Meal Prep Monday- October 12

Another meal prep, another excuse to make a bunch of pumpkin recipes! Will I ever get sick of making pumpkin items? Probably not! At least this week I also included some butternut squash into the mix.

The Plimouth Grist Mill

First up, breakfast- I made these Savory Pumpkin Cornbread Waffles. I am pumped that I FINALLY got to pull out my cornmeal from the Plimouth Grist Mill. My mom, grandma and I stopped there a few weeks back on our way to the Cape. Like everything else, the Mill has been impacted due to COVID so we wanted to give a local attraction some love, socially-distanced and safely, of course! The cornmeal I bought was milled right on site on their 200 year old mill, which is powered by water.

The recipe was ok, with only the subtlest pumpkin taste so heads up to that if you are looking for a punch of pumpkin. I topped it with mashed avocado and a fried egg, though you could also do hard boiled if you are meal prepping this. To reheat it, I just popped it in the toaster.

Lunch was the Detox Crockpot Lentil Soup with some home made sourdough bread. I really liked that this was a crockpot recipe. I don’t utilize the crockpot nearly enough and I think it can help speed things up during meal prep if I use it right. I also like that this had split pea and lentils, both which are really good vegetarian protein sources and ones I don’t utilize nearly enough. Or at all, to be honest. My one suggestion for this is, the recipe called for 1 cup of parsley. I found that to be WAY too much. I’d cut back on that or simply use the parsley as a garnish.

(I’m not sure why this is the only post I have of this soup but Pinch of Yum have some beautiful pictures to go along with her soup! Definitely check out the original post)

Dessert this week was mini muffins from Tone It Up. I really like mini muffins as a treat because they are insanely easy and are a good base. I can eat them plain, I can top them with a little peanut butter or apple butter if I’m getting bored with the flavor, I can add chocolate chips to half the batter if I want to change it up. They are really versatile. This week, I made these snickerdoodle version and topped it with pumpkin pie spice. To keep it zero waste, I attempted to use my bulk vegan protein. As you can see, they came out really flat! Each protein powder acts a little different so if you have a favorite, give yours a try. I’ve found a good zero waste chocolate protein powder which I will review soon but I’m still searching for vanilla, clearly.

Also, I occasionally topped these mini muffins with Cinnamon Vanilla Almond Butter, inspired by this recipe. I don’t use artifical sweeteners so I replaced the stevia with vanilla extract. Good luck not eating it out of a jar!

What are you meal prepping this week?

Homemade Hocus Pocus Cookies

Last week, I kicked off October with a homemade Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew and my answer to a Pumpkin Muffin from Dunkin. I wanted to show you that you can enjoy seasonal treats without having to sacrifice your low waste ideals or shelling out $5 for a cup of coffee.

This week, I’m continuing the series by making my own Hocus Pocus cookies.

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DIY 2 Ingredient Deodorant

This post has been sitting in my draft folder for eons. It’s something I’ve been excited to share but deodorants are a tricky subject. I’m no expert so it felt very weird for me to tell you that you should switch to a natural deodorant.

Instead, I’m going to give you a little bit of background on why I switched and you can make the decision yourself, how about that?

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Homemade Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew

So, here’s the thing with the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew- There are a lot of steps if you want to get it exactly like Starbucks. But none of them are hard. In fact, it all comes together fairly quickly. I’m including the recipes first and then adding my notes and tips below them so please read through. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them below!

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Low Waste Pumpkin Coffee Cake

Is there anything better than a cool day, delicious coffee and a fall treat? It’s such a good way to welcome October. One of the things I look forward to every year is the pumpkin muffins from Dunkin’. I’m always a little disappointed after my first one, though. There’s never enough crumble on top, the icing is crunchy and it just has a weird after taste. Plus, as I mentioned in my overview post, it comes with trash that we can do without. This coffee cake is the answer to my fall, pumpkin, baked good dreams!

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Low Waste Baking

**last updated 10/08/20. This will be continuously updated as I try new ingredients or discover more items. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Ok, let’s talk Low Waste baking. Overall, baking lends itself fairly well to low-waste. A lot of what you can purchase is already kept in eco-friendly packaging or there are easy swaps available.

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Mouthwash Tabs Review: Bite

As someone who has had a lifetime of unpleasant dentist office experiences, I wasn’t really sure how to approach a zero-waste oral care routine. In fact, I’m still working it out. Each night, as I begrudgingly floss with the cursed traditional dental floss (refillable, in a glass tube) instead of my floss picks, I wonder if this is the best swap out there for clean teeth.

Fortunately, mouthwash was a much easier swap than floss for me and has involved significantly less cursing. Right now I am using Bite Mouthwash Bits. Clink the link for the review:

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