been through a full-scale Bug Out, I’ve experienced several small-scale emergencies such as 2-3 day power outages, ice storms, flooding, severe winter storms and the like. I’m sure most of you have experienced events like these, or even larger. Have you ever tried to go to the grocery store to get a few last minute items right as the five o’clock news announces the eminent arrival of a huge winter storm? People get crazy! They will clear the shelves over a few inches of snow, imagine what they will do in the wake of a large-scale disaster. If you don’t already have your Bug Out food supply before the disaster, you’re screwed, plain and simple. I can remember when 9-11 happened. Even in the middle of Indiana, where there were no attacks, I couldn’t get gas, and the grocery stores were insane. People who have been through large-scale disasters such as Hurricane Katrina will attest to the fact that immediate supplies are quickly depleted and people get down right dangerous when it comes to finding more.
Remember, while we are preparing for 72 hours, there’s certainly not a guarantee that things will return to normal in that time frame.
The only guarantee we have is that an actual Bug Out will be much different than we can even imagine. Preparing for the unexpected is crucial. In this particular chapter in the book, I discuss many of the items that help you prepare for the unexpected. You might be surprised what’s included.
So as you begin your ‘build’, don’t forget the importance of Food and Food Prep Related Items.
Remember, it’s not IF but WHEN,
Creek
Creek Stewart is the author of Build the Perfect Bug-Out Bag.
April 13, 2012
by Debbie Lillard
Spring has arrived and lawn work and gardening won’t be far behind. As the weather warms, it’s a great time to organize your garage and create a lawn/gardening hub for all of your supplies.
As a Professional Organizer I have organized a few garages of all sizes and styles (both attached and stand alone buildings) in my day.
I think there are some common problems with garages that people share no matter where they live.
- A garage is not just for keeping cars. Many people use their garage to store bikes, lawn equipment, sports equipment, wood for fireplaces, tools, and all kinds of bulky equipment.
- The garage is an entrance way into the house for a lot of families, so you might keep shoes, recycles, and trash there. This might be your motivation for trying to keep it organized, because you walk through it all the time and don’t want to look at a mess!
- A garage is usually one big room, which makes it hard to organize because there’s no pre-determined place to put things. You have to create a system from scratch.
If you’ve decided it’s time to tackle the garage, you can follow my CPR process that I discuss in my book Absolutely Organized: A Mom’s Guide to a No-Stress Schedule and Clutter-Free Home. (This process will work for any room you want to organize.)
You’ve got to plan the time to do it and solicit some help either from your family or a friend. It’s not a one-person job and it’s going to take anywhere from 3 to 6 hours the first time you do it. To make it fun, put on some music, give the kids a reward afterwards or promise your friend a meal that evening. As I always say, if you don’t plan it, it’s not going to happen.
- CATEGORIZE. Take everything out of the garage and put it in piles in your driveway or on your lawn. Categories can be: sports equipment, lawn & garden, tools, bikes. And if one of those categories is really big: break it down further.
- PURGE. As you pull things out start to purge whatever is broken or disgusting, or anything you don’t use anymore. For items you want to give away, I suggest you look online for places to donate, or give to a friend or just put at the end of your driveway and let people take it. For chemicals or gasoline, call your township and find out about hazardous waste collections.
- RE-ARRANGE. Now that you have piles of everything you’re keeping, start to think about what you use most often and make it accessible. For the kids’ toys and sports equipment, use colorful plastic tubs on the floor. For lawn chemicals, put them in plastic bins up on a shelf. Keep things in their categories and create zones. Even if you don’t have the right containers or shelves right now, put things back in temporary containers where you want them by the end of your organizing session.
Now you can go shopping for what you need like industrial shelves, wall cabinets, racks, etc. There’s a range of products for garages and you can spend thousands of dollars on a complete makeover, but you want to make sure it’s organized first, so you can measure the space for exactly what you need. Rubbermaid has an inexpensive Track system if you want to do it yourself or you can go high-end to places like GarageTek. I’ve even seen people put up old kitchen cabinets in their garage for storage. Whatever works!
To keep your garage organized, you have to straighten on a weekly basis. I suggest you teach your kids where things go and ask them to put things back to normal on Sunday. Then get the whole family in the habit of cleaning it out on a seasonal basis. Our family has a pool so we do a Saturday clean out once in the late spring to get the pool/beach stuff out and then another clean out in the fall to put the pool stuff away and get the winter supplies out. Because we do this twice a year I am proud to say we do it now in less than 2 hours, so it’s not an all-day hassle anymore.
Debbie Lillard is the author of Absolutely Organized: A Mom’s Guide to a No-Stress Schedule and Clutter-Free Home and Absolutely Organize Your Family: Simple Solutions to Control Clutter, Schedules and Spaces.
