My daughter Charlotte started feeling sick Friday. As I left for the grocery store to fill up on supplies for my sourdough bread boot camp workshop, she asked me to bring her back sorbet, or sherbet or some other frozen dessert other than ice cream to soothe her throat. I said I would look. In […]
All Recipes
Lemon Curd
If you glance at my Instagram feed at the moment, you can easily surmise that lemons have come back in season here in Northern California. So far, I’ve started a few jars of preserved lemons, made fermented lemonade, started lemon extract, and last night—at 2am—made the lemon curd in this post. And took the pictures. […]
Good Food from Fresh Ingredients: Roasted Squash
In my recipe index, you’ll find foods that most people buy processed and packaged today: crackers, bread, broths, nut milk, hummus, ginger beer, yogurt, ketchup, vinegar, tahini, pickles, pickled peppers, pasta—those difficult-to-find foods for anyone trying to reduce their plastic footprint. I also include many recipes for ingredients that would otherwise go to waste—scrap vinegar […]
Quick and Easy Peanut Sauce
This post is not at all festive—I’m writing it on the evening of December 23rd while listening to Christmas music. However, if you are about to eat piles of sugary treats like I am (my mom has stuffed her freezer with homemade cookies, brownies, tarts, dream squares, date squares…), you can balance some of that […]
Doggy Approved Puréed Bone Treat
Before I start this post, let me point out that I am neither a vet nor a dog nutritionist, if that’s a thing, which it likely is because where I live, we have not one but two dog ophthalmologists (that I know of). I don’t have a dog. I had hoped my cat Bootsy might […]
Pumpkin Dal
This dish came about from a what’s-on-hand-I-need-to-make-dinner-now moment. I always have red lentils in the pantry for dal, I had some fresh tomatoes on the counter and I had about a cup of homemade pumpkin purée left over from making pumpkin pie. The previous week, I had attended a Hindu funeral and devoured a most delicious curried […]
Homemade Eggless Sourdough Pasta
Variations for pasta would make a good math problem. Joe wants to make homemade pasta for his family for dinner tonight. Joe can make pasta with: Eggs Semolina and no other flour A combination of half semolina and half white, whole wheat, spelt or rye flour White, whole wheat, spelt or rye flour and no […]
Roasted Chickpeas
When we went plastic-free, we cut store-bought snacks. Those processed foods come packaged in plastic in one way or another—either in plastic bags, or in plastic bags tucked inside cardboard boxes or individually wrapped in plastic and then stuffed into yet more plastic bags. So we started making more snacks from scratch—stovetop popcorn, crackers, dips […]
Homemade Pasta
When we cut the plastic back in 2011, I swapped many store-bought foods for homemade versions, such as: Cookies Crackers Cereal Canned pumpkin Canned tomatoes Many other foods, including those that don’t begin with the letter “c,” such as pasta If you love pasta and start on the zero-waste path, finding a replacement for it […]
Recipe Index Update: Vegan, Veganizable, Vegetarian
The Alaskan permafrost has begun to thaw. This is bad. As the permafrost melts due to increased temperatures, it will expose centuries-old buried plants that absorbed carbon dioxide and froze before they could decompose. As the no-longer-perma permafrost thaws, it will expose this organic matter, which will then decompose and as a result, release carbon […]
Quick Tomato Sauce (If You Plan Ahead…)
Yes, another tomato post. Think of it as my way of reminding you of the time of year. When we first kicked processed food, we struggled to replace canned tomatoes—whole tomatoes, tomato sauce and tomato paste. I used to cook vats of chili and also vats of bolognese sauce to serve with pasta one night […]
August Is the Reddest Month
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and have planted a garden, you may have begun to experience what-am-I-going-to-do-with-this-glut-of-tomatoes syndrome. Mild symptoms often begin in early August and quickly intensify to the critical stage. The following ideas will help alleviate and, in some instances, depending on the harvest and the number of plants you have, cure […]
Solar-Dried Tomatoes
I made literal sun-dried tomatoes. And I mean literal in the formerly correct sense of the word… I used a solar dehydrator for these. I haven’t tried dehydrating tomatoes in my oven. I feel I should use the solar dehydrator since I have access to one but tomatoes should turn out well in the oven. […]
Homemade Tahini
We eat lots of hummus and so go through quite a bit of tahini. I’m pretty sure when people set out to reduce their waste, their hummus intake becomes inversely proportional. There’s likely a mathematical theory that proves this. This past weekend, I cooked two cups of chickpeas in my pressure cooker for hummus but […]
Hummus with Preserved Lemon
I love the complex, intense taste of preserved lemons. The first time I made them, I didn’t really know what to do with them. Now I go through them quickly. Chopped up, they make a fantastic garnish for Indian dishes, such as dal or chana masala. They also pack a ton of flavor into hummus. […]