Almost Vegan Crockpot Lasagne (Deliciously plastic-free)

I've been having fun with my new-to-me crockpot. Thanks to everyone who suggested recipes. One of the perks of having a blog is all the free advice from readers. My first easy project was froghair's black bean chili. Confidence boosted, I tried vegan lasagne a few days later. Here are the ingredients:

Thanks to my friends Jen and Red for the Rainbow Grocery gift certificate they gave me for Christmas. Most of the ingredients came from bulk bins at that amazing store. Thanks also to JessTrev who told me about Bionaturae tomato paste that comes in a glass jar rather than BPA-lined can and who also told me I could put regular dry lasagne noodles (not necessary to buy the quick kind) into the crockpot if I used enough liquid.

This recipe is mostly a product of my own imagination. We love it. I hope the inspiration keeps coming!

Ingredients:
*Dry lasagne noodles (from Rainbow bulk bin, brought home in my own cloth bag)

Sauce layer:
*1 glass jar Bionaturae tomato paste mixed with 3 jars of tap water
*1 cup red wine
*1 tablespoon Better Than Bouillon turkey broth (this ingredient and the next item are what make this dish less than vegan.)
*1 cup chicken juice (leftover from making homemade cat food)
*1/4 cup olive oil
*1/2 onion, chopped
*3 cloves garlic, mashed
*Button mushrooms, sliced (don't know the exact amount. I used all that you see in the top photo.)
*Dry oregano
*Dry basil
*Anise seeds (In the future, we'll get our dry herbs from Whole Foods bulk bins when those in containers are used up.)
*Salt & black pepper

Mushy Layer:
I don't know what else to call it. In traditional lasagne, it would be made from ricotta cheese.

*Mashed garnet yams (also leftover from making homemade cat food.)
*4 squares of firm tofu (also from Rainbow bulk bin, brought home in my own container)
*1 bunch of fresh spinach leaves, washed and stemmed
*Salt & pepper

Preparation:

Sautee onion, garlic, and mushrooms in olive oil until somewhat soft. Add all remaining sauce ingredients and bring to a light boil. The "sauce" will be more like a broth than a sauce. This is important for cooking the dry lasagne. Remove from stove. Mash together yams, tofu, chopped spinach, salt & pepper in a separate bowl.

In crockpot, create the following layers: sauce, dry lasagne, sauce, yam/tofu. Repeat from beginning as many times as you want. It's important to begin and end with a sauce layer to ensure there is enough liquid to cook the noodles. Put lid on crockpot and cook on low for several hours until noodles are the desired firmness. Some people like their pasta mushier than others.

Here is our finished product:




In the future, I think I'll cook it for less time. The noodles were a bit softer than I would have liked and the casserole a little too dry. But overall, it was a winner.

Some of you might be asking why there is no cheese in this recipe. The reason is the plastic wrapping. Too hard to find local, organic cheese without it. I do think I may be able to buy handmade bulk mozzarella from The Cheese Shop, but whether or not they'll let me put it into my own container remains to be seen. This time around, I skipped the cheese and used enough olive oil to not feel fat-deprived.

And don't forget... even if we make our own cheese, there will still be plastic involved in whatever dairy product we use. Milk comes in either glass bottles with plastic caps or cardboard cartons coated with plastic. No way around the plastic unless you own a cow!
 

Homemade Spicy German Mustard

As promised in the Egg Salad Post, I mixed up some spicy German mustard this weekend, using bulk mustard powder, bulk mustard seeds, and bulk brown sugar from Whole Foods. (Plus the last little bit of mustard powder in a plastic container, which will be included in this week's tally.) Eventually, I'll purchase all my spices in bulk once the pre-packaged herbs and spices are used up.

[01/28/2009: It's come to my attention that there are different interpretations of the term "buying in bulk." It could mean buying huge containers (plastic or otherwise) of a product. Think Costco. This is not what I mean. It also means bringing your own container to purchase non-packaged food from bulk bins. This IS what I mean. When you purchase this way, you not only save packaging waste, you're also able to buy the exact amount you need. Check out this new Wiki explaining the difference: http://tinyurl.com/d8xbfl from mmmeg on Twitter.]

We like our mustard with some heat, so I followed this recipe for Spicy German Mustard on About.com:Southern Food. Whole Foods only had one kind of mustard seed, so I just used equal parts mustard powder and mustard seed.

Ingredients:
1/4 cup yellow mustard seed
2 Tbsp. black or brown mustard seed, heaping
1/4 cup dry mustard powder
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 small onion chopped
2 Tbsp. firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 garlic gloves, minced or pressed
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground allspice
1/4 tsp. dried tarragon leaves
1/8 tsp. turmeric

Preparation:

In a small bowl, combine mustard seed and dry mustard. In a 1- to 2-quart stainless steel or nonreactive saucepan, combine remaining ingredients. Simmer, uncovered, on medium heat until reduced by half, 10-15 minutes. Pour the mixture into the mustard mixture. Let mixture stand, covered, at room temperature for 24 hours, adding additional vinegar if necessary in order to maintain enough liquid to cover seeds. Process the seeds and mixture in a blender or food processor until pureed to the texture you like --this can take at least 3 or 4 minutes. Some prefer whole seeds remaining, others a smooth paste. The mixture will continue to thicken. If it gets too thick after a few days, stir in additional vinegar. Scrape mustard into clean, dry jars; cover tightly and age at least 3 days in the refrigerator before using.
Makes about 1 1/2 -2 cups.

This mustard is super hot. I took a tiny taste of it this morning and could barely breath for a few minutes. I think aging it in the refrigerator will help to mellow out the flavors a bit. In fact, I Googled "Does mustard need to age?" and found this Gardenweb discussion answering that exact question. I particulary enjoyed the post by dgkritch who wrote, "And for some of us wimps, it gets better after it sits in the fridge for awhile. When I made mine, it just about singed the nose hairs. Weeks later, I really like it!" I wanted to use that expression myself but plagiarism is just not in me!

I'm enjoying preparing my own condiments! Thanks for all your great suggestions on the Egg Salad post.
 

Plastic, Glass, Egg Salad, & Global Warming

My lunch today... it illustrates some of the choices (or false choices) we sometimes find ourselves making where the environment is concerned.

