It's not easy this zero waste business

Cold and snowy here this morning, although it doesn't stop the cats, who have been shooting in and out since 7:30am. Sometimes I wish I had the zest for life that they do!

So I went to Morrisons early one morning to do the weekly shop and endeavour to practice some zero waste principles. It wasn’t that easy this week it has to be said; a lot of what I bought had packaging because there was an absence of anything else to buy that had little or no packaging. For example, I buy Knorr stock pots, which come in small plastic pots, because they are gluten free and have recyclable packaging. I’d like to hunt down a large bottle of concentrated stock or find a gluten-free stock cube that has compostable packaging and not foil. Using my own homemade stock is fine for recipes requiring large volumes of liquid, but not for adding concentrated flavour in dishes like chilli or bolognese.

I did make several good decisions that I'm pleased with. I put back two organic chickens that were half price and going out of date. I put them in my basket but realised as I was walking round that I already had a whole chicken, two chicken crowns and a roasted chicken in the freezer, and I was just buying them because they were a bargain not because I needed them. That was £12 saved.

Martin asked me to get some flowers for Audrey’s birthday, which I did and I made sure they were in paper wrap not plastic, however, that decision bought its own issues - the price label was not peel off and tore the packaging. 

I bought bacon from the butcher’s counter instead of off the shelf like I usually do but I had stopped short of taking my own containers as I felt too self-conscious about doing it. I knew that I could wash reuse the thin plastic bag a few times but I could not reuse the plastic container that comes from the pre-packaged stuff on the shelf.

Audrey had asked me to buy some individual creme caramel’s for her but for the second week running Morrison’s had run out. I realised I had a packet of make from scratch caramel in the cupboard and thought I could make them up into individual pots (paper inner bag and a carboard outer packet). However, I lacked small containers at home to do them so I made the conscious decision to buy six small plastic storage containers with lids so I could make a pint of caramel and then dispense it into individual pots. Yes, I bought plastic but it is highly reusable and stops 6 individual pots going out the door each week. I may have to buy more as Martin often has individual trifles as well, and that's another 6-7 pots a week out the door. Give him a whole trifle and he will eat it - at one sitting  - so I will try and make up some individual ones for him too. 

We had roast lamb (all of the ingredients out of the freezer and fridge) for Audrey’s birthday and Martin asked me to pick up a Pavlova and a birthday cake. I decided to make them both myself. The pavlova was very easy, I had eggs from my chickens, sugar/ cornflour/vanilla extract in the cupboard and bags of frozen pre-prepared summer fruits in the freezer. The only thing I had to buy was whipping cream which of course has a plastic pot, but those pots are quite a convenient 9-inch size and I often keep them do use for seed pots. I used a Hairy Biker's recipe for the base, and it was lovely.

The cake was a different matter. OMG, the icing! I forgot how hard it is to do writing! I had all the ingredients to make up a Victoria sponge in the cupboard but I didn't have, and what I ended up buying, was marzipan and soft icing for the cover, and edible flowers and icing paste for the decoration. Of course those have got their individual packaging too. I had a complete brain failure in front of the shelves and ended up buying the lot. I could not remember how to make up a thick enough paste to do the icing, whether or not I had the colouring for the writing, and where on earth my icing kit was. It’s been that long since I’ve done any icing at all! I was standing there, blocking up the aisle, lost in thought so decided to just get those items on this occasion before I was on the receiving end of any more dirty looks and tutting from masked shoppers. 

But, in reality I’m not going to need to make proper occasion cakes that often as we only generally tend to have iced cakes on our birthdays and Christmas, so a maximum of, say, five cakes a year. This is one of those scenarios when buying a cake may be more zero-waste than making one, and something to consider in the future. It won't be as personal though, which perhaps is more important. 

I was very pleased to only put out one bag of recycling this week, although before I could get a picture the local litter womblers picked up all the recyclable litter from the neighbouring lanes and placed the bags outside on my drive for the dustman as they went past! So everyone walking would have thought I had THREE bags of waste. The Womblers normally put a printed group 'Womble' sticker on them so the dustman know they are not someone's personal rubbish but these bags didn't have a sticker. 

Oh, how I gnashed my teeth when I saw that!