Every year, households in the United States throw away thousands of pounds of organic material. Most of this waste is food scraps and yard clippings, which decompose slowly in landfills and release methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Composting is an easy way to cut down on this waste. By turning organic matter into compost, you can create valuable fertilizer that can improve the soil in your home gardens.
I put vegetable scraps, coffee filters, coffee grounds, and tea bags in my compost bin. I also add yard waste like branches and leaves. This compostable material makes up the bulk of my kitchen waste, so I can cut my weekly trash for collection in half. I am proud to do my part to help the environment by composting my kitchen waste.
I am using an accelerator in my compost bin that is a mix of microorganisms. These microorganisms are very efficient at breaking down the organic waste in my compost bin and turning it into nutrient-rich soil.
Our list of favorite restaurants is not intended to be an complete list of the many delicious restaurants and food fare available in northern New Jersey. However, we hope that you will find this list helpful in planning your dining experience. The restaurants are listed in no particular order. Over the years, rt23.com has visited and reviewed over 100 restaurants in the north Jersey area. This list contains those restaurants that we have visited multiple times. We hope you enjoy this guide and find it helpful in planning your dining adventure.
two hot dogs “all the way” with chili sauce and onions and two hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard + fries
Eat-in or take-out, Pauls Place is a perfect alternative to fast-food chain restaurants
rt23 staff
2 Hot Dogs “All the Way”
What to order: hot dog “all the way” with their signature chili sauce, onions and mustard. Where: 1849 Greenwood Lake Tpk., Hewitt, NJ When: open 7 days a week, 11 am to 9 pm Phone:(973) 728-2532
Eat-in or take-out, Pauls Place is a perfect alternative to fast-food chain restaurants. It has an “old school” feel, including a lunch counter with a classic beverage circulator and dining booths. It is conveniently located on Greenwood Lake Turnpike across from the Greenwood Lake in Hewitt.
In addition to hot dogs, Pauls has a large lunch menu including hamburger platters, sandwiches, wraps and daily specials.
rt23 favorite Fish and Chips at Pennings Farm Market
“Farm to Table dining in a casual, barn-style atmosphere”
staff at rt23
What to order: Best Fish and Chips anywhere! Where: 161 State Route 94 South, Warwick, NY When: Wed-Sun: 11am-8pm Mon-Tues: closed (winter hours) Phone:845-986-1059
Pennings Farm Market contains a pub and grill, a farm market, an ice cream shop, and a garden center. The grill offers wraps, fish and chips, burgers and salads. Penning’s also offers a complete brunch on weekends. Penning’s Farm serves “Farm to Table” fare in a barn-style dining room indoors and seasonal outdoor seating. Pennings serves local produce from their own farm as well as sources meat and dairy from other local area farms. Our favorite dinner is the fish and chips; crispy, beer batter cod filets with house-cut fries.
The Hibernia Inn is a fine dining restaurant that serves dinner exclusively and opens in the early evening. Patrons are welcomed into a quiet bar room that leads to an elegantly simple dining room. The menu offers a selection of appetizers, meats, poultry, and seafood, each with a choice of preparations and sauces. The chef prepares exquisite light cream sauces for entrees and appetizers. The steaks are well-trimmed, tender cuts of beef. The Hibernia Inn also offers occasional prime rib nights that are announced via text message alerts.
Swordfish with capers and mushrooms is one of the delicious special entrees featured at the Sunrise Family Restaurant
“Gourmet dining at reasonable prices”
rt23 staff
What to order: Broiled Filet of Sole or daily special Where: 40 Jersey Ave., Greenwood Lake, New York When: Monday to Sunday, 8:30 am to 10 pm Phone:845-595-1187
The Sunrise Family Restaurant is a great place to go for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. It has a large menu that includes steaks, fish, pasta, tex-mex, and daily specials.
The Sunrise Restaurant is a popular establishment that offers casual dining and an attractive barroom. It serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The food is delicious, and the service is excellent. If you are looking for a place to relax and enjoy a meal, this is it!
“If you are a fan of thin-crust pizza, you will love PizzaTown USA.”
rt23 staff
What to order: PIZZA! By the slice or whole pies Where: 95-111 route 46 west, Elmwood Park, NJ When: 10:30 AM-11:00 PM Phone: (201) 720-6287
Thin-crust pizza with mushrooms
PizzaTown USA has been in the same location since 1959, and was run by the same family for most of that time. The new owners have kept the same recipes that made this place a local institution. I am happy to report that the pizza crust is the same thin, bubbly crust with the same tomato sauce. It is delicious! If you are a fan of thin-crust pizza, you will love PizzaTown USA.
Two types of pickling are hot water canning and quick refrigerator pickles. This year the garden produced an abundance of cucumbers. Fresh cucumbers are great in salads and make tasty cucumber sandwiches, but inevitably the novelty wears off. Pickling cucumbers can save the day! Pickling can seem intimidating but following a recipe carefully will result in a delicious treat.