I wanted an egg salad sandwich, but I didn't have any mayonnaise in the house. I could have walked down to the corner store to buy some more, but there I'd be confronted with the choice of plastic or glass jars. I could have simply opted for the glass jar and been done with it, but lately I've been hearing from a lot of companies about how their plastic containers are better for the environment because they weigh less and therefore require less fuel to ship.

This is true.

Plastic does weigh less than glass, and it does require less fuel to ship. Perhaps, as far as global warming is concerned, it's the better choice. But global warming is not our only environmental concern. Plastic, as I've written here often, carries with it a whole host of toxicity and pollution issues. And, just as the choice to carry reusable bags makes the question of plastic vs. paper meaningless, there are options to make the question of plastic vs glass containers moot as well!

In the case of dry ingredients, we can often bring our own containers to bulk foods stores and eliminate the need for any new packaging entirely. But what about wet stuff? I have yet to see a bulk container of mayonnaise, and if I did, I think I'd be kind of scared. So, what's the third option for mayonnaise and other wet condiments?

Make your own!

In the case of mayonnaise, this third option also happens to be really easy, as I discovered today when I whipped up a batch of homemade mayo from a recipe passed on to me by an octogenarian friend who swears she has never bought a jar of prepared mayonnaise in her life. Here are the ingredients:


1 Whole Egg
2 T. Vinegar or Lemon Juice (I used vinegar because I was out of lemons)
1/2 t. Dry Mustard
1/2 t. Salt
1 Cup Salad Oil (I used canola, but you can use any kind you want. Next time I'll use olive oil for more flavor.)

Place egg, vinegar or lemon juice, seasonings, and 1/4 cup of the oil in the blender in the order indicated. Put on cover. Run blender until contents are thoroughly blended, about 5 seconds. Remove cover. Add remaining oil gradually and run for a few seconds after last oil is added. YIELD: About 1-1/4 cups.

IMPORTANT: Do NOT add all of the oil at once. Do not do this unless you want to waste a whole cup of oil. Remember how I said this recipe is easy? It's super easy if you read the instructions and follow them. (Anyone have an idea for how I can use my first failed batch?) The second batch came out perfectly.

This recipe came from the instructions for my friend's Waring blender. Next time, I'm going to try it using a wire whisk instead, as per these instructions from Epicurious.com. Less (electric) energy. Less cleanup mess.

So, here's my mayonnaise, made from ingredients most of us already have in the house. And yes, it tastes just like the store-bought stuff. Maybe even better.

For the egg salad, I combined the mayo and eggs with Goulden's spicy mustard from a jar we already had. But once that's gone, I'll try making it from scratch as well. Here's info about making mustard from powder or seeds. Once my mustard powder in the plastic container is used up, I can replace it with bulk mustard powder or seeds from Whole Foods.

Do you have any favorite condiment recipes?

I'm grateful to the people I know were around long before this current age of convenience foods and packaging that is helping to destroy our environment. My friend makes her own mayo in the interest of frugality, not "green living." She's a super waste-buster. I and the polar bears thank her.

Now, a post about egg salad would not be complete without a nod to Mystery Men. Enjoy!



Note: This post was written as part of the Green Moms Carnival whose theme this month is Global Warming. It will be published on Monday, January 12, at The Not Quite Crunchy Parent blog.
 

Homemade Chocolate Syrup: Delicious & Plastic-Free

Hershey's. Nestle. Santa Cruz Organic. Ah!Laska. Dagoba. What do these syrups have in common? (Besides some form of chocolate?) Some are conventional. Some are organic. Fair trade. But all of them are packaged in plastic squeeze bottles. Michael and I have begun wondering how products can be labeled organic when they are packaged in plastic. What do you think? Should chemicals from plastic packaging be considered in organic certification?

Well anyway, Michael and I need our chocolate syrup in order to be happy. So I found a very simple recipe on cookingcache.com and have been making it regularly.

Homemade Chocolate Syrup Recipe

• 1 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened) (Organic, purchased from Rainbow Grocery bulk bin)


• 2 cups sugar (Whole Foods bulk bin -- I use 1/2 dark brown sugar and 1/2 granulated sugar. Note: Rainbow Grocery carries organic, fair trade sugar in the bulk bin.)


• 1/4 teaspoon salt (Still using cardboard carton. Will switch to bulk.)


• 1 cup cold water (Tap, of course!)


• 1 tablespoon vanilla (Glass bottle with small plastic cap.)

Combine cocoa and sugar and blend until all lumps of cocoa are gone. Add water and salt and mix well. Cook over medium heat, bringing it to a boil. Keep boiling until thick, stirring to keep from overflowing. Remove from heat and let cool. When cool, add vanilla. This is great for chocolate milk, hot cocoa, and ice cream topping.

Note: This is NOT fudge sauce. It is fat-free syrup and will not be as thick as fudge, which necessarily contains fat, and lots of it!

Enjoy!
 

Plastic-free Thanksgiving: Pumpkin Pecan Risotto, Brussels Sprouts, Winter Salad

I hope you all had a happy and safe Thanksgiving. We spent Thursday at a Thanksgiving potluck with friends and made sure that our three dishes were as plastic-free as possible. Below are links to the recipes, with info on ingredients. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the brussels sprouts after they were cooked as well as Michael's salad.

Dish 1: Pumpkin Pie Risotto with Candied Pecans (From NPR web site.)

All the dry ingredients came from bulk bins at Whole Foods.


I followed the recipe per the NPR instructions, but I kind of feel like something's wrong with it as written. The risotto tasted great, but it was much softer than expected, bordering on mushy. The procedure is different from most risottos, requiring you to put the rice and liquids all into the pot together instead of sauteeing the rice first and then adding liquid gradually.


Next time (and there will be a next time because I'm determined to get this right) I'm going to try sauteeing the rice in butter first and then adding liquid gradually. Since this is a dessert risotto with sugar and milk in it, I wonder how I can keep the milk and sugar from sticking. Any suggestions?

Dish 2: Pan-Browned Brussels Sprouts (from epicurious.com)

Until this weekend, I never knew that brussels sprouts grew on long stalks like this! I had always just thought of them as baby cabbages. So when I found a binful outside Whole Foods on Wednesday, I was immediately enchanted.

