Welcome to Moonlady’s kitchen

As my first post, I want to invite you to follow both my business page Moonlady's Kitchen and my food adventures here.  On the business page will tell you what is fresh or what specials I’m doing then.  (If I have a bounty I love to share- if it’s a product I’ll make a deal, and if it’s an adventure or an experiment I’m always looking for the adventurous to taste test for me). 

I do several categories of items for sale

• Candied fruits (fruit+sugar)
• Dried fruits with no additional ingredients unless noted
• Jam and pickles (new-ish so still working the details out)
• Dried Herbs
• Hand (or body) scrubs 

To see a List and prices, please check my product page:  https://www.themoonlady.com/p/moonladys-kitchen-product-page.html?m=1

I also want to walk you through my process.  The things that motivate me are reducing waste, eating food that is free of a lot of crazy additives, and finding new and interesting ways to change how I think about food. 

My candied orange peels are a good example- we usually think of orange peels as waste, but they are full of vitamins and flavor. It’s a very old fashioned candy, just add sweetness to naturally occurring flavor. And that is probably where my adventure began. 

Bananas are another great example. I started making banana chips because they are tasty and delicious, and I looked at the banana peels making a huge pile of waste and asked myself if there was another way. I always research to find out if there is any background- it’s never a good idea to eat something with no evidence it is safe. As it turned out, I found recipes for both banana peel tea (the liquid from boiling the peels) and a variety of banana peel recipes. (Apparently there is a bacon substitute recipe for veggies out there - I haven’t tried) Once I knew it was safe and edible I started playing. I decided to use brown sugar to go with the warmth of the bananas and it made me think of caramel and bananas foster.  And surprisingly, it has been a fan favorite. When I don’t tell people what it is before sampling, I have guesses ranging from chocolate to caramel and all over.  I generally compost what I am not able to use, but I recently wondered if I could dry the banana ends to make powdered banana for a hand scrub- that will be a future experiment.

The banana idea came to me because I’ve already been using a variety of food scraps in the scrubs. I make candied orange peels, but small pieces or the ends don’t make good candy so I dry those and powder them to add smell and texture to one of my scrubs. I also go through a lot of mangos for my fruit leathers, so I started saving both the shells and the seeds themselves to make scrubs. The dried shell has great texture and the seed is full of good stuff. (Shredded dried mango seed is even consumed as an after dinner chew for mouth health in some parts of India).  The orange ends and the mango seed shells combine to make one of my favorite hand scrubs, which has a great scent and a really nice grit. 

The basic goals of my business is

1) feed people delicious and/or healthy things*

2) reduce waste

3) change the conversation around food

*my candy is free of additives and made from Whole Foods, but it still contains sugar so it should be eaten in moderation 

Now for the reward for making it through all of these stories, philosophy, and random food adventures: 

If you are purchasing through the end of July 2020, just mention this blog post to me when purchasing

1) Anyone who purchases a hand scrub (at $5) will receive a free candied orange peel 

2) All candied fruits are buy one get one free.