Week Two: Eating Down the Pantry

We finished sorting out the pantry: consolidated food items from the metal shelves to the wooden shelves (which, of course, had more space because of the clean-out last week), got rid of a few things, and stored like with like so things are easier to find. The double row of plastic storage has been reduced to one; a container of cloth went to its more appropriate place in the sewing/art room.

Food eaten:

• remainder of lentil soup
• began eating venison summer sausage
• one frozen portion of lasagna
• pizza with homemade sauce (tomato & roasted red pepper) and crust, venison sausage, mushrooms, peppers, cheese
• shepherd's pie: grass-fed beef burger, stored potatoes and carrots, frozen peas, canned cream corn
• homemade artisan bread
• vegetable soup with stored squash, home-canned tomato stock and veg stock, dried greens, dried zucchini, dried red peppers, quinoa, home-made hot sauce
  
• home-canned stew with frozen peas

There was a great $1 sale at one of our local food stores, so a few items that we like to keep a stock of were bought: canned tuna and salmon, canned corn, macaroni, bread and wieners for the freezer. Another store had my favorite yogurt on special, so I bought 3 containers of that. I can make my own, but it's not as yummy. We also got more frozen fish to last us through the winter. Of course the new stuff has been stored "behind" the older stuff. With the other usual dairy and fresh produce, total spent: $35.91

Putting the Freezer in Order

I meant to do this early in the summer before I bought more beef, more chicken, more shrimp ... well, you get the idea. Now harvest is burgeoning and I knew there were some older things I want to move out of the freezer to make room for some of this year's stuff.

It's a small freezer but I filled three coolers with its contents after I unplugged it. I would have had to get out another cooler but last summer's rhubarb and strawberries went upstairs to go into rhubarb-strawberry sauce I'm canning tonight. Some of this year's rhubarb went up too. One package of shrimp and the last package of last summer's blueberries went to the refrigerator's freezer (I wanted to make room for two quarts of this summer's wild blueberries!).

I half filled a pail with hot water, put it in the freezer, and closed the lid. I went upstairs to type in the inventory I had made into a spreadsheet. An hour later all the frost had fallen from the sides. I scooped it out (one large piece I carried outside and it landed with a satisfying thunk on the walkway in a dozen pieces or so) and washed everything down. Then I played around with storage containers in the bottom of the freezer for holding smaller things.

The freezer still ended up being pretty full, but it's organized now and I have a list of its contents posted in the kitchen!

The Massive Diabetes Association Donation

I should have taken a picture: two stuffed boxes and four garbage bags that filled the bench on our porch. All gone now, taken by the Canadian Diabetes Association, who will sell it to Value Village, who will sell it to thrifty shoppers.

One bag was clothes and cloth. Another was a bread maker: I do no-knead artisan bread all the time now and I can store the pot I use for it where the bread maker used to be. The third bag contained a rice cooker: it did the rice nice enough, but it was horrible to clean the cover and my thermal cooker does a nicer job with far less mess and a lot less energy too; I'm storing a classic cast iron Dutch oven that I just purchased at a yard sale in that space. The fourth bag was a big plastic grater/strainer thing that I never used. I'll appreciate having the storage space back, probably for food stock-up (beans that I can cook in the Dutch oven in our fire pit if the Catastrophe comes).

One box I started several months ago with a few items that never gotten taken when offered on Freecycle. I kept adding more things as I came across them this spring: travel Scrabble which we never use, a cream whipper which uses gas cartridges (my manual egg beater works just fine for small amounts of cream), an expandable plastic water carrier, and other things I don't remember because that's how important they were to me!

The last box had a wicker wine rack we never used, a light we never used, and some books I'd not yet taken in to the library for their semi-annual book sales.

Eating Down the Fridge

In two weeks we'll be gone away for more than a month. I want to have the fridge empty and turn it off when we go.

Yes, we'll "cheat" by throwing some things in the freezer, but that's all right and is the last resort.

Some of the things we'll have "eat down":

• eggs
• milk (extra bag(s) go in the freezer)
• mushrooms (last will probably go on travel pizza)
  
• peppers of all colours (last will go on the travel pizza)
• andouille sausage -- one portion will probably go in the freezer downstairs
• cheese
• margarine
• citrus
• apples
• broccoli
• carrots
• zucchini
• pickles (maybe a small amount will travel with us)
• canned fruit
• jam
• baking yeast (into cold storage for that)
• hemp seeds (freezer)
• salad dressing (travel with us?)
• celery
  
• roasted red pepper sauce
• relish
• chipolte mustard
• soy sauce
• fish sauce
• lemon juice
• frozen veg (to the freezer of course)
• frozen seafood (ditto)
• frozen meat (ditto)
• frozen fruit (ditto)

The obvious strategy is to clear out what is not already frozen first. We may pass some things to family and neighbors as well towards the end.

Afternote: the fridge did not get completely eaten down. My husband was adamant that we not turn it off while we were away. We did lower the temperature and I was able to wash out bins and clean a couple of shelves. It was a much nicer fridge to come home to.

The Electronics De-clutter

My husband has a room that he uses as an office and a studio. He took out all the old lathe and plaster and partial cellulose insulation. After building out the wall studs to 6 inches, he insulated, vapor-barriered, sheathed in OSB, applied pine paneling, painted and over-stained. The wall now look great and it is the warmest room in the house.

He's also gotten rid of a lot of other stuff. The electronics de-clutter began because he wanted to get rid of a metal secretary cabinet that had sorts of old things in it: a couple of inkjet printers with their dried-out cartridges, cables, dried-out dry-erase markers. I had a bag of obsolete computer stuff upstairs.

Then when we began putting the pile together so I could move it to the car a half dozen more boxes and things came out of the renovated room: an old music keyboard with one irreparable key, a subwoofer, a couple of speakers, a box of auxillary cards, a box of old modems and cables, a small bag of old inkjet cartridges. It filled half the cargo space of our Honda CRV.

At the hazardous waste depot they had a big box for computer electronics, another big box for other electronics, and the inkjet cartridges had to be dropped off at the station that took paints, stains, and household petroleum-derivative products.

The car left pleasantly lighter and we have more space in the house.