Dish 3: Autumn Harvest Salad with Persimmons (from NPR web site)

This salad was great fun for us to make together, full of unusual ingredients: persimmon, pear, pomegranate, pecan, Medjool dates (one of Michael's favorite foods). It was the first time I'd ever cut into a pomegranate, actually. The next day at Trader Joe's, we saw pomegranate arils (the beautiful red edible seeds) packaged in plastic containers, and we thought how much fun we would miss if we were still buying all our foods pre-packaged.

In all three dishes, the only unavoidable packaging came from the dairy products -- milk, butter, and cream. Going vegan would solve that problem. But I'm just not ready to take that step. Maybe next year.
 

Amish Friendship Bread: Skipping the Ziploc bag.

I'd never heard of Amish Friendship Bread, apparently the chain letter of baking, before receiving this bag of starter from my co-worker Jo Anne last week. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was, it's a yeast starter that each person nurtures and "feeds" (adding flour, sugar, and milk on days 6 and 10) for 10 days, then, after quadrupling the original amount, divides it up, making bread with one part and passing the remaining three to friends who will repeat the process (and hopefully not give it right back to you.)

The thing is, the starter recipe that's been circulating through my office requires that each portion be placed in its own Ziploc bag. Each day, the starter is kneaded through the bag until day 10. But certainly the Amish people (if they are indeed the ones who came up with this recipe... that fact is apparently in doubt according to a few Internet sources) wouldn't have started out using plastic bags. I decided to find out the truth.

And the truth is that you can use any kind of non-metal container and instead of kneading, stir the starter with a wooden spoon. Great! I accepted the mission and that night, emptied the plastic bag into a glass bowl. Jo Anne has kindly agreed to take back the plastic bag to reuse.



This bowl doesn't have a lid, so I used a ceramic plate on top to keep it covered, and every day stirred it up. Monday night, I made the bread (which is actually more like a heavy, rich cake) and it rocks. I'll give my recipe below, which contains almost all ingredients bought from bulk bins without any disposable packaging. And as you can see, the remaining portions are in re-used glass jars instead of plastic bags. The lids are, of course, metal. But I think that's okay as long as the jars remain upright.



Oh, and one other little cheat: if you can't find friends to give it to on day 10, don't worry. Apparently, you can actually refrigerate or even freeze the starter to slow or halt the growth process. Supposedly it will start right up again once the starter thaws out. Anyone else have experience with this?

So, here are the directions as I have adjusted them to eliminate plastic. I have two takers for my starter. I need one more. Anyone else in the SF Bay Area who wants it? Please come take my little yeastie boyz!

Amish Friendship Bread

Check with the person who gives you the starter to find out what day they are giving it to you, if it's not Day 1. Begin where they left off.

Day 1: Do nothing with the starter.

Days 2-5: Stir with a wooden spoon.

Day 6: Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. (I used whole wheat flour and nonfat milk, simply because those are what I had in the house.) Stir with a wooden spoon.

Days 7-9: Stir with a wooden spoon.

Day 10: Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Stir. Take out 3 cups and place 1 cup each into three separate non-metal containers. Give one cup and a copy of this recipe to three friends.

Making the bread:

To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.

2/3 cup oil (Believe it or not, I used olive oil because it was the only kind of oil we had and I didn't want to go shopping.)
3 eggs
2 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon (I did not add cinnamon because I don't like it that much. I did, however, add granola and chocolate chips. Per note below, you can add pretty much anything you want.)
1 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In mixing bowl, combine all ingredients.

Grease and flour well 2 9″x5″ bread pans. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes. (I actually used one bread pan and baked for 55 minutes at a lower temp.)

Variations: Add 1/2 cup of one or more of the following - raisins, chopped apples, crushed pineapple, candied fruit, coconut, chopped dates, nuts or chocolate chips. Add to batter just before baking.

The possibilities are endless. Maybe I'll keep the remaining batch of starter for myself and make more.
 

Guest Recipe: Tanya's Steamed Salmon with Wild Rice and Sautéed Spinach

I have 516 messages in my email in-box. 127 of them have not been opened yet. I'm giving a Rethinking Plastics presentation on Friday and am down to the wire working on it. And I'm an accountant and this is tax season! So, here is a beautiful recipe that was sent to me by Fake Plastic Fish reader, Tanya, which requires zero plastic if you bring your own containers for the fish and wild rice. After this post, you might not hear from me again until next week. We'll see how much I can get done with very little time. Cheers!

Beth



Tanya's Steamed salmon with wild rice and sautéed spinach

Ingredients:

Wild salmon (I get mine at Whole Foods - v. expensive but a great treat)
Wild rice from the bulk bin at Rainbow Grocery (they have a wild rice mix there that I just LOVE, it's organic and local!)
1 bunch Spinach (naked of course)
1 clove Garlic
1 lemon (sliced)
spring onions (optional)
little bit of butter
Olive oil

Directions:

1. Prepare rice

Use a 2 to 1 ratio: 2 cups water to 1 cup rice
Rinse the rice with cold running water
Fill sauce pan with water
Add rice & some salt
Cook over low/low heat (if you do this it takes longer for rice to cook but won't boil over and don't need to watch.) Cook for about 45-60 minutes or until desired tenderness (may need to stir 1 time near end of cooking time so doesn't stick to bottom of pan.)

Tanya's tip: Since rice takes so long to cook, I usually make a big batch of rice and then put it in the fridge to re-heat later. If you put it on low/low heat it won't boil over and you can make it while you watch TV or do something else. It lasts about a week and can make multiple servings. If you re-heat it in the microwave, put a couple drops of water on it and it won't dry out. Of course, you can also use a rice cooker (my instructions are for the stove method). Personally, I think they are a bit overrated and take up too much space but I do have friends that imagine life with out it! :) So whatever works for you...