Shelf-stable pickles
Shelf stable pickles means preserving fresh cucumbers for up to eighteen months in brine using a simple hot water canning method.
Pick your cucumbers at the immature stage before the seeds get too big.
Wash cucumbers thoroughly and cut off the flower end about 1/4 inch to insure crisp pickles.
Set mason jars and lids in a large pot of water and heat to minimum 160° F for at least 10 minutes to sterilize.
Start boiling brine (2 cups water, 2 cups vinegar, 1/3 cup salt, 1/4 cup sugar)
Add fresh dill, garlic cloves, dill seed, mustard seed and peppercorns to the sterile jar.
Add cucumbers and hot brine leaving about 1/2 inch airspace at the top of the jar.
Put hot lid on jar and tighten ring “finger tight”.
Place filled jar into hot water bath and boil for 15 minutes.
Alternate Dill Pickle Recipe This is an alternate recipe from social media. This wasn’t tested so proceed with caution…
Dill Pickles which use an old European recipe where the pickles aren’t canned at all. I start by running the jars through the sterilize cycle in the dishwasher. Once done I move them into the oven, preheated to 200 degrees. With the brine just almost boiling, I pull one jar from the oven, add a medium sized grape leaf (the tannins in the grape leaf help with crispness), 2 garlic cloves, a head of dill, and 10 peppercorns (for taste and a bit of heat.) Add the cucs and quickly fill with the brine, wipe the rim, place the warmed lid on and then the ring, finger tight. Then place on a towel on the counter and go on to the next jar. It doesn’t take long before the ping. Of course you can’t do this with most things, but it was described to me by relatives that the salt and the vinegar in the brine allow you to do it with dill pickles. You end up with the crispiest dills imaginable, because they aren’t cooked in the water bath or the pressure cooker. And they last for years. As an aside, I run the pickling cucumbers through the clothes washer for 90 seconds on gentle. You’ll be amazed at how dirty the water comes out. This way also knocks those little spikes off of the cucumbers. I also trim off both ends of the cucs. Brine is 8 1/2 cups of water, 2 1/2 cups of white vinegar, and 1 cup of pickling salt.
What to do when your tomato plants are full of green tomatoes at the end of the growing season? Fried green tomatoes? Try to ripen them?My choice is to try to ripen the tomatoes. Everyone has a different method; place on window sill or in a paper bag. Tomatoes naturally generate ethylene gas causing the fruit to turn red. Companies lock green tomatoes in a chamber full of ethylene gas to make the tomatoes red. Although the tomato turns red, it doesn’t necessarily mean the tomato is ripe.
A slightly more advanced method may be using a piece of fruit to generate ethylene gas. Adding an apple or banana to a box filled with tomatoes. Both the apple and banana generate ethylene gas, the bananas are more productive of the two.
Whatever method is used to turn the tomatos red, first carefully wash and dry tomatoes in clean water. discard tomatoes showing signs of decay or mold.
Select a banana with green ends to add to a clean cardboard box lined with a paper towel.
Fold paper towel over the banana and Add tomatoes to box using newspaper to prevent contact between tomatoes.
Almost done!
Fold box closed and top with a newspaper. Wait and see…
After 5 days, some progress with tomato color changing!
What to do with all the tomatoes! Canning is an easy solution.
Toe-may-toe, Toe-MAH-toe, what to do when you have too many tomatoes? Give them away to neighbors and relatives? Let them rot on the vine? One solution may be to can them in mason jars. Its not as complicated as it may seem.
Set a pot of water large enough for your pint jars on the stove while washing the jars, tops and rings in warm soapy water and rinse well.
Set a flat bottom strainer using forks underneath so strainer does not contact the bottom of the pot and carefully put the mason jars upright and lids into the pot. Sterilize at 180° F for about 1/2 hour.
Meanwhile start peeling the tomatoes, core tomato removing stem and slice an X into opposite side. SPlace prepared tomatoes into boiling water for one minute and then into cold water ice bath.
Place tomatoes into boiling water for about 1 minute and then place in ice water.
Remove sterilized jar and lid from boiling water.
Remove sterilized mason jar from the hot water bath. Add peeled tomatoes to the hot mason jar filling to leave about 1/2 inch space. Use a clean spoon to gently pack down.
Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and one tablespoon lemon juice in jar and place seal on jar tightening the ring finger tight on jar, do not overtighten.
Place filled mason jar in rapidly boiling water for 35 minutes.
Turn of heat and let jars sit in the pot for 5 minutes before removing to counter to cool.
Store canned tomato jars in a cool dry place fo up to eighteen months.
