According to a recent USDA study, Americans waste 1 pound 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 my crossed-the-borderline […]
easy recipes
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 little 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 […]
Zero-Waste Menu No 6
One more menu to go after this and I’ll have a full week’s worth. As I’ve written in some of my other menu posts, I don’t actually cook a different dish every day. In fact, please don’t follow a entirely different menu every day. If you follow this menu today, cook another menu tomorrow and […]
Use ’em or Lose ’em Roasted Vegetables
My kids and I went away for a few days last week and when we returned, I found some vegetables I needed to use up, some more quickly than others, such as a head of Romanesco broccoli (bottom right in the pic below) and a wrinkled orange bell pepper (pictured in the middle). I decided […]
Fermented Salsa
Click here to jump to the recipe My younger daughter refuses to drink kombucha (referring to the SCOBY, “How can you put anything into your body that touched that!”). She won’t try sauerkraut (“What’s that smell?!”). She will eat sourdough, although somewhat reluctantly (“Why can’t we have a normal kitchen?”). But she scarfs down this. If […]
Lentil Dal
Updated 11/23/17 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 […]
Fermented Hot Peppers
Updated 01/18/18 Click here to go straight to the recipe I grabbed a handful of hot peppers at the farmer’s market a couple of months ago to ferment. It was so easy! Every time I try a new ferment, I find myself saying that. I’m convinced that anyone attempting to simplify their life will eventually […]