A to Z: Dr. Plastic Picker’s Less Plastic More Plants Cookbook for Kids! – Page 3 – Dr. Plastic Picker
 

Category: A to Z: Dr. Plastic Picker’s Less Plastic More Plants Cookbook for Kids!

My daughter shaped the pizza dough I made into a heart.

February 1, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I never expected Dr. Plastic Picker to be a rediscovery of my love for good food. We started the project at work called #kpkidsgoodfoodgoodearth and that is the crux of the issue, we need both. To save the planet, we have to change our food systems and our food supply. But the byproduct is that our food will become delicious, wholesome, plant-based and we’ll be healthier for it.

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Kumquats. Rediscovered and reimagined.

January 15, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I am really happy this morning. I am really happy because I have always had so many kumquats in my life. Kumquats are a citrus and the kumquat tree is relatively easy to grow. It bears these small little fruits that you can eat the entire thing including peel. My mom has given me kumquats. Friends have given me kumquats. We have a kumquat tree and my mother-in-law always has them in a square plastic container of food from the garden that we need to eat. She puts it in the center of our large kitchen island to prompt the family cooks to use that ingredient. There are always kumquats.

But we should appreciate our kumquats because through the power of Ecosia, I now know that organic kumquats are $10 a pound. Isn’t that crazy? $10 a pound when I’ve neglected previously gifted kumquats. I know kumquat trees are relatively cheap as I see them at the local home improvement stores a lot yet the organic fruit is $10 a pound. We have two kumquat trees in our front yard. We also have a lemon and lime tree. We always have fresh lemon and lime, and now kumquats.

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The beginning.

January 14, 2021

by drplasticpicker

There is no way that granola is a health food. This is probably one of the great myths that has partially worsened our obesity epidemic. Growing up as an immigrant kid, I thought granola was healthy and it was American. Granola bars are ubiquitous especially with their plastic wrappings. I’m not saying that granola is not a perfectly fine food to eat, but it’s really a dessert. It should be used as a topping on oatmeal, or as a rare treat on top of something healthier.

I was inspired by my Instagram friend @lowwastejoy who was one of the first Instagram environmental friends I made years ago. We’ve never met, but there is a back and forth in the Instagram community that is real. Every time she posts something, I think it looks like a great idea. I think maybe because I know she is Asian as well, and maybe our thought processes through some kind of shared cultural experience and trying to be eco-minded is similar? I’m not sure what it is, but I often think her ideas are great. She posted last night home-made granola and I had been looking for a new granola recipe. One that I got from a friend was too burnt and I did not like the spices. It looked pretty on Instagram and we ate most of it, but it was for me a fail. I realized it was too burnt and @lowwastejoy had a recipe that seemed more gooey which is more to my liking.

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It was really good!

January 13, 2021

by drplasticpicker

I can’t even believe that I’m in the space to be able to know that Bobbie Flay’s pizza dough recipe is not the best. I can’t even believe that I am in the space that I considered buying more than bread flour versus 00 flour in order to make a better pizza dough. That we discussed with my daughter different rise times of pizza dough, and that as she explained to me as we debated a 1 hour rise time versus a 24 hour rise time. My tween explained to me “a longer rise time allows the ingredients to ferment and there are more complex flavors.” I felt privileged to be even begin to understand a little bit about what she was talking about. This journey has been about decreasing processed food, decreasing the plastic in our lives, decreasing the salt, and increasing the vegetables and saving the planet. Likely the other recipes use less yeast which is the most expensive ingredient, and made me consider another recipe. But I am all too pleased to have delved into the great pizza dough debate. For now and for this time in my life, I am done. This is my pizza dough recipe. Bobbie Flay – you are it!

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It was so pretty, Hard to compete with KFC Extra Crispy Chicken but it made it onto our daughter’s plate. Plenty for the next day and will definitely be on the rotation.

December 25, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Winner winner, vegan dinner!!! Or it could be a lunch or as hearty side dish. In the midst of a non-ideal Christmas Eve when Mr. Plastic Picker and I both worked part of the day and our youngest daughter woke up with torticollis – we still were able to cook a surprisingly easy dish that was good for us and the planet.

I hope everyone had somewhat of a normal Christmas Eve and Christmas this year. I mean this is what upper management gave me.

Yes I have a COVID gift bag now.

And inside the bag was a KeySmart key chain with a fancy metal thingamajiggy that helps you open doors without touching the handles. I found one on the beach as well and had gifted it to my father-in-law. But the one I received was purchased for about $25. I gave it to my father-in-law and took back the one I found on the beach. The one I found on the beach is not as fancy but it has a beer can openener on it as well. Plus I found it.

