Tag Archives: sustainable living

Weekend food waste roundup – 28 October 2012

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For those of you in L.A., this is just a small reminder that I’ll be speaking at Westfield Century City on Tuesday as part of the CODA Electric Vehicle Speaker Series. If you’d plan to attend, RSVP to concierge@codaautomotive.com by October 29.

And in other news…

Students taking action

JM Gets a New Hydration Station – Joaquin Moraga Intermediate School installed its first “Hydration Station” at the school last month, and paid for it from savings the school achieved by diverting food waste and turning it into electrical energy.

Business Rx: Food Recovery Networks seeks steady income stream – The Washington Post – Student-run Food Recovery Network seeks revenue stream to make it financially self-sustaining in the long term.

The ups and downs of food waste?

Brazil favelas maid fights food waste with ‘viagra’ in Italy – The Malaysian Insider – Regina Tchelly teaches others how to reduce waste in her cooking classes, by showing them how to make such dishes as banana peel brigadeiro. She claims that her trademark dish, watermelon rind risotto, has viagra-like properties. I suppose that’s just as true of my watermelon rind chutney, which has the benefit of lasting longer.

Bengaluru drowning in its own waste | GulfNews.com – Greater wealth has spawned more garbage, and the managers of the country’s development have been unable to handle the load.

A Rise in Food Prices Could Stem the Tide of Food Waste · Environmental Management & Energy News · Environmental Leader Is cheaper always better?

The Great Pumpkin

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In October 1992, we bought a pumpkin.

Now, I don’t remember every gourd-like squash I’ve ever purchased, but this one was special. It wasn’t the first pumpkin I’d ever bought, and it wasn’t the biggest. In fact there was nothing remarkable about it at all, except this: it was the first pumpkin that I ever bought as food.

In the past, I had only procured pumpkins with the intention of carving faces into them. When I shopped for them, I looked for ones that were vaguely evil looking … sinister pumpkins, that looked like they would just as soon shoot me as look at me … soulless pumpkins that exuded quiet rage.

That all changed one afternoon in 1992, when we happened upon a pile of pumpkins at our local vegetable shop. In that moment, it struck me that pumpkins were food too … and remarkably inexpensive food at that (important, as we were saving for our honeymoon). And, as I looked at one pumpkin in particular – a tantalizingly plump and inviting one – I realized that it could feed us for a week.

We bought it, and embarked on what was to become a fun, week-long project: finding as many ways to eat our pumpkin as we could think of (this was in the olden days, and Mosaic was still a year in the future, so we had to rely on our own wits and knowledge). I still remember many of the things we ate that week: roasted pumpkin, pumpkin mash, roasted pumpkin seeds, spicy pumpkin stir fry, pumpkin soup (with a hint of maple and a dash of nutmeg), pumpkin pie and pumpkin quick bread. It fed us for a week, as predicted, and only the peel and stem ended up in the bin – something that felt like an accomplishment, somehow.

This year, there was no jack-o-lantern, but we did buy a little pumpkin, which Bonnie Lee turned into one of the most incredibly moist quick breads I’ve ever had, thanks in part to the addition of okara (soy pulp, a byproduct of making soy milk – more on that magic ingredient another day). The recipe is below…

Insanely moist pumpkin bread

The wet stuff & spices

  • 1½ cups pumpkin flesh (roasted then mashed)
  • 1 cup okara
  • 2 eggs
  • ⅔ cups sugar
  • ½ cup soy milk (unflavoured, unsweetened)
  • ½ cup birch syrup
  • ¼ cup honey
  • ¼ cup oil
  • 2 tsp ginger
  • 2 tsp allspice
  • 2 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp ground cloves

The dry stuff

  • 3 cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 2 tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking powder

Directions

  • Preheat your oven to 350℉.
  • Grease two loaf pans (we use glass ones).
  • Mix the wet stuff and spices in a big bowl.
  • Mix the dry stuff in another big bowl.
  • Mix the dry stuff into the wet stuff.
  • Fill the loaf pans ⅔ full.
  • Bake for one hour, or until a wooden skewer or toothpick inserted into the bread comes out clean.
  • Let cool for 5 minutes, then remove from pan and cool on rack.

