Category Archives: Recipes

DAIRY PRODUCTS SIMPLIFIED

For years a lot of plastic packaging in our household came from a range of dairy products. In addition to the staples of milk, cheese and butter there were pots of yoghurts, crème fraiche, soured cream, double cream, cream cheese, soya milk, goats milk products, dips, individually wrapped cheeses for school lunches, spreadable Lurpak and margarine for baking. There was a vague sense of a lot of packaging and things going past their best-by-date, but I’m not sure it ever fully surfaced into my consciousness as wasteful. My focus was on catering for everyone’s tastes and preferences and having everything available, all of the time. It all sounds a bit mad to me now.

I now put the emphasis on non-plastic packaging and local availability and that’s it. Milk is delivered by the milk man and unpackaged cheese is bought straight from a local cheesemaker or the farmers market – and boy, is it delicious! I also learned how to make non-dairy milk such as oat and almond milk which is easy and inexpensive.

When Waitrose recently stopped wrapping their butter in paper, it forced me to go out looking for an alternative. I realised that there are three local producers of butter wrapped in paper. I keep the butter in the fridge and portion it into a lovely Cornish butter dish on the counter which keeps the butter just the right side of soft for easy spreading on toast and sandwiches. I would prefer to buy butter unpackaged as I have learned (from a reader commenting below) that the paper butter is wrapped in is usually impregnated with microcrystalline wax or other petroleum products. The same is true for the packaging of an excellent Breton cream cheese I buy and have many excellent uses for, such as spreading on toast, making dips, adding to soups, making carbonara sauce and more. The pots look like they are just cardboard with a little silver foil to cover the cheese. It is still better than a plastic tub, but it is just as well to know that things that look like cardboard, like Tetra Pak for example, are not all that innocent.

You can buy little glass jars of clotted cream in some farm shops, but again, you have plastic inside the lid and the glued on labels are printed in polymer colours and ‘gold’. A dairy shop near me that also does milk refills in glass bottles will take orders for cream in glass jars. It means phoning ahead and picking up. It makes double cream a rare and special commodity in our household but maybe that’s ok!

For those eating a lot yoghurt, making your own is probably a really good discipline. You can buy yoghurt making kits and build it into your daily routine. There is a recipe for yoghurt and for making crème fraiche in the comments from readers below.  But if none of this appeals to you and you have no sources of unpackaged food where you live, then consider cutting down on the number of products you use and simplify so you can save on plastic packaging and avoid food waste.

THE EASY ALTERNATIVE TO DAIRY MILK AND TETRA PAK

Are you someone who prefers an alternative to dairy milk? Perhaps you are lactose intolerant, a vegan, or you just don’t like cows milk? There are lots of alternatives in the shops – all of which seem to come in drinks cartons, usually Tetra Pak, as far as I can tell. They can contain a lot of sugar and additives and in any case, Tetra Pak is not an option when you want to avoid single-use plastic. The obvious solution is to make your own nut, oat, rice, hemp or soya milk and until I had a go at this, I had no idea how easy it is.

These alternative milks last a few days in the fridge and can be used with breakfast cereals, smoothies, shakes and for cooking with. They do tend to curdle slightly if added cold to a hot drink. You can add vanilla, maple syrup or pitted dates at the blending stage to increase the sweetness, but nut milks tend to be naturally sweet. Many websites also give you recipes for using up the pulp that is left over, for example to make oat biscuits. Oats and rice milk are perhaps the quickest and cheapest options, but you do not need large quantities of the basic ingredients, so price is not really an issue (I am convinced that the cost of the ingredients in commercial products are miniscule compared to the cost of the packaging and transport and mark-up for the retailer). Cashews also lend themselves to making cream which is great to use in Indian cooking. Simply soak a handful of cashews in a cup of water for 10 minutes and then blend – no need to strain afterwards.

You will need a blender or food processor, a piece of muslin or cheese cloth, a funnel and glass bottles with lids. If you have a local unpackaged or zero waste food shop, you will be going along with your fabric bags to stock up on the ingredients. If not, it’s time to get searching as most cities have at least one zero-waste, bulk buy, or unpackaged food shop. Have a look here.

Almond milk:

Cashew milk:

Oat Milk:

Hemp Milk:

Soya Milk:

Rice Milk:

HERBAL TEAS STRAIGHT FROM MOTHER NATURE

I used to have a line-up of Pukka teas all along the top of my kitchen dresser. Attracted by the colourful packaging and enticing names, I believed that these tea bags were plastic-free until a reader pointed out to me that the sachets each tea bag is sealed in is lined with a polymer for gluing the paper together. Many herbal tea brands, if not all, use plastic in some way or another so I decided to look around my garden to see if I had any herbs, apart from the obvious peppermint and lemon balm, that would be good for making herbal tea. I counted 11 additional plants: chamomile, purple and green sage, rosemary, thyme, elderflower, comfrey, yarrow, nettles and dandelion. And that was just the ones I instantly recognised. How had I missed this opportunity for fresh tea straight from mother nature? The answer of course is because of shiny beautiful packaging of ‘bought’ tea and how easy it is to pop a pack into the shopping basket.

Fresh herb tea tastes beautifully subtle and alive and is easy to make – simply pour hot water over a few freshly picked leaves and let them steep for five minutes. Drying bunches of herbs for making tea for the winter months is also very easy to do. Hang a bunch of herbs upside down for a few days, rub the leaves or flowers off the stems, and store them in a jar or paper bag. You can combine different herbs to suit your taste or try recipes for soothing colds and other ailments. Another wonderful type of herbal tea is hot water with a shot of homemade elderflower cordial.