2. Prepare Salmon

Pre-heat oven to 350F
Place salmon on either a piece of parchment paper or piece of aluminum foil
Put a tiny pat of butter, lemon slices and some cut up spring onions on each piece of salmon (save a bit of lemon if you want to squeeze some lemon juice on salmon after cooking - if you like a lot of lemon buy 2)

Bring the sides of the parchment paper up and roll. Tuck the flaps under
Place on cookie sheet/baking pan/broiler pan etc on the middle rack in the oven
Cook for 15 minutes and then flip over and cook for another 15 minutes - should be tender and moist! Time may vary slightly depending on how big/small the salmon is

3. Prepare Spinach

Wash and cut stems off of spinach (I use a salad spinner which I love!)
Slice garlic into thin slices

Heat up a little bit of olive oil in a pan (just enough to cover bottom of pan)
Add spinach and cook for ~2 minutes
Add garlic and cook for another ~1 minute or so until spinach is wilted and tender
Tanya's tip: You can omit garlic if you don't like it and instead add sliced red onion/ add raisins and/or toasted pine nuts for a Spanish flair! Also if you are not a big fan of cooked spinach steam some other vege.

Total time depends on if you make rice in advance or not. That's the most time-consuming part.... So about 30-60 minutes but don't let the time detour you. It is v. easy and the time is mostly waiting for rice and salmon to cook! :) Be sure to save a little salmon for Soots and Arya!
 

Weekly Recipe(s): Dinner in a Pumpkin --> Therapeutic Cat Food

The nice thing about pumpkins is that they last a really, really long time. We've had this one since Thanksgiving and finally got around to doing something with it. We also had some cabbage that was getting old, so I Googled "pumpkin cabbage recipe," not really expecting to find much, and ended up with this fun meal called Dinner In A Pumpkin. Apparently, it's something people serve to their kids on Halloween because, you know, that's the only time of year Safeway has real pumpkins.

The original recipe calls for ground beef. I opted for ground turkey instead and brought my own container with me to the butcher counter at Whole Foods, where they didn't bat an eye when I handed it to them. And yes, this container is plastic Tupperware, which I already had. I'd like to find something made of stainless steel for buying meat but haven't gotten around to looking for an alternative.

So, this answers Meg's question on my March 7 post. She wrote, "Does this mean you're a vegetarian? It seems like you can't get meat anywhere without it being wrapped in plastic unless you get it from a butcher or shoot it yourself." And the answer is that while I eat far less meat than I used to, I still do eat some. And for those times, I take my own container to the meat counter.

But even if you live in a place without a Whole Foods or butcher shop, you can still get meat wrapped in butcher paper rather than Styrofoam and plastic. I inquired at Safeway a while back and was told that if customers come early enough, before the butchers leave for the day, they can request a specific cut of meat to be wrapped in paper. You'll have to call around to our local grocery stores and see what they'll do for you. The hardest part is getting up the nerve to ask. But once you get in the habit of doing it a few times, it's not so scary.

So I baked the Dinner In A Pumpkin, and we enjoyed it that night. And the next night, dealing with the never-ending kitty poo problems, I scooped the dinner out of the pumpkin for us and fed the cooked pumpkin to Soots and Arya (along with boiled chicken, steamed white rice, and probiotic powder.) And I'm happy to report that they are both much, much better.

We did end up having to give them more than this one pumpkin. And unfortunately, since we couldn't find anymore fresh pumpkins, we had to buy canned. I'm feeling a little sad about that right now because even though the canned pumpkin totally helped make them better in the short-term, I'm worried what the lining of the can, that one as well as the cans of cat food we feed them every day, are doing to them in the long term. Today, EWG's Enviroblog has a really terrific and comprehensive post about Bisphenol-A. You should read it. Turns out the dangers from BPA are higher in canned foods than in water bottles because of the high heat used to process canned foods. There is only one company, Eden Organic, which uses a non-BPA lining in some of their foods. But not all!

Maybe some day I'll start making the cats' food from scratch. But for now, I'm still learning to cook for people. And so here, finally, is my modified recipe for:

Dinner In A Pumpkin

INGREDIENTS:
1 medium pumpkin
1 pound ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 whole tomatoes and their juices
1 cup broth (Still using up Better Than Bouillon)
3 cups shredded cabbage
1 cup uncooked whole wheat couscous (original recipe calls for white rice.)

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Wash pumpkin, cut off top, scrape out seeds.
3. Place ground turkey in a large, deep skillet. Crumble and cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain fat, add onion and garlic; saute slightly.
4. Add sugar, Italian herbs, salt, pepper, tomatoes, broth, and couscous; mix thoroughly.
5. Layer inside of pumpkin with 1/3 of cabbage, and turkey and couscous mixture. Repeat layers, replace lid and bake for 2 to 3 hours.
6. To serve, scoop out the fleshy sides of the pumpkin along with the turkey/coucous/cabbage mixture.

The beauty of this recipe is that you can use pretty much any grain, vegetables, and meat or beans that you want.

Plastic in this recipe: plastic coating inside lid of Better Than Bouillon jar. Plastic Italian seasoning bottle, which will be replaced with bulk spice after it's used up. Zero plastic waste for last week.

The couscous, by the way, was Trader Joe's brand which comes in a plain cardboard box with no inside plastic bag. (Some boxes of couscous do have a plastic bag inside.) Normally, I buy couscous from a bulk bin with my own container, but I think the bulk store was sold out the week I wanted to buy it.

Have a nice weekend. I feel like I'm starting to come down with a cold. Need sleep. Need kitties not to jump on me and bite my face in the morning. It's like this cartoon. Turn your sound on and enjoy:


(If you're viewing this in an email or reader, click here to view the video.)
 

Batter Blaster: What's wrong with this picture?

Batter Blaster. It's organic. It's fast and easy. Just squirt into a pan and fry up some pancakes in seconds rather than minutes. What could be better?

I first read about Batter Blaster back in January in CindyW's post on the Organic Picks. She expressed total disdain for the product, as did I in my comment on her blog where I wrote, "That is just wrong on SO MANY LEVELS!" My comment caught the attention of a certain Associated Press reporter who emailed me for a follow up. This weekend, her story, including my comment, was published by news outlets large and small, from Fox News, AOL, and San Francisco Examiner, to Ventura County Star, The Sacramento Bee, The San Diego Union-Tribune, and Bakersfield Californian. All I can say is, it must have been a slow news day.

As I stated in my comment, it's not like pancake-making the traditional way is a slow process. In this CNet video comparing canned Batter Blaster with traditional batter-making, mixing up batter the old fashioned way took 3 whole minutes, compared to the 5-second squirt from the can. So we're now creating disposable steel and plastic containers, more physical waste, just to save 3 freakin' minutes? Give me a break!

