Love looks not wit the eyes,...

So a long weekend off from work is coming to an end. On Friday, I had an appointment with a doctor. He found some helpful words.

On Saturday, we made a day trip by train. We visited a lovely old city. The historical scenery reminds you of Lannisport, because there are lions everywhere. We did some shopping as well. I found three lovely pieces in a second-hand-shop: a skirt, a blouse with embroidery, and a pair of red trousers in Ferrari-red. Next, we went to an "Unwrapped Store" we didn't know yet. Since we had heard of it from the Internet, we had several containers with us. So we got veggie-spread, soy flakes, white lightbulb-shaped chocolate, candied orange peel, poppy seed and red lentils without any extra wrapping. Oh, and we got freshly ground coffee at a coffee roaster. After that, I was emanating a most delicious scent in thick wafts, so I got myself an aroma-safe tin. We also had a special bread bag with us and got some rolls and fresh bread at a local bakery - even at a reduced price. YAY.
Sadly, there was a right-wing demonstration in a nearby town, so the train was full of according supporters on the way back, and there were flocks of police in "heavy armour". Bleh. Not a nice experience, but at least we got out of this unscathed.

Today is a "kitchen day". I made a sauerkraut hotpot for lunch, which also contained onion, lentils, letscho vegetables and smoked tofu. The dessert was apple crumble. YUMYUMYUM.
In the afternoon, I used up two sweet potatoes. I cooked and mushed them. One half went into sweet potato-pecan-muffins, one half into veggie-patties I can take to work tomorrow.
I still mean to make some bulgur salad that can go along with the patties tomorrow.

With regard to writing: I've been very active. I've written a first draft for a query letter. Otherwise, there's a lot on thought and pondering level, and I've had some ideas for the writing project I mean to recycle. At the moment, I'm kind of tailoring my unfinished first draft witht the chainsaw. So yeah, very active days, even if you can't read so much right now.

So I'm content with how things are going.

My ongoing project to produce less plastic is slowly picking up speed. SLOWLY. The point is that I've had so many products on my storage room still wrapped in plastic that changes don't come about all too quickly.

But.

Things are going on.

I've got a hand mill to grind my coffee beans now (including to-go-function), and I've got a permanent filter. Grinding your coffee beans is like a fitness training for your arms, I can tell you! Thankfully, the taste of the coffee is worth the effort. YUMYUMYUM.

I've also found a wonderful homepage that helps me with tons of entries on how to avoid plastic waste.
It is quite shocking to see how much plastic we've got in the drugstore department when some 5 basic, harmless ingredients that have been around for ages can achieve the same.

What I love is that we've got a "unwrapped" shop in the next big town. You take your private boxes and glasses there, weigh them, get a sticker with the weight, and then you fill them from big canisters. No extra waste. Be it shampoo, toothpaste, chocolate, oils, pasta, different kinds of grain, coffee, nuts and so on and so forth. You decide hw much you need, there's no prescribed size of a container. Afterwards, you go to the counter, where the containers are weighed again, minus the container's weight. And that's it!

I'm also scanning every shop for products now that aren't wrapped in plastic. Some areas have got more hits than others. Sweets are notoriously underrepresented. I'm glad we've got good bakeries nearby where plastic isn't necessary. One bakery sells cookies loose, which is perfect for my needs. I simply hand them a box, say "Fill it with a nice variety, please!", and that's it! And these things are all so tasty.

Things I can easily get in glasses/glass bottles or paper boxes: some drinks, milk, yoghurt, flour, vegetable spreads, oats, couscous, bulgur, lasagna plates. Add fruits, loose nuts and vegetables to  it (especially from the farmer's markets), as well as pickeld stuff and bread from the bakery in paper bags, and you've already got many basics at your disposal.

Okay, some products are more expensive (partly, because it's organic quality), but you can also save money.
What I want to try at some point is to bake muffins in empty glasses; those would be easy to transport and welcome at work, I'd imagine. Some empty glass containers could surely be used to transport lunch to work.

I've also got some glass bottles now so I can make  my own lemonade: squeeze one organic lemon, add some freshly sliced ginger and some sweetener, as well as mint leaves (some sort of sieve is helpful here). Fill up with boiling water (about one litre) and let cool down. Not much work, and it tastes great. Before thowing them away, I also use the remaining empty lemons to scrub the water taps etc. because the lemon acid removes stains from the water etc.

Some experiments are interesting, some fail.
Example: I've read that the green of carrots is edible. I tried it out today, found it edible indeed, and made carrot green pesto for my hubby for tomorrow. Then, I tried out a recipe for a veggie spread, because I had all the ingredients at home... and I nearly puked. I guess you can't learn without goofing.
The interesting thing is that I'm far more concerned with basic recipes, because I make more things from scratch - and yet, on average they taste more refined, simply BECAUSE they're made from scratch, i.e. with fresh, basic ingredients. So this is all very recommendable.

Something I've tried out is to wash my hair with a paste of rye flour and water, nothing else. The texture of my hair was different afterwards, and less greasy, which I found great. However, this is not something for every hair type.
Something I find ridiculously easy to do is to replace liquid soap in plastic containers with soap from little cardboard boxes. The bars of soap last longer (=much cheaper, despite organic quality), and I've heard that there are faaaaar fewer bacteria than around the plastic containers of liquid soap. I'be also got a bar of shampoo soap for the hair now, but I haven't started to use it yet.

What else?
I've bought plastic-free sponges for the kitchen. I think they're base on cellulosis or something.
Something else I want to try out at some point is to make "vegan milk" from grains/nuts. We'll wait and see. I've already got a cheese cloth for it.

So that's it for the moment. I'll give you more updates as we go along.