August 04, 2014

That Time I Had A Plastic-Dilemma Bag...

What? You thought that because it's no longer July that I was going to stop saving the world? Ahahahaha. Okay, so with July over I will stop collecting the plastic I do get forced upon me in a bag. But during Plastic Free July, I collected all the plastic that was unavoidable in a "dilemma bag" that I could then go through at the end of the month. I'm gonna be honest. I think I did pretty damn good. And I included stuff that I bought in June. Though to be more honest, some of it I bought on June 30th in anticipation of July. So I included it and felt bad and will no longer buy tortillas and pita bread. 
So there's all the food packaging scrunched together on the left, packaging from online purchases on the right. At the bottom is some more packaging, a candy wrapper from a Flake bar that I didn't know it was possible to get in the US but I found at Wegman's, and then all the yellow stuff is the caps and seals from my milk bottles, a plastic fork and if I'd thought of it, there would be several straws that I either failed-to-ask-to-not-have or were failed-to-not-be-given-to-me. Yes, that was a sentence. It looks like a lot of milk for a month, but half was used to make yogurt, so one little cap replaces a quart-sized plastic tub. That's something right?...

I'm a bit torn on the milk bottle-plastic because I maybe can find paper cartons in stores, but that does use trees, plus it's shipped from across the country, whereas the milk with the plastic lids comes in reusable glass jugs and is from a local dairy. I'm inclined to stick to my local milk because it's local. But let me know if I'm wrong.

Over all, I am quite pleased with myself and I expect to do even better going forward! Plus think of all the awareness I created!

In other news....
Did it!

I had a couple of good chunks of free time this weekend and made both plastic-free marshmallows and plastic-free graham crackers!

I linked to the recipes I used, and the only modification I made was for the marshmallows. 

The marshmallow recipe called for coating them in a mixture of powdered sugar and cornstarch. I think the sugar would have kept them sticky and would be unnecessary added sugar.
I used just corn starch and they came out great! I also only needed about 1/2 c of corn starch not 1.5 c. I just pressed all the post-cut surfaces of the marshmallow into excess cornstarch that was already covering my cutting board from the initial dusting and every time I dusted my knife with more.
Then shake off the excess! Aside from the overnight waiting to set, they were awesome and were delicious as s'mores with homemade graham crackers! 

The graham cracker recipe for them said to cut the dough into rectangles like the way they come from the store.
I decided that I'm going to use them for s'mores anyway, so why not just make them squares to start with? I made the line down the middle just for fun so they look cute and like the store version.
They came out great! Oh and there's that piece of mail so that my camera would adjust correctly and make the colors look right. Forgot to crop :P

2 comments :

  1. the graham crackers are super cute! I've been curious about making marshmallows for a while and I love that the recipe you linked is egg-free :)

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    1. I'd made them once before but so long ago that I don't even remember how well they turned out. Not as well, I think. I have no idea what recipe I used that time either but definitely not this one!

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