Hey Green Junkie,
The kitchen is one of the most wasteful rooms in our home. Between food waste, cooking waste, and all the foil, plastic wrap, and parchment paper – we are creating a lot of waste every time we prepare meals.
It can feel daunting to tackle kitchen waste since so much of what we use feels essential. But today, my friend Anne Marie has something to say about reducing waste in the kitchen.
She is sharing some amazing tips and tricks to help us learn better and more sustainable ways to prepare food, use food and store our food as well as how we can cook, a little more green.
In this episode I will touch on the following:
- How to reduce waste in your kitchen
- How to stop wasting certain parts of your food
- The benefits of the freezer in reducing food waste
- How to be creative with storing your food so it doesn’t go to waste
- The impact your green choices have on everyone else
If you love this podcast be sure to leave a review and share a screenshot of this episode to your IG stories. Tag @thisisstephaniemoram so I can shout you out and publicly say thanks.
Thanks for listening and being here.
Your green bestie,
Xoxo Stephanie
Hang With Anne-Marie
Resources
Anne-Marie’s cookbook https://zerowastechef.com/zero-waste-chef-cookbook/
Anne-Marie’s Workshops https://zerowastechef.com/workshops/
https://zerowastechef.com/2021/03/30/when-life-hands-you-lemon-peels-make-limoncello/
https://zerowastechef.com/2018/05/02/15-creative-uses-food-scraps/
Previous Episodes Mentioned
#21. 8 Ways To Create A Low-Waste Lunch
#51: Protect Yourself From PFAS Part 1 With Leah Segedie
#52: Protect Yourself From PFAS Part 2 With Leah Segedie
#53. Easy Ways to Live Waste-Free
#55. Eliminate Food Waste One Meal at a Time
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Wanna go the extra green mile? Binge (and download) my complimentary audio series to reduce your waste and learn how to consume less in just five days!
Produced by: Alecia Harris
Music By: Liz Fohle
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TRANSCRIPT FOR EPISODE 63
Stephanie Moram 0:00
Hi Green Junkie, it's Stephanie moram and today I have the pleasure of speaking with the zero waste chef Anne-Marie Bonneau. She is a cookbook author, a blogger, fermenter, sourdough baker and has lived plastic free since 2011. Through social media, her blog, her book, the zero waste chef Anne shares recipes and tips for sustainable kitchen and planet. Anne-Marie shows others how reducing their trash benefits the planet and also satisfies their taste buds, improves their well being and boosting their bank accounts. A Canadian transplant – she has two grown daughters and lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Stephanie Moram 0:42
You can head over to my Instagram, TikTok and follow me @thisisStephanieMoram – if that is something that you want to do. And if you want to reduce waste, and learn to consume less in just five days, you can binge my complimentary audio series. The links, you will find them in the description. And don't forget to subscribe to the Green Junkie Podcast on whatever platform you get your podcasts. That way, you will never miss another green living episode.
Stephanie Moram 1:10
Hi, Anne Marie, thank you. Thank you so much for being here. I'm excited to chat with you. I've been following you on Instagram, which seems like forever. And the fact that you're Canadian, makes my green heart explode. So thank you so much for coming and chatting with me.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 1:29
Oh, thank you very much for having me on Stephanie.
Stephanie Moram 1:33
Of course. And if you do not follow her, you need to go find her on Instagram. We're gonna talk a little bit more where you can find her. But she just shares such great information about living zero waste and reducing food waste and plastic free living. And it's just so so inspiring. So I guess my first question like, I just want to chat about food waste. It's a passion of mine as well. But you have so much information I would like how do you reduce waste in the kitchen? I know this is like a huge question. And we could probably talk for like four hours about it. But what are things that someone that might be new to like wanting to reduce their waste, what are things that people can do to reduce their food waste in the kitchen?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 2:16
Well, the one big thing is to shop your refrigerator first, before you go to the grocery store. Most of us when we were taught to cook, if we were taught to cook, we were told look up an appetizing recipe, and then jot down all of the ingredients and go to the store and buy all the stuff and bring it home and prep the dish, put all those little bits of ingredients back in the refrigerator and put the leftovers in there. And if you do that a few times a week, you're gonna end up with a pile of food. So instead, I tell people, you know, look at what you have on hand and let that determine the next dish you're going to make. So if you do that, you're just going to slash your food waste, because you'll eat the food you have on hand. And you'll save money. And I think it makes cooking more fun. Because you become more of a creative cook, you look in the fridge and see oh look, I have some leftover rice and I have eggs and I have these random vegetables, I can make fried rice. And you can make soup out of just about anything. You don't need very much. So that would be my my top tip for people.
