A fresh holiday season may be around the corner, but how many of you still have candy canes lingering in your pantry from last year? Or a collection of those round red-and-white peppermints from
restaurants? Sometimes our inner squirrel can get the best of us
as we stockpile food until our pantry is so stuffed
we forget what we even have.

While stocking up and buying bulk can help both the pocketbook and
planet, having too much food at home can do the opposite by generating waste. The average American throws out about 1.28 pounds of
food a day, adding up to over 467 pounds of food a year. Worse
yet, this statistic doesn’t include items that end up in the
compost. Whether that wasted food is a wilted salad or graham
crackers years past expiration code, by managing and eating our
stockpile of food at home, we don’t contribute to this waste.

Some thoughts on using up the food you have:

* Be leery of sales. Couscous on special? All of a
sudden you buy five boxes and forget the fact that you’ve never made
couscous before. Unless something is on the top of your “foods I
adore” list, be leery of purchasing more than one, even if the price is
right.

* Clear out the pantry annually. If I told you there was
green cash hiding in your pantry, you’d probably beeline and take
everything out, trying to find the booty. But this cash is in the
form of food you already purchased, the cans and boxes that are sitting
on the shelf waiting to be eaten. Every winter we try to “eat
through” what we have at home, focusing on using up those random food
items that accumulate. 

* Get creative. Back to those candy canes. Determined
to find a use for a gallon-sized bag of assorted peppermints, I Googled
“peppermint candy recipe” on the Internet. This technique works
well if you’re stuck with one random ingredient that you don’t know
what to do with. The result is the Peppermint Biscotti recipe
below, which now appears in our cookbook, Edible Earth: Savoring
the Good Life with Vegetarian Recipes from Inn Serendipity. These
cookies quickly became a holiday tradition for us – especially since
all our friends now give us their peppermint collection, knowing we’ll
put it to sweet use!

Peppermint Biscotti

Ingredients:

¾ c. butter, softened (1 ½ sticks)

¾ c. sugar

3 eggs

2 t. peppermint extract

3 ¼ c. all-purpose flour

1 t. baking powder

¼ t. salt

1 ½ c. crushed peppermint

candy, divided

White chocolate bark for

frosting.

Directions:

* In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.

* Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extract.

* Gradually add flour/candy mixture to creamed mixture, beating until blended (dough will be stiff).

* Divide dough in half. On ungreased baking sheet, roll each portion into a 12 x 2 ½ inch rectangle.

* Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until golden
brown. Carefully remove to wire rack. Cool 15
minutes. On cutting board, cut diagonally into ½ inch slices.

* Place cut side down on ungreased baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes until firm.

* For frosting, melt chocolate. Dip one end in chocolate and roll in the remaining candy. Cool on wax paper.

Yield: Approximately 3 dozen biscotti.