On the other hand, I've never made a pancake in my life. Ever. What do I know? So I called my friend, Mark, who makes them for himself every morning, and told him about Batter Blaster. His response: What a stupid thing! How lazy are people?

Mark, mind you, is not some radical tree-hugger. He's your average concerned human being. He brings his reusable bags with him shopping, and since he started reading Fake Plastic Fish, he's become more aware of and concerned about excess packaging. He's pretty typical of what Brave New Leaf recently called "The Environmental Pragmatist." He doesn't grind his own wheat or gather his own eggs. But he does get up 3 minutes early to make his own pancakes:

Mark's No Big Deal Pancake Recipe

1) Mix together 1 cup flour, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1 Tbsp. sugar or natural sweetener of your choice (in other words, not aspartame because it doesn't bake well.)

2) Add 1 cup milk, 1 egg, and 1/4 cup oil and mix everything together. Leaving it lumpy is okay.

3) Fry up your pancakes. Now see, to me, this seems like the hardest part. How long do you leave them before flipping? How do you flip without destroying? And these problems are not solved by Batter Blaster at all!

Mark says this recipe makes 4 big pancakes, which he cooks and eats over 2 days. He says that years ago, he might have thought that making pancakes would be a pain in the butt, but now, he can pretty much do it in his sleep. In fact, when I called him at work today, he rattled off the recipe from memory.

So, maybe some people don't have an extra 3 minutes in the morning to make up fresh pancake batter. To them, I say, "Eat cereal! And leave the pancakes for the weekend!"

This has been my rant for the week. Niceness is scheduled for tomorrow.
 

Weekly Recipe: White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin PLUS daily food log

Once upon a time, there was a young guy, let's call him "R," who was courting a beautiful lass we'll call "B." She invited him to her house for dinner and cooked him frozen broccoli smothered in Cheeze Whiz. It was love at first bite. They got married and had 5 kids, the oldest of whom believed for many years that veggies came from the freezer and that everything tastes better with cheese. She's learning that veggies come from the ground and that she won't die without cheese. But it's a process and she's still taking baby steps in the slow food department.

Why did I start with that story? Because a few weeks ago, The Biscuit Queen, who is also blogging about her quest to live plastic-free, asked to see a list of everything I eat for a week because she's having trouble finding the types of plastic-free bulk foods that I have access to here in the Bay Area. And my first thought was, "Oh, great. Now everyone will know what a poor eater I still am." I don't eat enough fresh fruits and vegetables. If Michael didn't make veggies for us every night, I'd rarely eat them. And I have a huge sweet tooth and caffeine addiction, indulging in way too many chocolate treats and coffee drinks.

But the purpose of this blog is not for me to seem like I'm perfect, but simply to document the journey of an ordinary person who is trying very hard to live plastic-free and environmentally responsibly and who struggles with the same temptations and weaknesses that everyone else does. So, here goes. My food for one week (Sunday, Feb 24 through Saturday, March 1) with a new recipe. Please keep in mind that I don't have kids and that Michael and I often eat separately, so my eating situation may be different from yours.

Sunday, 2/24:
Sunday we attended the annual Oscars-watching potluck party at our friends' house. I was tired and couldn't get it together to make a dish from scratch, so instead I ordered a whole mess of butternut squash ravioli with sage brown butter sauce from Pasta Pomodoro and brought my own Pyrex dish for the restaurant to serve it in. (If I hadn't, they would have used a plastic throw-away container.) It wasn't the healthiest food at the party, but it disappeared mighty fast. Everyone loves butter, right? There's a photo of the cook after filling up my dish.

And here's a close-up of the dish itself. Mmmmmmmm.... At the party, I ate anything I wanted. I maintain a kind of "Don't ask; don't tell" plastic policy at parties. If I don't see any plastic, I assume the best and enjoy myself. Here's the rest of what I ate that day:

• Water from the tap
• Gen Maicha green tea (loose from Whole Foods bulk jar)
• 1 navel orange
• Leftover squash/tomato dish from last night's dinner
• Handful of tamari almonds (purchased from Berkeley Bowl bulk bin in my own container)
• Mocha in my stainless steel travel mug at Pasta Pomodoro while I was waiting (caffeine and chocolate addiction, remember?)

Monday, 2/25:
Monday, I created a recipe based on this Bean and Tomato Gratin from specialflavors.com. My own recipe for White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin is at the bottom of this post. Here's a photo of how it turned out. I thought it was delicious. It was a bit too soft and carb-loaded for Michael's taste, so I ended up making 4 meals for myself out of it. I don't need to eat something different every day.

I also baked a cake. Just a simple yellow cake based on this recipe from Food Musings with plastic-free ingredients that I already had. It was basically something to hold Hershey's chocolate syrup that I wanted to use up. (You'll see the container in this week's plastic tally.) Yep. Addict here. So, here's the day's list:

• Water from the tap
• Gen Maicha green tea
• 1 navel orange
• Handful of tamari almonds
• White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin (pictured above)
• Soy chai latte from Starbucks in my own stainless steel travel mug
• Steamed broccoli and yellow bell pepper with homemade hummus (made from dry bulk garbanzo beans, lemon juice, lots of spices)
• Cake with chocolate syrup (see above)
• Almond tea from tea bag. Once it's gone, I'll replace with loose tea from bulk bin.

Tuesday, 2/26:

• Water from the tap
• Earl Grey tea (loose from Whole Foods bulk jar)
• 1 banana
• Handful of tamari almonds
• White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin
• Raw carrots with homemade hummus
• 2 Pieces of cake w/ chocolate syrup (morning and night)
• Almond tea from tea bag
• Too many mini Reeses peanut butter cups from dish at work. They are wrapped in foil, not plastic. It's no excuse. They're still wasteful. It's cheap chocolate. Nothing redeeming about them at all. And when they're around, I can't resist.

