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Zero-Waste Basics

Wash Laundry, Not too Much, Hang to Dry

Posted on January 22, 2020April 9, 2021by Anne-Marie Bonneau

Wash dirty laundry in cold, use as few products as possible and hang to dry. You’ll save money and your clothes will last longer.

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Simple Restaurant-Style Mexican Red Rice (Arroz Rojo)
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"How do you store bread without plastic?" is a que

"How do you store bread without plastic?" is a question I hear all the time. Plastic-free storage can be done and was the norm for most of bread-eating human existence.

Not all bread keeps the same. I bake sourdough, which stays fresh longer than a similar loaf made with active dry yeast. If I bake an extra loaf, I freeze it whole in a cloth produce bag for up to a couple of weeks.

At room temperature, I store bread on the counter, cut-side down on a wooden board (we polish a loaf off in two days, tops, one if both kids are home). That helps prevent the cut side from drying out and the sourdough crust keeps the rest of the bread fresh.

My kids prefer to bake bread with baker's yeast (when they're home...my youngest just left for university in the olde country this month 😭). To store that, I also freeze it whole in a cloth produce bag or store it on the counter in a cloth produce bag.

More info on my blog. Link @zerowastechef.

New recipe on my blog: Simple Restaurant-Style Mex

New recipe on my blog: Simple Restaurant-Style Mexican Red Rice (Arroz Rojo)

I used homemade tomato paste for this but storebought will work. How many times, after opening a can of tomato paste and removing the one tablespoon you need for a recipe, have you scratched your head wondering what to do with the rest of it? It freezes well but using it up immediately ensures you, well, use it up. Here’s a new rule to live by: when you buy tomato paste, buy rice as well so you can make this simple side dish.

Some reasons why this tastes so good:

🧄 I plop a few whole garlic cloves into the rice. This infuses it with flavor and the cloves melt in your mouth when you're lucky enough to come across one.

🔪 I used shallots instead of onions. In his book Kitchen Confidential, Anthony Bourdain gave away a few secrets to elevate home-cooked meals to restaurant-level taste. Cooking with shallots was one tip. (Onions will also taste delicious in this if you don't have shallots.)

🍅 Homemade tomato paste. So good! When I go to the trouble of making tomato paste, I make a large amount.

🌽 Homemade broth. I used mostly corn cob broth for this. Last week, I made it with my fermented tomato juice. OMG. Homemade broth made from scraps tastes delicious, you know what goes into it and it requires no plastic packaging.

Link @zerowastechef for the recipe.

Good news! The ubiquitous chasing arrows symbol s

Good news!

The ubiquitous chasing arrows symbol serves as a marketing ploy to keep consumers consuming. Imprinted on plastics, that number surrounded by the triangular arrows indicates the type of resin that goes into plastic. It does not indicate that the plastic will actually be recycled.

This marketing ploy convinces the public that what goes into the recycling bin will become a new product on the other side. But we know that less than 10 percent of plastic are recycled in the US.

I’m getting to the good news part. Honest…

This week, the California Assembly and Senate passed a bill that will ban companies from imprinting the chasing arrows recycling symbol onto products and packaging if they cannot prove that the materials are actually recycled. The bill now awaits Governor Newsom’s signature.

Have a glut of summer vegetables on hand? Consider

Have a glut of summer vegetables on hand? Consider preserving at least some with very little effort by fermenting them in a brine.

Place the prepped food in a clean jar, pour a brine over top, close the jar and let the vegetables sit from between five to seven days (or so). I use 3 tablespoons of salt for every 4 cups of water for the brine (5% salinity).

This jar contains whole cloves of peeled garlic, a bit of basil (for flavor and color) and Early Girl cherry tomatoes. Yum!

After we (quickly) eat these soon-to-be-effervescent cherry tomatoes, I'll ferment something else in the brine.

9 More Simple Staples to Make not Buy Making stap

Another country, another ban on plastic items, thi

Another country, another ban on plastic items, this time in England. The ban includes single-use plastic plates, plastic cutlery and polystyrene and will go into effect within the next two years. (Note that the EU already banned similar items this past July.) In April 2022, the government will tax plastic that contains less than 30 percent recycled content. Sometime in 2023 a phase-in of extended producer responsibilty (EPR) will start. (source: @guardian)

EPR puts the onus and cost for cleanup where it belongs—on polluters rather than individuals and taxpayers. None of these bans we're witnessing around the world would have come about without pressure from below (i.e., from all of us). When I decided to go plastic-free in 2011, these bans were nowhere in sight. Now, I read about bans and taxes on single-use plastic and EPR constantly.

Yes, the progress is painfully slow. But we are seeing progress. Keep pushing.

Homemade wine vinegar is as incredibly delicious a

"I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw pu

Kernel-to-Cob Corn Chowder is one of my favorite s

Kernel-to-Cob Corn Chowder is one of my favorite summer recipes from my cookbook.

After removing the kernels, you make broth from the cobs. I also add the husks and silks to the broth if I use organic corn on the cob. Jalapeños or serranos, garlic, ginger, cilantro and lime juice add flavor to this hearty chowder filled with corn and potatoes, while cashews add creaminess.

You can find the full recipe, excerpted from my book, on @sustainable_america’s website.

One of the many solutions to the climate crisis is

One of the many solutions to the climate crisis is as old as dirt: compost.

Decomposing organic material in landfills emits methane gas—a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. By keeping previously edible food and food scraps out of landfill, we reduce these emissions. Compost can also sequester carbon. (It is magical stuff!)

But what if you don't have a yard? @compostgeek’s book, No-Waste Composting: Small-Space Waste Recycling Indoors and Out, includes ideas for indoor composting: terra-cotta pot composting, vermicomposting and bokashi.

And if you do have a yard? Well then... learn how to build hugelkultur beds (raised beds filled with branches and twigs that release water and nutrients as they decompose), create African keyhole gardens (raised beds arranged around a compost bin in the center,) and do pit composting (as in dig pits in your yard and fill directly with food scraps).

Do you have pets? You can compost pet waste in a dedicated bin—not your regular bin!—in your backyard too 🤯 (See the book for instructions.)

Want to get additional people composting? Consider accepting your friends' and neighbors' food scraps. @sharewaste matches up eligible composters with eligible food scrap donors (it's Tinder for food scraps).

To encourage the larger community to divert wasted food and food scraps from landfill, consider working with your municipality to implement a green bin program or community gardens that accept food scraps if your city doesn't offer these programs. Working with local goverments generally brings about change much more quickly than working at the state or federal level.

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