I love to cook not-written-in-stone recipes. Add a bit of this, a scrap of that, taste as you go, repeat. For the batch of minestrone soup pictured in this post, I used celery, carrots, a bell pepper and potatoes that I had on hand and bought some parsnips and a turnip to reach the three […]
food waste
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 […]
A Reorganized Recipe Index
The recipe index on this blog gets constant, steady traffic. I had originally organized the index into an alphabetical list but as I added more recipes, it became a bit unruly. I’ve reorganized the index with categories like “Ferments, beverages,” “Bread and sourdough” and “You can make that?” so you can more easily find what you’re […]
Easy 4-Step Meal Planning that Reduces Wasted Food
Several years ago, I walked into my therapist’s office, sat down and said, “Before C leaves for college at age 18, I have 4,372 more dinners to cook.” If you feel overwhelmed by the thought of cooking dinner every night, I suggest you avoid making a similar calculation. Instead, I urge you give meal planning […]
18 Ways to Waste Less at Thanksgiving Dinner
The biggest food day of the year in the US will soon be here. These ideas will help you waste less. 1. Keep it simple For this post I did a bit of research into a typical Thanksgiving dinner. I checked out menus on the website of a popular, mainstream magazine site and found them […]
14 Benefits of Cooking
Yes, cooking requires time. But I’m not advocating a five-course meal every night. Dinner can be very simple: rice and beans with a side salad; a quick stir-fry; revamped leftovers. I don’t cook anything very elaborate. I simply try to eat a healthy diet—one devoid of processed food. (Read this post for 18 time-saving tips […]
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 […]
My TV Debut!
Earlier this year, I was interviewed about zero-waste living on The Better Part, a show on KMVT, my city’s community television station. The show aired yesterday here in Mountain View and also in Cupertino and Los Altos. It will air again in several other towns near me over the week. But you can watch below […]
Sourdough Pancakes
Click here to jump to the recipe Go here for a vegan version Ever since Michael Pollan’s four-part series Cooked debuted on Netflix in February, my sourdough bread post gets more traffic than anything else on here, followed closely by this post on Eleanor, my sourdough starter. If you too have caught the sourdough bug, you […]