Sarah E. Welch

As part of my January challenge of wasting less food (get up to speed here), I think it’s important that I show you where I’m starting.  I took these pictures last night after dinner and this afternoon.  I did not clean up, hide, or otherwise primp my pantry, fridge, etc.  This is an uncensored look at the food we keep at home.  Obviously, you won’t be able to see everything, but it will give you an idea of what I have to work with on this challenge.  Before I get to that, a quick update on Day 2.

Day 2

Today was a big leftover day, so this part of the update will be short and sweet.

We had intended to get up early and make ham, egg, and cheese sandwiches for breakfast.  This did not happen, but we did eat at home.  Rich had cereal and milk.  I had peanut butter and jelly on honey wheat.  My tolerance for dairy is hit and miss, mostly miss on an empty stomach.

For lunch, we had planned to eat the last of the leftover ham and beans, and we did, supplemented with turkey and cheese sammies.  I was so very tempted to go out for lunch today, though.  I had one of those ‘can’t stand to eat leftover’ feelings, but you know what?  Once we got home and started prepping things, I thought our lunch sounded awesome, and it was!

Tonight, we’re having the leftovers of the shrimp, mushroom, and bok choy dinner from last night.  I don’t think either of us will try running away from that.  I will definitely savor it since it is so fresh tasting.  We only have a few days of fresh produce on hand.  I’m plotting to use it all to its advantage!

Our Pantry & Food Stores

You’ll see that I keep a well-stocked kitchen.  It’s a product of growing up with family for which the Great Depression, floods, and other natural and financial disasters were always kept just in the back of the mind.  Not to mention, for several years my family lived in a house that all roads to would get blocked due to flood waters in the creek a few times a year.  Actually, one of the three roads became a creek a few times a year.  I was raised to be prepared.

The Fridge. This is actually fairly lightly stocked for us.  As always, there are a lot of sauces and condiments.  In proteins, we have beef summer sausage (leftover from Christmas), bacon, sausage, and deli ham and turkey.  This is much heavier in fatty meats than typical due to the holidays.  There are a variety of cheeses including at least colby, sharp cheddar, chipotle cheddar, tomato basil cheddar, brie, swiss, colby jack, and some interesting foreign cheeses.  I’m kicking myself for running out of parmesan, romano, and asiago before starting this challenge!  In other dairy, we have skim milk, buttermilk, heavy cream, cream cheese, butter, blended butter (butter and olive oil), sour cream, and plain lowfat yogurt.  In produce, we have baby eggplant, karela, green beans, and a variety of fresh herbs.  We have a little bit of booze: tequila, champagne, hard limeade, wine, as well as some Mexican sodas.  To round things out, there’s some naan, eggs, and active yeast.  That blank spot in the fridge door is where the orange juice goes.  I’m already missing something.

Fridge

Fridge Door

The Freezer. To be completely honest, I’m not totally sure what all is in the freezer.  That’s part of why I wanted to do this challenge.  It’s ridiculous to have so much food you don’t even know what you have in there!  I know that there are a few packages of meat, some frozen vegetables, overripe bananas, blueberries, ice cream, and several bags of leftover soup, chili, and gumbo.  One thing I am a little concerned about is running out of vegetables before I get to the end.  It’s something I’ll have to keep in mind as we proceed.

Also, I hate to admit it (especially since you can’t see them!), but there are two small frozen dinners inside.  We bought them back in November when I had the flu and Rich was going out of town.  As it turns out, he got sick, too and stayed home.  We’ll see how far we get down in our stores before those are consumed!

Freezer - top drawer

Freezer - bottom drawer

The Pantry. The pantry is actually a series of cabinets.  We’re doing a small kitchen remodel that includes a small pantry, but I still have everything spread out all over.  This is another reason for the challenge–making room for my cooking wares.

In this first picture, we have tea, tuna, lentils, sauces, spreads, jams, fruit nectars, canned milk products, and other non-perishables.  There’s even a microwaveable soup (1–again from the flu period) and a little stash of ramen noodles.  I will probably never grow out of having these now and again.

