Bun/muffins

31 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 General & Homemade Tagged 3.1 general, 3.1.2 reusables, 3.2.2 Kitchen, 3.2.4 cook book, 5 Content Veiw 4 Comments

Baking buns is fun but try getting plastic free bun cases and you will be in difficulties as they all come packed in plastic tubes.

Paper & Card

Lucky then I found these paper cases in a cardboard box by If You Care. They are in some shops and can be bought on line. They do three different sizes.
“If You Care Baking Cups are made from unbleached totally chlorine-free (TCF) greaseproof paper. They are perfect for sweet and savory baked goods. Your muffins, cupcakes, mini quiches and other recipes won’t stick to our baking cups because of their natural easy release properties.”
Not sure what “natural easy release properties” are but If You Care were lining their greaseproof paper with silicone last time I looked. And silicone is of course plastic.

Read about greaseproof paper here. spoiler – these days much of it is plastic lined or chemically treated
Read up on Chlorine free paper here.

Silicone Reusable

Otherwise you can go for silicone reusable cases. Yes they are made of plastic, (if you count silicone as a kind of plastic and we do), but they are reusable as oppose to disposable paper

I got these silicone moulds in cardboard packaging from Strawberry Fair which has since, sadly, closed down. This is just to let you know they are out there

Heres what the manufacturers say they “are incredibly versatile and durable. They are the perfect size for small individual jellies, can be used to bake cup cakes in the oven or microwave and then frozen if necessary. No muffin pan required, they are stain and odour resistant and even have a line to fill up to for a consistent look.”

If you can’t find them there are hundreds of other that come plastic packed. Its a one off purchase that will reduce your throwaway plastic packaging so you might consider it worth while.

See more reusable products here.

Baking Tray

You will need to use a stainless steel muffin case without a non-stick coating. No nasty chemicals for you. You can read up about Teflon here
Nisbetts do a good range of stainless steel cookware and they have stores around the U.K

If you can’t find anything in the shops you can of course buy on line. And then you come up against the prickly problem of packaging. There is nothing that enrages plastic activist in me more than researching a a plastic free and environmentally friendly, purchase onlin only to find the onward packaging is plastic.

If it comes via an online, postal service, I want to know how the product will be packed and the more information the better. Down to what kind of tape is used (whether it is plastic or not) and whether the invoice will be in a plastic bag on the front of the box.

Which is why I like he following companies. They offer plastic free products but also consider the onward packaging.

N.B. But no matter what I say, check and double check for yourself. One mans plastic free is another’s little bit of sticky tape.

Find lots of plastic free recipes with the plastic free cook book

N.B.

Lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x

And before you go…

If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project (read more here) or

Breakfast

12 May 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.2.4 cook book 2 Comments

Crunchy munchy cornflakes, sweety wheaty bix, fast food breakfasts that look all innocent in their jolly cardboard boxes what could possibly go wrong. Most breakfast cereals come in plastic bags, (often inside cardboard boxes) so its

Porridge Oats

You can get them in cardboard boxes (that are plastic free), or paper bags. See here

with milk from the milk man.

Museli

But sometimes I don’t like it hot.

Oats with sliced banana and apple with milk from the milk man.

If you want to have this with nuts or dried fruit you can get everything you need here

Fry Up

Go to a butchers or butchers counter in a supermarket with your own container or biobags.

Mushrooms and tomatos from the green grocer in cotton produce or paper bags (find here) which I reuse and eventually compost.

eggs in a cardboard box ditto.

Brew Up

The teabags are from Twining’s and the packaging is plastic free. Sadly the tea bags are not! Yes teabags contain plastic! We use loose tea. You can find out more here.

If you are a coffee drinker, get your coffee from Coffee Evolution.

with milk from the milk man.

Juice – homemade

Biscuits homemade Christmas Tree Decorations

23 March 2011 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink, 3.1 General & Homemade, 3.1 Special days & Parties Tagged 3.1.5 Christmas, 3.2.4 cook book 3 Comments

While in Spain I visited Lidles and I came across a set of festive biscuit cutters in a cardboard box. They might have them in the UK.