Stephanie Moram 3:28
And it's an amazing tip because like it totally makes sense, right? Like, why go to the store and keep buying food. And that's kind of what I do on Sundays. I go in my fridge and I'll just look okay, like, what can we make next week for food? Right? So my kids love french toast. So we always have bread. And you know, as soon as the bread has been out in the cupboard for like two or three days because it's actual bread, there's no light crap in it. It goes moldy very fast. So it goes into the fridge and then I know okay, breads in the fridge, it's time to think of what we're going to use this bread for. You know, we don't want to have toast right? So it's like, okay, we have eggs, I never go and have to buy buy eggs. I always have eggs in the fridge. You know what I mean? And I think it's such a great tip because often what happens is, like you said, we make a meal. And then we put the leftovers in the fridge and then the next day we make a meal and then we put the leftovers in the fridge and then by the end of the week, we're like, oh, this has to go in the garbage. If you compost great, that's a little bit better. But it ends up somewhere. Right? So I never I don't make you know Monday to Friday, like Friday is like I don't cook day but like at least Monday to Thursday even Sunday. Like I'm not making a different meal. Every day. It's like okay, we had chicken last night like I'm vegan but the kids had chicken. There's leftover chicken. I don't know what we're having tonight, but it's gonna involve chicken. I found some mushrooms somewhere. My daughter loves mushrooms. We're gonna like probably fry some mushrooms. Have the leftover chicken and do whatever we want with it and then find some other vegetable in the fridge. And that's supper.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 5:08
Yeah, yeah. And it saves time. I mean, nobody has time to cook a meal from scratch overnight. Most most people don't have time for that. And so I always have something on the go I when I cook, I try to think, Okay, what else can this become later? So, like last night, I cooked a whole bunch of wheat berries. I love them. They're, they're delicious. They're chewy, and kind of like rice but chewy. And how about a decent amount of protein in them. Anyway, I cooked a bunch of them. And I made extra for the soup that I'm going to make today. So I'm trying to always think ahead when I make something. Okay. How can I incorporate this into a dish later in the week? Right? If you have something practice that saves you time and it's less stressful.
Stephanie Moram 6:04
And do you like meal like not meal prep or like make a schedule for the week? Like, okay, Monday, we're going to eat this Tuesday. Does that help with food waste? Because you know exactly what you're going to eat? Is that something that you do?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 6:15
I think it does. I think some meal planning does help. But I don't I'm not that strict about it. I don't do a whole week. I just have in my head. Okay, these are the next couple of dishes on automake. Okay, so Well, I mean, I look in the fridge first. Okay, like what what can I make with what's there, I'm trying to think of the next couple of of meals I'm going to make, and then go shopping if I need anything. So I don't plan the whole week. If you do meal plan for the whole week. Keep in mind that stuff happens and things come up. Right? You know, there might be a lunch at work or or your kids might, you know, have that might eat at a friend's house or something. Or, you know, there was an impromptu dinner invitation. So if you I think if you meal plan, keep a couple of spaces open.
Stephanie Moram 7:12
No, I agree. Like I'm kind of like a lazy meal planner. Like, kind of like you like I have an idea like yesterday we took out the chicken. Okay, that means for like, two nights that kids will be having chicken and then we're gonna have the love french toast. So usually once a week we have french toast because it's easy. It's quick. It uses the eggs in the fridge, it uses bread that that isn't as fresh anymore. So I have like ideas of what we usually eat but you're right if sometimes if it's too restrictive, and then you're like now I have all this food and we're going out for dinner tonight. Now what am I gonna do?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 7:47
Yeah, I do meal planning light.
