Problem: Write an article based on this summary: Pick a venue that benefits from natural lighting. Plan a low-meat or meat-free menu. Purchase fair trade and ethically harvested food, drink, and flowers. Set out potted plants as centerpieces. Use alternative materials for your bouquets and centerpieces. Pick caterers and bakers with environmentally friendly plans. Donate or freeze excess food. Go digital for your photographs.

Answer: If you're able to plan an outdoor wedding during the day or early evening, you can enjoy a completely naturally lit wedding. If you want an indoor affair, try to book a spot with large windows and encourage the organizers to limit their use of the electrical lighting. For both indoor and outdoor weddings, you may need to supplement the natural light. To do this in a particularly lovely way, light different sized candles and spread them throughout the space. Meat production, especially of red meat, has a high environmental cost. There are many vegetarian options that can delight your guests while also satisfying your desire to help the planet. Consider pasta dishes, salads, and elegant but meat-free finger foods. You can make your menu meat-free from start to finish. Start with deep-fried goat cheese, mozzarella risotto balls, and an elaborate crudite platter filled with cut vegetables. Move on to a caprese salad and some marinated portabella mushrooms for the main course. You can supplement the meal with side options such as eggplant fritters or baked polenta. The harvesting of many vegetables, flowers, and other items worldwide is often conducted by workers experiencing exploitative conditions. Do research to find out if the providers you're using adhere to fair and equitable work standards. Check the labels of the food you buy and see if it's certified as "Fair Trade." The non-profit Fair Trade USA is a reliable certifier of suppliers both in and outside of the United States. Even when purchasing at farmer's markets, be sure to ask your suppliers questions not just about the organic and local quality of the food, but also the working conditions of their laborers. Rather than decorating the tables with flower arrangements that will die in a few days or weeks, choose potted plants and flowers that you and your guests can take home and plant. Your wedding decorations could become part of gardens that attendees can enjoy for years to come. Instead of flowers, consider materials that could be either reused or disposed of safely. Try a bouquet of unique and colorful vegetables that could be eaten after the ceremony, and place stones and pebbles on the tables. Be sure your caterer and baker plan to use only edible decorations on their food. Work with them to ensure that there will be a minimal amount of leftover food. You'll also want to hire providers who compost all of their biodegradable waste. The most important goal of your wedding day should be to ensure that nothing is thrown away that could be reused. Food is often disposed of when it could be given to those in need. You and your guests may also want to take home leftovers, as this could save you a few nights of cooking weeks or even months later. Book a photographer who uses a digital camera and will commit to giving you digital, rather than paper, prints. You can also ask your photographer if they're willing to use a printing lab that adheres to environmental printing practices and is certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council. Don't give your guests disposable cameras. While this is a sweet and cute idea, it's unnecessary in the age of smartphones, and it's not eco-friendly.

Problem: Write an article based on this summary: Rinse and drain the chickpeas. Place the ingredients in a small slow cooker. Cover and cook until soft. Drain and rinse well. Serve or use as desired.

Answer:
Place the chickpeas in a strainer and rinse them for 30 to 60 seconds under cold running water. By rinsing the chickpeas now, you clean off any surface debris or dirt clinging to the dried beans. This is also a good chance to pick out any small stones or dark brown chickpeas that accidentally got mixed into the batch. Combine the water, chickpeas, and baking soda in a 2 1/2 qt (2.5 L) slow cooker, stirring slightly to make sure that the baking soda is evenly dispersed and that the chickpeas are all submerged under the water. Note that a pre-soaking is not needed when you cook the chickpeas in a slow cooker. Since the chickpeas will cook so slowly, they do not need to be softened beforehand. The use of baking soda is still recommended, however. Since you are skipping the pre-soaking step here, the sugars do not have the same opportunity to break down as they do with the traditional boiling method. The use of baking soda, which helps break apart gas-inducing sugars, can make the chickpeas a bit easier to digest once finished. If you decide not to use the baking soda, you can add 1 tsp (5 ml) of salt to the water, instead. The salt will not break apart the sugar, but it will add more flavor to the chickpeas, which will absorb the grains of salt as they take in water. As a result, the inside of the chickpeas will be seasoned as well as the outside. Cook on high heat for 4 hours or low heat for 8 to 9 hours. If you want slightly firmer beans, cook them on high for only 2 to 3 hours. Dump the contents of the slow cooker into a strainer to separate the water from the beans. Rinse the beans, still inside the strainer, under running water for 30 to 60 seconds. The water the beans cooked in can contain a lot of dirt and stripped sugars, so it needs to be dumped out. The chickpeas must also be rinsed since some of the debris in the water can end up clinging to the surface of the chickpeas. You can use the chickpeas immediately, add them to a recipe calling for the bean, or save them for another time. Any recipe that calls for boiled chickpeas can use slow cooker chickpeas, though. Note that slow cooked chickpeas tend to be very tender, so you might be better off using them in a recipe that calls for soft, tender chickpeas rather than one requiring firmer beans.