Waste not! Carrot juice pulp and seed mix cookies

As promissed, here is the cookie recipe that will help you to save the food from waste. Juice pulp is a wonderful ingredient!

Carrot cookies: 

700g carrot juice pulp
3 eggs
50-100g butter
60ml olive oil
50-100g walnuts
200ml seed mix (pumpkin, sesame, sunflower, linseed etc.)
150g almond meal (can use tapioka flour, oatmeal flour or any roughly ground flour, or even a ground coconut with any flour of your choice)
0-100g sugar (or coconut sugar, other eco-and-health-friendly alternatives like agave syrup, just use according to your taste)
vanilla
ginger

Mix all the ingredients together. Heat the oven to some 200 C. Put small bits on the baking sheet and pat them thin. Bake them in the oven until look crispy and the edges have started browning.
Time of baking will depend on how thick or thin you make the cookies, and also how large. I like mine sometimes large and thick to remain a little soft, but then I sometimes make them very small and thin so if not eaten immediately they would turn into kind of crackers.

Baking advice: first make a test pan with some 4-6 cookies, if they tend to fall apart, add some more flour to the mix, because it also depends how wet is your juice pulp.

Keeping in mind alterations you can make, it is easy to keep these lovely bits also gluten free!

Bonus tip: To green your home and your wallet: In our kitchen we use the baking parchment multiple times, until its really torn or cannot be used due to some other cake/cookie residue on it. 
For example, my mom baked a honey cake on my brothers birthday on 7th december, then we used the same sheets for Christmas gingerbreads, and last week I baked carrot cookies on the same sheets. Some of them got too wet, but most of them are folded back in the drawer.

In case someone in your household must eat gluten free foods only, keep in mind where you put your gluten free used baking parchment sheets, and keep them separate from the ones that are used for 'regular cookies'.

I hope you enjoy your cookies!
I think I'm gonna see how they turn out if I add some goji berries to the mix!

Waste not! Cooking, stoups and juice pulp..

Recently there have been a lot of posts in the blogosphere and around in social media about the idiosyncracy of wasting the food. There are many ways to preserve food that would otherwise for some reason go to waste, and I have my own three favorite ones.

1. Cook from scartch and eat your food with the next meal, take it in a lunchbox to work etc. 

Even though sometimes that one piece of meat that would be too much for me or three spoons of potatoe mash that my toddler didn't disregarded on the plate, or half a bowl of breakfast porrige, etc.- can all look as "there's nothing I can really do with it", so many people waste. Sometimes I find it ok, if that's part of your pets or animals diet, because you have to feed them well anyway. But even if it would go to compost, I have a heavy heart seeing it dumped, let alone, having it to dump there myself.. Or even worse, to put it in "household rubbish" as in city apartment (yes, unfortunately we don't take our compost part back to the countryside anymore).
But it does not have to be so daunting! You can easily incorporate that one piece of meat and three spoons of mash in your lunchbox to work, or a handful of cooked pasta. I know it would be harder to fit it in your family dinner, but it is very easy to add some larger salad or some other food pieces you like to have wonderful lunch at work! And even bits of oatmeal porrige- what to do with some leftower porrige half a bowl? Add some chopped banana or other fruits or berries depending on a season, and you will have even better meal than just full bowl of porrige. And believe me, there's even nothing wrong to have it as lunch at work, in case you eat breakfast at home all together freshly cooked. Yumm!
It is so easy, and all it takes is to remember that leftowers and bits may make your lunch a special meal from your favorite world cuisines!


2. Make a freezer stoup!

When I stumbled upon the stoup I was surprised at the simplicity of such delight, and I was even more surprised how I did not come to think of it myself! I have been putting forgotten half onions, a little "tired" herbs, crunched pieces of celery, only couple potatoes that we have that moment at home in soups or stews.. But this was next level. Now I too have a stoup box in a freezer- everything that we cannot for some reason finish or incorporate in next few meals, goes to in the box. Bits of meat, sausages, cooked vegetables, pasta, single leftover canned tomatoe, etc. There are also some foods excluded from it- usually sauces and foods including milk or cream.
When the box is becoming fuller or you just want to cook something like that- defreeze the box, fry some spices and extra onion and maybe a grated carrot in butter or olive oil in the pot, add the contents of the box (cut in cubes or pieces if neccessary) and some extra meat or vegs if want to, then add tomatoe puree (home made frozen, preserved or store bought), canned or dry cooked beans and some stock if neccessary for more soupy consistence. It is a hearty, filling meal, and particularly nice if you grate some drying cheese bits that sometimes can be found in corners of the fridge. To make it even more special, serve with toasted garlic butter bread!
Another bonus- sometimes we can't find time to cook recipes that include 10 or more ingredients, no matter how we'd like to. Well, this is a way to do it in no time! And you can make the box contents selective to the recipes you like best, like, being inspired by Rachel Ray for one or another nice stoup!