Stephanie Moram 7:48
Yeah, the lazy light meal planner.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 7:52
Yeah. Works for me. So yeah, saves, you know, saves time cuts food waste, reduces stress.
Stephanie Moram 8:02
Right. And so that would be like that's a that's a great tip just you know, shop your fridge so people have shopped their fridge. And what are some other ways to reduce waste in the kitchen like is there anything you can reuse is there you know, what is it that you do in your kitchen that you recommend people do like once you've made your meal? Now how can you go a step further and like even reduce waste even more like food waste?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 8:29
Well, I think eat all the parts of the vegetable, all the edible parts, right? So cauliflower leaves, you can if the if the ribs are really wide you know the white parts of the rib then just treat those like cauliflower and if they're not as wide then you can toss them the leaves and olive oil and roast them with bit of salt and pepper. So you know hit all of those parts. Let's see we had squash on the weekend. And the seeds you can roast those they're delicious you know depending on the squash winter squash, and what else broccoli you can eat broccoli stones, right? Just throw those out those are delicious. Lemons I have a lemon tree my sister says that's why I'm haven't come back to Canada yet. My lemon tree I love my lemon tree. And I don't I don't save the peel of every lemon because it you know I do have a tree but I save a lot of the zest because this and so sometimes before I squeezed a lemon always asked it first and put that in the freezer and little jars and then if I'm baking pancakes or muffins or something just throw that zest in and it adds a lot of flavor. Or if you peel it you can peel it with vegetable peeler. You can make lemonchello With a lemon zest and the freezer also, you know free stuff. If you have, I don't know, let's say you made a vat of soup. And I don't mind eating a soup three nights in a row, but the rest of my family.
Stephanie Moram 10:19
I'm the same, like I'll eat soup every day. I don't care.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 10:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So just throw some in the freezer. And then you don't have soup for, let's say maybe a couple of weeks your family will have forgotten that they have to install and then pull it out. So you can freeze all kinds of stuff. You can freeze bread, you can freeze milk and eggs. Whisk the egg up first. leftovers. Oh, tomatoes. My freezer is filled mostly with tomatoes right now have the end of the season, I buy cases of tomatoes and I roast them. And I put them in wide mouth glass jars. And I freeze them I leave headspace. And that's my solution to canned tomatoes in the winter. And they're delicious. They taste so good. So the freezer, use the freezer. That's that's another tip. You don't have to freeze stuff for six months. Just if you're not going to get to something for a few days. Just freeze it. And then a few days.
Stephanie Moram 11:24
Right. I love to with strawberries. You know my kids eat goes through tons of strawberries during strawberry season. And so they don't want to eat the end of the strawberries. I cut it off and I freeze them. And then I just add them to smoothies. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm like, It's edible. And they're getting a little bit of greens in their smoothies. And they have no idea. Like I throw a couple of strawberries and then a handful of the tops. Boom, you have like a strawberry smoothie. And then you didn't waste any of it. Right? Yeah. And I think I think people often I think we're just so normalized that like, we have to cut everything and throw it out. And the thing is, most people don't compost, right. So a lot of this stuff is just going in the trash. You know what I mean? At least if I have a little bit of food waste, I know it's going in the compost, and it's gonna make earth and like, I feel like way less guilty. But, you know, all those ends of like carrots and stuff. It's like make a book like make a vegetable broth. Like I have like bunches of jars in my freezer. And I put like, the outside of onions in there. I put like any like food that is, you know, about to die. I stick it in a jar, my freezer and then I'm gonna make like a veggie broth. And then we had a big, I had like so many peppers this year, like, so many peppers, like rice like an abundance. So I just chopped all of them up, put them and put them in the freezer. And so like if I make a saute, I just take some of it and I drop it in. Instead of never going to eat like 30 or 40% Like a week. I'm like it's not happening. We need to chop these up. But what are some other things, you talked about the lemon zest? You mentioned lemoncello. What is that? Exactly?
Unknown Speaker 13:04
Lemoncello?
