Getting better about this

Delayed gratification:  when you forget to buy bacon at the farmers' market and instead of breaking down and buying grocery store bacon (from non-happy pigs) you just decide to wait until you can get the good stuff next week.  And you don't complain about it (much).

Feeling distinctly guilty

You know, I try.  I recycle whatever I can, I compost much of my kitchen waste, I buy things with the minimum of packaging.  I don't even bag my grass clippings, even though that means I spend all summer sweeping them up off the floor in my house.  And yet every fall, my yard looks like this on garbage day:

That's 44 bags of leaves - this week.  Last week it was 26, the week before was 13.  And the trees are maybe 1/2 or 2/3rds of the way empty.

I don't know how to do any better.  The bags are made from recycled plastic, and I use the paper ones for everything except what we use when we bag the mower output.  I've even composted three or four bags of leaves, and tried running them over with the mower and just leaving them on the lawn.  But when your upwind neighbor has 19 mature oak trees in her backyard, the volume is just too much to deal with and still expect to have a usable yard.  I wish there were some more elegant way to handle it, but we'd literally have a compost pile the size of a barn if we tried to handle all of it ourselves - and straight oak leaves take forever to decompose, so we'd end up with a new barn-sized pile every year.

Anyone have a workable solution that doesn't involve turning my entire backyard into a compost factory (or taking a chainsaw to my neighbor's trees)?

Recipe - Braised Red Cabbage

This recipe is a mash-up of about four different recipes from several different cookbooks.  Guess that makes it mine, huh?  This is particularly good when served with bratwurst and Stadium Mustard.  Mmmmm, artery-clogging autumnal goodness ....

Braised Red Cabbage

4 bacon slices, chopped
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 large sweet onions, thinly sliced
3-4 lbs red cabbage, quartered, cored and thinly sliced crosswise
1 apple, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper

Cook bacon in a large heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring until crisp.  Remove bacon with slotted spoon and reserve it for use later.  Add butter to bacon fat, then increase heat to moderate and cook onions until golden brown, about 12-15 minutes.  Stir in cabbage, apples, vinegar, brown sugar, salt, and pepper, and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until tender (about 1 1/4 hours).  Add bacon and serve warm.