3. Be creative with the juice pulp! 

Juice pulp is not a waste, it can be a wonderful ingredient! I have shared the carrot pancakes (fritters) with you before. But there are so many more ways to use the pulp! In our kitchen, sometimes it goes into muffins or cakes or breads (these are usually things my mother bake), I incorporate them in soups (especially pumpkin and carrot pulp). My favorites are pumpkin soups with Indian spice. It can even be used in cookies! I promisse to share the carrot and seed mix cookie recipe as soon as we bake another batch, because it would not be fair to post it without the picture, but the first batches just disappeared so quickly..
I recently found some more recipes to use juice pulp, and this is the one that inspired me to post this here too: http://mindfulmomma.com/2013/05/easy-juicer-pulp-minestrone-recipe.html , so thank you, Micaela!
Be creative!

Report on progress of project "In and out"

First month of noting everything that goes in or out of our home has passed. Rather difficult project on green carpet, I must admit. Time to break down what are the first obstacles and what was the success..
I also decided that my project should have a name, something like "In and out" is rather fitting, what do you think? It sounds also a bit more catchy and easier than a very serious "resource consumption" that was how my charts were called during the first month..
But now into the details..


Difficulties

• Travel. I totally failed after the first days of our ski trip to note down all the things we bought. No no, we did not go for shopping sprees or anything like that. Still we needed some food to sustain ourselves, and there were few days eating out, which still remain a question how to put them down on my list- I guess I should just state "eating out- x portions"? 
• Living in two places- since my project was supposed to cover only my apartment, I felt it is not representing the true consumption of our family, me and Emily in particular. Both of us spend many days at my parents place. But to put on the list everything that is brought into our parents home would be inappropriate too, since most of the stuff is what our parents and brother consume. But how can I separate all that? To count every carrot I eat and every sheet of toilet paper I use myself while living there? I tried that approach, it doesn't work as well as I thought. So now during March I'm gonna try noting everything that is brought into my parents home, while I am there (buying together, what I see being bought or brought up from the cellar, etc.). I am trying to educate my whole family on greener non-consumption of unnecessary things, but they are still at their very baby steps, and not all of them are on board. Another issue of living in two places is measuring the rubbish- what to do with the waste we produce at our parents home. So for now I'm noting the amount of rubbish that's thrown 'away' or composted, and split it in parts (e.g. 1/5 or 1/4). I think I will continue it that way.
• Gifts. I love my mom, and I love how she loves my baby. And how she loves to dress her once in a while. But sometimes I think we don't need that other pair of boots. The good part of it is that at least 50% comes from thrift stores, and that it makes my life easier as I don't have to think about buying boots for myself or pants for my kid. The bad part- sometimes it's things that I think we have enough. Or when it comes to elder generations like my grandmom, I'm not gonna try to explain her this and that of green living due to many personal reasons. So sometimes unwanted stuff still finds its way into our homes. 
• Family that's not on board- my husband mainly, since he is the part of our family that lives in city apartment that is the main area of the project. I just hope he'll join in as I plan this to go on for quite a while! And I hope that the rest of our larger family will slowly follow- I like to see my mom's shopping patterns to change, and to hear what she says in discussions about the life and particularly consumption choices. 
• Rubbish. Still struggling with the compost that actually gets to the countryside to be composted instead of being thrown 'away' in city. Since most of our trash is biodegradable  it's heart breaking to see that many times it just has to go into the bin. The challenge now is also to reduce the packaging. I am conscious to choose the products without it, if possible, but I should walk that extra mile to achieve more. That's an extra goal for the next month. I just wish my husband and family was on board with this! 

Success

• Rubbish. Looking more carefully at all the stuff that goes in and out of our home, it made me see that we have less waste than I thought, and that most of it usually is peels and leftovers from juicing that I still manage to get to my moms worms once in a while. I like to see less plastic since I think of ways to reduce and reuse it instead of throwing out. Since part of our consumed dairy comes from farmer, lot's of glass containers are reused many times. 
• Organic foods. The section for foods that have come from our own garden has been a good reminder to visit our freezers and cellar more often to get the goodies from last summer and fall harvests. Berries and veggies are increasing in our menus, and so is the wild hunted meat. 
• Second hand. It has been my goal in clothing and accessories department to limit my purchases to either organic textiles or secondhand pieces. Preferably both combined. Well, if I see what has come into our closet during February, most of the pieces were secondhand, and that is very satisfactory again. Of course, we could do even better, but it will come step by step..

That's about how it was during the first month of the "In and out" project.. Lot's of resources consumed in February, many due to travel and the study materials that I received from school (5 large boxes full of books,  usb, folders). But I am not naive to blame school or someone for us travelling, I clearly see that we should drive less, even if most of the car use was shared trips. And I know that every month there will be another challenge- during Feb that was school and travel, during March it will most probably be Easter, and then there will be some name days, holidays, birthdays, house renovation and vacations and so on and on. I just have to figure out the way to lessen our consumption during those "difficult" times. 

I am continuously gaining and re-gaining my inspiration when reading Bea's blog on her Zero Waste home, she is so amazing! And I have found another interesting reading material, a blog of Katy, the Non-Consumer Advocate. I totally fell in love with her commandments- "Use it up! Wear it out! Make it do! Or do without!".  I'm gaining some really nice fresh ideas from that and suggest you read it too! 

All the best with our non-consumption projects!