Weekend food waste roundup – 21 October 2012

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Jack-o-lanterns: a scary amount of food waste

Smart Suzy: Ready for pumpkin-carving? Cut down on food waste, go green, deals | Our Smart Money — In this entry, Smart Suzy talks about creative ways to carve pumpkins, and about food waste, but doesn’t link the two topics. So what will you be doing with all that pumpkin flesh to keep it out of landfill?

Easy listening

On The Point: GMOs, Food Waste, and Food as Entertainment | Slow Food Los Angeles — Interesting and thoughtful discussion, and a timely one for those in California who will be voting on prop 37.

Dumping food waste – ABC South Australia – Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) — This audio program, with two Aussie Food Waste Experts, shares tips and recipes to help reduce waste and save money.

And in other news

Study Finds That Cutting Food Waste Could Feed One Billion Hungry People | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building — In inhabitat (an online magazine that promotes sustainable design), Kristine Lofgren reports on a study that our current approach to feeding 9 billion people may be short-sighted. This study found that approaches that cut food waste, rather than increase food production, could feed 1 billion people.

Anger over waste scheme (From The Northern Echo) – Is Politically speaking, it is still hard to convince communities to embrace food waste solutions

Modern alchemists

Food waste is one raw material we have way too much of, and there are plenty of schemes to turn it into usable products.

30,000 TPA Food Waste to Biogas Facility for Edinburgh – Waste Mangagement World — Edinburgh plans to turn 30,000 tonnes of food waste in biogas each year

Waste could prove a money-spinner – Taipei Times — Entrepreneurs in Taiwan have developed new technologies to make the wasted sorghum grains into value-added products.

Starbucks turns food waste into plastic | Green Futures Magazine — Meanwhile, Starbucks is looking to turn food waste into plastic.

Composting in the Valley Cuts Down on Food Waste — Black Bear Composting is helping restaurants turn waste into compost for local farmers. I’m not sure this is helping reduce food waste, as the title claims, but it is a good way to divert it.

Composting—Turning Garbage into Black Gold – State of the Planet — Food waste is now collected at 25 GrowNYC Greenmarket locations and many other sites in New York City for composting.

Let Us Compost helps apartment dwellers, restaurants be more green | Online Athens — A new start-up that is providing a solution to help urban dwellers compost.

Lebanon news – NOW Lebanon -Food for thought on World Food Day — Two great causes that go great together: food recovery and composting.

Levi’s Launches New WasteEcouterre – OK, this one isn’t about food waste, but thought I’d throw it in here anyway…

222 million tons app mentions

4 Mobile Apps Helping Minimize Waste in the Food Industry | Sustainable Cities Collective — This article seems to be making the rounds.

Apps Only Apps » 222 Millones de toneladas …. — A Spanish app review site. My high school Spanish lies abandoned corner of my brain, but I remember enough to be happy with the words “222 Millon Tons es una brillante idea (creo yo)…”

Weekend food waste roundup – 14 October 2012

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We didn’t see very much about food waste in the news this week, though it was great to see the 222 million tons app mentioned in one of the articles we found, as well as a call for action in Singapore (my home away from home much of the time).

I’ve also included links to a couple of blog posts in this week’s roundup, from two of my favourite bloggers who go the extra mile in the composting department.

In the news

Mobile Apps Can Help Reduce Food Waste

Eagles recycling extends to the parking lot

TODAYonline | Voices | Food is to be eaten, not dumped –

Composting - going the extra mile

Stealing Trash – A New High « Dirt N Kids

Hair cuts = compost | Attempting zero waste lifestyle in a military household

Weekend food waste roundup – 7 October 2012

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This week’s roundup has a tips on preserving food (including using etheylene absorbers to prolong the shelf life of produce) and reducing waste (including an article on reducing Thanksgiving waste – timely, if you happen to be Canadian), as well as a couple of articles about the issue of food waste.

Tips for preserving food and reducing waste

How to Absorb Ethylene Gas | eHow.com

Budget Tip: How To Vacuum Seal Food Without a Vacuum Sealing Machine | The Kitchn

Save Your Food: Canning and Freezing 101 – Earth911.com

Cooked Apple Recipes Great for Fall, Baked Apples, Apple Crisp and More – AARP

7 ways to reduce household food waste –  News – MSN CA

Tips from the pros on cutting Thanksgiving waste – The Globe and Mail

More on food waste

UN Says Europe Wastes 50% Of Fruit And Vegetables — And America Isn’t Much Better – Forbes

Radio Prague – Study maps makeup of Czech household waste

Wish you were here

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One of the great tragedies in life is that we often don’t truly appreciate people until they’re gone. As I reflected on my recent eulogy for our three cup Cuisinart, I realized that the same is often true of appliances – and that’s a shame.

