Peach Cobbler

Peaches are one of summer's treasures. We used to have a peach tree and nothing is better than fresh, organic peaches right off the tree. Peach smoothies, salsa and cobbler are all close seconds. It's an easy recipe but takes a little time. Frozen peaches are perfect for this because they’re already peeled and sliced (you can also used canned but the texture will be a little more mushy). If you can get peaches off someones tree, great! If not, buy organic, peaches are one on the “dirty dozen” list. If you like more cobbler on the top, it's easy to double the topping.

Peach Cobbler

1 cup whole wheat or unbleached flour (oat flour if you want it gluten free)

2 Tbsp sugar

1 1/2 tea baking powder

1/2 tea cinnamon

1/4 vegan butter

5-6 cups sliced peaches

1/3-2/3 cups sugar

1 Tbsp corn starch

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup plant milk

2 tsp vanilla divided

Preheat oven to 400. For the topping, in a medium bowl stir the flour, 2 Tbsp sugar, baking powder and cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Add the plant milk until you have a slightly sticky biscuit type dough. Set aside.

For the filling, in a large pot combine the peaches, the sugar, cornstarch, water (you don’t need to use water if they’re frozen) and 1 tsp vanilla. Let stand for a few minutes. Cook and stir until slightly thickened. Pour into a 9x13 pan if your doubling the recipe a lasagna pan will work. Add the topping and bake about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Serve with vegan whipped cream or ice cream and enjoy!

Vegan Persimmon Pudding

This is one of my favorite desserts, it just tastes like Christmas to me. It’s one of the first desserts beyond sugar cookies I learned to make back in high school. You have to have super ripe and squishy persimmons for this. I get mine from the farmers market, they save them for me every year. I used walnuts but you could also use pecans. If you like raisins you could add those as well. For the pulp I strained the persimmons through a colander into a large bowl. (Remember to compost the skins and stems).

Persimmon pudding

2 cups of persimmon pulp

3 egg replacement (I used Follow Your Heart’s)

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/2 nutmeg (or pumpkin pie spice)

1/2 cup melted vegan butter

2 1/2 cups almond or cashew milk

1 1/2 cup whole wheat or unbleached flour

1 cup chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  In a large bowl add the egg replacement to the persimmon pulp, whisk in the sugar.  Add baking powder, soda, salt and spices.  Pour in melted vegan butter, stir & pour in the almond milk.  The mixture will be sort of soupy, whisk in flour, fold in chopped nuts.  Pour into a greased 9 X 13 pan.  Bake for 1 hour or until knife comes out clean.  Serve warm or room temperature with vegan whipped cream.

Zero waste, imperfectly is still moving towards zero waste

I’ve had this site now for over a year and yet I have posted only a handful of times. The biggest reason for that is that I’ve been somewhat intimidated, mostly in regard to the zero waste category. It doesn’t matter that I’m not doing zero waste 100% perfectly. I follow Anne-Marie Bonneau on Instagram, her profile name is zerowastechef, she posted “we don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly…we need millions of people doing zero waste imperfectly”. Which is the absolute truth.

Overwhelmed? No biggie, start with reusable grocery bags, produce/bulk bags, some jars and a reusable water bottle. Try looking at thrift stores for mason jars instead of buying some. I got my most recent glass water bottle at a thrift store for only $3.00.

Having meatless meals is another way to lower your carbon footprint. Too difficult? Try just one a week, need some ideas, search for #meatlessmondays. Small sustainable changes are the key, we can all do zero waste, imperfectly.

Lemon Zucchini Bread

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This year my garden has gone a little crazy. I’ve got more zucchini than I know what to do with. This particular one was too big for my spiralizer so I grated it, I still have tons of it! If anyone has some great zucchini recipes send them my way.  You can use any egg replacement you want, chia or flax seeds….whatever I just happened to have aquafaba (the liquid you get when you drain chickpeas) that needed to be used. You can also use whatever kind of sugar you’d like, I used raw sugar, and I used olive oil. Hope you enjoy!

Lemon Zucchini Bread

1 cup oat flour
1 cup barley flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
grated peel of 1/2 lemon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
the juice of 1 lemon
6 Tbsp aquafaba
1/2 cup almond milk
1/3 cup oil
1 1/4 cup (packed) shredded zucchini

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Grease and flour (or line with papers) a 12-well muffin pan.

Combine the flours, sugar, baking powder, salt and lemon peel in a large bowl. Stir in the walnuts. In a
smaller bowl (or a two cup liquid measure), combine the aquafaba almond milk, lemon juice and oil. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients. Stir just until barely combined and then
fold in the zucchini. Spoon the batter into the pan.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the muffins spring back when you press them with your fingertips.

Remove from oven and turn out onto a cooling rack. Serve warm or with a little vegan butter. Store, in an air tight container, for 3 days at room temp.

What is actually recycleable?

Recycling can be very confusing and somewhat frustrating. According to the UC Berkeley Office of Sustainability the following is what’s actually recycleable.

Recycling must be CLEAN and DRY.

⁃ If bottles and cans have food or liquid in them, they will be thrown away at the recycling plant. Moreover, if a bag of recycling is more than 20% contaminated, either with food or non-recyclables, ALL OF IT will be landfilled.

⁃ If paper is wet or damp (or gets wet or damp because of wet bottles and cans) it will go to landfill.

What is recyclable?

⁃ Clean, dry aluminum foil (feel free to wash and dry it if it has food on it)

⁃ Aluminum cans

⁃ Plastic drink bottles/milk jugs, some plastic containers but not most

⁃ Glass

⁃ Clean, dry paper & cardboard (egg cartons too!)

What isn’t recyclable?

⁃ Film plastic (plastic bags or anything like that); they clog the machines at the plant

⁃ Coffee cups/boba cups/Solo cups

⁃ Anything contaminated with food

⁃ Any mixed material. For example, orange juice cartons are plastic layered with paper. They cannot be separated, and therefore can’t be recycled.

If you don’t sort properly, or if a few people don’t sort properly and contaminate our bin, all of our efforts to cycle resources will be wasted. So it is very important that this is followed.

Also, I encourage you all to avoid  packaging whenever possible. You can buy reusable mesh bags to put produce in instead of using plastic bags. The Strauss milk company sells milk in glass ($3) that you can return to the store and they give you $2 back when you return the bottle for reuse. These are two examples, but the best trash, and the best recycling, is the trash that was never created in the first place.