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Zero-Waste Chef

  • ZWC Book

It’s a book!

Posted on September 30, 2020September 23, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

I’ve been working on this for a while! My book is now available.

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  • All Recipes

How to Make Tomato Purée from Fresh Tomatoes

Posted on September 22, 2022September 24, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
Finished tomato purée fills a glass mason jar. The jar sits on a gray and white marble background

Slow cook fresh tomatoes, process them and cook them down for tomato purée. Freeze it to make tomato sauce, pizza sauce and more in winter.

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  • Sourdough

Bake for Ukraine: Online Sourdough Bread Workshop Fundraiser

Posted on September 15, 2022September 15, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Invest a bit of time over a weekend to learn a life-long skill that will bring you nourishment and comfort in a chaotic world—and raise funds for a good cause!

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  • All Recipes

How to Cook Khichdi (Kitchari), an Easy One-Pot Dish

Posted on September 12, 2022September 12, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
A turquoise bowl is filled with cooked khichdi. Two hands hold the bowl up.

Quickly cook a pot of khichdi (or kitchari), a comforting, one-pot dish, to enjoy throughout the week for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

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  • All Recipes

Golveda Ko Achaar (Tomato Sauce) from Vegan Nepal’s New Cookbook

Posted on September 1, 2022August 29, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
A white bowl of golveda ko achaar (tomato pickle) sits on a dark wooden table and is surrounded by green chilis

This addictive Nepali tomato pickle recipe cooks in a mere 15 minutes. Serve it with curry, pasta, tacos, pizza and more.

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  • All Recipes

How to Make 3-Ingredient Gnocchi: A Canvas for Random Toppings

Posted on August 24, 2022September 12, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
Gnocchi sitting on a gray and white marble background before cooking

Great gnocchi requires only potatoes, flour and salt. For the topping, get creative, use what’s on hand and reduce food waste.

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  • All Recipes

Make It Your Own, 6-Ingredient Easy Chocolate Hummus

Posted on August 16, 2022August 16, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
A glass dish filled with chocolate hummus sits on a grey and white marble backdrop. Two red apples sit at the bottom right of the frame.

This simple dessert hummus tastes sweet, rich and something like chocolate pudding but is easier to make and very economical.

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  • Sourdough

Focaccia Made with Sourdough Discard and Scrappy Toppings

Posted on August 10, 2022August 10, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Reduce wasted food! This focaccia uses a full cup of sourdough discard plus bits of vegetables and herbs you have on hand if you decorate it.

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  • Sourdough

How to Manage Your Jar of Sourdough Discard

Posted on August 4, 2022August 11, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
A very small jar next to a very large jars of sourdough starter is faded out with text appearing across the image, saying "Discard isn't discard until you discard it"

What is sourdough discard? How long does it keep? What can I do with it? How can I tell if it’s bad? These sourdough discard FAQs reveal all.

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  • Climate Crisis

Raise a Glass of Ginger Beer for Climate Action

Posted on July 25, 2022September 14, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Do you want climate action? Do you like ginger beer? Learn to make fabulous ginger beer in this pay-what-you-feel fundraiser.

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  • All Recipes

5 Ways to Love Wheat Berries and How to Cook Them

Posted on July 21, 2022August 17, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Versatile wheat berries deserve a spot in your pantry. Cooked, they have a nutty flavor and chewy bite. Ground up, they make superb flour.

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  • Zero-Waste Basics

Bring Your Own Container Every Time You Dine Out

Posted on July 19, 2022July 20, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Don’t want to waste food you can’t finish in a restaurant or toss a to-go container at home? Go for option three: Bring your own container.

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  • Fermentation

The Easiest Ferment in the World: Cherry Tomatoes

Posted on July 12, 2022July 14, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Fermented cherry tomatoes burst in your mouth with flavor and effervescence. They also happen to be one of the easiest ferments you can make.

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4 Comments
  • Sourdough

Zero Waste Sourdough Discard Banana Quick Bread

Posted on July 6, 2022July 6, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
a loaf of sourdough discard banana bread cooling in a glass pan on a silver rack placed on a white and gray marble background

Bake—and eat—this banana bread to ensure that both overly ripe bananas and sourdough discard fill tummies, not trash cans!