Stephanie Moram 13:05
Yeah.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 13:07
Oh, yeah, it's so you delicious. You could make it with oranges or lines also, but it's classically made with lemon. So you, I use a vegetable peeler and peel just the lemon zest off of the lemon. You don't want any of the white pith. You steep that and vodka for at least four days. I usually let mine go for a few weeks because I get busy doing something else. And then you strain out the peels and by that time they're kind of pale and is yellow and lemony. And then you make a simple syrup of sugar and water. And you dilute the vodka as little or as much as you like, and I store it in the freezer, and it's delicious. It's dangerously delicious.
Stephanie Moram 13:56
And you drink it. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Sounds like are you baking with it? Like what are we doing with it?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 14:07
I have it on my blog for lemoncello biscotti.
Stephanie Moram 14:11
Okay, cool.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 14:12
That is biscottie with whatever notes you have, and some lemon zest and a little bit of lemon cello. They're so good.
Stephanie Moram 14:22
And I will link that I'll link it all in the description. So if you're listening, you don't need to write it down. I will link it below for you in the description. And what are other things that you you know, I feel like sometimes I take for granted that I do these random things like cut strawberry tops off and put it in the freezer. And when I tell someone I do it, they're like, what? That's like the best idea ever. I'm like, oh, like, Okay. I didn't know I didn't think it was so mind blowing. So is there any you know, things that you might take for granted where you're like, doesn't everyone do this because I thought everyone cut her strawberry chops off and put it in the freezer but apparently not or any other things Do you do that might blow someone's mind, but it's something you just take for granted that you do all the time.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 15:06
So one thing I've been doing for over a decade, and I hesitated to post it on Facebook and Instagram. And the second is that I take containers with me to restaurants when I eat out. And then I put the leftover food in the container. And I thought, Oh, this is so you know, like, oh, no, it's just so basic. But I posted it, and oh my god, it it went a little viral on Facebook, and said, because I made a real and so Facebook pushes reels out to people who aren't in my audience, you might not believe the nasty comments. People lost their minds, then you know, people who don't follow me the people are like, Oh my God, this great idea. But yeah, cuz when you when you eat out, here, they they bring you so much food you can't finish it is just huge amounts of food. And then they'll bring you a plastic container or styrofoam container at some restaurants, even a paper container. Those paperboard ones mother of likely coated with pee fast, which is whatever chemical which is just terrible. Or they're lined with polyethylene plastic, which is plastic, or they're lined with possibly another type of plastic, let's say because PLA, I think it's poly lactic acid anyway, which is compostable, where facilities exist. Anyway. So you're putting your food in this container that probably has some plastic and nasty stuff in it. And then you take it home, and you throw it out. Or you just bring your own container from home. And anyway, for some reason, that blew people's minds, and really upset a bunch of people to I've no idea why I mean, I don't know I if I had said something about politics, I would have had less of a harsh reaction from some people, it was really crazy. So that's one thing. And that's so easy to do. So you just bring I have metal containers and jars, and my favorite restaurant that we go to occasionally, they really do bring you a ton of food. And but anyway, then you have leftovers, right? glass jars, storing your food in the fridge and glass jars and containers, you can see what you have. And then you're not going to find you some rotting food in an opaque container at the back of the fridge later in the month. So it's really helpful if you can see what you have. And then you just look in there, Oh, I better eat the whatever, leftover lasagna in here.
