Prevent Wasted Food

Counting our blessings and $avings this Thanksgiving

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

With Pandemic Thanksgiving 2020 just days away, we here at No Food Left Behind have already started counting our blessings:

  • We’ve settled into a homier lifestyle and avoided the virus (so far).
  • We’ve enjoyed launching and developing our “Kitchen Confessions” blog for you during the past eight months. (Tell us in the comments what you like/don’t like!)
  • We are part of such a wonderful, vibrant and sustainable community!
  • We’ve gotten better about practicing what we preach about wasting less food — and saving money, too.

In last week’s blog, we engaged in some reality-checking (“Talking turkey…”) about the challenges of preparing for and celebrating Thanksgiving this year. It’s likely many of us will be sharing our tables with fewer relatives and guests, and making some Thanksgiving toasts over Zoom!  But at least there will be fewer dishes to wash… and, ideally, less waste.

After all — wasting less and counting our blessings really go together, don’t they?

By now, many of us are well into our lists and logistics for the Special Feast. But before you begin that final sprint to the oven, check out these tips:

  • Be sure to “shop” your pantry, fridge and freezer first!
  • Check/clear space on your Eat First shelf in the fridge/freezer. Use ’em up asap or see if they are suitable for use next week in your holiday menu.
  • For each part of the meal (appetizers, main course, sides, desserts), brainstorm some ideas for creative after-Thanksgiving dishes. (How about leftover-stuffing soup dumplings? More below.)
  • Consider using smaller plates and serving dishes for this year’s feast. Your guests can still fill their plates, but probably won’t notice the smaller portions. And there’s a better chance the kids will clean their plates, too!

Serving proportional portions also ensures that less food ends up as plate scrapings, and leaves more edible food for subsequent meals.

Taking the Guesswork Out of Serving Your Guests (or Family)

Need help determining the right amount of food for the number of diners, dietary preferences and variable appetites at your table? There are probably dozens of apps out there that can help, but my newest fave is the cleverly-named “Guestimator” at Savethefood.com.

The Guestimator walks you through a simple series of questions to determine precise quantities of what you’ll need for a successful no-waste dinner party. It helps you build menus for each part of your meal with up to nine ingredients of your choice, with calculations for Leftovers included. Your results can even be printed out for easy reference.

The Menu (portion planner) even includes helpful no-wasting kitchen hacks, free of charge!

Counting on Leftovers  

Everyone knows Thanksgiving leftovers are as much of a tradition as the feast itself, so it makes a lot of sense to build those into your portion planning. Once again — how do you make sure they will not end up in the compost bin?

Hooray for Guestimator! It generates the numbers for the amounts you need, based on the number of leftover meals you’d like and your previous specifications. Leftover tips and hacks too, free of charge!

Leftover Mashers? Slap ’em on bread instead of cheese or mayo in a sandwich, or try making donuts with ’em! Throw your leftover turkey, stuffing, green beans, gravy — the works — all together in this recipe for turkey bone and stuffing-dumpling soup!

How long does it stay fresh? As you’re loading up your fridge, freezer or pantry with Thanksgiving bounty, it’s the perfect time to review this interactive guide from Savethefood.com and the National Resources Defense Council. There’s solid info on optimal storage, freezing and no-waste tips for items in all the major food categories.

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We’re “talking turkey” in this week’s Kitchen Confession… 

KAREN CONFESSES:

In 2018, I was gifted a nice frozen turkey that didn’t get cooked because I traveled out of town for Thanksgiving. It sat in my freezer during the following holidays, and it seemed like too much to cook for myself! Tragically, another year went by before I finally retrieved it and checked for freezer burn.

Sure enough, there were a few damage spots, but since the turkey had stayed frozen the whole time, I cooked it anyway. Despite seasonings and proper cooking in an oven bag (as I normally do), the result was a dry texture and slightly off-taste. We ended up using less than half the turkey and stock.

$$ WASTED: probably $12-15 (not my purchase)

LESSONS LEARNED: Don’t wait for a holiday or special occasion to cook a turkey! Next time, either re-gift the turkey or make a kitchen date with a friend or family member and share the bounty! Freeze drumsticks, drippings and other meal-sized portions and log in my Freezer Inventory.

I’m saving $$ and reducing my carbon footprint by going vegetarian this Thanksgiving!

