Carving a pumpkin this Halloween? Save your pumpkin seeds and roast them in olive oil, salt and your favorite savory seasoning.
easy recipes
Zero-Waste Mexican Hot Chocolate
Say no to plastic bottles of chocolate syrup and hot chocolate packets and yes to Mexican hot chocolate with a hint of cinnamon, nutmeg and cayenne pepper.
10 Zero-Waste Snacks for Kids (and Those Who Feed Them)
Fill little bellies, not big garbage bags, with these healthy and simple zero-waste snacks for kids.
Hazelnut–Cocoa Spread (aka Homemade Nutella)
Once you taste this homemade hazelnut-cocoa spread, you can never go back to store-bought Nutella. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Milking Nut Milks for All Their Worth
Feeling guilty about making almond milk? Use this trick to double the amount you render. Still feel guilty? Pumpkin seed milk will assuage your guilt.
Freestyle Cooking: The Recipe for Eliminating Food Waste
According to a recent USDA study, Americans waste 1 pound of food per person per day at the household level. Now I basically live and breathe waste. I would like to insert the word figuratively into that statement but with plastic pollution in our water, our air, our soil and our food I cannot. Even with […]
Charlotte’s Granola Bars
Click here to jump to the recipe I’ve filed these granola bars under cookies and cakes in my recipe index. From Merriam-Webster cookie noun cook·ie \ ˈku̇-kē \ cookie : a small flat or slightly raised cake These are cookies. Bar cookies to be more precise. Unlike Big Food I will not market these as energy bars, meal replacements, […]
The Lemon Sorbet of Compromise
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 […]
Freestyle Cooking: Stir Fry
Before cooking dinner, if we home cooks first examined the inventories of our pantries and refrigerators and used what we found there to make a meal, we would slash food waste in the home. Our great-grandmothers did this. Today, many of us choose what to eat based on our whims—or our picky eaters’ demands! Let’s […]
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 […]
7 Make Ahead Staples for a Zero-Waste Thanksgiving
Cooking without producing waste requires some planning but not that much. Cooking Thanksgiving dinner without waste needs a bit more planning. I don’t like to leave all my prepping for Thanksgiving to the day before or day of. I like to sleep. So this week and continuing on the weekend, I’ll prep a bunch of […]