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Tomato ketchup

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink, 4.3 My Projects Tagged , , ,

Today’s action is to ‘borrow it’. How many things do you own which you hardly ever use? We’re asking people to be resourceful by borrowing rather than buying. Whether it’s joining your local library, signing up to a neighbourhood borrowing scheme or even borrowing a dog (yes, that’s right, there are websites that allow you to do this), borrowing is a great way to access what you need and meet others in the process.

So here goes…. borrow it ketchup using yesterdays puree
Got the ketchup recipes from the internet. I used them more as a guide because I was using what I had in and what I could borrow!
So it said apple vinegar but I only have balsamic vinegar and white vinegar. White seemed a bit harsh so I went with WLLM FOOD8balsamic.
I used white instead of brown sugar as I cannot source plastic free brown sugar.
I borrowed the spices and they did have plastic lids BUT I can get them plastic free. I didn’t because  I am on holiday living in a van. To buy a load of spices to make some experimental sauce seemed daft. So…I used those listed below because they were the ones I could borrow.

Here is my ketchup recipe

Splash of olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped medium
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup tomato purée – hand made yesterday!
1/5 cup sugar
25 ml balsamic vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon all spice
Salt and pepper

Fried the onions added the spices cooked it up and blended it.
WLLM FOOD12I would be the first to admit that this not quite tomato ketchup. Its the wrong colour for a start! Thats the balsamic vinegar for you.
The texture isnt quite silky enough either.
But it is sauce and it tastes really good! I can’t quite believe it! It is tomatoey and vinegary and sweet.
It will last a month in the fridge apparently but if I was doing it at home I would freeze it in small batches.

So impressed with my homemaking skills.

Find more recipes in the plastic free cookbook

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Tomato puree

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged ,

Day one of Wasteless live more and I am tackling tomato puree one of the few plastic wrapped products I use. Of course tins ad metal tubes are plastic lined, as is the metal lids of glass jars.  Read about this and other sneaky plastics, here.
So  I thought I would try to make tomato puree and guess what? It is really easy.
I finally understand why, tomato puree! Its a way of storing loads of food in a very small space. The idea is to reduce the tomato to its very essense and remove as much as the moisture as possible. The result is a thick flavoursome paste.

So lets get pureeing…
Cut toms in half remove the white bits put in a pan with a bit of water and steam until soft and pulpy and the skins come away easily.
Peel them
Push the pulp through a seive.
Put in a pan and bake in the oven till it thickensI took it out before it got really thick but it was good enough for me. 10 tomatoes reduced to a small glass.


Cant bear waste tomato soup
Couldnt bear to throw the skins and seeds away so I chucked them in with some lentils and the water I drained off from steaming the tomatos. Cooked and blended.
Ta da!

More

Check out the plastic free cookbook here

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Check out the #plasticfree cookbook here.

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Tomatos – an alternative to tinned

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged , , 4 Comments

I learnt to cook out of tins. I don’t mean as a student; I mean when I was growing up we ate out of tins, a lot. One of the staples in the cupboard was tinned tomatoes. They were used for everything. Even when we had a cooked breakfast it would come with tinned tommies.
I don’t know if tomatoes were scarce in Manchester in the 70s, just a seasonal treat or wether we preferred it that way. All I know is that the fresh tomato was rarely seen in our house.
What’s taught is whats known and as an adult I thought tinned tomatoes were an essential ingredient in bolognese, sauces and stews. Consequently the thought of giving up tinned tomatoes as part of our plastic boycott, (Tin cans of food – they are nearly all plastic lined), was scary. But I needn’t have worried.

I can of course buy Passata which is posh tinned tomatoes in a glass bottle . But those bottle have they will have plastic lined metal lids and are expensive so better and easier to use fresh tomatoes.

Better still I can make my own tomato base – useful if you have a lot of tomatoes and you need to something with them….. or I can use them uncooked. Who knew.

Pre-Cooked

Heres how
Get a lot of tomatoes. Go buy a big box full. Read up about plastic free veggies here.
Or grow some.

Wash them and pack them in a pot.
You can do them whole or half and cut the hearts out first. Cover them with a lid
1passata08
Bake them in the oven or on the the top of the stove till they go squishy.
1passata12
Sqeeze in innards out, pull the peel off.
freeze till needed
Nice additions – herbs when baking and or a dollop of tomato puree when freezing.
NB I reuse my PLA plastic compostable pots as freezer pots. So far only the lids have failed me.

