Selling ice cream in Tucson, Arizona does not sound like such a creative idea. According to the Weather Channel website, the average high temperature in June is 100° and 101° in July before it cools down to an average high of 99° in August. In the famously arid climate of the Sonoran Dessert, there are also plenty of ice cream friendly days in the other nine months of the year as well. As long as there’s been ice cream, there has been a demand for it in Southern Arizona.

The problem for anyone wanting to get a piece of the ice cream pie – so to speak – is that large ice cream companies have been filling that demand for decades. But Dominic Johnson, a world-class pole vaulter with international experience in three Olympic Games, and his wife Kristel had a dream of starting an ice cream business in Tucson.

The Johnsons looked at the ice cream market in Tucson, and saw two voids. They may have been small voids, but they were in two of the most important segments of any successful business or industry – distribution and quality. They remembered a way of bringing ice cream to the customer that was once an American institution but had nearly vanished from Tucson – the ice cream truck. Distribution taken care of. And they knew they could make a better ice cream than those processed pints and quarts sold by the large, corporate dairies and creameries. Quality. Check.

But Johnson wanted to go an extra step with their ice cream business. As a new shooter in the ice cream market, they wanted to stand out as much as possible with the truck, the ice cream and more. The unique truck and the natural ice cream were obvious. But the Johnsons wanted to go one step further. “The whole idea behind the new business was to be responsible both socially and environmentally,” said Kristel Johnson. “Traveling the world while Dominic was a professional athlete allowed us to experience many different cultures and their people. We began to realize that the one thing we share with everybody around the world is the planet. And we need to be aware of how we occupy it.”

The ice cream that the  Johnsons sell today as Isabella’s Ice Cream is made from only the most choice ingredients beginning with the local, hormone free, fresh cream. The flavors are created from bourbon vanilla beans, Guittard chocolates, Hawaiian macadamia nuts, Pacific Northwest fruit and blended coffees from Columbia. There are no artificial ingredients or stabilizers in Isabella’s Ice Cream and their small batch, French pot method makes a very dense and rich ice cream.

The Johnsons also wanted their ice cream truck to stand out. It had to functional – ice cream must easily be transported and sold from the truck – and it had to be unique. So after months of research, he and wife Kristel decided on an old Ford Model T design. The Model T would standout in appearance and the open bed made it functional for selling ice cream. Now three years after the Johnson’s first concept of selling ice cream, the truck design has been nearly as important to the success of the business as the ice cream. “Originally, we just wanted a truck that would provide a place from which to sell ice cream,” Kristel said. “But in many ways the truck has opened a lot of doors for us. We first planned to sell the ice cream to kids and maybe work a festival or an event or two. But the truck is so unique and fun and popular that we’re currently booked with events into October.”

Producing a fresh ice cream locally would satisfy much of environmental standards the Johnson wanted, but they wanted to take the business one step greener. So an electric engine for the truck also quickly became part of the design. And because the truck is 100% electric with zero emissions, it can be used and driven in indoor events as well. In fact, weddings are among the most frequently booked events. “It is so fun,” Kristel said. “After the newlyweds cut the cake, the wedding guests hear a big I-O-O-G-A-H and we drive into the ballroom and start serving the ice cream.”

But the green ice cream design didn’t stop with the engine. The wood used for the custom siding and flooring on the truck is all recycled – recycled and famous that is. The hardwood planks were once a part of the legendary Lute & Bobbie Olson basketball court at the University of Arizona McKale Center. Isabella’s Ice Cream is also served with wooden biodegradable spoons, they use recycled napkins and serve drinks in recyclable glass bottles adding even more green aspects to the business.

Whether the Isabella Ice Cream truck visits a given neighborhood or not, the Johnsons want to make sure customers can find them. Their website lists several events on the truck’s schedule and live GPS updates with the truck’s current location.

Kristel says that Isabella’s Ice Cream has grown much faster than they anticipated. Plans for their own creamery have been accelerated and they are planning to have a downtown Tucson location soon. The ice cream is also now available at Rincon Market and Maynard’s Market and Kitchen in Tucson. The restaurant at Maynard’s has put the Isabella’s Ice Cream on their menu and now also serve custom desserts designed by their chef around the different flavors.