April 4, 2012
by Chef Randall Smith
Use this Wilted Arugula Sauté dish as a model for simple wilted green and pasta dishes. Nearly any lettuce or green can be substituted for the arugula and feel free to play around with different types of cheese, nuts, and other garnish ingredients.
Serves: 6
Ingredients
1 pound dry linguini
½ cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves, gently crush with the flat of a knife
4 cups arugula, firmly pack
½ cup pistachio nuts, roughly chop
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped basil
Directions
Bring a large pot of water to the boil over high heat. Cook linguine per package directions until tender but not soft.
While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil in a very large skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and cook for 2 minutes until it just browns. Add arugula and cook for about 30 seconds until leaves just wilt. Remove skillet from the heat.
Drain pasta completely in a colander and return to the pot. Add the arugula and garlic mixture, pistachio nuts, and ¾ cup of the cheese to the pot; salt and pepper to taste. Toss well and serve in a decorative bowl. Top with the remaining cheese and the basil.
Randall Smith is the author of Farm Fresh Flavors: Over 450 Delicious Recipes Using Local Ingredients. Don’t miss his other recipes on this blog including Poached Ramps with Mustard Vinaigrette.
March 30, 2012
Perennials will give you years of produce—making them a cost effective gardening option. In this 5 minute video webinar, Produce Year After Year 
Without Trying, Deanna Caswell and Daisy Siskin, authors of Little House in the Suburbs: Backyard Farming and Home Skills for Self-Sufficient Living, share ideas for planting and maintaining perennials in your garden so you can enjoy fresh produce from your garden year after year.
Download this webinar for FREE by signing up for our e-mail newsletter in the Free Webinars box on the right-hand rail. If you’ve already signed up for the newsletter, simply return to your bookmarked page and you’ll see the update.
This is the fourth and final module in the Grow a Great Garden Without Trying webinar series. When you sign up for the e-mail newsletter you’ll also receive free access to Module 1: Great Compost Without Trying, Module 2: Great Dirt Without Trying, and Module 3: Great Growth Without Trying as well as other great Betterway Home webinars about creative meal planning and organizing after a life change.
Wondering what a webinar is? It’s a recorded video presentation. Think of it as a seminar presented on the web.
March 28, 2012
The Grow a Great Garden Without Trying Module 3: Great Growth Without Trying webinar is now available for download for free. A high yield with little effort is every gardener’s dream. In this 7 minute video, Deanna Caswell and Daisy Siskin, authors of Little House in the Suburbs: Backyard Farming and Home Skills for Self-Sufficient Living, share their secrets for getting maximum produce from the plants in their gardens. The simple advice in this presentation will save you from years of failed crops and thwarted efforts.
Download this webinar for FREE by signing up for our e-mail newsletter in the Free Webinars box on the right-hand rail. After you sign up, bookmark the page so you can return and view the final module when it is added next week. If you’ve already signed up for the newsletter, simply return to your bookmarked page and you’ll see the update. When you sign up for the e-mail newsletter you’ll also receive free access to Module 1: Great Compost Without Trying and Module 2: Great Dirt Without Trying as well as other great Betterway Home webinars about creative meal planning and organizing after a life change.
Wondering what a webinar is? It’s a recorded video presentation. Think of it as a seminar presented on the web.
March 21, 2012
by Susan Fay West
Life changes and major events interrupt our lives in ways that we cannot imagine. Whether the changes are joyous (welcoming a family member), unexpected (a job loss, major surgery) or tragic (loss of a loved one), these changes leave us with homes, belongings, and schedules that no longer meet our needs or help us live our lives. Reorganizing is an important part of processing any life change.
Reorganizing after a change is useful because it helps you update your schedule, office or home to accommodate your new way of living. Organizing systems and routines cannot be static, because life isn’t static. Plus these systems are what give you the time to deal with the life change. How do you know when you’re ready to shift, to change your systems, reorganize your space or declutter your past?
Answer: When you feel as if you’re turning a corner.
When you’re thinking more about what’s next than what was. When you are contemplating creating physical and mental space for your next chapter, even if all you know is that you want to move on slowly. You don’t need to have all the answers to begin.
Wait until you feel the pull of your next stage or chapter in life and when you look around your home or look at your calendar and start to say “That’s not me anymore.”Only you can judge that timing. Listen to your voice, and only your voice; if you listen to what everyone else tells you, you’ll make decisions you may regret later on.
Take your time. Live with what you have until it feels like you’re “turning a corner.” Wait until you know it’s time. Until you can see that last corner … just before you begin your next chapter in life. And then it’s time to reorganize and create something comfortable but new, a blend of what you love from your last chapter with space enough for whatever is coming your way.
Certified Organizer Coach and Certified Professional Organizer Susan Fay West is the author of Organize For A Fresh Start. Her website is organizenh.com.
March 19, 2012
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Yields: 1/2 cup roasted garlic
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