how cut food waste, cut bills and see the back of your fridge

January 9, 2014January 9, 2014 ~ Gillie ~ 9 Comments

How often do you eat? I rest my case. You will spend a LOT of time in your fridge and larder (or food cupboards or wherever you keep the food that doesn’t live in your fridge, please don’t email me, larder is an easy word that you all understand 🙂 )

Is your fridge full of little bowls of leftovers, unidentified things in silver foil? Do you take one look and think it would be easier just to pop out and buy a couple of chicken breasts for dinner? How much money are you wasting on food? Combine decluttering with the essential post holiday belt tighten and clear out your fridge.

Give it a really good clean whilst you are at it (a paste made from water or water and vinegar and bicarb is an excellent cleaner and gets rid of any unwanted smells). Put back all the regular essentials (milk, butter, fruit juice etc.) and have a good look at what is left. Divide it up into OMG how long has that been there , it is no longer recognisable as food, and the rest. You can chuck the former. This is the only time you will do that. From now on there will be no more UFOs (unidentified food objects) in your fridge.

The rest needs to be sorted into what you have to eat fairly quickly, the open packet of bacon for example and what can hang on for a while yet, that hard heel of cheese. Take the first group and work out what you could cook with them. I tidied my fridge after the Christmas holidays, it was full of bits of leftovers and was driving me nuts. The last bits of cooked ham, some cold boiled potatoes, some rather dried out sausages and the end of homemade terrine (ie I knew what was in it) was chopped up and added to the butchers scraps and cooked up for the dogs. We had crunchy topped cheese and squash bake using only leftovers from the fridge. 1 elderly and slightly worse for wear squash, 1 bowl of dried breadcrumbs, the remains of a pot of creme fraiche, the open packet of bacon and all the left over and rather hard heels of cheese from the holidays. It was delicious.

If you really can’t think of what to cook with your assorted ingredients then hit the internet. “Cabbage and cranberry recipes” alone brought up pages and pages of recipes. So now you have tonight’s supper sorted you can put those ingredients to one side and look at the rest.

Again sort them into order of decay – i.e. use the ingredients that will last longest last.

Hey presto! You have cleared your fridge AND written a menu plan for the next few days and you haven’t even spent a single penny.

If you are feeling brave you really ought to combine a fridge clear with a freezer clear. With careful jiggling and swapping of ingredients you can take the hassle out of “what are we going to eat tonight”, save a fortune on groceries and find order in your kitchen. What’s not to like?

I plan menus every week, it makes life so much easier and cheaper. I don’t subscribe to the 15 (or whatever) circulating recipes. How boring that must get. Instead I start my shopping in my pantry and freezer. Then I get out 2-4 recipe books and look for new recipes to try using the major ingredients I have found on my “in-house shop”. I have planned every meal this week without having to purchase a single ingredient. Last night we had pan fried steak and cranberry sauce using the left over cranberries and two rather small steaks from the freezer. We are a family of five so cut the steak into strips after I cooked it, laid it over a mound of mashed potato, poured the sauce over the top and added lots of veg.

Once you have your recipes allocate them to days of the week, taking into account any evenings where you will have to serve at different times to accommodate other people’s commitments or will have little time to prepare. Baked potatoes and pasta (not together!) are our” no time to faff in the kitchn”meals. The shopping list is made on the basis on the ingredients I need which are not in the pantry or freezer.

And this is what our fridge looks like now.

Yes I know there are still some foil covered bowls. One is the last of the brandy butter and my life is not worth living if I don’t keep that, but I know it will go. The other is the meat from the remains of a game pie I made which I am keeping to pill Meg (an elderly springer spaniel not my daughter – she has six tablets twice a day and it can be a bit of a challenge persuading her to take them). Oh and you know those little plastic punnets that you get with soft fruit? I keep them and use them to hold little things like garlic, chillies, ginger, cherry tomatoes, shallots etc. It stops them rolling around in the vegetable drawer and means I can see exactly how much I have left of anything.

Tonight is cauliflower cheese by the way 🙂

from the Leadmill to the pantry

July 9, 2013 ~ Gillie ~ 3 Comments

Are the gigs at the Leadmill still as good? Are the Peace Shop and The Fat Cat still on Division Street? Is going over the top of the paternoster in the Arts Tower still the most frightening thing I have ever done? Today I shall be finding out as I am accompanying the Dancer to Sheffield where she is going to check out the Medical School and I am going to find out how much it has changed since my student days. Therefore I apologise but today you are getting a rehash.

This post was originally written for Susie at Let’s Get Organized. But as I have no time to blog today I hope you don’t mind if it comes back again.

How to tackle the kitchen…..

Remove everything from the cupboard, endeavouring not to pin Newfoundland in a corner.
Release cornered dog.
Scrub cupboards and try not to show too much shock at the level of dust.
Sit back on heels and look hopelessly at the chaos on the floor.
Take a deep breath and dive in.

Wall cupboard before

Wall cupboard after

At this point, traditional declutter divas recommend three piles. Keep, Ditch and Maybe. Personally I don’t hold with Maybe. All you are doing is putting off the evil day when you have to make a decision. As a Libran I know how hard that is so just get it over with.

Tins before (oh my look at that dust!)

Tins after

6. Sort into two piles.
7. Remove Ditch pile immediately to another room before you are tempted to put any of it back in cupboard.
8. Wash Keep pile as appropriate.
9. Enjoy replacing items in neat piles where you can see everything and there is plenty of space between items.
10. If (9) is not achievable go back to step (6) and repeat.