Pantry 1

This cabinet is primarily my canned goods, pasta, and rice.  I buy most vegetables fresh or frozen, but I do buy canned tomatoes, beans, and some soups.  I don’t use canned soups often, but I can’t replicate some of my family recipes without them.  I keep a decent variety of dried pastas, both conventional and wheat.  My favorite is a whole wheat sweet potato gnocchi.  I get them on subscription through Amazon.  I also keep about a dozen types of rice.  Rice is easily my favorite food.  It’s incredibly versatile and simply delicious.

Pantry 2

This cabinet holds my baking supplies including flours, meals, sugars, extracts, and leavening agents.

Baking

The next couple of pictures are from our new pantry.  We’re in the midst of a minor kitchen remodel.  This pantry used to be the old ’60s Magic Chef wall oven.  We bought a new slide in range, so it’s a pantry.  I’m waiting on hinges to be delivered so the chalkboard painted door can be put on!  Anyway, this isn’t very well stocked yet, but I need to clear some things out to make room for organizing.  We have a some new potatoes, purple potatoes, sweet potatoes, and onions.  There are chips and crackers leftover from Christmas, as well as bread and cornbread. Below there are some miscellaneous items like oats, granola, and even more rice.  I buy long grain white rice by the 10 lb bag.  I told you it was my favorite food!

T

New Pantry 1

New Pantry 2

The cabinet below holds my vinegars and oils.  I have a few fantastic things in there like my cilantro onion extra virgin olive oil, jalapeno white balsamic vinegar, and my oh so special balsamic from Moderna in the cute little bottle up front.

Oils & Vinegars

This cabinet is for my spices.  I recently pared down a bit, passing on some duplicates and throwing away some that were just too old.  That top basket has some seriously fantastic spice blends from the Savory Spice Shop in Boulder.

Spices

Here are my dry goods on the counter: white flour, cane sugar, and long grain white rice.  What do you put in your third canister?  I don’t think rice is normal, but it’s what works in our house.

Dry Goods

This is our coffee station–which Rich says is a very important spot!  We have coffee and tea for the Keurig coffee maker.  I have quite a bit of looseleaf and bag teas, too, but this is super handy.  This is where the fresh fruit goes as well.  Right now, we have tangerines, grapefruit, and limes.  I’m looking forward to some fabulous marinades with those limes!  If I can’t use them all, they’ll get squeezed into my water or used in cocktails.

Coffee Station

This is where the majority of the bad food lives: in the buffet.  This is usually in the kitchen, but it’s hanging out in the middle of the dining room at the moment–more remodeling.  There’s a bit more junk food here due to the holidays.  We have sodas and candy, but there are also nuts, popcorn, and dried fruit.  It’s not all bad.

Soda

Snacks

There you go.  Our pantry–completely uncensored.  We’ll see what I can do with it!

food challenge, food, January, waste

I have decided to change my food waste habits once and for all.  Until my pantry, fridge, and freezer are bare, I will not be grocery shopping (except bread, eggs, & milk) or eating out at restaurants (or fast food or convenience stores, for all of  you loophole fans).  It all started with this tweet.  Now, I do reserve the right to buy a variety of bread and milk products (not to extend to cheese), because I will need to mix things up a bit.  At first, I planned to also give up bread buying, but my oh so wise husband talked me out of it, for which I am thankful.

So how did I get here?  I absolutely love to cook (it’s my zen), which means I love to fill my cabinets, fridge, and freezer with incredible ingredients.  It also means that sometimes my delight in doing so results in food going to waste.  I don’t want to eat any more leftovers, because I want to cook something new.  I don’t want to do dishes, so I go out to eat.  I buy a pretty roast, forgetting that I’m leaving town for the weekend.  While I don’t think my bad habit here is much worse than average, I know that it would make my great-grandparents that survived two world wars and the Great Depression turn over in their graves.  Being a cook, the worst sin I have with regard to food waste is saving a special ingredient for an occasion, only to let it run out of date or go bad.  This has broken my heart in the past.  Seriously.

A few things lately have spurred me into action.

There was cinematic inspiration: Julie & Julia and Outsourced.  Julie & Julia was my movie of 2009.  I felt attached to both main characters.  Their successes and failures in the kitchen were mine.  Their frustrations and joy were mine.  Their supportive but sometimes neglected-for-the-kitchen husbands were much like mine.  The simple ingredients and use everything mentality was inspiring, although I never intend to make an aspic.  Outsourced inspired me in a different way.  The movie was set in India, where the difference between classes is stark & so very visible in their culture.  Outsourced gracefully showed these differences.  The dinner that the poor family so lovingly shared with the main character made me feel ashamed of my own personal habits in the kitchen.

