Zero Waste Week is finally here, and I’m feeling excited and overwhelmed in equal measures! I have been looking forward to the week’s challenge of doing “one more thing” in a bid to reduce my household waste (and hopefully kick a few of my lazy habits of throwing things away too easily). But less than 2 days ago I was relaxing and sunning myself by a pool in the South of France, successfully switching off from the rest of the world and intentionally avoiding any forms of writing or thinking. Now I’m very unprepared and have no idea how I intend to approach my waste reduction; let alone what I will write for my daily blogs! That really is lazy procrastination at its best!

But as my pledge for Zero Waste week is to use up ALL of my fruit and veg – doing my bit to reduce the estimated 15 million tonnes of UK food that’s thrown away annually – I thought there is no better way to kick off the week than a deliciously lazy recipe!!

As I have had a week of drinking wine, eating lots of bread and barely moving from the poolside, the first thing I did when I got home is put myself on a little juice detox. I have said before that juicing is a great way to use up old scraps of fruit and veg, but there is still a fair bit of pulp left over from the process; so with this in mind, here’s how I have been using up my juicing pulp so far:

Juicing Pulp Crackers

Ingredients

8 oz veg or fruit pulp…(I used apple, carrot and ginger)
6 oz water
2 tbsp chia seeds
2 oz linseeds
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsps natural cane sugar

Method

This is literally one of the easiest recipes around, as all you need to do is whizz up all the ingredients in a food processor, flatten onto a greased/lined baking tray and cook in the oven for about 30 minutes at 170°C.

If you don't have a food processor it still works, but you may have chunks of food left in! — If you don’t have a food processor it still works, but you may have chunks of food left in!

As soon as they come out of the oven, use a pizza cutter to cut into your required sized crackers and sprinkle a few seeds on top. Hey presto! You have used every last drop of your juicing pulp and you have a super healthy snack!

5 other uses for juice pulp

Mix vegetable juice pulp into soups, sauce and stews for added thickness. It’s a great gluten free alternative to using flour and is a nutrient rich way to hide veggies from children!
Both fruit and Vegetable juice pulp make amazing homemade ice lollies when added with a little fruit juice and frozen in lolly moulds.
Mix pulp with (soy…) yogurt or oil for natural face masks! Cucumber based ones are soothing and citrus based ones are great for brightening dull skin. Experiment and have fun trying it out!
Bake pulp leftovers in small bite size dollops for very easy veggie doggy treats
Make really easy marmalade from orange or carrot juice pulp