That’s why I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge our immersion blender, a plucky little orange kitchen warrior that is often called upon to help out with a meal – and one that I am truly missing this week, as I try to make meals in a kitchen equipped with a Teflon-coated wok and a wooden thing that is neither spoon nor spatula. There is also a bowl.

Now here’s a fun (and germane) fact about vegetables: if they’re a little limp, any dish that calls for them to be pulverized probably won’t suffer. So when I see a vegetable that’s a little less turgid than I’d like it to be, one question I ask myself is: what would happen if I took my orange friend to it?

The most recent meal old orange and I made together was a refreshing cold cucumber soup – a favourite at our place that, I should hasten to point out, can be made with limp cucumbers. It’s one of the recipes in Bright & Bold collection on the 222 million tons app, but you don’t need to buy the app to get the recipe. It’s right here:

Cold cucumber-yogurt soup (serves 1)

Cold cucumber soup

Ingredients

  • ½ cucumber (turgid or limp)
  • 1 scallion (turgid or limp)
  • 1 Tbsp cilantro
  • ½ jalapeño pepper (turgid or limp)
  • 1 small clove garlic
  • 4 oz plain yogurt
  • 1 tsp lime juice, freshly squeezed
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • ¼ tsp salt, or to taste

Directions

  • Chop the cucumber, scallion and cilantro coarsely.
  • Remove the seeds and membranes from the jalapeño pepper, and chop coarsely.
  • Crush the garlic.
  • Using an immersion blender, blender or food processor, blend all of the above with the lime juice, olive oil and salt, until it looks like soup.
  • Put the soup in the refrigerator to chill.

Weekend food waste roundup – 30 September 2012

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It seems that food waste is getting a bit more attention these days, and so I’ve decided to share information on Twitter and Facebook as I come across it, with the occasional round-up here. Some recent finds follow…

Consumers want it. Now is the time to act on food waste | Comment & Opinion | The Grocer – It’s nice to see that there’s some dialogue about food waste in the grocery industry.

Grocery Chain Figures Out How to Stop Wasting Food | Care2 Causes – If you make money selling food, it makes good business sense not to waste it. Stop & Shop has bucked traditional supermarket wisdom and made that discovery.

From Farm to Landfill – NYTimes.com – As we struggle to find ways to grow more and more food to feed more and more people, one obvious way to increase the food supply is often overlooked: waste less.

Chuck Newcomb: Avoid wasting food by buying what’s needed, storing it properly – A little common sense advice on how not to waste food.

Lessons from the animal kingdom

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There’s a lot we can learn about better ways to interact with the environment from our fellow creatures. Edo and Pyx, much to our amusement and edification, make it their daily challenge to find new ways to reuse old things.

Caught hiding in their new fort

Our tireless feline upcyclers

As imaginative and dedicated as they as they are, they can’t hold a candle to Norman.

Refreshing, but fatal

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This blog entry is a eulogy – and like all good eulogies, it starts with a poem.

     Gone after twenty years,
     With one soft and fatal gasp.
     My kitchen partner, who knew no fears…
     Gone! After twenty years.
     A void, and yet there are no tears,
     And to my neck I raise no asp.
     Gone. After twenty years.
     With one soft and fatal gasp.
.

What words can I use to describe my long time kitchen companion? Reliable? Tireless? Efficient? All of those, and more. Yet, now that I think of it, undeniably more sluggish lately; struggling to do what had once been so easy … so effortless.

Now those struggles are over, and my kitchen helper is still and lifeless. And, here, my confession: it was all my fault. I alone am to blame. Dessert was my idea, and it was the dessert that was fatal.

Mea cupla.

The recently departed, dear, little three cup Cuisinart was a wedding gift, and over the years it made falafel with us, velvety soups, dips, salsas … too many things to list. It wasn’t the biggest Cuisinart in the world, or the fanciest, but it was always there.

Reliable. Tireless. Efficient.