Stephanie Moram 17:57
Right. And I love the idea of bringing your own container, I do that as well. There's a donut place that I go to locally here. And they make vegan donuts and regular donuts. And that's what we usually get for the kids birthdays. And I remember calling, I remember or making an order. And I was like I had the first time I went I just took their boxes. So I want to like see if I like the doughnuts first. And they were giving them in these huge pizza boxes because it was a letter. So it's like Happy Birthday EJ or Happy Birthday Jackson. And so we put them in these big pizza boxes. And then the other stuff would be in more like a different type of box that could not necessarily be recycled. So I kept them and then the next time I placed an order when I call they said hi would it be okay if I brought my own boxes? And the girl was like, I don't know. And so I went in in person as well and said, Hey, I have these containers. Can you use this instead of yours? And she's like, let me go ask my boss. The boss is like, Absolutely, for sure. And I said you don't even have to take it over the counter. If you're like scared that they're contaminated. You can just put the donut in my hand and I hope put it in the container myself. And she was like, no, no, it's fine. So I ordered these donuts for birthdays. And I've been I've used this pizza box. Oh, at least 10 or 15 times. Like for birthdays. It's just I wipe it out. And then we just put like a piece of paper and X you know, they put paper and then I go and they're like when I went the last time they're like you're almost famous here you always bring your own containers are always talking about you. And I laugh like maybe someone else is thinking, hey, I should bring my own container. Or one thing that I do do what I do if I go out and I don't have a container say we're going to a restaurant I actually did this last week, we had so much food and some of it was just like not going to be eaten. It was like get some pieces of food. And one was it was still good. So I opened up a napkin and like wrapped the food in my napkin and like it kind of ties side. And then then I wanted to compost the other stuff because I knew they weren't composting and all the other food I put in the other napkin and wrapped it up. And then I brought it home. And I mean, they I don't know if they noticed, but I was like, no, no, you don't have to take those napkins. That's good. Or if I go to the coffee shop, and I want a cookie, I'm like, Oh, you can just put it in my hands.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 20:20
I don't need a bag. And it saves them money. I mean, I know, during COVID, the prices for all of that packaging that restaurants buy went through the roof. And the stuff got really expensive. So and yes, some, some are so happy to do it. Some. Sometimes they'll thank me for bringing my own container for takeout. And the my husband, he, he always takes containers, He's not shy at all, he'll go to a restaurant, if he's not sure whether they will let you bring your own container. And he just asks. And so there's one restaurant, one of his favorite ones. It's a Chinese restaurant. And every time he goes, he says someone in line behind them says that's a great idea, every time.
Stephanie Moram 21:12
And that's the thing, like I remember I was at an event, it was like at the beginning of my blogging career, it was like probably 2011 it was actually in California. And I remember I was standing in line with with a friend, it was a green, it was a big green event. And I was just standing there, I was like, Oh, I have something like I wish more people like brought their own utensils, you know, instead of taking the plastic, and the girl I was standing with is all plastic free. And she's like, you know, Stephanie, all we can do is show up with our reusable fork and our knife and hope that people notice. And that one person makes a change. Like we can't change anybody. She goes, we can educate. And I know it's so simple. But like that's when I kind of had my aha moment of like, all I can do is like show up with my containers, my my knives and forks, wrap my food up and napkins to bring it to compost or eat at home. I can't make anyone do those things. Right. So it's great that your husband's in line. And so I was like, Oh, that's a great idea. We should bring our own. He didn't share it with anybody. He just literally stood there with his containers. And so maybe now someone else is gonna bring bring their containers with them? Yeah, I think so. And I think that's how we make change more than when I was in college on university going Did you know you can recycle that? You know, it's like big attitudes? Or like, did you know that can be composted? Or did you know that you know, sets like a little little hot head, you know, thinking I'm like hot shit, because like, I reuse stuff. And that didn't change anyone. It just made people feel icky and be like, feel shame, like, oh, I don't bring my containers or I don't bring my knives and forks, right. But if I show up with them, or you show up with it, I feel like that's where teens happens more because we're not shaming anyone. We're just like, we have our knives and forks. We're just going on with our life if you choose to bring yours. That's cool.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 23:11
Yeah, yeah, a friend of mine says, if I was preachy, I'd be unbearable.
Stephanie Moram 23:18
And the I feel like we've all kind of been, well, maybe not everybody, but I was at that preachy phase, you know, when I first started, because, like I said, in like university, and like just after university, and you get further, definitely with kindness and the education side versus like, did you know? No, I didn't know because I didn't ask her. I'm like, That's my opinion. That's right.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 23:43
Well, yeah. Eco splaining right. Instead of mansplaining. Maybe green splaining. Yeah, maybe that'd be good term.