This recipe is modified from the Ball Mason Jar website crushed tomato recipe. I can whole peeled tomatoes with this recipe adding more salt and lemon juice. Use this link to see original Ball recipe:
Put water in your water bath canner and add a splash of white vinegar to help keep the jars from becoming cloudy. Or you can use 1/8 teaspoon of Cream of Tarter instead of vinegar if you prefer. Both work just as well.
Turn the heat on to heat up the water
I fill my clean jars with tap water and put them in the canner to have my jars heated when I’m ready to fill them.
When I’m ready to fill the jars –
I pour the water out of the jars
Fill the heated jars with cranberry sauce to 1/4 inch headspace
Wipe the rims with a damp paper towel.
Put on the flat lid and ring/band and tighten it finger tight
Put the filled jars in your water bath canner (which you’ve had on the stove heating the water).
Make sure the water covers the jars by at least an inch.
When the water comes to a boil start timing… boil for 10 minutes.
Remove jars using your canning tongs and place them on a clean towel on your counter.
Listen for the ‘ping’ letting you know your jars are sealing!
When the jars are sealed and cool,
Remove the rings/bands,
Wipe the jars clean,
Label your jars with the content and date.
The jars you see in the picture represent a quadruple batch.
In northern New Jersey when the snow is gone and the overnight temperatures are above freezing, I like to get a headstart early with raking the dead grass and tree litter from my lawn. Its a big job, so I usually spread the work over several days.
set things in motion foe 2021, I bought a seedling tray and filled it with tomato seeds. I planted a variety including soem 3 year old super beefsteak seeds from 2019. I have some new Rutgers variety seeds ( which now are apparently “heritage seeds”, dont get old kids!). I had a few cherry tomato seeds left over from last year adn I plnted some new “Early Treat” seeds. There is room for thirty six seedlings in my tray, too many to plant in the yard, but i will have backup if I plant too early. Last year I starte the seeds too early (before March 15th) and even after repotting the peat pellets in bigger contiainers, they were getting too big and hard to care for. so in eth middel of April the weather looked pretty good for plating outside. of course minutes later, it snowed. when the initial plating did not magically reviev bigger and better, i had enough plants started that i coulld have a “do-over’. Usually it doent snow much in April but ther e we were. Anyway this year i plante later than usual (usual=March 15). So safely in the house with flourescent lighting, my plants will remain till firstw week of May.
try of peat pds before adding aproximately 7 sups of water.seedling tray after adding water a\nd tomato seeds
Starting to think about the garden this year. Last year i started tomatoes about a week before March 17 (my normal day for starting veggies indoors). This year I am starting some flowers and plants for decorative purposes. Usually besides tomatoes and eggplant, i would start marigolds and zinnias indoors but this year i am trying two new plants!
Elephant Ears (Colocasia): I never grew Elephant Ears before, but seeing photos on social media, I decided that they would look good in the pool area and the grandkids would get a kick out of them.
Mexican Sunflowers: I have seen these used in the area as commercial landscape plantings. Deer resistant and attractive to pollinators, I will use these in a few areas around the driveway. The package says to plant directly in the garden outside, but i want earlier flowers so i am starting them inside in small pots
This year I started off with the usual lawn care, first I raked the lawn cleaning the remaining leaves from the previous fall and clearing the dead grass away. Then I spread lime pellets with the garden spreader to adjust the pH of the soil and then planted grass seed also with the spreader.
For the vegetable garden, I rented a “Merry Tiller” from a local rental shop. This wa a “mid’ tiller with the tines in the middle, the previous machine was a “rear” tiller with tines in the rear. There is another model with tines in the front which I haven’t tried yet, the mid tiller worked fine after familiarizing myself with its operation. it took me two hours to complete a 20 X 40 foot garden willing down to about 6 inched and retilling the area several times.
I planted half of the garden with corn. i mixed two varieties, Peaches and Cream Bi- Color Sweet Corn along with Silver Queen Hybrid Sweet Corn from the Weeks Seed Company. last year I tried “Kandy Korn”.
20 x 40 Cornfield
In the smaller garden I call the Weather Garden because that is where my weather station is located.
I tilled this garden, the smaller of the two gardens, maybe 100 square feet. I planted garden beans and mammoth sunflowers.
Weather Garden
raked and ready for plantiung!
Tomatoes planted using plastic garbage bags to reduce weeds
I have been seeing posts on social media about a safe, natural alternative to commercial herbicides. Basically from what i understand it is to spray unwanted vegetation with Acetic Acid (vinegar) and works by acting as a dessicant and killing the leaves. I found a recipe:
1/4 cup dawn dish detergent
2 cups epsom salt
1 Gallon vingar
note: I believe using this recipe will killl the soil and nothing will ever grow there again due to the salt! Use Carefully!
This seemed like strong stuff but i plan on using on the side of my driveway where there is a cedar mulch path, i don’t want anything to grow there. By removing the salt from the recipe, the vinegar alone will kill weeds. So I have a few areas i want to try with the mister using a garden sprayer.
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