While the corporations continue to sell their ice cream to Tucson by the tractor trailer load, Dominic and Kristel Johnson will continue to make their all natural ice cream and sell it out of a Model T. While executives peruse cost analysis trying to find a cheaper high fructose corn syrup or better tasting mono and diglycerides, the Johnsons might be driving a neighborhood. And while ice cream vice presidents are looking for increased earnings per share, it will be the kids seeking out Isabella’s Ice Cream.

To learn more about Isabella’s Ice Cream visit their website!

If you’re lucky enough to live live in Tucson, you can buy Isabella’s Ice Cream at Renee’s Organic Oven.

Maybe you can’t make your entire menu an organic one, but we found this organic salsa recipe that is terrific.

Ingredients:
4 med-large ripe organic tomatoes. 2 organic Jalapeno peppers (less for milder salsa and/or slice in half and de-seed for mild salsa) 1/2 organic yellow onion. Handful of organic cilantro. 1 organic vegetarian bullion cube. 1 clove of finely chopped garlic. Salt / pepper. Olive oil

Directions
1.    Rub the tomatoes with olive oil.
2.    Cut the 1/2 onion into thirds (three chunks) and rub with olive oil
3.    Rub the Jalapenos with olive oil
4.    Put them on a baking sheet or a pan on the stove over medium heat
5.    Turn them frequently. They will sizzle and turn dark brown. Do not be alarmed, and do not take them off! You have to keep browning them darker and darker….
6.    When all sides of the tomatoes, peppers and onions are pretty darn dark… put them in the blender, add the handful of cilantro, and blend to your viscosity preference.
7.    Meantime, put a few tablespoons of olive oil in a small pot and saute the garlic.
8.    Add the mixture from the blender along with one bullion cube.
9.    Cook on med to med-low heat (do not boil), stirring and making sure the bullion cube dissolves.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Accompany the salsa with Organic Tortilla Chips from Trader Joe’s. Ole!

Do you have a favorite organic recipe that you would like to share? We would love to post it on our website.

Recently I made a trip to my neighborhood grocery store in search for organic eggs. To my surprise, the price of a carton of organic eggs was a whopping $4.99- and they had been shipped from another state. I had heard about raising your own chickens. A chicken coop in my backyard I asked? Of course! It can be easy and fun at the same time.

You think you can’t do it in the city? Wrong!

Choosing locally raised livestock can help to reduce air pollution related to the long-distance transportation of meat and poultry products.
City residents may not be able to offset their carbon use by growing a steer in the backyard. But in most suburbs and even some cities, it’s easy to raise chickens
Understanding your own reasons for growing chickens will help you choose the right flock and get setup with the right equipment. The main reasons people grow their own chickens are:

•    to have a supply of fresh eggs,
•    pest and weed control,
•    and a supply of nitrogen-rich manure.

What you plan to do with your flock will determine (to some degree) what you will need to do to get set up. For example, if you want to let your chickens run through your garden once in a while to gobble up insects, you will need to set up some means for controlling their access to the garden so they can’t get in to eat tiny seedlings. If you want chickens for eggs, you will need to include nesting boxes in your hen house design.

The Brood

A good way to get started is to buy baby chicks. They are usually available from feed stores in early Spring. You can also start by getting fertilized eggs and keeping them in an incubator until they hatch. Either way, you will need to get a brooder and keep it in the house or put it out in the garage where cats and other predators can’t get at the chicks. For heat, be aware that chicks need 95 degrees for the first week. You can drop this by 5 degrees every week until they’re 6 weeks old. Then they are fairly feathered out and unless you live in a very cold area, they are able to withstand normal temperatures.

If you don’t have a formal brooder, your heat source is usually a light bulb or heat-lamp. Be careful with these not to leave them low enough for the chicks to burn themselves. Also, especially with heat-lamps, be careful that the bedding can’t catch fire.

Fresh water should be available to the chicks at all times. As an energy supplement, I add one tablespoon of sugar per quart the first time I water newly hatched chicks.
A chick starter feed should be fed to all chicks until they are 6 weeks of age. You can get this at your local feed store. After this time, feed them a pullet grower feed until about 20 weeks. Then they can be switched to a laying feed.

Bedding For Chicks

Never start young chicks on a slippery surface such as newspaper. If you are using newspaper as bedding, for the first 4 days spread paper towels over it. Be careful using wood shavings on young chicks until they learn what their food is. They may start eating them which will block them up and kill them.