There was lifestyle inspiration. I’ve been attempting to live a simpler life, less cluttered with possessions and with less attention paid to unnecessary expectations.  Having the absolute right ingredients for recipe X isn’t that important, especially when something will go to waste.  It’s not like I follow recipes anyway.  I might as well be resourceful.

There was family inspiration. My almost 20 year old sister-in-law is out on her own for the first time, paying her own bills and cooking her own meals.  She’s frustrated by the cost of food and the time required to cook.  I’ve been spoiled by not really having a food budget.  I want something, I buy it.  She worries about the high price of spices.  I have an entire cabinet dedicated to them.  I buy weird produce, sauces, cuts of meat just to give it a try.  I need to get back to basics and show her what you can do with simple, staple ingredients.  It will take me a few days to get there, as I have to eat up some of my more exotic perishables first.  Speaking of which, do you have any good recipes for karela?

There was financial inspiration. We are targeting a relocation to Colorado, which means polishing our house here up for sale, as well as saving for a move.  I estimate that we have enough food at the house for 3-4 weeks.  Only buying the blizzard trifecta (bread, eggs, milk) should save us some serious dough during that time, which can be better spent or saved elsewhere.

Day 1

I actually decided to start this challenge midday, but we were already on target anyway.  For breakfast, we had tamales that I had frozen from the farmer’s market this summer.  Until late last week, I had been using my ice maker drawer as my tamale drawer.  They’re that good.  But, we just got the ice maker hooked up to the water line, so no more tamale drawer.  We also shared a fantastic tangerine.  For lunch, we had a quick and easy tuna salad sandwich.  There was nothing spectacular about it.  In fact it was about as basic as you can get: tuna, mayo, & pickle relish on honey wheat.

Now, dinner was special. Before I thought of this challenge, we took a trek to my favorite store on the planet: Global Foods Market in Kirkwood, MO (greater St. Louis metropolitan area).  If you’re in the area, you must visit.  Apparently even tour buses stop there.  It’s truly epic.  That’s another full post, but suffice it to say, I went a little nuts there.  So, my cupboards and fridge are a little better stocked than normal.  I don’t feel like this is cheating.  I do this every once in a while, and it wasn’t planned.  I think it will make it easier to get started on this journey.  Some of the ingredients from that trip ended up in tonight’s dinner: shrimp, shitaki mushrooms, and baby bok choy over egg fried rice.  I’m going to savor this dinner, as our fresh ingredients won’t last very long into this challenge.  Now, I don’t remember exactly what I did, but I will try to record it because it was one of the best meals I’ve ever made.

Shrimp with mushrooms & baby bok choy

Shrimp with mushrooms & baby bok choy

• frozen medium sized shrimp, peeled & deveined
• baby bok choy, chopped–separating white stems from dark leafy greens
• shitaki mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
• white rice
• 2 eggs
• chopped onions
• olive oil
• sesame oil
• tamari
• red pepper flakes
• garlic ginger paste
• freeze dried orange peel
• freeze dried shallots

1. Cook rice as normal, adding orange peel, shallots, and red pepper flakes to mix.
2. Heat garlic ginger paste and red pepper flakes in oil.
3. Sautee mushrooms until soft in oil.
4. Add chopped stems of bok choy until soft.
5. Add shrimp and cook until about just starting to turn pink.
6. Layer bok choy leaves on top, allowing them to begin to steam and wilt for a couple of minutes.
7. Stir mixture.  At this point, the shrimp should be perfectly cooked.  Drizzle with sesame oil, toss, and set aside.
8. Using the same pan, add additional oil and chopped onions.  Cook until soft.
9. Add rice to pan.  While stirring, drizzle in tamari until rice is slightly tan.  Turn off burner.
10. Make a well in the middle of the rice.  Add two eggs and stir quickly into rice until cooked.
11. Drizzle in sesame oil.
12. Serve shrimp and veggie mixture over rice.

food challenge, food, January, self-improvement, waste