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  • Zero-Waste Basics

13 Painless Ways to Participate in Plastic Free July

Posted on June 30, 2022July 2, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau

This Plastic Free July, cut loads of single-use plastic from your life painlessly with these 13 simple strategies.

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  • Fermentation

Save Your Fruit Scraps to Make Bubbly Fruit Kvass

Posted on June 20, 2022July 3, 2022by Anne-Marie Bonneau
Fruit scraps in a jar sitting on a marble top. The background is distressed grey metal.

Give fruit scraps a second life—transform them into this bubbly fruit kvass. Kick plastic soda bottles, not carbonated drinks.

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How to make easy tomato purée with fresh tomatoes How to make easy tomato purée with fresh tomatoes! 🍅 On the weekend, I bought two, 20-pound cases of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes. After prepping my seventh baking sheet of tomato wedges to roast, while deciding between prepping and sleeping, I chopped up a few pounds of tomatoes, threw them into the slow cooker and chose sleep. In the morning, I ran them through my food mill, reduced the ensuing purée over low heat, stored it in a jar and froze it. So easy! I’m definitely adding purée making to my yearly ritual. In the fall or winter, I’ll transform this staple into pasta sauce or pizza sauce or tomato paste or add it to chana masala or minestrone soup or any other recipe calling for fresh tomatoes. If you don’t have a food mill, you can blanch and peel the tomatoes. If you don’t mind skins, leave them on. You’ll need to purée the tomatoes after cooking them. In lieu of a food mill, use a blender, immersion blender or food processor. You can store the purée at this point or cook it down. The slow cooker isn’t great for reducing liquid—it can’t escape—but I did one batch that way. A pot is much quicker. When we broke up with plastic, I had to figure out how to replace canned tomatoes—cans are lined with plastic (the stuff is everywhere!) and although many food manufacturers plaster the claim “Now BPA-Free!” on their packages, the can linings may contain something similar and just as bad. I don’t know if I would have started processing so many tomatoes had I not broken up with plastic. As a result, the tomatoes I eat now taste incredible! I go through this ritual every fall after the price of tomatoes drops. I pay almost half for tomatoes as I do at the start of the season. But as I chop the 150th tomato, I ask myself, “Why am I doing this?” Then in winter, after thawing out a jar to make a fabulous tomato sauce or other tomato-based dish, with that first taste comes my answer. The full directions for tomato purée are on my blog.
My daughter MK and I made one last batch of fermen My daughter MK and I made one last batch of fermented salsa. (Actually, MK made it, I recorded...) This stuff tastes great pre-ferment but after... OMG. It has a tangy, intensely tomato flavor with a slight effervescence. Several years ago, a reader told me it makes her husband’s eyes roll up into the back of his head when he eats it—quite the testimonial! Chop up tomatoes, onion, bell pepper, jalapeño, garlic, cilantro. I use a my hands to crush the tomato pieces. You can also prep this in a food processor but omit the onions—the blades can make them bitter. Stir in salt and lime or lemon juice to taste. (We use lemon juice because we have a lemon tree.) Pack into clean jars, leave an inch or more headspace to prevent the salsa from gurgling out of the jar when it ferments and close the jar. This is essentially liquidy so I don’t weigh it down—it’s hard to weigh down soupy ingredients. Let it sit at room temperature until it bubbles and the color becomes more muted—both signs of successfuly fermentation. Stir it daily when you check on it and taste it. It ferments in about 2 to 3 days. Move it to the fridge when it’s done. We didn’t add a starter to this batch—it ferments on its own—but you could add one if you like. This recipe is highly adaptable!
🐝 I bee so happy! 🐝 This July, we drilled 🐝 I bee so happy! 🐝 This July, we drilled holes into the dead stump we left standing with the intention of turning it into a snag—a bee shelter. Today I noticed that about five tunnels are occupied! Leaf litter plugging up a hole signifies that someone has taken up residence (hopefully native bee larvae). The holes face east and southeast—out of direct afternoon sun, which would be too hot. We drilled two different sizes. So far, the bees prefer the smaller, 1/4-inch holes. The holes are about 4 inches deep (as far as we could get with our drill bit). After reading Nature’s Best Hope by Doug Tallamy @homegrownnationalpark, I started planting native plants to provide habitat for insects, including bees. This bee shelter is part of that process. Fall is the time to get back into planting natives. If you have no yard but do have a balcony, you can make a difference to bees and butterflies by planting a few natives in pots—they will find them! Stay tuned for updates on our snag’s residents.
For breakfast, my daughter MK loves to eat khichdi For breakfast, my daughter MK loves to eat khichdi (aka khichuri, kitchri, kidgeree, kitchari…), an ancient Indian comfort dish enjoyed worldwide. We sometimes have it for lunch or dinner as well. When we broke up with plastic in 2011, we dumped breakfast cereal first. Not only does every box on the shelf house an inner plastic bag, the cereal itself, while not plastic, has been processed to such a degree as to hardly be recognizable as food. It consists of cheap grain, which manufacturers have morphed into sugary, child-appealing shapes with some nutrients added back in order to compensate for what processing stripped out—and all at huge profit margins. Although the list of ingredients may look long, khichdi calls predominantly for dry ingredients (moong dal, rice, spices) that you merely measure (versus chopping piles of food). Once combined, stir occasionally during cooking. A few minutes of hands-on work and 30 minutes of simmering produces a filling dish that keeps in the refrigerator for about a week—simply reheat when hungry for a quick, tasty, convenient meal. The adaptable ingredients: 1 cup moong dal (split yellow mung beans) ½ cup basmati rice 1 tablespoon ghee or, if vegan, coconut oil 1 tablespoon minced ginger 4 cardamom pods 2 teaspoons black mustard seed 1 teaspoon cumin seed 1 teaspoon fennel seed 1 teaspoon fenugreek seed 1 teaspoon ground cumin 2 teaspoon ground turmeric 1 teaspoon ground coriander 3 bay leaves 8 cups water 2 teaspoons salt, or to taste 2 tablespoons lime juice, about 1 lime (optional) ½ cup cilantro for garnish (optional) See my website for the full recipe. Enjoy!
