The District of Columbia and surrounding area is digging out from a pair of blizzards the likes of which have not seen around here in living memory.

Bread was one of the first commodities to disappear — this is a well-known phenomenon, even for modest snows — and the snowfall prevented trucks from restocking. We, however, did not do without. (Indeed, I think we may have had too much, but that’s a problem for another blog.)

In short, I had a nice hand-me-down bread maker and made five two-pound loaves over the course of the blizzards. My recipe uses bread flour, water, powdered milk, wheat gluten, white sugar, salt, oil and yeast.

Water comes from the tap. The flour, milk, sugar and salt come from paper or cardboard packaging. The wheat gluten comes packaged in plastic film within a cardboard box; I suppose I could do without it. The yeast — a bulk package, normally for commercial bakers; I’ve had it for ages in the fridge, transfered to a glass jar — came in a mylar-foil brick, like mass-market coffee. Oil comes in a plastic bottle, though I’m looking to start with canned oil after I’m done.

Really not too much plastic per loaf. Sorry I can’t say the same about calories!

I love cabbage: tasty, low-calorie, available year-round, inexpensive and (for the purpose of this blog) available without plastic. I can even get it grown locally.

I especially love cabbage finely shredded for slaw, a quick stir-fry or to enliven a thin soup. Of course, I avoid the bagged kind for the plastic; it is also too expensive. But I prefer to shred more than a single serving of cabbage to save time and effort.

Formerly, I would cover the bowl with plastic wrap, but I decided on an alternative: the outer leaves. Washed, layered and pressed against the shreds. Obvious really, and it works well.

I’m officially tired of hearty, earthy rustic food; that is, winter food. But many of the alternatives are either artificially flavored and sweetened, are imported under refrigeration for long distances or both. And that’s before we get to the plastic. (So much for the frozen berries that lighten many a table this time of year.)

Which is why I love the sweet, chewy goodness of guava paste. It’s ticker than cranberry sauce, and has one of the “tropical” flavors you find in Hawaiian Punch. It’s not health food, but it is sugar-sweetened. It is imported — the Goya brand I like comes from the Dominican Republic — but it is canned, so shelf-stable. And California is farther from me than the Dominican Republic. And because it’s canned, it doesn’t have any more plastic than what might line the can. (Which is a problem, but not one I can solve right now.)  Served with a mild white cheese and bread or crackers, it makes one of those filling deserts — like rice pudding — that can fill out an otherwise skimpy dinner. Like a rustic winter soup.

Or for that matter, I like cranberry sauce. There’s no law that says it only needs to be eaten at Thanksgiving.