Wed 2/27:

• Water from the tap
• Mocha in stainless steel travel mug at Hudson Bay Cafe (after vet visit)
• 1 banana
• 1 navel orange
• White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin
• Steamed broccoli with homemade hummus
• Mini Reeses cups
• 1 finger of Power's Irish whiskey & water because desperate times call for desperate measures

Thur 2/28:

• Water from the tap
• Gen Maicha tea
• 1 banana
• White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin
• Raw carrots with homemade hummus
• Mini Reeses cups
• 1/2 spicy bread stick from a local cafe & butter

Fri 2/29:

• Water from the tap
• Gen Maicha green tea
• 1 banana
• Handful of tamari almonds
• 1/2 spicy bread stick & butter
• Swiss chard sauteed with garlic, oil, and Trader Joe's Bolognese spaghetti sauce from a glass jar (Is that better than Cheese Whiz?)
• 1 navel orange
• Cake & chocolate syrup
• Whiskey & water

Sat 3/1:

• Water from tap
• Waffle from the Waffle Man at Grandlake Farmer's Market
• Dinner w/ Michael and two friends at Cafe Colucci Ethiopian restaurant before seeing a movie. We shared two vegetarian combo platters and one meat platter. I brought containers for carrying home leftovers, but there weren't any. We scarfed up everything.
• Ice cream sundaes and coffee with these same friends at Fenton's Creamery after movie, where we sat down to have our ice cream instead of carrying it out. The only possible plastic were individual packets of half and half, which we returned to the server, opting instead to put whipped cream from our sundaes into our coffee!

So, there you have it. I am not an example for how one should eat. I could add many more fruits and vegetables to my diet (which come naturally plastic-free) and eliminate quite a bit of chocolate and coffee. And of course, I do realize that the soy chai latte I bought from Starbucks contained soy milk from a carton with a plastic spout. I confess I haven't made my own soy milk in a while and should get back to doing it again.

Now for the recipe:

White Bean, Tomato, & Olive Bread Gratin

• Cooked white beans, 3 cups (from 1 cup dry)(I had soaked them overnight and used these instructions for cooking white beans)
• Cooking liquid from the beans
• 4 ripe tomatoes & their juice
• 1/2 loaf of Acme olive bread cut into 1" cubes (of course, you could use any flavorful bread that is starting to go stale.) I buy Acme bread directly from the bakery at the SF Ferry Building and have it put in my own bag. Otherwise, it comes in a paper bag.
• 1 tsp Better Than Bouillon
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• Thyme, dried, 1/8 teaspoon
• Bay leaf
• Olive oil, 1 tablespoon
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Make a spicy broth by placing bean liquid, tomatoes with juice, thyme, bay leaf, Better Than Bouillon and olive oil in the sauté pan. Simmer 20 minutes or longer to develop flavors. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

In a large bowl, mix up the beans, bread cubes, egg, and tomato broth thoroughly. Then place in a baking dish.

Bake about 1 hour. The top will be nice and brown and the inside consistency will be like a savory bread pudding, creamy and delicious.

Plastic in this recipe: plastic coating inside lids of Better Than Bouillon jar (which I'm still using up) and olive oil. Plastic thyme bottle, which will be replaced with bulk spice after it's used up. Zero plastic waste for last week.

Weekly Recipe: Huevos Rancheros

This dish is about 90% homemade. I didn't lay the eggs or grow the vegetables or make the butter (although I could have using Crunchy Chicken's instructions) or broth. But I did everything else by myself. And just to be clear, the reason for including these weekly recipes is not because I'm a great cook, as some other bloggers truly are, but to show that if a novice like me can cook from scratch with minimal plastic, then anyone else with the desire can do it too.

So, this meal is actually 3 different recipes combined: ranchero sauce, refried black beans, and whole wheat tortillas. Oh, and the fried eggs, but you can probably figure that part out for yourself. (Can you?)

Huevos Rancheros
(modified from Emeril Lagasse's recipe on Food Network.)

Ranchero Sauce:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 cup chopped white onions
• A bunch of chili powder and dried cayenne pepper (this is the main deviation from the original recipe, which calls for bell and jalapeno peppers. I searched but couldn't find any peppers that didn't come from Mexico, even at my farmer's market, and I'm really trying eat as locally as possible. Food from at least within California. So I skipped the fresh peppers on this one.)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1 cup chopped fresh tomatoes and their juice (organic California tomatoes)
• juice of 1/2 lime
• 1 cup broth (water & 1 tsp. Better Than Bouillon which I'm still using up)



• 4 whole wheat tortillas (recipe below)
• 2 cups warm refried beans (recipe below)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 8 large eggs

First, prepare the black beans because this step is the most time-consuming. See recipe below. When the beans are ready, you can move on to the rest of the ingredients.

To make the Ranchero Sauce, in a medium pot, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onions and cook, stirring, for 3 to 5 minutes. Add the cumin, chili powder, salt, cayenne, and garlic, and cook, stirring, for 30 seconds. Add the tomatoes and their juices and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes. Add the broth and simmer until thickened, about 15 minutes (but I left it on the stove much longer. I like my onions to be completely cooked.) Remove from the heat. Adjust the seasoning, to taste, and cover to keep warm.

Prepare the tortillas. See recipe below. Keep them warm under a towel.

In a skillet, melt the butter and fry the eggs.

Place 1 warm tortilla on each of 4 plates and spread each with 1/2 cup of warm refried beans. Place 2 eggs on top of each tortilla and top with the warm Ranchero Sauce. Serve immediately.

Refried Black Beans
(modified from this FatFree.com recipe)

• 2 C black beans, uncooked
• 1 T cumin
• 1/2 C onion, chopped
• 1 T chili powder
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 t cayenne pepper
• salt to taste
• 2 qts. water
• 1 T grapeseed oil

Soak the beans over night.

Drain beans and combine all ingredients in a big stock pot. Cook until very tender, at least 2 hours. (A crock pot would be good for this. I don't have one.) Open lid and let reduce liquid a bit so that the beans aren't too "soupy." (Here are some tips for cooking black beans.)

Mash beans with a potato masher and then fry them in skillet with oil. I like to leave them a little chunky.

Whole Wheat Tortillas
(modified from this RecipeZaar recipe.)

