What's hiding in your cupboards?

Using what you have seems to be the theme this week. Those of us who didn’t grow up during the Great Depression are only now beginning to appreciate what it means to use what you have, make do, substitute, and wear things out. I am of the generation that thought nothing of buying a new stereo because it was “better” even though the one I have now sounds just fine. My husband appreciates the finer points of the latest tweeter or woofer or what have you and would argue the need for newer and better until he’s on his deathbed, so maybe I should choose a better example than stereos. Let’s say clock radios or dish racks or couch cushions. Most of us are inclined to throw out or give away our old, but perfectly good stuff, when something nicer catches our eye. I see that trend changing a little in light of the current economic situation and this is good for our planet, if not our factories.

I’m all about using what you have. I still have a palm pilot (which I only began using last winter when my husband threatened to throw it out after I ignored it for several years. He brings home his leftover electronics for me on a regular basis and I ignore them on a regular basis). I don’t want the latest greatest phone-organizer-gps-internet-video game-e-mail gadget. I’m fine with my ancient phone (no key pad? You can’t text? OMG!). I’ve learned to appreciate the GPS that came free with my laptop last year. It’s so last year though with the cord trailing down over my dash and plugging in to the lighter outlet. My palm pilot has Ms Pacman on it – what more could I want? To be honest, there are moments (and they are fleeting) when I think how cool it would be to have just one small gadget that fit in my pocket instead of my herd of outdated, noisy, slow electronics. But then I’m consumed with guilt at the thought of throwing out such useful things and I recommit to my position of ‘no new stuff’. Maybe it’s the mom in me – I’m comfortable being the martyr. “No don’t worry about me. I don’t mind. I’ll eat the burnt side…”

So back to what I wanted to write about in the first place. We all need to get back to using what we have. And that includes food. If your cabinets and refrigerators look anything like mine they have all kinds of unidentified objects cowering in the very back. A jar of bean curd or anchovy paste that was purchased for some complicated recipe you never got around to making. The orange marmalade your kids won’t eat because it tastes like Motrin. A gourmet dip mix you were suckered in to buying for some fundraiser. We’ve actually moved some of this stuff. My husband pulled out a can of clam sauce recently and said he remembered buying it at the grocery where we lived two houses ago! Thanks to modern preservatives though, it is still good!

I want to challenge you today. Be brave. Look in to the back of your cabinets, drawers and refrigerators. Pull something out and use it. And then do it again. See if you can get by without the grocery store this week. Imagine that some national disaster has occurred and you only have the food in your house to live on. I’m guessing that if we truly had to most of us could survive for months, maybe longer.

I’ll give you an example of using what you have. Vegetables are one thing I can’t stand to see go to waste. It was this issue, plus the multitudes of cucumbers we were drowning in a few months ago that led me to create a new salad. I call it chopped salad and it is basically everything still in your crisper drawer (plus anything still growing in your garden) chopped up really small and mixed together – kind of like coleslaw but without the cabbage (unless you have the remnants of a cabbage head rolling around your vegetable drawer). To this concoction I add my favorite dressing, cashews, and croutons (made from leftover bread). Not only is this a great way to use what you have, it’s low in calories and makes a huge salad that you can eat for days.

This weeks chopped salad (pictured) is carrots (our garden is lousy with them right now), cucumber (not sure where this one came from since cucumber season ended a month ago, but it wasn’t too rubbery), the small center stalks that no one wants to eat left from two packs of celery, mystery peppers (the peppers that were supposed to be hot pablano red peppers but turned out to be slightly misshapen sweet green peppers in disguise), the first of my second batch of green beans, and a gorgeous sweet red pepper plucked fresh today. I use a hand chopper that I purchased from pampered chef, but you could probably use a food processor. The dressing I love is the recipe featured in my post about lettuce a few months back (now you have to go look up that post if you can’t stand not knowing!). If you’re not going to eat the entire salad in one sitting, I recommend leaving the dressing, nuts, and croutons out until you’re ready to use it.