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It’s the fundamental ingredients that make a difference! Olive oil instead of butter or lard or palm oil.

December 14, 2020

by drplasticpicker

It happened. I made my own tortillas yesterday and our tween daughter approved. That is saying a lot. It was made with partial whole what flour and olive oil, instead of butter or lard or the worse is all those hidden ingredients that actually come from palm oil and hurt the orangatangs. Some things I’ve made on this less-plastic life journey are not sustainable. I’ve decided today to forgo the apple cider vinegar. The beer vinegar is fine for me to make to clean with, but the third batch went moldy again. That is fine. I made one batch that worked, it just took too much time to monitor the vinegar. But the tortillas. The whole-wheat tortillas! This is definitely a keeper!

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Veggies/Fruits that I roasted.

December 12, 2020

by drplasticpicker

Yesterday was a “food waste” dinner, and it was very delicious. Friday night our daughter had made her first Pad Thai, and it was heavy on the noodles. She added a fried egg which I’ve never added. In general, it was well appreciated by the entire family. She had reminded everyone to eat fruit.

Yesterday was Saturday I spent a good portion of the day doing a solo beach clean up and I found a plastic cow stuck in the hedges near our house. I just looked online and it cost exactly $34.99 at Target. Not one of my most expensive finds (I once found a pristine portable speaker that costs about $150), but definitely up there.

Plastic cow’s journey

I’m trying to remember what happened yestserday? I spent most of the morning trying to clean Plastic Cow. She required a lot of vinegar, magic eraser, 409 spray and boiling water to clean. But she looks really good now.

Plastic Cow with Poodle Mix.

I was teasing our puppy yesterday with the Plastic Cow, and last night I realized that I ought not have done that. That was not a kind thing to do. But as I was reminded someone I love very much to remember to be kind to me, I realized that I am usually kind but my gentle teasing of our puppy was not kind. Now I look back at this picture and it isn’t funny anymore. Now I will use the cow for my social media work to remind the world and my patients to eat less beef.

What else happened yesterday? I went through our finances and realized we had reached our goal of saving for both kids’ college accounts to fund college. We had started 15 years ago and always made it a priority to fund their 529. There are a lot of personal finance bloggers that have written about having their own children pay for college, or taking out loans. I do believe the children should have “skin in the game” but given that my parents paid for most of my college and my husband’s parents almost sold their house to pay for his education, it seems like a dual income physician couple household like us should provide for our children at least what our parents who were working class immigrants did. We won’t fund all of graduate school though, because I do want our children to appreciate their education. I have told them that whatever scholarships they earn, it will mean more money for graduate school later. For those that question whether it’s prudent to save for college, all I can say is that in review of our financial history – Mr. Plastic Picker and I am glad we did. This is advice more fore high earninig physician couples, but the tax benefits of a 529 plan is quite good. We fully funded our retirement and kept on investing, but we put at least $10,000 a year in each kids’ college sometimes the max of $14,000 after becoming attending physicians. I won’t disclose the total amounts, but lets just say if X was the principal we put in – over the last 10-12 years the earnings have been X so essentially doubled in value. It’s a great load off our mind knowing that no matter what happends to us, there is money set aside for college for them. Most of the tax benefits are more those in the upper income brackets because the earnings are not taxed. We are taxed at a high bracket (which let me tell you I have no guilt about because we pay a lot of taxes and more than Donald Trump ever has, that cheat).

The other thing that happened yesterday, is our tween daughter had a busy Girl Scout day as their troop had a letter writing campaign to try to cheer up senior citizens. She was working on her history day project and my job was to remind her every 2 hours to work on her history day project. I talked to my sister a little bit yesterday and caught up on her life, and what my niece and nephew have been up to. I watched Star Trek Discovery, and it was SOOOOOOO good. Phillipa Georgeiou is the Asian-American woman character that is strong and complex that we’ve all been waiting for! Our son was alternatively studying, playing video games, and virtual tutoring as part of his public service work. And Mr. Plastic Picker was working an extra shift from home. And we ended the night with watching a movie about Ghandi which is related to our daughter’s school project. It was very good.

