By Wendy

Summer is officially here. It’s time take the grill out of the garage and start the barbeque! Call the family, make the salad, and get the hotdogs and hamburgers ready. They’re the perfect condiment. So perfect that a group of engineers at MIT have also created a new liquid called LiquiGlide used to coat the inside of condiment bottles for an easier pour and not waste a single drop.

My favorite ketchup is Krazy Ketchup. It was created by moms who wanted to give their kids a great tasting ketchup. It’s also 100% Certified Organic and rich in Vitamin A, Vitamin C, and Potassium.

For you DIY moms, here’s an easy homemade ketchup recipe you can make at home:

What You Need:

1 (28-oz) can whole tomatoes in puree

1 medium onion, chopped

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2/3 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/2 teaspoon salt

What to Do:

Blend the can of whole tomatoes in a blender until smooth

Cook onions in oil in a 4-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, stirring until softened, about 8 minutes

Add blended tomatoes, tomato paste, brown sugar, vinegar, and salt and simmer, uncovered, stirring occasionally, until very thick, about 1 hour, stirring more frequently toward the end of cooking to prevent scorching

Puree ketchup in 2 batches in blender until it’s smooth. Chill covered, at least 2 hours to help flavors develop.

Cooks’ note: Ketchup can be chilled up to 3 weeks

But what else can you do with ketchup? Here are 5 things you can do with your new found ketchup besides putting it on your burger:

1. Shine Your Copper Pot and Pans- the acidity in ketchup helps to remove the tarnish build up, making your pieces shine like new. Apply a thin layer of ketchup on your copper pan for 20 minutes. Rinse and dry.
2. Keeping Your Silver Pieces Bright and Sparkly- ketchup can also remove the grime that builds up on silver jewelry and other pieces. Pour ketchup into a bowl and dip silver pieces right in for 20 minutes. You may want to scrub hard to reach places. Rinse and dry thoroughly.
3. Fixing of Chlorine Damaged Hair- it helps to remove the icky green that you sometimes get after being in swimming pools. Just apply ketchup all over your hair and let it marinate for about 20 minutes. Wash hair thoroughly and you should see results.
4. Making Fake Blood During Halloween- ketchup makes great imitation blood for those vampire and zombie Halloween costumes for the kids
5. Finger Painting for Toddlers- let kids use ketchup to paint their food to make it eating more fun and nutritious.

What other things do you use your ketchup for?

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Wendy Yu is a digital marketing professional living in New York City. When she’s not using the power of social media to share ideas on how to be more environmentally friendly, she is exploring the city, trying local foods, and learning more about how she can reduce her carbon footprint.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of Green Halloween® or our partners.

Who says desserts can’t be healthy and delicious!  We are always looking for ways to incorporate fruits and veggies into every meal and snack so that we eat a rainbow of produce everyday.  One of our favorite desserts happens to feature one of our favorite fruits…blueberries!!!!  Blueberries have been called a superfood…in our house we call them brainfood!  So what better to include in a dessert?!  This is an quick and healthy dessert to whip up!

We like to use frozen blueberries and layer up a glass with homemade granola and Greek yogurt!  You can add a little bit of vanilla to plain Greek yogurt to give it a little sweetness.  Making your own granola is really easy and a great recipe to make with your kids!

Happy Healthy Eating,
Kia

Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!

Don’t these strawberries look so amazing!?!  Such a vibrant red, I love the way they look with their bright green stems, I took a ridiculous amount of pictures of these beauties!  We bought 4 large flats of them, we ate one flat and froze the other three.  We love freezing fresh picked strawberries because when it’s cold and snowy here in the winter and fresh local strawberries are just a distant memory, we can take out some frozen strawberries and toss them in our morning shake!  It’s a good feeling knowing  that our frozen strawberries are organic…we used to buy bags of regular frozen strawberries but now that we now that strawberries are included in the Environmental Working Group’s dirty dozen list we ensure that we only eat organic ones!

Freezing Strawberries is easy:

1.  Rinse Strawberries

2.  Trim the stems off

3.  Let them dry

4.  Place on lined baking sheet (tips pointing up) make sure to give space around each strawberry so they don’t freeze together!

5.  After 5 -6 hours place the frozen strawberries in a freezer bag or container

Happy Healthy Eating
Kia

Kia Robertson is a mom and the creator of the Today I Ate A Rainbow kit; a tool that helps parents establish healthy habits by setting the goal of eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day. Kia is passionate about creating tools that help parents raise healthy kids!