Stephanie Moram 23:54
Green splaining. Yeah, we need to start using and, and I really feel like showing up with your stuff. Like, I feel like that makes a big a big difference. And is there one other maybe one or two other things that you do that? You know, again, mind blowing home, I'd be like, Oh, that's a really great idea. Like never thought to do that to like, reduce waste and like reduced, like food waste. Food waste. Yeah. Or like waste in general, if you want just anything that again, you take for granted, but someone else would find like, oh, wow, that's a really smart idea. Like bringing your containers again. Also. I do it and people are like, that's a great idea. I'm like, Oh, this isn't a thing. I thought it was the thing.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 24:38
I'm so used to this stuff now. Forget I just take for granted like oh, I mean of course I'm going to freeze make a giant ice cube in a bowl because we're going camping in a week.
Stephanie Moram 24:58
What is it that you do like so you said like you Take a giant ice cube see just like freeze ice.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 25:04
yeah, like so take a stainless steel bowl and fill it with water and put it in the freezer. Maybe you have a few days before you're going camping or on a trip, and that will last in your cooler for days, like three or four days. Or if you have old plastic bottles, just fill those with water and make your own freezer packs.
Stephanie Moram 25:28
That's smart. See, I never would have thought to do that.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 25:33
So whenever my book, I had to figure out a couple of things like so most almost every recipe, when you make pastry will say, you know, make the dough form ball and wrap it in plastic wrap. Right. And so, I mean, I stopped using plastic wrap. Actually, I haven't use plastic wrap even before I went plastic free. I wouldn't buy plastic wrap and my my mom who grew up without plastic wrap always wondered how I survived without it. But anyway, so instead of wrapping up the plastic, I would flatten the dough into a disk and put it on a plate and then put another plate over top. So really simple. And, you know, we we've been eating pastry for centuries have only had saran wrap or plastic wrap, or, I don't know, 70 years and we survived. So I think by just not buying the stuff you come up with solutions. I love roasted beets, and I used to make them in tin foil. So I take my beat and cut the ends off and wash it. Oh now I save those ends. And I make the Avast, which is a fermented drink. But anyway, so I watched the beats, and I would watch the beats and wrap them in tin foil and put a few beats on a dish in the oven and roast them. And then when I stopped buying tin foil, I thought Well, one day I want to beets and I thought oh no, I don't have tin foil anymore. How am I going to do this. And I thought oh my dutch oven, I have a small dutch oven, maybe that will work. So I put the beets in that and put the lid on it and roasted them. And it worked perfectly. And it was a lot easier to clean up. I didn't have this tin foil with beet juice dripping off of it to throw in the garbage. And so just you know, just little things like that. You come up with solutions.
Stephanie Moram 27:37
Right? And I would since you're talking about your book, I'd love for you to share a little bit about your cookbook. And you know how people can find it. And then I know you have workshops. We can touch on that in a minute. But so what's you know, I mentioned what the name of your cookbook is. But if you want to say it again and like just what what's what's in it is it just is it how to like is it to make recipes with food that like leftover foods and stuff like I'd love for you to share that.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 28:05
So I'm when I worked on it, I thought of it as a big puzzle. And I start off with some chapters on reducing waste. You know why it's a good idea, cooking methods that one is called Cooking white grandma, and some chapter on fermentation. And then I have recipes. So I have one section staples and scraps. So staples you can make yourself at home and things you can make with scraps. And then I have breakfast and last, you know, breakfast and sides and mains and snacks and drinks and desserts. And so in each recipe, I have something at the end that says that now for your next recipe. So I give people ideas for what to do with either the leftovers of that dish or some of the leftover ingredients that you will now have on hand from preparing that dish. And I think that I think that really helps because you're not starting from scratch every day. Right?
Stephanie Moram 29:15
Like if you follow the if you follow through the book and be like, Oh, I had this leftover from my last recipe. I can add it to this one. Right?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 29:20
Right. So like right now in the fridge. I have borlotti beans that I cooked last night and my pressure cooker, they refresh button at the farmers market. They're so good. And I have my wheat berries, and I have homemade broth. So I have a bunch of things ready for soup that I'm going to make today. And I'll chop up a whole bunch of vegetables and put some mushrooms in some tomatoes. So yeah, that's that's what I tried to do with the book too. It's sort of like a whole approach, not just, you know, a recipe here and a recipe there. That's completely unrelated So I think that will really help people slash their food waste and their packaging waste, because the highly processed food is what's in the shiny plastic packages. So if you do make some staples yourself, you're going to cut that packaging and the food will taste better. And some of them are pretty easy to do. Like fermentation. It's really simple. But you have to plan ahead. So if I want dill pickles, I have to make them five days in advance because it takes well three to five days to ferment. So it takes a little bit of planning, but not that much.