Use Fresh As Is

Now while this is a good and useful thing to do, handy to have in and a great way to store a glut, it is not always necessary. Yes, since then I have found that you can add fresh tomatoes to whatever it is your cooking!
I know! This is how I do it
Cut them in half then remove the white bit out
Steam them on top of the frying veg
When the are cooked it is easy to peel the skins off.
Then you can mash them down to make sauce.
Just as good as tinned – honest.

More

Find more recipes in the plastic free cookbook.

Find plastic free fruit and veg here.

Fruit & Vegetables

 

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

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Porridge Oats

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink 3 Comments

Quakers Oats and Scots Porridge come in cardboard boxes and are plastic free.

Some of the expensive organic oats come in cardboard boxes but I have never tried them.

You can get them in a paper bag from Lidles very cheaply indeed. They are a bit woody but edible.

You can buy them loose from Whole Foods Market and some weigh and save type shops

 

You can find other plastic free products here.

 

Jam

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged

I try to avoid glass jars with metal (plastic lined lids) so I make my own jam. If you use jam sugar it is beyond easy.

Fruit

You can make jam out of just about anything, so go  find yourself some plastic free fruit, or even carrots.

Don’t forget to  Take your own plastic free bags.

Sugar & Pectin

Bought as one in a paper bag from Tate & Lyle

For the traditional sweetness of jam, our 1:1 Jam Sugar, with its perfect balance of sugar and pectin, brings expert consistency to your homemade jam creations. The ratio of 1 kg of fruit to 1 kg of 1:1 Jam Sugar may be the most common way of making jam, but the result is uncommonly delicious.
Tate & Lyle
Fairtrade,  For a traditional jam, Suitable for vegetarians and vegans, Kosher – KLBD
Our Fairtrade Promise
When you choose to buy Tate & Lyle Fairtrade cane sugar, you are making a difference to communities around the world. With your help, through the Fairtrade Premium, we support thousands of small-scale cane farmers in developing countries.

Make

Add equal weight of jam to fruit.

Boil  till it went thick. OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Put it in a kilner jar or reuse a jam jar. Ta da!

 

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Vinegar

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink, 4 About The Alternatives Tagged , ,

Vinegar is great. You can use it for all kinds of things and is almost plastic free to buy.

Vinegar is made by converting ethanol (alcohol) into acetic acid – the main ingredient in vinegar.

Vinegar is typically a 4-8% solution of acetic acid; the rest is water.This makes it a moderately strong acid.

Read about pH of acids and alkaline here.

It can be made from any any alcohol – wine vinegar is made from wine (!), apple vinegar from cider, malt vinegar from beer and white vinegar from moonshine as far as I can tell!

Vinegars can be made at home.

Live Vinegar 

Most vinegars are sold processed and filtered but you can buy live vinegar.

  • This still contains the mother Mother of vinegar a cloudy monstrous swamp  of acetic acid bacteria and cellulose. This is created during the fermentation process of alcohol into vinegar
  • The ‘mother’ is alive and is made up from bacteria, enzymes and living nutrients.
  • The presence of the mother shows that the vinegar has not been processed or filtered.
  • It is the mother that gives vinegar all its claimed health benefits.
  • You can also use it to make more vinegar

Apple Vinegar

  • is good as a  hair conditioner and skin toner
  • It can also be used for cleaning
  • And almost everything else.
  • It can be  made at home!
  • Tescos do an apple vinegar in a glass bottle with a metal screwtop lid. Apart from the little plasticised disc in the lid they are as plastic free as you can get.

Find out more about apple vinegar here including where to buy the good stuff

White vinegar

White vinegar is made 

  • can be used for cleaning and pickling
  • It is  made from either acetic acid produced in a laboratory or from grain-based ethanol (alcohol)
  • It is clear
  • It can be bought cheaply in large glass bottles at most supermarkets. However they will have  either a plastic lid or a metal lid lined with plastic.  It is a plastic price worth paying for this versatile product.

Malt Vinegar

  • is for pickles, chutneys and chips.
  • Malt vinegar is made from beer which is allowed to ferment until bacteria turn it into vinegar.
  • It has has a deep brown colour.
  • It can be bought cheaply in large glass bottles at most supermarkets. However they will have  either a plastic lid or a metal lid lined with plastic.  It is a plastic price worth paying for this versatile product.