A great surfaces is wire! Take a piece of hardware cloth or an old window screen and cut it to the dimensions of the brooder. Then I put down a layer of newspaper and lay the wire on it. At cleaning time I just lift out the wire and hose it down, replacing a clean layer of newspaper beneath it. Be careful to make sure there are no sharp wires to hurt their feet. Either bend the edges under or tape them up.

Inside The Coop

As the chickens mature, you will need to provide them with a shelter that meets their basic needs. The ideal chicken coop will protect chickens from rain, wind, and temperature extremes. There should be perches adequately spaced and arranged so that the chickens can perch comfortably.  ?Chickens do better when they roost at night up off the ground. And they’re happier, also. It is the natural way for a bird to sleep. It helps prevent external parasites and keeps them from lying in their own droppings. You also don’t want them to start sleeping in the nest boxes. These are for egg-laying, and we really don’t want to collect our eggs out of a nest that’s been slept in by a chicken, do we? (Chickens aren’t house trainable!)   Some kind of litter such as straw or wood shavings should be spread underneath the perches and needs to be changed when it becomes wet or soiled. A mixture of straw and chicken manure is ideal for garden compost.

Special Accommodations For Egg Layers

Hens for laying will be benefited by special nesting boxes. These should be constructed so that they don’t serve well as perches but will appeal to the natural instincts of a hen when she becomes “broody” especially if you want your hen to incubate a batch of fertilized eggs. The nesting boxes need to be somewhat enclosed and nest like.  Hens are known to lay eggs and establish a brood wherever they feel conditions are best. Sometimes they have to be coaxed into using the nesting boxes by using artificial eggs.

Clever arrangements such as a rear trap door can facilitate the gathering of eggs for eating. A laying hen will produce an egg every one to two days. Frequent gathering will assure freshness, keep eggs clean and minimize breakage.

All chickens lay eggs in a series – never more than one or two per day. If the eggs are not collected, and a sufficient number of eggs are allowed to remain in the nest, the hen may stop laying eggs and start brooding. When the hen leaves the nest after laying an egg, it cools which suspends the development of the embryo inside. If the ambient temperature remains between 45F and 65F, the embryos will remain viable for as long as two weeks. When the hen becomes broody and sits on her eggs for three weeks, all of the eggs will hatch at about the same time.

The hen does not start to incubate the eggs until the whole clutch is laid.  The physiology of a hen changes after she’s laid her clutch. She will remain on them, with her wings slightly spread to help keep them warm, for 21 days. She will make muttering, growling sounds if disturbed, and may even peck or otherwise try to defend her nest. She will only leave the nest once a day to eat, drink and defecate. You should make sure the hen does do this at least every other day so she will not either starve or get the eggs dirty with her droppings. (Broody droppings usually come out in one large, very bad-smelling glob.)

Once the chicks start to hatch she will remain on the nest with them for 24-48 hours. Any eggs that have not hatched by then will be left behind when she takes the chicks for their first walk. At this time water and chick feed should be available for the chicks.

A hen is also called broody when she is raising her chicks, protecting them, teaching them to find food, and hovering over them to keep them warm.

“Breaking Up” A Broody Hen

When we remove the eggs, the hen supposes: “There are not yet enough,” and continues to lay.  We don’t always want to have our hens hatching eggs. When we want to stop one, this is called “breaking up” a broody. Sometimes just putting her in a pen where she can’t see her old nest and keeping her there for 4 days will do the job. She should, of course, have feed and water. Some strong broodies will just continue to set even in a pen with no eggs. For the more stubborn hen, a wire-bottomed cage is necessary. The airflow up through the wire keeps her underside cool and after a few days she will usually give up. Again, she should have feed and water available at all times. Some commercial people and old-time chicken raisers deprive a hen of feed and water when trying to break her up, but this is cruel and also not good for the bird. Lack of feed weakens an already weak bird (since they don’t eat much when broody anyway) and lack of water for several days can damage the liver.

The Yard

Various arrangements are possible for the poultry yard. The basic requirement is a good fence to keep predators (sometimes including family pets) from getting in. Sometimes a yard will be split into two halves with a gate connecting the two. The chickens are kept in the first half while a green cover crop grows in the second half. When the crop matures, the chickens are moved into the second half where they can nibble on the greens. In the mean time a new crop is started in the first half.