If you read the news at all, scroll through your f If you read the news at all, scroll through your feed or live in an area affected by climate change (i.e., the planet), you may feel anxious about the state of our home and the future of all of its inhabitants. The strategies I've outlined here can help. . . . . . #heatwaves #heatwave2022 #heatwave #drought #californiadrought #californiafires #wildfire #waterconservation #conserve #conservewater #noplanetb #thereisnoplanetb #lowwaste #zerowaste #zerowastekitchen #zerowastetips #climatecrisis #climateemergency #extinctioncrisis #climatechangeisreal #globalwarmingisreal #climatejustice #climateaction #climateactionnow #actonclimate #earthdayeveryday #loveyourmother #dontlookup
By no means must you grind your own flour in order By no means must you grind your own flour in order to reduce waste! But if you do want to try it... home-milled flour tastes delicious and is so much fun to crank out! Although I have a small hand-cranked mill that works quite well, I had yearned for an electric mill for years but kept putting it off—so expensive, I didn’t want to buy new, which model was best… Then one day, my neighbor Sita showed up on my doorstep with her beautiful vintage electric mill to give to me. She had ground flour to bake bread when her kids were growing up but now they have their own kids and she had stopped eating bread. Here, I've ground up chana dal (split chickpeas). It's not quite besan (very fine flour ground from split roasted chickpeas). If I sift it through an extremely fine sieve, it should be as fine as besan. So now I don't need to buy chickpea flour, which is great stuff to have on hand. (I'm obsessed with besan chilla and chickpea crepes.) Grinding my own flour takes only a few minutes, reduces packaging waste and saves money—hand-milled flour usually costs less. I also buy only one item at the store—chana dal—and cook with two versions of it.
Would you buy secondhand sheets and towels? When Would you buy secondhand sheets and towels? When I mentioned to someone that I do and he said "Eww," I asked him if he had ever stayed in a hotel. The ick factor creates loads of waste. We don’t want to get our hands dirty and marketing campaigns have convinced us—especially women—that we must buy many disposable, expensive products to deal with our “filthy” bodies and anything that comes out of them. Add to this the fact that when we buy clothing or household goods, many of us want them “clean” and packaged, as though no one at the factory who made, packaged or shipped them ever actually touched them. If we can get over the ick factor and change our perspective, we can reduce our consumption of many unnecessary products, reduce our waste and save money. . . . . . #frugal #thriftlife #thrifter #thriftedfinds #thriftfind #thriftstores #reuserevolution #choosetoreuse #secondhandfirst #secondhandfinds #secondhandstuff #makedo #buyless #selfreliance #selfreliant #sustainablelifestyle #simpleliving #wastefreeliving #slowlivingmovement #artofslowliving #breakfreefromplastic #plasticpollutes #microplastics #zerowastejourney #zerowastelifestyle #zerowastetips #zerowastechef #thereisnoplanetb
Most of the sunflowers I planted in the spring are Most of the sunflowers I planted in the spring are ready for harvesting the seeds. The seeds are fairy loose and come out easily (kind of like loose teeth!). Each one had a little flower attached to it that brushes away. I'll let the seeds dry inside spread in a single layer and then store them in glass jars. If you store seeds in glass and see any condensation, remove them and dry them out further. I'll save these seeds to share, eat and plant next year. The birds can help themselves to the seeds in the sunflowers I haven't cut back. I didn't add any music to this Reel because I love the sounds of harvesting seeds 😍 Save this Reel if you learned something!
Are you grocery shopping today? If you store your Are you grocery shopping today? If you store your reusable produce bags in your shopping bags, you'll always have them with you. This one trick with slash the amount of plastic that makes its way into your home. You can buy produce bags or make them. I make very simple bags—rectangles folded like a book, sewn across the bottom and up the side with a finished top. Most of my bags are made of old sheets and fabric scraps. The pattern is on my website—look under the Reusa-Bags tab. Share this post with a friend to remind them to take their produce bags to the store or farmers' market today!
Both my kids are home and cooking basically non-st Both my kids are home and cooking basically non-stop! This is why you teach your kids to cook—so you can one day sit back, relax and eat. (Well, also teach them so they can feed themselves and not rely on corporations to provide their every need.) I actually didn't so much teach them as let them help in the kitchen. Also, when I kicked plastic, Charlotte was only 10 and knew if she wanted cookies, she'd have to make cookies. That was great motivation. Charlotte made wonderful pillowy gnocchi for a dinner party she threw for her friends this week. Almost all gnocchi comes in plastic packaging, often quite thick. But very good gnocchi is very simple to make—you need only potatoes, flour and salt. You can top gnocchi with various foods, ensuring what you have on hand gets eaten. Pesto made with various greens is a quick, easy and food-waste-reducing topping that clings to the little gnocchi grooves you can make with the back of a fork if you don't have a gnocchi board like Charlotte uses in the video. The portrait pie in the last photo was a group effort by Charlotte and her friends Jayde and Anna of their friend Neil 😀🥧 Go to my website for the new recipe.
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Top Posts & Pages