Uses

Disinfectant

Vinegar is a mild disinfectant. It will kill some microbes but not all. You can read more here.

Cleaning

Vinegar is an acid so good at cleaning inorganic soils and alkaline stains and grime but NOT grease and fats.

 Examples of alkaline grime is hard water, mineral buildup, soaps scum (acid attacking an alkaline).

Vinegar can be used to clean all manner of things – you can find a big list here

Clear dirt off PCs and peripherals with equal parts white vinegar and water on a cloth damp not dripping

Other Stuff

  • Erase ballpoint-pen marks
  • Burnish your scissors
  • Clean your window blinds
  • Clean your piano keys
  • Get rid of water rings on furniture
  • Restore your rugs
  • Remove carpet stains
  • Brighten up brickwork
  • Revitalize wood paneling
  • Wipe off wax or polish buildup
  • Revitalize leather furniture
  • Conceal scratches in wood furniture
  • Remove candle wax

Wine

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged , , 7 Comments

I do have a social life. I occasionally get to  go out to dinner and wine is the present of choice. My friends are are gluten-free, minimalist drunks – what else am I going to take? But bottled wine often contains plastic – either a plastic cork or the metal screw top lid is plastic lined.

So I thought I would try to find a wine that was corked with a cork. I climbed out of the bargain booze bins and took myself off to a proper wine merchants. I explained my problem to the proper wine merchant and he recommended the Spanish wines as being more likely to use corks (they want to keep their cork industry alive). Also the better quality wines tend to use corks. Not entirely sure gluten-free drunks deserve such a treat but went ahead and purchased a bottle of quality Spanish wine with a cork sealed in foil.

HA! Peeled off the foil to a cork – sure enough…. BUT the foil, was plastic lined! Damn!

Seems the only way to get really plastic free wine is to use a refill service. Of course our civilised european cousins in Italy and Spain allow you to do just this. Most places will have a shop where you cant take your own bottle and get it filled with a choice of wines. Back in the U.K. your choices are rather more limited.

Borough Wines

When I went to Green Oscars, (did I mention I was in the same room as Colin Firth -hey it’s a start!), they were serving wine from Borough Wines . Borough Wines sell wine on tap and offer a refill service (you can read a Guardian review here). I don’t know if it was the tap wine we were drinking but my white was very nice. Sadly they only have shops in London – there’s a list here .

Whole food Supermarket

Wholefood supermarket also do a wine refill service (They have stores in Glasgow, London and Cheltenham – maybe more now – check the link)

Buying Refills In Cheltenham

Wholefood Market  (Cheltenham) offers a wine refill service. You buy a glass liter bottles from them that you then refill, yourself from the large and lovely barrel of wine. But as we wanted rather more than a liter and have no room for glass bottles in the van , (our current home). So we brought our own emergency plastic water bottle. It’s big and it’s plastic. Classy!

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Dreadful shock then when we got there.  The refill wine barrel  I saw last time I was there was no longer in place. Desperate enquiries revealed that this hadn’t worked out and the wine kept going off.

I visibly reeled “But what of my wine refill” I whimpered.

Thankfully they still did refills but now a member of staff fills your bottle from a huge 15 liter wine box. Not quite what I was expecting and  stretching the not- in- my- bin rule to it’s limit – but still a refill is a refill and the plastic wasn’t in my bin. And there is still some green kudos to be gained it – was organic and cost considerably less to transport it this way. Besides which we desperate.

We proffered the canteen with trembling hands. Arghh!!! Now there was some doubt as to whether we could use a huge plastic water carrier. Once again we waited anxiously and sagged with relief when they agreed that we could.

Norfolk, Reno Wine

Not used those guys – the following is from their website…

“Our speciality is Refillable Bottles…

Buy one of our bottles and fill it with wine from our barrel taps in the Reno Wine shop in Wymondham, Norfolk.
Rinse out your bottle and bring it back to fill with more wine – and by reusing save yourself the cost of the glass bottle!
Speciality ‘Crafted Cask’ Whisky in Refillable Bottles also now available…

Go to 15 Market Street, Wymondham, Norfolk, NR18 0AJ
Open 9.30-5.30, Tues-Sat

Contact

T: 01953 425995
M: 07913 672275
E: sales@renowine.co.uk

London

A review of Clapton Craft – refill beers and wines. can be found here. –

More

If anyone else knows of other wine refill options please leave a comment below… many thanks.

