Like all things zero waste, this menu requires a bit of planning but not that much. During a recent Instagram Live, I discussed tips for preventing waste at Thanksgiving—not just food waste but packaging waste also (read 18 waste-busting tips here). A few people asked for Thanksgiving dinner menu ideas, specifically for vegan dishes. I […]
bulk
How to Assemble a Zero-Waste Kit That Costs Zero Dollars
My daughter Mary Katherine rarely writes posts on the blog she started as a teenager, The Plastic-Free Chef. She did however write one a couple of weeks ago on how, as a busy, cash-strapped student, she finds the zero-waste lifestyle inaccessible. I’m simply too poor. We need more solutions to deal with waste that don’t […]
Go Plastic-Free This Year (Or Close to It)
If you’ve arrived at this blog, you’re probably aware of the plastic pollution problem so I won’t spend time discussing it. You can read recent news on that here, here and here. Instead, I’ll discuss changes we can make in our own lives. Individual choices may not seem like much in the face of this disaster but […]
How to Shop for and Cook Your First Zero-Waste Meal
This post originally appeared on the Makesmthing Week blog. Make Your Dinner for #Makesmthng Week Just in time for peak holiday consumption comes Make Something Week, a campaign created by Greenpeace to encourage people to create rather than passively consume. One of the most important things you can make is your dinner. And you can […]
How to Make Homemade Pasta Without A Pasta Machine
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 […]
How to Make Tahini with Two Ingredients
(Updated 05/02/22) 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 […]
Don’t Be Perfect
I really struggled with this blog post because…I wanted it to be perfect. The irony! As one of my creative writing teachers told us, just write “s&!%, s&!%, s&!%” over and over and over if that’s what you must do to get words onto the page (or screen). Like perfection, the zero in zero waste […]
Zero-Waste Menu No 3
If you have access to decent bulk bins and a good farmer’s market, with a little preparation and perhaps a substitution here and there, you can prepare almost any recipe without producing waste. Just follow the rules below. When we first went plastic free in 2011, it took at least a couple of months to […]
Bentonite-Calcium Tooth Powder
I am not a dentist. I am merely sharing my own experience, not dispensing medical advice. Now that I have that out of the way… Full-On Hippie Ingredient: Eggshell Calcium Powder For a while now, I have wanted to make toothpaste with calcium powder but simply could not find calcium powder in bulk. So I made my own […]