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 t. salt
• 1 t. baking powder
• 4 T. grapeseed oil
• 2/3 cup water

1. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt.
2. Stir in the oil and water all at once, using mixer or a fork, and toss quickly.
3. When dough can be gathered into a soft mass, turn onto floured surface and knead a few times.
4. Form 8 balls of dough, dredge in flour, and store. I put them in a bowl covered with a dampened towel to keep them from drying out. You can cook them as needed.
5. Flatten first ball of dough into a disk.
6. Roll out dough on floured surface until 7 inches or larger with even strokes that do not reach to the edge, turning over frequently.
7. Place tortilla in ungreased, frying pan that has been preheated to medium-high heat.
8. Cook 30-40 seconds on one side, turn over with spatula and cook 30-40 seconds on other side., First side should be pale and sprinkled with brown spots and the other side will be blotched.
9. Repeat process with other balls of dough.
10. Stack tortillas on a plate as they are cooked and cover them with a dish towel, which will keep them soft.

I couldn't believe the utter deliciousness of this dish after cooking all day and finally assembling all the components. Of course, most people would not spend all day on one dish like this. But you can make each of the recipes (beans, sauce, tortillas) in larger batches and use them in other meals. I currently have a bowl of dough balls in my refrigerator for making tortillas whenever I want them. The tortillas, by the way, were much more successful than the pitas, which I've yet to master.

Notes on Ingredients Packaging:

1) All produce (tomatoes, onions, garlic, lime) purchased "naked" without plastic bags.

2) Spices (cayenne, chili powder, cumin, bay leaves) in containers that I refill from bulk jars at Whole Foods.

3) Dry goods (beans, flour) purchased from bulk bins in my own container. Zero packaging. Baking powder in can with plastic lid. When it's finally used up, I'll switch to buying from bulk bin. Salt in cardboard box, but I'll also be switching to bulk when it's used up.

4) Olive oil in glass bottle with metal lid. Grapeseed oil in metal can with plastic cap. Better Than Bouillon in glass jar with metal lid. Using it up and then switching to less-packaging alternative.

5) Eggs in cardboard carton. Returnable at farmer's market.

6) Butter in wax paper. (Still haven't found out if it's really wax or plastic.)

Have a nice weekend. Check back later this weekend if you feel like it because Michael has some exciting news to report.
 

Weekly Recipe: Curried Lentils with Yams & Swiss Chard

Mmmmmmm... Happy Valentine's Day. Here's a nearly plastic-free recipe that Michael first made for Thanksgiving and then I recreated this weekend. Enjoy.

Curried Lentils with Yams & Swiss Chard
Based on this recipe from the NY Times.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1-1/2 teaspoons ginger powder (Recipe calls for fresh ginger, but we didn't have any in the house.)
1-1/2 teaspoons garam masala
1-1/2 teaspoons curry powder
4 cups "Better Than Bouillon" broth mix
2 pounds yams, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
1-1/2 cups dried lentils
1 bay leaf
1 pound Swiss chard, center ribs removed, leaves thinly sliced
1 teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Finely grated zest of 1 lime
Juice of 1/2 lime

Notes on ingredients packaging:
1) Lentils purchased from bulk bin at Rainbow Grocery. Zero packaging.
2) Olive oil and "Better Than Bouillon" in glass jars with metal lids.
3) Vegetables & lime - all purchased "naked" with no bag
4) Spices - currently using up bottles of spices and will refill from bulk bins. Used the last of the curry powder in this recipe and included the plastic lid in last week's tally.

1. In stock pot, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion and sauté until translucent, 5 to 7 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, garam masala, curry powder. Cook, stirring, for 1 minute.

2. Stir in 4 cups broth, yams, lentils and bay leaf. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium, partially cover, and simmer for 25 minutes. (If lentils seem dry, add up to 1 cup stock, as needed.) Stir in chard and salt and pepper, and continue cooking until lentils are tender and chard is cooked, about 30 to 45 minutes total.

3. Just before serving, stir in lime zest and juice. Spoon into a large, shallow serving dish.

Yield: 8 to 10 side-dish servings; 6 main-course servings.

This dish is rich and kind of sweet. Delicious. Who needs cheese?
 

Weekly Recipes: Lentil Loaf & Turnip Mashed Potatoes

I tell ya, vegan-hood is not far away. We made this lentil loaf over the weekend and served it to a couple of friends. Let's just say, there weren't any leftovers. The only animal products were one egg in the lentil loaf and a bit of butter in the potatoes, which could probably have been omitted. You'll see why.

Recipe 1: Red Lentil Loaf
(based on the recipe posted here: http://www.recipezaar.com/192628)

• 1 cup dried red lentils (Purchased from bulk bin at Rainbow Grocery w/ my own bag. Zero packaging.)
• 1 cup rolled oats (Purchased from bulk bin at Rainbow Grocery w/ my own bag. Zero packaging.)
• 1 whole egg (Carboard egg carton. Usually I can return these to the guy at the farmer's market when he's there.)
• 1 cup cooked quinoa (Purchased from bulk bin at Berkeley Bowl w/ my own bag. Zero packaging. The original recipe calls for brown rice, but we were out and the quinoa worked out fine.)
• 1 cup grated carrots (Purchased naked. No bag.)
• 1/2 an onion, diced (Purchased naked. No bag.)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced (Purchased naked. No bag.)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil (Glass bottle with metal cap.)
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce (Metal can with plastic cap.)
• 1 teaspoon dried sage (Plastic container of dried sage that I already had. When this is used up, will buy dried sage in bulk and refill container.)
• salt and pepper, to taste (Cardboard box of salt. Bulk pepper corns from Whole Foods bulk jars.)

Cook lentils. (3 cups water to 1 cup dried red lentils. Stove top, 15 to 20 minutes.) Preheat oven to 350°F. Oil a loaf pan and sprinkle sides and bottom with a tbsp of oats. Sautee onion and garlic in olive oil. Whisk egg replacer and water until light and foamy. In a large bowl, combine the egg replacer and lentils with the remaining ingredients. Press mixture into loaf pan and bake for 40 minutes. Remove from oven and let stand 5 to 10 minutes before slicing. Served with tomato garlic pasta sauce from a jar because I didn't have time to make a homemade sauce.

Plastic: None that will go in my weekly tally. Plastic for a future tally includes the plastic cap on the soy sauce and the plastic sage container. A final bit of plastic is inside the metal cap and lid of the olive oil bottle and the pasta sauce jar.

