Frugal and Green in the Kitchen - Use Less Foil, Baggies and Wrap

Earlier this week, my husband made a turkey meatloaf for dinner. The loaf was done before the potatoes were, so he took it out of the oven, placed it on a cutting board and pulled open one of the kitchen drawers to get some foil. There was no foil. There hadn't been for about a week but neither of us had remembered to buy some. The choices to cover the loaf so it wouldn't get cold were wax paper, parchment paper and some plastic wrap...all of which could cover it, but none would keep it warm.  I had an "ah ha" moment, pulled a mixing bowl out of a cupboard and popped it over the meat loaf. Ta da.  Dinner stayed hot.

Sometimes you just have to use foil: to prevent the skin from browning too early when you're a roasting turkey or chicken; to keep the top layer of cheese from melting while the lasagna bakes; to cover a quiche or pie to avoid a soggy crust. And there are times when plastic wrap and plastic Baggies are essential tools.

But in the past few years, we've cut way back on our use of these disposable products. And we've subsequently made our kitchen greener and more frugal. Here are some of the ways we do it:

1. We keep a big collection of covered containers of all sizes and shapes. Our favorites are glass food storage containers with plastic lids from Crate and Barrel. We have rectangular, square and round versions in three sizes. They nest so they don't take up tons of space. Just about every kind of leftover fits in these - big round ones for soups and stews; little square ones for that last bit of salad that no one wants now but is enough for lunch tomorrow; and the large rectangle for the second half of the meatloaf that will be dinner two nights from now. The glass containers are also great for heating things up in the microwave. No worries about heated plastic leaching toxic chemicals into the food.
2. We use food containers instead of plastic wrap or foil to store half-used onions, sweet peppers, scallions and other salad fixings, as well as a half grapefruit or orange that will be eaten later. They'll stay just as fresh and you can easily see what's inside the container.
3. Instead of keeping lettuce and leafy greens in plastic bags in the fridge, or in damp paper towels (a trick that does help them stay fresh, but still seems wasteful), invest in a SaladSac. These special terry cloth drawstring bags keep greens remarkably fresh for what seems like ages. If I were really clever, I might try making my own salad bags.
   
4. Pack lunches and snacks in reusable containers instead of Baggies, foil and wrap. Sandwiches fit nicely into the containers take out food or restaurant leftovers sometimes come in. A cut up orange, celery sticks or some cubed cheese go in the round tubs that olives or fresh mozarella once came in. We don't buy all that much stuff in plastic containers, but over the years we've accumulated quite a few.
5. Use the wax paper liner of a cereal box for your sandwich, pretzels or cookies. Close it with a paper clip or clothes pin.
6. Reuse Ziplock freezer bags. This is one disposable I can't live without because we freeze a lot of fruits and vegetables from the CSA, garden, farmer's markets and U-Pick farms. But if a bag is still in good shape after it's been emptied of frozen blueberries, chard or green beans, I wash the bag out in hot soapy water, turn it inside out, place it over a glass or bowl in the dish rack and let it dry.  Then it's ready to be used again.

Do you have a tip for using fewer disposables for transporting and storing food? Please share.

Freecycle - Helping Givers and Takers Stay Frugal and Go Green

It amazes me that more people don't know about Freecycle. If you're one of them, let me introduce you. Freecycle is an on-line recycling organization that is now world-wide. The system is simple. People with things to give away post their offerings on the website. And those who want things, pick up the items.

I discovered Freecycle about five years ago when there was a write-up about the Bucks County group in our local paper. That first year I gave away a treadmill and a rowing machine, two boxes of graduation party invitations that were deemed by family members as too ugly to send, two large Boston ferns that lived outside and were about to be frosted, and a very old Mac laptop computer. Since then, I've given fellow Freecyclers more computer stuff, a kitchen table, fax machine, soccer balls, cracked dishes (for an art project), backpacks,  a devil costume and witch hat, sports gear, old wooden shelves, several bags of kid's clothes, some Christmas decorations and other stuff that I can't recollect.

I've also been on the receiving end. Last summer I posted that I was looking for some hostas (for you non-gardeners, hostas are beautiful shade-loving plants grown mostly for their interesting foliage - I'm a big fan). I got two responses, and as luck would have it, they were located about 10 minutes from each other, and only about a twenty-minute drive from me.

When I arrived at the first "giver," I was pointed in the direction of the hostas and told to have at them. I had been instructed to bring my own spade so I was prepared. After about an hour of digging, I had some 20 small hostas, along with a few stray sedums. At the next stop, the man who answered the door took my spade and did the digging for me. The hostas were in four gigantic clumps that I might not have been able to wrestle into the car without his help. After the two stops, the trunk of my car was full and the back seat was loaded too. Later, when I planted the hostas in my garden, I did a  guestimate of their value.  I believe these gorgeous second-hand plants would have sold for a total of
about $250 in a retail garden center. Seriously. 

Some of my other Freecycle scores include a couple of belts that I passed on to someone else; a pair of wood breakfast bar chairs that I planned to use for staging listings but had no room to store (I subsequently sold them for $20); a pair of brand new clogs with sheerling lining (I'm wearing them as I type) and a pair of floor lamps. I was offered a food dehydrator, and a collection of men's ties I thought about using for a project, but both pick ups were too far away to be practical.

In my area there are Freecycle organizations in Bucks County,  Doylestown, Princeton and Hunterdon County. I looked for, and found one in Falmouth where my family has a summer home.  Turns out it's in Falmouth, England!

If you have stuff in your closets, garage, basement or shed that you no longer need, think about posting it on Freecycle. For those who are nervous about strangers coming to their homes, arrange for pick ups at your office or at busy places like shopping center parking lots. Most people just leave things on their porch or at the end of the driveway.

Some people will post that they will put all the leftovers from a garage sale or flea market out on the curb at a certain time. Often a number of Freecyclers will stop by to pick through the stuff. It usually results in far fewer items to haul off to Goodwill or the Salvation Army.

Freecycle puts goods into the hands of people who want or need them and keeps lots of stuff out of landfills. If you haven't tried it already, I hope you will soon.

What kinds of items have you given away or recieved through Freecycle? Please share.

Frugal Lunch Revisited

A few days ago, I wrote a post about how you can save money by making your lunch at home and taking it to work, rather than buying it from take out places and restaurants. Here is a great website called wastefreelunches.org that shows how, by using non-disposables, you can save as much as $246.60 per child per school year if you pack your kids' lunches, and also reduce your family's contribution to the waste stream. The site includes tips for packing healthy, kid-friendly lunches, ideas for lightening your at-home workload as it relates to packing lunches and ways to reduce your family's food waste.

Wastefreelunches.org promotes programs in elementary schools designed to reduce waste levels in the lunchroom on a school-wide basis. The website offers a step-by-step plan for implementing a program in your school. Worth a visit.

New Year's Resolutions

Let's forget about the typical list of resolutions as we ring in 2010. I'm not going to ask you to quite smoking (though I hope you will), or lose weight. There will be no push from me for you to find a new job or pay down your debt. I am simply suggesting 4 simple concepts to keep in mind throughout the year:

1. reduce your carbon footprint
2. limit your nitrogen footprint
3. conserve water
4. become more environmentally active

In the next weeks and months, I will share easy, and perhaps more complex, strategies, practices, behaviors and attitudes that can help you turn these concepts into realties in your life. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I wish everyone a most wonderful, healthy, happy and prosperous new year.