Our dinner tonight will be chicken, chopped salad, and something from the back of the pantry. I don’t know yet what this mystery side dish will be, but I’m thinking there is probably some couscous back there from my couscous phase or maybe some red quinoa leftover from when I was dabbling with different kinds of quinoa. Or maybe some random pasta purchased for a recipe that never saw the light of day. Who knows? That’s the fun and the challenge of creating something using what you have! So I’m laying down the gauntlet – go search through your cupboards. Use what you have. I’d love to hear what you come up with! You never know, it might become your new favorite recipe!

Back to School!

School starts tomorrow. And for once I’m not frantically racing around from store to store finding all the school supplies and new clothes that herald the start of another school year. I did purchase some items, mostly for my new middle schooler (why do they need TEN folders?). It wasn’t just budgetary considerations that kept me away from Walmart this year. It was this sense that we are being swallowed alive by too much stuff. When my 7 year old hears I’m going to the store, he grabs his wallet and hollers, “I wanna come too!” When I ask him what he needs from the store he replies, “I just want to buy something.” Sometimes I think we all succumb to this need. But where does it come from?

It’s tradition to buy all new notebooks, lunch boxes, backpacks, and clothes for each school year, right? It feels good walking down the aisle tossing in fresh crayons, sets of highlighters in eight colors, and Sponge Bob book covers. Then we hit the young girls section and find new socks, a cute outfit, and maybe some hair accessories. I always feel like a real parent when preparing my kids for the new school year. I pore over the list, label everything with permanent marker. I’m even that parent that shows up at the bus stop on the first day of school with her camera. So really, I’m in touch with the great urge to BUY STUFF, especially at the start of the school year.

With the exception of the school supplies that weren’t already leftover from last year and two new lunch boxes (because the others smelled soooooo bad and vinegar couldn’t take the scent away), our budget escaped unscathed this fall. There were no new clothes. My kids have plenty of clothes. More than they need. I know this because of the number of weeks they can go before they finally bring their dirty clothes to the laundry room. Even then they are never naked, they have something to wear (they just might not like it so much).

As you get ready for school to start, consider what you already have. Are there notebooks that survived last year? Do you have as many colored pencils as I have? We bought a new set every year for all three kids for too many years to count and now have thousands. And really, who uses colored pencils? They aren’t nearly as exciting as scented markers or twist up crayons. Today the kids will choose from the thousands of colored pencils we’ve accumulated and we’ll crank up the pencil sharpener and have at it. We’ll track down the highlighters from the junk drawer and write names on them (last names so they can be used again). Pencils seem to multiply at our house. It’s just a matter of choosing the ones with the best working eraser and sharpening them to a surgical point.

When I first made the decision to reuse as many school supplies as possible this year, I planned to pay the kids a dime or a quarter for each supply they located and agreed to reuse. I figured they’d need incentive after years of consumer programming regarding the start of the school year and new stuff. Miraculously, I didn’t have to pay them. They were fine with using the stuff we had (as long as they didn’t have to use the same smelly lunch box!). And there were some things on the list we couldn’t avoid buying. (Why does a fifth grader need to own her own three-hole punch? Seems a little over the top to me, considering there’s one in every classroom). But if you need to bribe your kids, I think it’d be worth it.

This morning we sorted through all the clothes dividing them between school clothes, play clothes, clothes that don’t fit anymore and clothes they would never be caught dead wearing. We dug out some sneakers and made sure they still fit after a summer of bare feet. Tonight we’ll pick out the perfect outfit to wear (or in the boys cases, I’ll pick out the perfect outfit) and I’ll lend my daughter some earrings for the first day. I’ll wait for the Labor Day sales to buy new socks we need them and make it a point to stop in the Goodwill a few times this month for a few unstained shirts for the boys.

It is possible to make this a special start of school without all the brand new clothes and fresh school supplies. This afternoon we’ll pack up the backpacks and bake cookies to pack in their lunch tomorrow. Tonight we’ll have a dinner everyone loves and stop at the local ice cream stand for dessert to celebrate the start of school. And tomorrow morning I’ll trail them to the bus stop, camera in hand, ready to start a whole new year.