Our home trash can remains mostly empty, so that is a good sign, even though the week overall had some hiccups.

My planned menu for the week:

• Mediterranean platter with roasted caulflower, hummus, pita, fresh veggies, and olives. This was not a trash-free meal (pita bread bag recycled) but was designed to use up things I had around.
• Tempeh and tomatillo stew. Also not trash-free due to the tempeh wrapper but I have a bunch of tomatillos from my garden to use up. I probably should have substituted beans instead.
• Brown rice biryani. Trash free!
• Mushroom stroganoff. Would have been trash-free but I was foiled by the grocery store being out of bulk mushrooms.
• Loaded spaghetti squash. This recipe does use artichoke hearts, which come in a recyclable container.
• I also cooked up a big batch of chickpeas and stored them in the freezer. I will do a different bean each weekend so that I have plenty of beans on hand and don’t resort to buying canned.

However, because my husband had a late work event one night and we decided to go out to dinner one night, I didn’t actually make two of these dishes. They’ll go back on my menu for the coming week!

Outside of the home, I did not do as well. Because of not cooking dinner every night I didn’t have anything to take to lunch for work on a couple days, and because of meeting timing on those days I did have to get takeout. I also scheduled a meeting in a coffee shop and forgot to bring a reusable mug. I’m definitely factoring these things into my planning for the coming week!