larissaswayze, Author at Of Houses and Trees

5 Healthy Homemade Salad Dressings

Healthy homemade salad dressing takes a bit of extra work, but the benefits are so worth it. Here are five of my favourites!

Once upon a time I ate “healthy.” This is what people do when they mean well and count calories and eat things labelled “low fat.” But a few years ago I turned into the “read every ingredient on the label and then painstakingly research it” kind of person and let me tell you, it was terrifying. On salad dressing labels alone: calcium sodium EDTA, high fructose corn syrup, modified food starch. If you’ve ever made a simple homemade salad dressing, you know that all you really need is balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and olive oil… which is exactly how you make one of my recipes!

Summer Land Tour

A little girl running on a country road with the words "land tour." Click to visit post.

I’ve been wanting to take you all on a tour of our land for quite awhile now. You can read all about how it came to be ours in my post The Story of Our Land. I think the pictures in that post give a good idea of what the land is all about. And I hope my writing paints a vivid word picture. I do tend to get kind of poetic when espousing on things I’m passionate about.

But if a picture is worth a thousand words (and as a writer, I’m not sure I always buy that line), then how many pictures is a video worth? I suppose it depends on the content and the quality of the video, but I think this one captures the true – and largely untamed – beauty of our land.

I hope you enjoy watching my land tour as much as I enjoyed making it!

Eco-Friendly Building Material Magnesium Oxide Board

Magnesium oxide board is an eco-friendly drywall alternative made with naturally-occurring materials using an environmentally friendly process.

Aside from Of Houses and Trees, I also write content for a few other architecturally-minded blogs. One subject I’ve written quite a bit about lately is the building material magnesium oxide board (MgO board). If you’ve never heard of it, it’s essentially an eco-friendly drywall alternative. And, of course, as soon as I see the phrase “eco-friendly alternative” I get all giddy and start geeking out. It looks like we’re going to build our Real Life Home next spring. (Fingers crossed!) And I absolutely want to use as many green materials as possible. Not only are environmentally friendly materials good for the planet, but they’re also good for you and your family as they tend to release little to no VOCs (volatile organic compounds) into your home nor other narsty chemicals. (Did you know synthetic drywall contains formaldehyde? Yuck.)

How to Keep Your House (Mostly) Clean with Kids

Have children? Find it impossible to keep your house clean? Me too! But I have figured out how to keep my home "mostly clean." Here are my cleaning tips!

One of my personal mottos is “a clean home equals a clean mind.” I probably ripped that off from some cult leader or something, but if I did – man that’s one persuasive cult leader. Because I cannot function properly when my house is a mess.

Before I had my daughters, I prided myself on a spick and span home. A place where you could confidently eat off the floors. Now that I have children, I pride myself on a clean home even more. Because, dudes, it can be really hard to keep your home clean with kids.

Not that I’m remotely saying individuals without children don’t have busy lives that leave little room for cleaning. But the difference is when you don’t have kids and you clean your home – it tends to stay clean. Sometimes for an ENTIRE DAY.

These Baked Chickpeas are So Good You’ll Forget They Came From a Can

A blue bowl with a floral pattern filled with baked chickpeas.

I have a confession to make. Up until a few years ago, I HATED chickpeas. (Also known as garbanzo beans, which was the name by which I knew them during my decades long boycott.) I remember my mom used to buy a five bean salad from the grocery store deli that included chickpeas and I couldn’t even choke it down. I’ve written before about how I’ve since conditioned myself to love legumes. And out of this super nutritious food category chickpeas are at the top of my list. Can we just talk about how versatile they are for a second?

Poetry Artwork with text from The Lorax

Love literature as much as you love making creative things? Then this poetry art project - featuring a poem using text from The Lorax - is for you!

If you love literature as much as you love making creative things for you home then this poetry art project will tickle you pink green. (This is a blog about green living after all!) When I was in university I took a few poetry courses as part of my combined English and creative writing honours degree. One of the assignments – called erasure poetry – really stuck with me and I thought it would be a cool way to create some simple DIY artwork for my newly arranged shelf library.

This project actually combines two different poetry techniques – erasure and cut-up, which may seem similar but have an important distinction.

Planting a Sapling: How to Plant a Tree Sapling in 5 Easy Steps

Closeup of a tree sapling planted in soil with more trees in the background.

There’s nothing like planting a sapling. They’re so tiny, it’s almost unimaginable one day they’ll be towering trees. Trees with the ability to provide shade, a home to insects and animals and in some cases fruit to eat. From something so small to an integral part of our ecosystem, communicating with its kin through underground networks and providing oxygen for us to breath. Which, you know, is kind of important.

Devin and I try to plant a few trees every year out on the land. It’s our way of saying thank you to a place that gives us so much joy and doing our part in the battle against deforestation and other unsustainable practices. So, if you’ve never planted a tree – you really should!

5 of Canada’s Most Sustainable Buildings

Happy 150th birthday Canada! To celebrate our country’s milestone, I’ve put together a list of a few of its most eco-friendly buildings. As far as green countries go, Canada certainly isn’t at the top of the list. But with our government’s shifting priorities and increased public awareness about the impact of unsustainable choices, architects are now designing buildings with the environment in mind.

Interestingly, the current trend in sustainable building isn’t designing structures filled with fancy green technology. Instead it’s about creating smart buildings that don’t need all the bells and whistles. A building’s orientation, amount and quality of windows, square footage and types of materials are all current focuses in sustainable building. So here is a sampling of some of the greenest buildings in Canada. May they be an inspiration to us all!

Creamy Vegan Broccoli Soup

Mmmm… soup. I am definitely a fan. Winter or summer, day or night, I’d eat soup seven days a week if I could. And I can. Because I’m an adult and although that comes with all sorts of annoying “responsibilities” it also comes with the freedom to eat whatever I want, whenever I want. (Within reason… and often not within reason at all. Hello, leftover pizza for breakfast.) And sometimes I want to eat thick and creamy soup… without the cream.

Yes. That’s right. No cream. Which means no dairy. Which means safe for vegans, lactose-intolerants and calorie counters alike. How is this possible, you say? It’s creamy, but there’s no cream? Well, my friends, let me tell you about a life-changing cooking technique called “roux.” Some of you may already be familiar – particularly if you’ve made gravy before. I myself had used it many a times to make gravy in the past before discovering it actually has a name. But, honestly, I thought it was just a gravy thing and didn’t realize until the last year or so that it can be used in so very many applications. Including the creation of a healthy broccoli soup… that’s also creamy and vegan!

9 Helpful Tools and Supplies for an Eco Friendly Garden

Closeup of a pair of hands wearing garden gloves and pruning a plant.

‘Tis the season! For gardening that is. There aren’t many things in this world better than sticking your hands in freshly turned garden soil. (Except eating it when pregnant – which I did. Don’t judge.) Last spring, I wrote a post featuring a Homemade Garden Fertilizer recipe, but I only tried it out once due to the fact that I had a newborn and a two year old at the time.

Now that my kids are one and three I obviously have so much more time on my hands so I’ll be dousing my abundant vegetable garden in homemade fertilizer on a weekly basis. Except I don’t have a vegetable garden this year because I was being facetious about all the time on my hands. Hello. My kids are one and three! I couldn’t even plant runner beans because my eldest kept spilling the seeds between the deck boards while my baby climbed fully-clothed into the kiddie pool.