Recipe 2: Turnip Mashed Potatoes
(Inspired by a dish our friend Kari brought to Thanksgiving this year, but thrown together without a recipe.)

• 1 large russet potato (Purchased naked. No bag.)
• 3 medium turnips (Purchased naked. No bag.)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (Glass bottle with metal cap.)
• 1 tablespoon butter (cardboard box and wax paper wrapper.)
• Leftover wasabi from my sushi birthday dinner (but you could just use regular horseradish) (Cardboard take-out container with plastic lid.)
• salt and pepper, to taste (Cardboard box of salt. Bulk pepper corns from Whole Foods bulk jars.)

Coat turnips with olive oil and bake in oven until tender. At the same time, boil the potato on the stove or in the microwave. When both are done, mash them together. Add butter, wasabi, salt and pepper.

The turnips will add a little bit of crunch if they're not done all the way. You can decide if you want that or not. The butter wasn't necessary. This dish was my solution for what to do with leftover wasabi. A few nights later, Michael used the leftover pickled ginger in a stir fry.

Plastic: The plastic lid from the wasabi container already included in last week's tally. A final bit of plastic is inside the metal cap of the olive oil bottle and whatever shiny stuff coats the outside of the butter box. Not sure if the waxed paper is actually waxed or coated with plastic. Will have to find out.

Rainbow Grocery sells bulk olive oil. You bring your own container and fill it yourself. I'm going to do that when this bottle runs out. I might be able to buy soy sauce that way too, but not sure about that. Plastic-free butter? I don't think it's possible, even if you make your own. Plastic-free tomato sauce? This is on my list of things to learn to make. For now, though, I'm collecting the glass jars to use for food storage despite the plastic lining the metal lids.
 

Weekly Recipes: Vegetarian Split Pea Soup and Beet & Cabbage Borscht

I thought I'd start a new weekly recipe post here. I'm realizing that each week when I post my plastic tally, you get to see what foods I consumed that were packaged in plastic, but you don't get to see all the delicious things I got to have that weren't. So these posts will focus on the positive aspects of living without plastic and demonstrate that, aside from missing cheese and Haig's spicy hummus, I'm not really living in deprivation here.

Disclaimer: I'm not a gourmet cook. I'm learning new techniques, but I wasn't raised on homemade bread or home-canned preserves. I can follow basic recipes and sometimes will simplify them for my own skill level and sanity. In other words, don't expect Martha Stewart or Crunchy Chicken. Just one person trying to eat basically well while avoiding as much plastic as possible. Here goes.

Last Saturday, I cooked up a big pot of Vegetarian Split Pea Soup based on the recipe found here: http://www.recipezaar.com/187594. As a kid, I hated the watery, canned split pea soup my mom served us. I now believe my dislike had more to do with the strong smoked ham flavor than the split peas themselves. This (almost) veggie version is thick, hearty, and delicious, and I wish I'd thought to take a picture before we wolfed it all down. Here's my recipe with notes on plastic:

Recipe 1: Vegetarian (almost) Split Pea Soup

• 2 cups split peas, rinsed and sorted (purchased from bulk bin at Whole Foods w/ my own bag. Zero packaging.)
• 1 cup brown rice, uncooked (purchased from bulk bin at Market Hall Produce w/ my own bag. Zero packaging.)
• 8 ounces spinach, thawed (I did use a box of frozen spinach because it was what we had available. Not sure what the paper around the box is coated with.)

Produce: (All purchased "naked" without packaging)

• 2 celery ribs, sliced
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 carrots, sliced


• 4 cups beef broth (This is why I changed the recipe name to "almost" vegetarian. I'm using up a glass jar of "Better Than Bouillon" broth concentrate at the moment. When it's gone, I'll probably switch to bulk broth mix. Not enough of a cook to make my own broth at this point.)
• 4 cups water
• salt and pepper, to taste (Cardboard box of salt. Bulk pepper corns from Whole Foods bulk jars.)

Place in a large stock pot and cook about an hour until the split peas are all cooked down.

Plastic: None that will go in my weekly tally. Only the small amount under the metal lid on the broth concentrate jar and whatever coats the paper wrapping on the frozen spinach box. This recipe could have been completely plastic-free using fresh spinach (which not everyone can get locally this time of year) and bulk broth mix.

The next recipe was inspired by a 22-year old jar of beets that my co-worker Jo Anne gave me. They were canned by her grandmother in September of 1985 and had been on Jo Anne's shelf for years since she doesn't like beets. They've been on my own shelf for at least a year, skeptical as I was that 22-year old beets would still be good. This week, cleaning out cupboards, Michael and I finally decided to open them, and what do you know? They smelled and tasted fine. So last night I cooked up a batch of beet and cabbage borscht, based on this recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/10922. It was delish.

Recipe 2: BEET AND CABBAGE BORSCHT

Produce: (All except beets purchased "naked" without packaging)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 2 cups chopped cabbage (about 1/2 pound)
• a 6-ounce boiling potato, peeled and grated course


• 1 tablespoon olive oil (glass bottle with metal lid)
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin (purchased from bulk jar at Whole Foods w/ my own bag. Zero packaging.)
• 2 cups beef broth (glass jar of "Better Than Bouillon" broth concentrate w/ metal lid. See above.)
• a 16-ounce jar whole beets, drained, reserving the liquid, and shredded (glass mason jar w/ metal lid)
• 1 to 2 tablespoons red-wine vinegar, or to taste (glass jar with metal cap)

In a large saucepan cook the onion in the oil over moderately low heat, stirring, until it is softened, add the garlic, the cumin, the cabbage, and the potato, and cook the mixture, stirring, for 1 minute. Add the broth, 1/2 cup water, the beets with the reserved liquid, the vinegar, and salt and pepper to taste, bring the liquid to a boil, and simmer the soup, covered partially, for 25 minutes.

We ate the soup last night with a couple of hard-boiled eggs (cardboard egg carton) for protein. I'll finish it up for lunch today.

Plastic: Nothing to add to my tally this week. Only the small amounts of plastic coating under the metal lids of the bottles and jars, including the mason jar containing the beets.

I realize not everyone likes split peas or beets. Hopefully next week I'll try some recipes with wider appeal. (That won't happen tonight, as I'm currently looking up ways to combine turnips and leftover wasabi.)