You don’t need to grow a great quantity of herbs to make a lot of herbal tea – which came as surprise to me. Just one yarrow plant yielded much more than I could possibly use. There are also many wild herbs and weeds that make great tea, such as nettle and dandelion leaves. If you don’t have a garden, growing peppermint in a pot on your windowsill or collecting wild herbs on a walk are good options. You can of course buy loose leaf unpackaged tea from Neil’s Yard and other tea shops – but do take your own paper bags and ask them not to put a plastic sticker on the bag.

Useful links:

• Herb teas for healing: https://smtebooks.com/book/5280/holistic-herbal-4th-edition-pdf
• Best herbs to grow for tea: https://www.thespruce.com/best-herbs-for-tea-4151170
• Neil’s Yard shops for loose herbal tea: http://www.nealsyardremedies.com/

HOMEMADE HUMMUS (and a little spiel on food cans)

I am somewhat addicted to hummus. It’s great as a starter or party finger food with carrot, cucumber and celery sticks. I love it on toast with sliced tomatoes, a dribble of olive oil, salt and pepper. A perfect light lunch!

Homemade hummus tastes slightly different from shop-bought hummus in little plastic pots. To avoid single-use plastic packaging for the recipe below, your best option would be to source unpackaged dried chickpeas. Since this is difficult for the majority of us in the UK, the recipe is made with off-the-shelf chickpeas in cans. Nearly all food and drink cans are lined with a plastic coating but I cannot be certain that all chickpea cans are. Food cans in the UK are made from steel or aluminium from over 50% recycled material and are fully recyclable. The majority are lined with epoxy resins to prevent acidic food like tomatoes from reacting with the metal. A building block of epoxy resin is Bisphenol A (BPA) which is a controversial ingredient in plastic products. If we bear in mind the environmental impact of industrial packaging of any kind, unpackaged dried chickpeas would be the best option for the environment and well worth sourcing if you use them as regularly as I do. I am fortunate that I am able to buy unpackaged chickpeas, spices and olive oil.

I make hummus in a food processor and keep it in the fridge for a few days. You could choose all organic ingredients. Tahini (sesame seed paste in glass jars) is optional but really helps with that authentic hummus taste. I recommend using Tahini ‘light’ which is less intense.

  • 400g canned chickpeas, reserve a few for decoration
  • 6-8 tbsp of the water or brine from the can
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 2 tbsp tahini (optional)
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp paprika

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor and blend to a creamy purée. Add more lemon juice, garlic, cumin or salt to taste. Drizzle with olive oil, scatter with the reserved chickpeas and sprinkle with paprika. Enjoy!

An here is another very delicious hummus recipe: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/hummus_80249

Further reading:

How cans are made in the UK today:
http://www.cannedfood.co.uk/how-cans-are-made-today/

About Bisphenol A:
http://www.bisphenol-a.org/human/epoxycan.html

Why does my tin can have a plastic liner and is it bad for me?
http://plasticisrubbish.com/2010/10/08/why-does-my-tin-can-have-a-plastic-liner-and-it-it-bad-for-me/

Unpackaged food:
Whole Food Market UK
Harvest Natual Food, Bath and Bristol
Totnes Zero Waste shop
Farmers markets, Asian food markets, healthfood shops

Packed lunch with homemade hummus and homegrown sprouts

TOOTHPASTE THE NATURAL WAY

I don’t know why I ever thought that the production of toothpaste was something complicated and best left to the professionals. Maybe it’s the fact that I had never used any toothpaste before that was not bought in a shop. Or maybe because there is something vaguely ‘medical’ about using toothpaste. Perhaps I am just scared that I’ll lose my teeth prematurely if I use the wrong stuff. Yet, when it comes to natural cures I am all for home remedies and have total faith in nature.

In any case, since the vast majority of toothpaste on the market is sold in plastic tubes with plastic lids, I started researching the obvious alternative: making my own. There are literally hundreds of recipes and advice on the internet for making tooth powders and tooth paste. After trying a couple of different recipes I now make this wonderfully refreshing toothpaste with bicarbonate of soda, china clay and essential oils such as peppermint, clove and fennel. Both, bicarbonate of soda and clay are ingredients that are used in common toothpastes found in shops. Essential oils add freshness and flavour and have all sorts of benefits for teeth and gums. I make smallish batches at a time which last our family for a few weeks and only take 2 minutes to prepare. This is my absolute favourite recipe for Kaolin Toothpaste which I use most of the time and keep in small cosmetic or Kilner spice jars. It makes about 100ml of toothpaste and keeps for about a month before loosing it’s lovely taste:

  • 6 tbsp Kaolin mineral clay (quantity may vary)
  • 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda, food grade
  • vegetable glycerine, add slowly until desired consistency is reached
  • 10-20 drops peppermint essential oil
  • 10-20 drops sweet orange essential oil

Try this super-simple Peppermint Toothpaste recipe from “Make your own Cosmetics” by Neil’s Yard. Fennel or lemon essential oils can be used instead of the peppermint if you prefer:

  • 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 teaspoon of vegetable glycerine (cheap from Boots the chemist, in small glass bottles)
  • 3 drops of peppermint essential oil (again from Boots or health food shops)

Brushing my teeth with my own healthy and natural toothpaste and bamboo toothbrush makes me very happy in the mornings and reminds me to keep flying the flag for plastic free living throughout the day. Joy!