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 […]
farmer’s market
Someone Tell Me How I’m Missing Out
If you read environmental news, you may have stumbled across articles within the last week or so on a new type of edible straw. This article from Fast Company contains some unfortunate wording about these alternatives to wasteful, single-use, ocean-polluting plastic straws: It’s not about the consumer sacrificing anymore, it’s about the consumer having fun and […]
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 […]
Zero-Waste Menu No 5
When we first went plastic-free in 2011, it took us a while to figure out what to eat. One thing was clear, however—we would no longer eat processed foods, with all of their plastic packaging. We started eating more fresh vegetables from the farmers market and I also began fermenting like crazy. If you’ve caught […]
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
Updated 07/07/22 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 […]
How to Store Produce Without Plastic
Read aloud in a Brad Pitt drawl: The first rule of food waste is: you do not buy too much food. The second rule of food waste is: you do not buy too much food. In an ideal world—one in which you have time to shop a few times a week at a local farmer’s […]
How to Make Eggshell Calcium Powder
My daughter MK made me some homemade toothpaste a couple of years ago that I really liked. It was very similar to this recipe but she added calcium powder to it. She bought calcium supplements and emptied the contents of the gelatin capsules into her toothpaste concoction. I have wanted to make her toothpaste recipe […]
Vodka Sauce
We ate tomato-based dishes every night last week: pizza, chana masala and this vodka sauce with pasta. I have yet to tire of tomatoes though. I eat lots of them while they’re in season and roast and freeze a bunch to get through most of the winter. For me, part of the joy of eating […]