Year: 2021

Christine Patrick, County Extension Agent Enjoy a healthful guilt-free holiday by modifying the recipes for some of your favorite holiday foods to reduce the fat, sugar, and salt and to add fiber. These guidelines explain how to change certain ingredients and by how much. Fat You save about 120 calories for every tablespoon of oil […]

Ellen Sturup Comeau, Clemson Extension Water Resources Agent Our creeks and rivers give us places to play, fish to eat, and protection from floods. However, stormwater runoff threatens our waterways. According to the EPA, stormwater runoff is the greatest threat to water quality. In South Carolina, more than 1,150 of our rivers are considered “impaired.”  […]

Christine Patrick, County Extension Agent Leftovers can be just leftovers, or you can jazz things up and turn them into something your family may start wanting more often. The idea is to plug ingredients into a casserole formula. You mix and match according to what you have in the refrigerator or on the pantry shelf, […]

Be Septic Safe this Holiday Season With the holidays upon us, it’s essential to prepare our homes for guests. One preparation we cannot overlook is maintaining our septic systems. With more food and people, these wastewater treatment systems get a workout! A septic system uses natural and technological processes to treat household wastewater from toilets, […]

Marion Barnes – Senior County Extension Agent Multicolored Asian Lady Beetles, aka “ladybugs” often invade our homes in search of a spot to ride out the winter months. In the fall these multicolored beetles may congregate on the sunny side of buildings, often by the thousands. These insects were first introduced by the U.S. Department […]

Christine Patrick, Extension Agent The recipes for fruit pie fillings all use a modified food starch called Clear Jel®. This starch produces the correct thickening, even after the fillings are canned and baked. Other starches, such as cornstarch, break down and result in a runny filling. Clear Jel® must be used as the thickener in […]

Christine Patrick, County Extension Agent When the weather gets cooler and the leaves start turning beautiful colors, you may look forward to eating warm, rich, and hearty comfort foods. Unfortunately, they can wreck your diet and cause you to pack on extra pounds unless you modify your recipes or limit your portions. Research shows that […]

Marion Barnes, Senior County Extension Agent Each fall many homeowners across the state enjoy the vibrant colors that our trees provide as leaves change colors, but come winter, leaves begin to fall and cover lawns and yards creating yet another chore. Raking, piling, and bagging unwanted leaves represents a time-consuming and labor-intensive job that comes […]

Christine Patrick There’s nothing quite like those tart little sassemanesh berries to add zest to meals at Thanksgiving. What’s that? You’ve never heard of sassemanesh berries? Well, maybe you know them better as cranberries. Sassemanesh is one of the names given to the fruit by some eastern Native American tribes. The Algonquin called them atoqua, […]

Christine Patrick When it comes to grapes, we have Thompson seedless, Concord, and wine varieties like Zinfandel, Merlot, and Cabernet. When it comes to a Southerner’s taste buds, however, there is a fondness for America’s first grape – Vitis rotundifolia. You know it better as the muscadine, that bronze or purple-black fruit that is native […]