Leftovers

Ever need half a can of chicken stock or just a tablespoon of tomato paste, but know that you aren't going to use the rest anytime soon?  I have a solution!  This seems so simple and obvious, but let's be honest, most of us put the leftovers in the fridge and before you know it you are throwing them away.  I bought these Sensible Lines Milk Trays for when I was storing breast milk.  I liked how they are long, one ounce sections that can fit into just about any milk bottle opening rather than a traditional icecube that is too fat usually.  Although I found a major defect in the product, (the lids do not fit the trays properly after being washed in dishwasher), and was even sent replacements that continued to be defective, I still love the idea of them and find them very practical.  Now I use them for just about anything, but make sure to empty the frozen contents into something else before they get freezer burn do to an improper seal.

Here I have used the trays for chicken stock.  Now when I need to, I can measure out three sticks for three ounces and so forth.

Now for those yummy meals you make, but just can't finish in one sitting.  I like these stackable glass lock and seal containers I recently bought by Denmark Tools for Cooks.  In addition to being more green, they can go from freezer, to fridge, microwave, oven, and finally to your table/lunch bag. 

Bon appetit:: leftovers!

Composting

Being the "Queen of Green" as some like to refer to me, although usually as they're making fun of me, I thought I would post something to make you all think a little about your own consumption.  Yes people, I'm talking about trash!  Where we live trash is collected every Thursday and recycling every other week.  This is extremely annoying to me because we could literally skip putting the trash out every other week and recycle every week instead.  The majority of our waste is broken into two groups:: Recycling and Compost.  The remainder is an extremely condensed amount of trash.  I use a very small trash can in the kitchen that gets compacted down over and over until it becomes dense, almost like a brick.  Really the only reason we have trash is because unfortunately not everything we buy is recyclable.  I should mention however a few things about our general life that allows us to have so little actual trash in all of our waste.  We are a paper free house, except for the unavoidable toilet paper, and then computer/art paper.  We use cloth diapers, we don't buy prepackaged food items (for example individual serving sizes of things), and even our bathroom/bedroom trash cans are seperated for recyclables.  I have also taken our address off of all mailing lists and instead do any catalog/magazine/newspaper browsing online.

So, here it is, our trash::

I should also mention that we don't buy trash bags. The bags we use are accumulated over time from shopping trips when we forget our reusable bags, for example the Old Navy bag seen here.  If you look closely you can see the size of our trash can in the background and in the picture below you can see the "brick" of trash inside the bag that forms from pushing it down everytime you put something in.  This bag of trash is about five days worth of trash.

How can that be, you ask.  Where does everything else go, you wonder.  Well, hopefully you already know everything that goes into your various recycling bins, and almost the rest of it, which should mostly be food waste, can go into the compost bin.  We have had a few different counter top compost containers. But honestly I think the best thing that works for us is some kind of air tight container that once full and emptied to the outside compost pile, can then be thrown into the dishwasher.

As you can see, lots of things can go into the compost.  For example, raisens my fifteen month old dropped in the garage, my tea bag from work, and leftovers we just never got around to eating.

So take a second to think about your trash, your consumption, and general waste.  Now take another minute or two to think about how you can reduce it.  Good luck!