Easy to clean.

It was killed by two frozen bananas, which have become staples around here. An early commenter on 222 million tons shared this tip, “Sometimes I wait too long for my bananas to get that perfect balance of yellow and brown, so I freeze peeled bananas and then use it later for milkshakes! No need to add ice-cream or sugar to make it slushy or sweet.” It was wisdom we incorporated into our lives, to the detriment of our trusty little appliance. Mami, if you read this blog still, know that you have blood on your hands too. Cuisinart blood.

The silver lining on all this is that our marriage has outlived yet another wedding gift; another milestone has been crossed. We now know that our love is stronger than a three cup Cuisinart, romantic words that may well end up on the family tombstone – a lyrical epitaph indeed.

Garbage ulesAnd now to practicalities. We will need to dispose of the body; of the sad, tiny Cuisinart corpse. In Japan, that would have been easy. There was a shop that bought old appliances that could be salvaged for parts, and if they didn’t take it, the prominent poster over our garbage bin had information to steer us right. Here we’ll have to do a little research. And of course, although it’s a little soon to talk of such things, we will need a replacement – and if any of you have tips in that department, please share them in the comments. It may sound disrespectful, but we were ready for an upgrade anyway.

As a final act of remembrance, I feel I should share the recipe that killed the Cusinart. Usually, people refer to this treat as “one ingredient ice cream”, but in our home it has another name this week.

One appliance ice cream (serves 2)

One ingredient ice cream

Ingredients

  • Two frozen bananas
  • One Cuisinart

Directions

  • Remove bananas from freezer.
  • Slice finely with a heavy knife.
  • Place slices in Cuisinart and let sit for a few minutes, to give them time to soften (especially important if your Cuisinart is on it’s last legs).
  • Pulse on high until the bananas have the consistency of soft serve ice cream, or until smoke comes out of your Cuisinart.

This simple dessert is rich, refreshing, loaded with potassium, made with no animal products, and potentially fatal.

The last picture of it before it died.

The last picture of my kitchen helper before it passed on. RIP, little friend.

Seitanic bites?

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I like meat.

Bonnie Lee likes meat.

Despite that, meat has never been a big part of our diet, and it’s not something we cook with at home very often.

We made that choice very consciously when we were first married based on simple arithmetic: it takes more land, water and sunshine to make a pound of meat than a pound of vegetables — and there is only so much water, sunshine and land to go around. Given that, and the fact that there are people who go to bed hungry, a meat-rich diet always felt like taking more than our fair share. It always felt selfish and wasteful.

Having been raised in traditional North American households, though, we both grew up with meat at the centre of our diets, and enjoy meat’s bite and texture, not to mention that burst of umami. When a meal calls for that, we often use seitan.

There are many varieties of commercial seitan, and most are very tasty, but if you’d rather opt out of the additives, packaging and transportation that come with processed food, you’ll be pleased to note that it’s easy to make at home. We made our fist batch this weekend, and it was better than any packaged seitan I’ve ever tried. It was flavourful on it’s own – even better after sitting in a chipotle marinade – and had a great mouthfeel. We used it to make tacos, which we served with a fresh homemade salsa and cilantro rice. I’m currently working on a vegetarian collection for the 222 million tons app, and this recipe definitely made the cut.

Seitan tacos

Seitan tacos

Seitan (six servings)

Ingredients

Seitan
Broth
  • 4 cups stone soup or other broth
  • 4 cups water
  • 2 Tbsp tamari sauce
  • ½ inch ginger
  • 1 thick slice of onion
  • 1 clove garlic

Directions

  • Warm 4¾ cups of stone soup broth over medium heat.
  • Remove ¾ cups of the broth to make the seitan. Add in the tamari, lemon juice and crushed garlic.
  • Put the flour in a bowl, pour in the spiced broth, and mix.
  • Take the elastic glob that forms out of the bowl, squeeze out any excess liquid, and knead it for 2 or 3 minutes until it gets tough.
  • Shape it into a loaf, and let it rest for 15 minutes.
  • While the seitan is resting, add the water, tamari sauce, ginger, onion and garlic to the remaining broth and bring to a low boil.
  • Cut the seitan loaf into ¼ inch slices, then boil those in the broth for about an hour.
Seitan cutlets

Seitan cutlets