If you’re going to introduce chicks over 6 weeks old to an older flock of birds, here is a good way to make sure they can get enough feed. In your chicken yard or coop, construct an area that you can keep a supply of grower feed and water in. It should have entrance holes that are too small for the older birds to get in. Confine the young birds in there for a few days (at least during the day– you could return them to the brooder at night). They’ll learn where the food is and when you open the entrances they will soon start going out. The older birds will pick on them, but it should be fine as the chicks will have a safe refuge to retreat to.

Here are some great resources if you are considering your own chicken coop:
www.poultryone.com
www.backyardchickens.com

Inspired by: the farm.org

Ingredients
4 organic or regular avocados
1/4 teaspoon salt(season to liking )
1 finely diced jalapeno
1/2 lime
1/4 cup of finely dice red onion
3 tablespoons finely diced fresh cilantro
1/4 finely diced tomatoe

Directions
1.    Empty the avocadosavocados?into bowl you and easily mix in
2.    Add salt
3.    Squeeze limelime?into avocados
4.    Dice and add onion and jalapenosjalapenos
5.    Dix in finely diceddiced?cilantro and tomatoetomatoe
6.    ENJOY!

Native Seeds/SEARCH (NS/S) is a Tucson-based non-profit organization working to conserve, distribute and document the adapted and diverse varieties of agricultural seeds, their wild relatives and the role these seeds play in cultures of the American Southwest and northwest Mexico.

For over 25 years, NS/S has preserved and promoted the rich legacy of agricultural biodiversity in the arid Southwest.  The organization operates a seed bank, a 60-acre conservation farm in Patagonia, AZ, and a gift shop on north Campbell Ave. to make the seeds and other mission-related items available to the public.

NS/S envisions the Greater Southwest as a place where farms and gardens, kitchens and tables, stores and restaurants are brimming with the full diversity of aridlands-adapted heirloom crops; people are keeping the unique seeds and agricultural heritage alive; and the crops, in turn, are nourishing humankind.

Native Seeds Search is located at 3061 N. Campbell Avenue, Tucson, Arizona

Phone: 520-622-5561

Website: nativeseeds.org

We know. You resolved this year to take better care of yourself, (we did too). You told yourself you were going to eat healthier foods and put the fork down sooner.  Oh, and you were going to be greener while doing it, (no pressure there).

Most likely you ran to the obvious first choice, nibbling carrot sticks, eating simple salads etc..  Of course there isn’t anything wrong with these nutritious foods, they just weren’t doing it for your taste buds and you got bored with them.  Maybe you tried the old “I’m going to invest in healthier cooking“.  This really is a good idea, but only for people who (1) enjoy cooking and (2) have the time to do it. But what if you’re short on time and no Martha Stewart?

Well try adding this simple, tasty idea into your eating routine.  We like it because it can be tweaked to suit your particular tastes. As always we recommend fresh and organic ingredients, so be sure to check our “In Season” section as well as our listings of local farmer’s markets.

Start using this recipe for a satisfying snack, instead of chips, or turn it into a complete, yummy meal.

Basic ingredients: cooked whole grain pasta, olive or grape seed oil, parmesan cheese, basil, garlic powder

Make it a snack

Step 1.  Lightly coat desired amount of pasta (cut that in half) with oil. Go easy here, you don’t want it pooling up at the bottom of the dish.
Step 2. Add basil and garlic powder to desired taste.
Step 3.  Heat in microwave oven or pan.
Step 4. Sprinkle lightly with  parmesan cheese.

Make it a meal

Step 1. Add either cooked and peeled shrimp or cooked chicken breast cut into smaller pieces after step 1. above.  Be sure and add enough oil to coat additional ingredients lightly.

Step 2.    Add fresh chopped tomatoes or fresh chopped spinach leaves after step 3. above (a variety of veggies can be used-check seasonal).  Use veggies liberally for better health points.

Extra tip: Cook extra pasta and store it in the fridge so it can be grabbed easily when snack time hits.

Visit your local Farmers Market. We bet you will find yummy ways to dress this up. Here is a list of the Farmers Markets in Tucson and Southern Arizona:

http://whosgreenaz.com/2009/12/15/farmers-markets-2/

Please share your healthy tips with us. We would love to post it on our website!