The Last of the Tomatoes
How to Make Tomato Purée from Fresh Tomatoes
Recipe Index
Sourdough Discard Pizza: How to Sourdough-ize a Recipe
How to Make Free Apple Scrap Vinegar
How to Make Free Chestnut Laundry Soap
Is My Sourdough Starter Dead? Your Starter Dilemmas Addressed
Easy Roasted Salsa: Charlotte's Non-Recipe Recipe Brings Out the Flavor
Focaccia Made with Sourdough Discard and Scrappy Toppings
Make-a-Dent-in-Your-Discard Sourdough Pita Bread

Recent Posts

  • How to Make Tomato Purée from Fresh Tomatoes
  • Bake for Ukraine: Online Sourdough Bread Workshop Fundraiser
  • How to Cook Khichdi (Kitchari), an Easy One-Pot Dish
  • Golveda Ko Achaar (Tomato Sauce) from Vegan Nepal’s New Cookbook
  • How to Make 3-Ingredient Gnocchi: A Canvas for Random Toppings
  • Make It Your Own, 6-Ingredient Easy Chocolate Hummus
  • Focaccia Made with Sourdough Discard and Scrappy Toppings
  • How to Manage Your Jar of Sourdough Discard
  • Raise a Glass of Ginger Beer for Climate Action
  • 5 Ways to Love Wheat Berries and How to Cook Them

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