I love Indian food and cook dal once a week or so. This delicious, satisfying and aromatic dish contains dry split peas or lentils, onions, tomatoes and spices. Even my picky daughter eats it. Like kitchen sink soup, frittata and vegetable fritters, you can improvise with dal, adding a bit of this and a smidgen of […]
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Thumb Your Nose at Big Soda: Naturally Carbonated Lemonade
Click here to jump to the recipe This past Monday, summer arrived here in Silicon Valley. I could hear kids splashing in the pool outside. The ice cream truck, which, oddly, plays “Little Brown Jug,” resumed trolling the neighborhood. And with school about to end, parents went into panic mode. But something else tipped me off that summer […]
How to Make a Ginger Bug Starter for Natural Soda
I have posted pics of my ginger bug on Instagram a couple of times but without directions. When people then ask how to actually make the ginger bug, they probably want more guidance than “mix some ginger, sugar and water together and add more daily for about five days.” But really, that’s about all you do. […]
Vegetable Fritters
Click here to jump to the recipe I’m not sure what to call these. Fritters? Savory pancakes? Kitchen sink doughnuts? Whatever they are, they make a nice side dish for dinner or a tasty breakfast of leftovers the next morning. Their portability also makes them good for packing in lunches. Lately I’ve tried to come up with […]
Vegan Pesto
My daughter MKat started us on the zero-waste path in 2011 at age 16 and soon afterward launched her blog The Plastic-Free Chef. She says my constant complaining about the sea of plastic in grocery stores (and my accompanying lack of action for the most part) inspired her to figure out how to change our […]
Clear-Out-the-Fridge Frittata
Click here to go straight to the recipe When we rely less on recipes and more on cooking methods, we buy fewer ingredients, waste less food and alleviate what-on-earth-will-we-eat-for-dinner-tonight stress. My kids sometimes complain we have nothing to eat (translation: we have no processed snacks) but when I look in the kitchen, I see possibilities. […]
Clean Your Home with Trash
Click here to go straight to the recipe This winter, I hoarded orange peels compulsively. I found so many uses for them: a looseleaf chai blend, candied citrus peels, frozen zest, fire starters too apparently although I didn’t have much luck with those—or perhaps I did seeing as I didn’t burn down my kitchen. I also […]
How to Make a Sourdough Starter (in Stick Drawings)
I taught a sourdough starter workshop last month and I really could have used some graphics to outline the process. Creating a starter from scratch may sound complicated (you can read more about it here and here) but involves only a handful of steps and your patience. I hope these slides will help explain this […]
Make Soup, Not Waste
I find that when people realize just how much we throw into landfills and how much plastic finds its way into our oceans, most want to reduce their waste and many don’t know where to start. Unless you buy consumer goods compulsively, I would hazard a guess that your kitchen generates the most garbage—packaging and food. How bad is our food […]