Stephanie Moram 30:46
Do you talk about fermentation in your book?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 30:48
Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm obsessed with fermentation. Yeah, I've got a little I've got chapter on it, explaining the benefits and the tools you need, which are pretty basic. And yeah, I have quite a few recipes in there for fermented foods. So I have sauerkraut and kimchi doses are so good. I need to make some second last night. And then come Bucha to Paci, which is Oh, it's so good. It's a Mexican drink made from pineapple peels and cores. And you take the pineapples, peels and cores stuff you ordinarily throw out or hopefully compost and not throat but you ordinarily don't do anything with it. So you put that in a jar with the sugar and water and the lactic acid bacteria on the fruit. They eat the sugars, and they excrete gases and acids and you get this bubbly, absolutely delicious drink. It's so good. And so you can either drink it right away, or you can bottle it. If you bottle it, it'll get even more fizzy, which you really don't need it more fizzy because it's very carbonated. So make a batch of that. And then you can make a second batch because the pineapples are really, really sweet. But I make a more concentrated batch. And then you can make a third batch also concentrated and let it ferment until you have vinegar. Really it makes really good. Strong vinegar. Not as strong as apple cider vinegar, but still like really good and homemade vinegar out of, you know, trash.
Stephanie Moram 32:33
I love fermented foods. And since we're talking about fermented foods, I think you have workshops, right that you offer people that they can come online and learn about fermenting and other like cooking type things.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 32:46
Yeah, I do about one a month, maybe two months. I have a free sourdough starter workshop I do every couple of months, because a lot of people started baking sourdough during COVID. I did it. I've been doing it since before COVID. My starter Eleanor turned eight years old this year. And yes, I do free sourdough starter workshop. And then I have a workshop. I think it's in December for pizza with the discard. So when you feed your starter, you take a lot of it out. And I have a bunch of recipes for for what to do with that because it's not bubbly enough to make the bread. And then occasionally I do a sourdough bread workshop. I do sauerkraut. I did a ginger beer fundraiser. I need to schedule another fundraiser. Those are fun. I did borscht to raise money for Ukraine in March this year. So yeah, I do workshops and I do speaking engagements and things like that.
Stephanie Moram 33:54
And I will list everything in the description. So if anyone's interested in getting Emrys book, or any of our workshops, I'll have that all in the description so you can sign up for that. And lastly, where can people find you? I know you're on Instagram and Facebook. But what where else can people find you and what are your handles?
Anne-Marie Bonneau 34:12
Well, my blog is zerowastechef.com with the zero spelled out, and yeah, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I'm @zerowastechef. I also have a newsletter. I don't have the substack on actually, I don't know what that you are. But it's on some stuff. So yeah, that's that's where you can find me.
Stephanie Moram 34:37
So you guys can all follow Anne-Marie and learn more tips on how you can reduce your food waste and stuff like that. I highly recommend that you head over to Instagram and follow her over there. So thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate. Really appreciate it and it was a fun conversation.
Anne-Marie Bonneau 34:56
Oh, thank you, Stephanie. Yeah, it was fun. Thank you for having me.
Stephanie Moram 34:59
You're so welcome. So if you're looking for more sustainable living inspiration, I have a couple of other episodes that you might want to check out. Episode number 21 is eight ways to create a low waste lunch, and Emery briefly touched on PFAS. So I have two episodes with Leah secondee episode 51 and episode 50 protect yourself from PFAS. It's a two parter. Also episode 53 easy ways to live waste free and episode 55 eliminate food waste one meal at a time again, everything will be in the description. Please share this episode with your friends co workers mom, dad, uncles, cousins seriously anyone you can think of. And I would highly appreciate it. Stay connected with me on Instagram and Tiktok at this is Stephanie moram. And don't forget to subscribe to the green junkie podcast on your favorite platform. And again, you can download my complimentary audio series. You will find everything in the description. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next Tuesday Green Junkie.
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