Less Waste Wins / Losses + Salad Dressing recipe

In my quest to implement some of the strategies for generating less waste (from the book Zero Waste Home), I started going to stores with bulk bins more often.

I haven't quite gotten the energy to ask if I can bring my own containers and have them weigh them to subtract the tare.  However, I did realize that I tend to buy the same things over and over.  So there's another way!

Instead, today I went to Sprouts.  One of the things I regularly buy there is bulk oats (on sale 0.69/lb, regular price 1.29/lb).  The last time I bought the oats, I simply saved the plastic bag and the twist tie with the number on it.  I put this bag inside a container in my cupboard.  Today, I reused the bag and the twist tie.  I am hoping to do that with, well, everything.  At least until I figure out if I can bring my own containers.  I bought a large amount of 4-cup soup containers from Amazon a year ago, and they really would be perfect for bulk bins.

I also bought quinoa and pinto beans (in new bags that I will reuse).  I may or may not have saved the chocolate peanut cluster bag too...you know, for future needs.

The final "reuse" of the day was the olive bar - I saved the plastic container from last week, washed and dried it, and reused it.  Of course I carried the groceries out in my reusable grocery bag.

As far as "refuse" goes, I refused to buy strawberries in a plastic container.  Instead I bought a cantaloupe.  I also didn't get a bag for the red bell pepper.

I'm eventually going to let the cantaloupe rind rot...aka, I'm going to start composting again.

This weekend I bought eggs at the farmer's market - I can return the egg container to the vendor and they will reuse it.

On the negative side, the baby cucumbers came in a bag.  They didn't have any loose ones.  My weekly veggie delivery was accidentally short this week, and we are running out.  Next week will be HUGE, which I was excited about.  Until I just found out hubby will be gone all week.  Oh well, lots more for me and the boys.

Finally, the bread came in a bag.  I really need to figure out if I can regularly make a sandwich bread at home that my husband likes.  We get so many damn bread bags.

After dinner I made another batch of salad dressing.  Making your own dressing is easy, healthy, and generates less waste.  While I haven't quite figured out how to get vinegar or olive oil in bulk (as in, bring your own container), I do buy 2L bottles of olive oil at Costco and buy vinegar in glass jars.

This salad dressing is my favorite.  It's so tasty, and this time of year, I get parsley and garlic and lemons every week.  Instead of buying bottled salad dressing and "recycling" (downcycling), I just reuse the same glass bottle every week.

The dressing started from this recipe from Beachbody.  I've altered it.  Because I get a lot of parsley.

Lemon-Parsley-Garlic Vinaigrette.
Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3-4 large cloves garlic, pressed
1 bunch parsley, washed and de-stemmed (a pain, but worth it)
1 tsp or so of honey or sugar.  I use local honey.  And I just scoop out some with a regular spoon.
1 tsp of mustard (you know I eyeballed this).  I use brown mustard, but dijon works too
pinch himalayan salt

Put all ingredients in a blender and blend!  It comes out creamy and delicious and very very green.  The vibrant green goes away over a week or two, but it still tastes great.  I don't skimp on this either.  I eat a large bowl of salad for lunch every day, and believe me, I'm not measuring out 1 TBSP of dressing.  I think my dressing container holds at least 2 TBSP.

Sometimes I use the immersion blender to make the dressing.  It's not as smooth.

This dressing will harden up in the fridge because of the olive oil.  Let it sit at room temp to thaw before you use it.

Plastic plastic everywhere

Pardon me as a ramble.  I've been thinking a lot about plastic and packaging lately. It's no secret that California has a lot of tree huggers.  It's one reason I love this state!  And a lot of decisions that I make are based on the environmental impacts - today and in the past. Some of those things I have lapsed on, because they are hard.

In any event, I've been reading a bit more about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.  I've also been reading more from Bea Johnson at Zero Waste Home.  Her book has been on my wish list forever, so I finally just bought it for myself for my birthday.

I took it all the way to Colorado on vacation and brought it back, unopened.  I finally started reading it.  The trip to Colorado was interesting.  We were meeting friends there who are definitely more environmentally conscious than we are.  We were all a bit disappointed in the lack of recycling in town (it's there, in some places...just not very many places).  As our friends drove there, they simply tossed all the cans and bottles in the trunk to take it back home to recycle.

We were relatively green there.  We ate breakfast at the hotel (which has real dishes).  We had our water bottles with us.  I packed lunches in reusable tupperware.  But there are some things that are just harder.

To start, I've been thinking a lot more about the packaging in food.  Which is probably what you'd expect, as this is a food blog.

In my own life, this boils down to a few big things:
- Gallons of milk
- Plastic bread bags
- Frozen veggie bags
- Plastic egg containers

All of this plastic just gets tossed.  The milk containers and egg containers get recycled, but it's really "down-cycled".  It's just better to avoid stuff in the first place.

What we DO do correctly
- Use reusable water bottles
- Buy wine in refillable growlers (yes I get bottles too)
- Drink bubbly water that we make using a soda stream
- Get most of our fruits and veggies from a subscription box, which means they just come in the box, no containers.  (We store them in ... our old bread bags.)

But there are more things that we can do.  I have to think about this more.  It's no secret that I try to keep the food budget down, and budget and environment will war with each other.  For example, I also buy boxes of lettuce heads to supplement our delivery.  You know, in a plastic box.  I also eat a lot of beans and rice, that we buy in bulk.

By "in bulk" I mean, in 5 to 10 lb bags. Plastic bags.  I could use the bulk bins at one of the many stores that have them, and simply reuse the bags.  Of course, the cost per pound is often double.  A little googling tells me that one of the stores will, for sure, let you bring your own containers if you measure their weight/ tare on the way in.  That may just be the way to go.

Then there are things like cheese and tortillas and salsa and marinara.  Frozen veggie burgers.  Meat. And those pesky eggs.  I'm not interested in getting chickens (my neighbors have them though.  And maybe we should get them.  We eat a lot of eggs.)  I could get 2 doz with our box, but then the cost for 2 dozen goes from $5 to $16.  (Of course the eggs from the box are local and of much higher quality.  And better for the environment.  But that's still 10 bucks a week, just on eggs.  $520 a year.) On the other hand, it's only $520.  What am I saving it for?  Oh yeah, college.  2 kids.

Stay tuned for my attempts at reducing waste!