*****

Photo: Theresa Hogue/ Creative Commons https://tinyurl.com/beavercarving

Honoring the Ampinefu Kalapuya People and Their Traditional Homelands

During this Native American Heritage Month and the 400th anniversary of the landing of the Mayflower Pilgrims, it’s important to acknowledge the First Nations of this country, and the ethnohistory of their ancestral lands.

This beaver carving is part of a unique collection of indigenous art at the Native American Longhouse “Eena Haws” (“Beaver House”) on the OSU campus, dedicated in 2013.

Excellent local resources include the Oregon Multicultural Archives for Native American People and Culture at Oregon State University’s Valley Library, and the Kalapuyan Tribal History provided by OSU Anthropology and Ethnic Studies faculty member, Dr. David Lewis.

Here in Benton County, we live upon the traditional homelands of the Ampinefu band of Kalapuya, who call this land Champinefu. Their territory encompasses the Marys River valley, present-day Wren, Philomath, and Corvallis. Following the Willamette Valley Treaty of 1855, they were forced to relocate to reservations in western Oregon, where their inheritors are now part of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde or the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

A formal statement of “land acknowledgment” is used to open all public gatherings of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition. The OSU student government also uses this Indigenous Land Recognition statement at its official events and activities, and encourages all student organizations to do so as well.

(Editor’s Note: “Kitchen Confessions” is taking next week off while we count our blessings and creatively manage our leftovers this Thanksgiving. Wishing you all a safe and satisfying holiday!)

Talking Turkey and wasting less

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

Only two weeks until our first Pandemic Thanksgiving! It’s time to “talk turkey” (even for vegans and vegetarians) about less wasted food.

Imagine sitting at bountiful Thanksgiving dinner table. You’ve just filled your plate with an appetizing assortment of your favorite dishes. Suddenly, someone comes over and scoops up a quarter of what’s on your plate, takes it over to the compost bin and dumps it.

Shocking, right? But it’s a good metaphor for how the average American family wastes at least 25 percent of its food purchases every year, at a cost of $1,600! What’s also wasted are the Earth’s precious resources — water, energy and soil — as well as the human labor that went into that food.

But we’re all about changing that. Right, Conscientious Food Consumers?

Turkeys roaming in Philomath (staff photo)

Let’s talk live turkeys first….

Wandering wild turkeys are not an uncommon sight in urban areas of Oregon, including certain neighborhoods of Corvallis and Philomath. Both comical and majestic, these birds are generally tolerated by their fellow urban dwellers. But the state Department of Fish and Wildlife stresses: Don’t feed the turkeys!  If your neighborhood flock (and their you-know-what) becomes too big of a nuisance, you might want to apply for an ODFW “turkey hazing” permit. (No hassling the turkeys without one!)

Here are a few fun facts about our iconic Thanksgiving mascot from the Benton County Soil and Water Conservation District.

TALKING TURKEY: Celebrating Safely

Whether you’re planning and preparing a Thanksgiving meal for meat-eaters, vegetarians or vegans, this year’s celebration will be very different under the threat of COVID-19. Health safety guidelines from the CDC and the Oregon Health Authority advise avoiding travel, moving activities outdoors (where feasible) and limiting the number of people gathering ’round the Thanksgiving table.

TALKING TURKEY: Planning and Shopping Your Meal

A meatless “Tofurky” roast (WikiMedia Commons)

So let’s “talk turkey” about our Turkey Day logistics. That includes vegans and vegetarians who don’t eat actual turkeys! For many of us, based on what we already know about living through this pandemic, Thanksgiving 2020 may be unfolding as follows:

  1. A smaller dining group, which means smaller quantities of food will be needed (and potentially less wasted) compared to previous years; SO
  2. Your holiday Meal Plan and Shopping List may be less ambitious than in previous years; COINCIDENTALLY,
  3. Your holiday grocery budget may be smaller than previous years, depending on how COVID-19 has economically impacted you personally and/or your family; SO
  4. Your holiday Meal Plan may be based more on cooking with what you have on hand in the pantry and in your freezer (as listed on your Freezer Inventory), which you’ve been stocking and managing throughout the year; AND
  5. You’re already shopping strategically with Shopping Lists for those socially-distanced, in-and-out trips to the Farmer’s Market, the Co-op or other local markets, or for online grocery orders.

With our Kitchen Confessions this year, we hope we’ve helped you become familiar with these Smart Strategies (highlighted above in bold) to help you accomplish the above tasks. They’re all available in both English and Spanish from our Wasted Food Prevention Tool Box.