And we also had roasted veggies. I’ve made roasted veggies plenty of times, but yesterday I was inspired by a real and Instagram friend who had suggested added apples. So I threw togehter all our left over veggies in particular 1.5 bell peppers, 1 parsnip (it’s our new “in” root vegetable), squash that was getting bad, mushy apple, and threw in a third of an onion and a red fancy pear. Instead of my usual salt, peper and olive oil – I used olive oil, salt, thyme and cinnamon. The cinnamon in combination with the parsnip and red pear with the usual veggies was sublime. It was really really really good. The smell of the cinnamon and the unexpected burst of sweetness of the roasted apples and pears was surpirsing. I had an avocado that was toward the end, and I kind of made up my own guacamole having watched our daughter do it so often. I used salt, my apple-cider vinegar, and Trader Joe’s everything bagel seasoning. We had store-bought hummus, and some crackers and cheese. Everyone was fed with food that was simple, plant based and lots of colors. So much fiber was consumed last night.

New Roasted veggies with some fruit dish. I think the pears and the cinnamon really made the dish!

And that is it. That was our day. We had little dramas that as a family we all go through, and we are better for it. I got up early this morning with renewed hope, and was planning on making tortillas but I think I made a kind of flat-bread instead. I used whole wheat flour and all purpose flour, olive oil and rosemary. Whatever I made, it’s home made and healtheir and I just had one – and it’s very good. I was going to show you a picture of my flat-bread/tortilla project, but that’s okay. It’s taking too long to upload. Let’s just say it’s not perfectly round. It’s a bit uneven. But I know that inside there is such healthy olive oil and some wheat flour with more fiber. And since it’s home-made – it’s better. I don’t expect my tortillas/flat bread to be perfect and I certainly don’t expect my family to be perfect. Forgiveness is so important. Gratitude is so important. And those lessons I’ve learned so very late in life, and much of these lessons through writing and thinking my own thoughts on the beach, has so fundamentally changed me that I am litterally a different personality of the Myers-Briggs personality test.

And that is it! That was what happened yesterday at our home on Saturday. Roasted veggies with some fruit and some new spices, made a whole new dish. I’m off just around the neighborhood to get a bag of plastic pollution.

The salmon was really good.

December 4, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I don’t know why the salmon was particularly amazing yesterday. I didn’t intend to make something special. I pulled into our garage at 230pm. Yesterday was a half day of work and I actually left the office semi-on-time. I had talked to Mr. Plastic Picker earlier in the afternoon and told him to not order out. Since Fridays are usually busier days for us and take-out is a treat, I could figure out something for dinner on a Thursday. I pulled into the garage and plugged in my plug-in hybrid. We have an extra freezer and frigerator/freezer in the garage. There are a lot of people who live in my house, and it’s mostly my parents-in-law who store their bulk food there. I used to feel guilty about all the appliances but they are sunk cost, and they are powered by our solar panels anyway. There is not much of our food there, but sometimes I’ll store some frozen Costco bulk food. Thinking about dinner, I shopped in my own garage and found a packet of salmon fillets from Costco.

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So pretty this morning.

December 3, 2020

by drplasticpicker

I used to think Costco was the answer to life. Costco wanted us to think that it was the answer to life. Costco is still a great place, and pays good wages. But I am reminded that Costco is not the answer to life. It’s just a warehouse store that generally runs an ethical business but usually pushes us to overconsume and has too much plastic packaging. I have a lot of self-control these days and I can walk into Costco without leaving with three giant Olaf plushies. Yes, we once did that. The last plushie went to a good highschool friend who also re-homed/bought our extra care. No one needs an extra car. I was trying to find that bloglink, but can’t find it. I’ll try to link it later.

Anyway, last weekend my college sweetheart and only ever boyfriend now husband of almost 20 years Mr. Plastic Picker and I went to Costco. It was very romantic. We bought mostly things in bulk but I was tempted by a crate of mangos. I have family in our southeast Asian homeland that has a mango tree farm, and mangos ripe from the tree are delicious. Here in southern california, we make due with Costco. But do we really need to? The mangoes on the outside looked decent, and I am well aware due to my ethnic heritage how to judge the ripeness of a mango. The ripeness was about right to eat the next week. Our daughter loves mangos. So we bought a crate. Last night I had a semi-tiring day at work. Mostly dealing with some adminstrative things again in my non-adminstrative off time. When everyone has left the office, I was still sitting there. But I also had a conversation with someone I care about and the conversation was very similar to conversations I’ve had prior to becoming Dr. Plastic Picker. Filled with gossip and some catching up, and some pettiness. I felt myself reverting to pettiness. It’s funny that when I join again with old intermittent acquaintances that have not been with me on this journey, I get to starkly look back at who I was before this blog – before I just decided to really care. I did not like that version of myself.

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