You can find other plastic free beverages here…

 

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Rice – brown, white & arborio

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged

Rice is back on the menu. We used to buy our rice loose at Khadims but they stopped doing that. For a while rice was a plastic packed essential we refused to give up. You can see the plastic food we eat for more on this. But now….

White Rice

We found this in Lidles. Rice in a cardboard box that is reasonably priced and good enough. Sadly they only do white. You can also get a range of other rices from

Brown Rice

I found brown rice in the Weigh and Save in Penzance. which means you can probably find it in other such shops (list here)

They also sell it in Wholefood Market

Arborio Rice

Sold loose in Wholefood Market

Now I can try this Jamie recipe

Remember to take your own bags……

Tea Loose Leaves

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged , , 10 Comments

For other tea & coffee posts check out our index. Where you will also find tea, cocoa and something stronger.

Read Up

BUY

Independents

You will also find a list of tea and coffee merchants

Online


This is an interesting option that allows you to buy food on line, plastic free in compostable packaging. Read more HERE

They sell a wide range of teas including herbal.

Supermarkets

PG Tips are selling tea in a cardboard box. In supermarkets! Way to go PG.

PG Tips is “Unilever is a British-Dutch transnational consumer goods company co-headquartered in London, United Kingdom and Rotterdam, Netherlands. Its products include food, beverages, cleaning agents and personal care products. Wikipedia”

Whittards

Whittards are. U.K. wide chain that will sell you tea loose.this from twitter
“Hi there, yes if you visit our store with your own container, we can fill it with either tea or coffee.”
They have over 50 shops. You can find one one here.
NB you will have to take your own plastic free or , better still, reusable packaging. See below for links.

“The company was founded in 1886 by Walter Whittard. It expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, and was bought by the Icelandic Baugur Group in 2005 for around £21 million.”

MORE

Brewing Up

How to make plastic-free tea – it’s all in the tea balls.

For other tea & coffee posts check out our index. Where you will also find tea, cocoa and something stronger.

  • 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
Join our Facebook group here

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

Price of a cup of tea  – micro fund me  here 

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Milk Buying Direct /Refill Vending Machine

by Posted in 3.1 Food & Drink Tagged , 4 Comments

Recently our van trip has been milk free. Seems they don’t do milk in bottles in France. But if you are lucky, they do do milk in machines. Check out this milk dispenser outside a huge supermarket chain. Thats us filling our water bottle with fresh, cool milk!

And now some forward thinking folk in the U.K have invested

Happy World Milk Day from Nunton Farm Dairy! Come to our Open Farm Sunday on the 11th June to sample our milk from our brand new vending machine, which will be located outside the Radnor Arms, Nunton, from the 17th July onwards. Yay @nuntonfarm on Facebook for lots more info.

And this was taken from the website

The Milk vending machine is now open!!!  Fresh milk is available every day. We are very excited to be have this new facility to enable customers to help themselves to milk  from a vending machine, recycling glass bottles and  reducing plastic bottle wastage. We would like to thank the many customers who have already been  to use the vending machine for their support.
The machine can be found at
Whitegate Farm, Norwich Road, Creeting St Mary, Suffolk, IP6 8PG
01449 710458 / 07787 584386

 

Buying milk straight from the farm is one way to make sure dairy producers get a fair deal.

Some produce pasteurised milk, others sell raw or unpasteurised and a few have a wider dairy range to try. 

Farmers Weekly has created a map of British farmers selling direct to the public – cutting out the supermarket or middleman.

See also: Video: So you want to… sell milk direct from farm?

Click on the map below to find on-farm dairies near you where you can buy direct, if you’re a consumer, or, if you’re a dairy farmer selling direct, you can send us your details and we’ll add you to the map .https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/map-buy-milk-direct-farm

Did you know about milk refill dispensing machines? Yes they exist.


And Here’s another great scheme. Dairies are supplying shops with churns so people can get a refill. Check out the map https://buff.ly/3cCznM6

Can’t get to Suffolk? There are still some milk men who deliver in glass bottles. Check this list. If you know of any others please add to it.