If not I have sourced some on Amazon for you but I can’t answer for the packaging!

Plastic-Free Biscuits

100g/3½oz unsalted plastic-free butter
100g/3½oz caster sugar in a paper bag
1 free-range egg bought in cardboard boxes
275g/10oz plain flour in a paper bag
To decorate
400g/14oz icing sugar
3-4 tbsp water
Edible glitter. You can get some plastic-free cake decorations from the Nut Shop Leeds. Or you could use these plastic-free Smarties.
Compostable ribbon or string

To see how to bake these biscuits go to the BBC Food website

And last time I looked you could still get icing sugar in a cardboard box. If not you can make it by grinding sugar in a spice grinder or food blender then adding cornflour. You can find full instructions here.

FOR INSPIRATION check out Pinterest where the iced biscuits image was found.

Add a compostable tie and there you go – plastic free and edible christmas decorations. What’s not to love?

Find more lovely plastic-free Christmas ideas here….

Mincemeat Sweet

21 November 2010 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.5 Christmas, 3.2.4 cook book 4 Comments

No more jars with their plastic-lined, metal lids for me! So what with Christmas coming I need to make my own sweet mincemeat for my mince pies. So I did. I based my recipe loosely on a Delia recipe. Thank the lord for Leeds Market and the Nut Shop where I bought all my ingredients.Don’t live near Leeds. There are other places – Check out the loose food list here.

This is what you will need for the Delia Recipe

1 lb (450 g) Bramley apples, cored and chopped small (no need to peel them)
2 oz (50 g) whole almonds, cut into slivers
4 level teaspoons mixed ground spice
½ level teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ level teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
6 tablespoons brandy
8 oz (225 g) shredded suet
12 oz (350 g) raisins
8 oz (225 g) sultanas
8 oz (225 g) currants
8 oz (225 g) whole mixed candied peel, finely chopped
12 oz (350 g) soft dark brown sugar
grated zest and juice 2 oranges
grated zest and juice 2 lemons

This is what I am using for mine. Made one big jar which is as many pies as I want to make!
275g Windfall apples from the neighbour – great way to use up sour apples!
No nuts! Yuck!
120g Vegetarian suet from Weigh & Save Whitby
275g Raisins Nut Shop
65g Dried apricots Nut Shop
No Candied peel, but zest and ginger in my Wrinkled Balls of Christmas Fire
No All Spice
No Sugar I don’t think it needs it. Much as I love Delia I think she rather over sweetens!
Juice of one oranges from the green grocers
6 tablespoons Wrinkled Balls of Christmas Fire, ginger and lemon peel in vodka

You might want to follow the Delia recipe and cook this properly (needs leaving overnight and baking for 3 hours), or you can, at your own risk, do this….
Mix all the ingredients together leave overnight, put it in to bake at a time when you are using the oven anyway for as long as the oven is on maybe a bit longer then leave it in the oven as it cools down. Spoon into old jam jars. Top with lard or vodka to keep fresh till needed. Can’t promise it won’t go off but not lost a jar yet. That said I don’t make this far in advance.
If you want it to look rather more fancy you could try these reusable clip top kilner jars with rubber seals.

Find lots more plastic free recipes with the plastic free cook book and more Christmas stuff here

Juice and juicers

5 November 2010 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.3 drinks, 3.2.4 cook book, 4 plastic2cut plastic, 4 Reviews, 4.1 plastic we use

I can easily avoid juice screw top lids, and plastic lined tetra packs, by making my own juice.

Now I have been putting this off for a while because I thought it would take a lot of labour and time . Don’t like the first and don’t have enough of the latter. But I have heard so much good about fresh juice and juicing recently I began to think it might be worth it.

And our tree is covered with apples no good for eating but if I juice them then maybe. Well at worst I could make cider surely??

So I bought a Philips Juicer and though there was some plastic wrapping most of the protective gubbins was cardboard. Result.

Better still it is really easy to use and clean. No peeling no seeding chuck the fruit in.

