the Waste-Not Blog

When Ben and I got married, we registered for and received some truly lovely gifts. Bath towels, plastic storage drawers, hot plate and slow cooker-- these have all been used and appreciated very much in the years since our wedding. There are a few gifts, however, whose function have become absolutely indispensable to the way our family functions. One was my marble rolling pin, whose weight makes it much easier to roll out dough for cookies, cinnamon rolls and homemade pasta; the other is the Lehman's Own Hand Cranked Grain Mill. With it we turn wheat (which we buy inexpensively at the feed mill, less than $15 for a fifty pound bag) into delicious whole wheat flour, and also turn our home grown Mandan Bride flour corn into incredibly tasty corn meal. With these great ingredients we can make all manner of wholesome, delicious food. The wheat flour gets soaked overnight (often with a splash of whey to help it along) and added to my doughs for various breads, like sourdough loaves, ...

Why do you eat vegetables? A few of us will say it's because we like them, love them, can't get enough of them. And there are days when we even mean it! But what about the rest of the time, the rest of us? When there are so many delicious, easy foods to be had in the world, what gives vegetables the pride of place as the food everyone feels they ought to eat more of? Of course it's because they're healthy, right? Because they have fiber to help us digest. Because they have vitamins and minerals to supply our bodies' daily needs. Because for many of us, a meal of straight protein, fat and starch doesn't feel right--we instinctively know that while all those things are great and delicious, they need a little help along the way--an oar, as it were, to help them row their boat to Valhalla. A Charon to steer their ferry across the river Styx. I could go on. I won't. Instead, I'm here to tell you that while these vegetables you're eating do perform...

With five hungry eaters in our family, lunch time can turn into a straight up emergency if I re-discover clocks around 11:40 AM. I don't spend enough on bread to permit us to eat sandwiches every day, and if the leftovers in the fridge are earmarked for dinner I'm in a real pinch. Beyond this, sometimes we just crave something that feels like snack food. Enter: nachos! I use the term in the loosest possible sense, as this recipe does not involve liquid orange pasteurized processed cheese food, with or without tiny pieces of something that resembles jalapeño. The main ingredient in the dip is salsa (I use the amazing fire-charred salsa that I can every summer), plus a meat component and a bean component, and then as much cheese as I feel I can spare (often a combination of grated aged cheese or perhaps mozzarella and my homemade labneh--though the labneh does beautifully by itself in a pinch). It's easy to make additions like pickled jalapeños or refried beans, and I almos...

Ever noticed that the bone-in cuts cost less in the grocery store? It makes sense. Removing bones increases the production cost of parts like chicken thighs and of course means extra inedible weight since no one eats the bones. If you have no plans for making use of bones then the boneless cuts might actually be a more economical choice, since they will involve much less waste. However, rather than choosing to switch to all boneless cuts in the future, I urge you to instead consider how you can get the maximum value out of those bone-in cuts of meat. Once we gnaw the meat off the bones, what's left is cartilage, sinew, and bone: all the important components for nourishing, tasty bone broth. Now, you may think of broth as something you do in large quantities: a few beef soup bones, or a whole turkey carcass in a giant pot, slowly simmering all night and all day. Those are very good ways to make broth and I highly recommend them. But even in small quantities--the bones from fou...

It seems to be an oft-dreamt dream these days: a little homestead, or perhaps a small farm, enough to sustain a family and perhaps pay for its own land taxes. A few chickens, a dairy animal or three, maybe a team of work horses or oxen, some pigs to eat the vegetable scraps and be bacon . But with  a half acre empty lot in a subdivision selling for $40,000, and farms and their lands disappearing every day, it seems every day more like an unreachable fantasy. Who can afford to buy five or ten acres? To build a barn, let alone a house, that would satisfy local zoning ordinances and codes? With tens of thousands of dollars in college debt and good jobs seemingly always harder to come by, the average young couple who wants to farm faces a nearly impossible proposition. And so, as someone who has managed to put together the capital to start on the path to homesteading independence, I would like to present a fairly brief history of our life choices that led us where we are. We haven't...

Eating out. It used to be an obsession of mine, you know. If my husband and I were in the car together, and we drove by a restaurant within an hour or so of meal time, I would be on the verge of praying that he'd decide to stop and treat me. It wasn't that I didn't like cooking, I loved it! And it wasn't that I didn't have perfectly good food at home waiting to be cooked, either. For me, eating out was a novelty I hadn't experienced much growing up; while I was getting better at cooking, I wasn't yet to the point where I could say with confidence, "I could cook that better at home"; and meal prep, while fun, took mental energy that as a pregnant newlywed and then first time mom I didn't have much of to spare. These days, it's safe to say the novelty has worn off, and with it the youthful confidence that we can afford a dinner out has worn off a bit too. I am at a point where, in most cases, I could cook it better at home (at least w...