It sounds simple doesn’t it? That’s because it is. You don’t need fancy boxes or storage containers. You do not need to spend the equivalent of a month’s salary at IKEA. You just need to take command. Whose room is it? Yours or the Junk’s?

Dresser bottom before

Dresser top before

Dresser after

I can’t tell you how to approach level (6); we all have our own criteria. But the important thing is to decide your criteria first. I don’t necessarily go with the “if you haven’t used it in 6 months….” Some things are only used a few times a year but are essential. My husband wears his kilts only a few times a year but we would never get rid of them. Our fish kettle is only used occasionally but is the only way we can cook a whole fish and as my husband is a keen fisherman we do cook whole fish.

My decision tree goes something like this:

Do I use it?
If no is there a reason why I should keep it?
Yes answers may include family heirloom that would result in instant death and excommunication were I to ditch it/ I use it occasionally and need it for those occasions/ sentimental value.
The above are all valid but the said items do not have to be kept in the kitchen cupboard taking up valuable space. Is there somewhere else they can go? Could they be put on display? (Our fish kettle and wooden salad bowls live on the top of the dresser and look rather lovely but don’t get in the way.)

Do I use it?
If yes, are there more than one and do I need them all?
I have a large collection of crockery because we entertain a lot and I don’t use anything disposable. On the other hand I did not need 15 egg cups. We are a family of 5, even with guests we are unlike to need more than 10. I kept 9. Three are family heirlooms, two belonged to my children and one belonged to me as a child. Hit three birds with one stone.

Multiples of useful items are common stumbling blocks. We all need mugs etc. But how many do we need? How big is your family? How often do you have guests? How many guests do you have? Do you have a dishwasher? (Dishwashers eat crockery – if you hand wash you can get away with less).

Tea cupboard before

Tea cupboard after

I discovered we had 4 sets of bone china tea services, each contained a cup, saucer and tea plate for 8 to 12 plus two to four sandwich plates, milk jug, sugar bowl and teapot. I had kept them for sentimental reasons and pretended I had kept them for my daughters. My daughters will not want them and if they do they can fight over the one I will keep or do battle with my future son-in-laws’ families over their own tea services. I don’t use coffee cups after dinner, I think they are far too small, I use the tea service. Thus I have kept the largest service the rest will be boxed up for auction.

I did the pantry last week so there are no before and after photos. However this is the one room I do declutter (rather than merely tidy) on a regular basis. I am a bit anal about my pantry. But that too turned out to require more attention than I had realised. You will continue to buy more mint sauce if you can’t see the jar behind the rosehip jelly. You have to inventory on a regular basis. If you don’t you will end up making multiple purchases.

Pantry

It helps if you plan your meals on a weekly basis. I don’t subscribe to the 15 (or whatever) circulating recipes. How boring that must get. Instead I start my shopping in my pantry and freezer. Then I get out 2-4 recipe books and look for new recipes to try using the major ingredients I have found on my in house shop. I bought some mutton at the last farmers’ market so we have had several mutton/goat recipes this week (the two are easily interchangeable). I supplement with recipes that catch my eye and then allocate them to days of the week, taking into account any evenings when one or more of us will be out late or away and to the length of time I will have available to prepare. Baked potatoes and pasta (not together!) are our no time to chop night meals. The shopping list is made on the basis on the ingredients I need which are not in the pantry or freezer.

This way you keep a regular eye on your store cupboard, have a menu plan for the week, buy only what you need and try out new recipes. What’s not to like?

There is no point in getting rid of things you no longer need or want if you are just going to fill up the gaps with more of the same. Like a dieter who drops two dress sizes you don’t want to go back. You have to rethink how you shop. I now have a strict one in one out policy. I still love shopping, it’s just that I don’t buy anything. I can enjoy and appreciate the beauty and form of everything from a dress to a vase. But I don’t need to buy it. I treat shopping like a trip to a museum, I admire but I leave it behind.

refuse

June 22, 2013 ~ Gillie ~ 4 Comments

Removing things we neither need nor want is, to all intents and purposes, shutting the door after the first horse has bolted. The first step is to stop those things getting in the house in the first place. The first R in Bea Johnson’s mantra is Refuse.

What can I refuse to let into my home?

Packaging
Junk Mail
Bags (plastic/paper etc)
Books
Clothes
Food
Disposable items
DVDs
CDs
Plastic bottles
Yoghurt pots
Knick Knacks
Freebies
Unwanted gifts
Impulse purchases
Guilt purchases

That’s not your usual list. I’ve highlighted a few that you might not have expected to see. How can we get by without food for example? But I didn’t say no food, I mean food we don’t need. Look at just one shelf in your cupboard and take everything out. Put back ONLY the things that you know you need. Do you need

The bag of cookies 5 for £1 at the co-op checkout.
The super hot chilli sauce you bought at a food fair and is still unopened.
The various jars of sauces and marinades.
The sushi kit you bought after a great meal out

In our case we have all of the above and the answer is no. I make better cookies, sauces and marinades hence the jars gathering dust and the stale cookies. I love sushi but I prefer somebody else to make it.

This is about rethinking how we live and what we need and want to live that life. Today and tomorrow I am tackling the kitchen. This is the penultimate big room before I move into the outbuildings. It is the one I am most scared of doing. I love to cook, preparing food for family and friends is part of how I show my love and how I nurture and care. I need to rethink how I can do that without all the unnecessary extras.