Since then I have been juicing everything – really I mean everything. Both fruit and veg are quickly reduced liquid and its great for using up things – bit of pepper, some dried up ginger, half a lemon and a soggy tomato – in they go along with the broccoli stems and sour allotment apples. I know it sounds gross but so far it has all tasted good.

Totally recommend this product

PLASTIC ALERT

Of course the juicer has plastic elements but we don’t boycott all plastics. We think that there are some valid uses for the product ( gasp!! yes I know…you can read our reasons here). The juicer fits into the

Plastic products that reduce the use of plastic disposables

Stuffing

18 August 2010 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.5 Christmas, 3.2.4 cook book 2 Comments

You can’t have a roast bird without stuffing. I have tried long and hard to find plastic free ready-made but it eludes me so now I make my own… heres how…

First I got the recipes and they all call for breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs what? How? Where do I get plastic free crumbs from?Any smart buggers out there can keep their sarcastic comments to themselves.

Google time later and I can tell you its easy – stale bread + food processor or cheese grater and they can be kept in the freezer so you always have some on hand.

Actually what I did is put some not really stale wholemeal bread buns, plastic free from the bakers, in the oven, dried them out and crumbled them up.

Ok now its time for that really good stuffing.

This is a recipe

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 dollop of olive oil

Some fresh sage, finely chopped – from the garden

80g/3oz fresh white breadcrumbs

salt

pepper

1 egg, beaten – bought in a cardboard box refilled at the cheese stall, Huddersfield Market

I had no scales so I guessed the amounts. Fried the onions, used an egg, some oil and added an egg to bind it all together. Shoved it in the oven at god knows what heat. Served with bird….. and it was really good.

I will never buying stuffing again.

For more try the plastic free cook book here

Bread and bread machines

10 January 2008 by Plastic Is Rubbish Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged 3.1.3 bakery, 3.2.4 cook book, 4 plastic2cut plastic, 4.1 plastic we use 1 Comment

Buy

As you know, most bread comes plastic wrapped. Unless you are lucky enough to have a local bakery, and don’t work office hours, this can be problematic for the plastic free.

I do get to choose my own hours so I can go shopping in the week, and we do have a local bakers – but there is still a problem.They put their bread in plastic bags. They do have paper bags for the buns but they don’t like using them for bread. Each time I ask, they tell me the bread doesn’t fit in a paper bag. It quite clearly does and has been proven to do so on previous occasions. It is, for whatever reason, an issue with them so I don’t push it.

Most supermarkets do unwrapped rolls and will let you use your own produce bags.

However man cannot live on barm cakes alone!

Make

So I bought a bread maker which is easy to use and the bread is fantastic. There are still some plastic elements – the milk powder comes in a plastic lined packet and the yeast is plastic foil wrapped but it is a small plastic price to pay compared to pre-packed bread.

Of course the breadmaker has plastic elements – but we don’t boycott all plastics. We think that there are some valid uses for the product ( gasp!! yes I know…you can read our reasons here). The breadmaker fits into the plastic products that reduce the use of plastic disposables category.

So now our bread needs are met with a combination of buns from the co-op, a run in with the bakery when I have the time and the stamina and homemade bread.

Speciality Breads get fantastic nan breads from Maryam Bakery

Find more yummy baked things at bread, buns and biscuits

Courses & Community Made Bread

Not only do these guys do scrummylicious bread which I totally recommend, they do it for a good cause!

All quotes are taken from the website….

“LoveBread is run by bakers and volunteers who love baking bread. We want to involve the local community in providing real bread for their community. ”

This not for profit organisation bake handmade artisan bread for sale in Ryecorn’s Wholefoods, Brighouse every day except Wednesday, Villa Farm Shop, Huddersfield on a Friday and Saturday and Ingfield Farm Shop, Southowram on a Friday and Saturday.

Learn to make Real Bread

Love Bread run regular workshops teaching the basics of making your first loaf to advanced techniques of shaping and flavourings. We also run courses and training sessions for community groups and schools.

All workshops are available to book online, visit our workshop page for more information. Our workshop vouchers are now available from the bakery, market stalls or email us for more information. We are now taking bookings for all our workshops, visit the workshop page for more details and to book your place.

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