In addition to those at our own website, we love turning folks onto resources like these for Thanksgiving (and year-round) meal strategizing:

  • Make your own turkey bone broth and/or stock: Don’t let these nourishing and valuable parts of the turkey go to waste!
  • StillTasty.com, “Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide,” for getting clear before Thanksgiving about how to handle those leftover cooked turkey pieces, that leftover gravy and those cooked giblets your kid doesn’t like;
  • First Alternative Natural Foods Co-op’s “Budget Bites” – budget-minded meal plans for a week’s worth of meals for two adults;
  • BigOven.com, also has meal planning and shopping lists (and tons of recipes). Upload your own recipes! (They could use a lot more vegan/vegetarian ones!)

TALKING TURKEY:  Caring and Sharing

The 40th Annual Benton County Community Holiday Food Drive, in cooperation with local food pantry organizations like Linn Benton Food Share, will also be affected by this year’s pandemic. For 39 years, legions of caring volunteers assembled and delivered holiday meal food boxes throughout the county to thousands of low-income individuals and families experiencing food insecurity. These efforts are too risky this year with COVID-19.

Instead, the Food Drive is collecting only monetary donations for grocery gift cards, redeemable at the Corvallis Grocery Outlet, where recipients can shop for themselves this Thanksgiving. Food will continue to be available for distribution and pick up at Food Share’s warehouse and other local pantries, like the one in South Corvallis. All monetary donations to the Holiday Food Drive will be used to benefit Benton County residents in need, and are tax deductible.

Next week: Honoring this land and its Native peoples this Thanksgiving; Getting ready for loving those Thanksgiving leftovers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Leftover Land

Greetings Conscientious Food Consumers!

With Thanksgiving not far off, we figured we’d get ahead of the game and talk leftovers in this installment of Kitchen Confessions. The topic’s not as sexy as these carrots, but it’s one of those everyday challenges that we all face.

Those miscellaneous meal remnants, half-full containers, and portions of what-have-you, DO tend to get out of hand, don’t they?

Somehow they migrate to the most inconvenient recesses of your fridge. They get hijacked by microbes or neglected during busy times, like a tough week of homeschooling. They get abandoned in favor of preferred foods or convenience meals. They might even get skipped on Leftovers Night. Let’s admit it — leftovers do get left behind sometimes!

Eat First! examples from K’Rene’s fridge shelf

K’RENE CONFESSES right off the bat here: about half of the wasted food in my household once occupied the designated “Eat First” area of my fridge and cupboard. So what’s my issue? Keeping up with leftovers means keeping them accessible and safe to eat, as well as keeping track of what’s in there!

It also takes a deliberate and creative effort to transform random food elements into a meal. I’m happy to report that it can be a pretty satisfying process! Maybe even a bit of an adventure…

K’RENE ALSO CONFESSES: Two of the seven leftover items in the first photo (apple, sliced overripe pear, half a lime, a third of a packet of precooked rice, half a large roasted chile, a bit less than half a red onion, half-jar curry paste) got spoiled, wasted and composted. Fortunately, the rest found their way into oatmeal, stir fry and a pot of chili!

$$ WASTED: approximately $30

LESSON LEARNED: I’m now a fan of BigOven and its inspirational three-ingredient search engine for its massive recipe database, which includes gluten-free, vegan/vegetarian, keto and low-carb dietary options. It’s been both a delight and an Adventure to rummage for what I have on hand, plug it into the recipe search feature and see what comes up. This makes it fun to meal plan, so I’ve stepped up my diligence and am loving my leftovers more!

Of course, BigOven is also available as an app (which we featured in this “Kitchen Confessions”).

NO CORNBREAD LEFT OVERS LEFT BEHIND: These muffins were made from that “expired” cornbread mix featured in our “Check it before you chuck it” Kitchen Confessions a few weeks ago. The adventure began with a couple of chopped poblano chile peppers thrown in to jazz up the batter, which produced a baker’s dozen muffins. Half of them tasted good enough for outright scarfing and sharing with a friend! The “leftover” muffins were crumbled, seasoned and simmered with leeks and garlic for stuffing butternut squash, garnished with leftover feta cheese. No corn bread muffins left behind…

K’Rene’s everyday vs “company coffee” pots — drip vs perk (lower energy use) and fewer “cuppas” leftover/left behind

LEFTOVER COFFEE BUZZ: Turns out yesterday’s coffee brightens up lots of things besides brain cells — from milkshakes and smoothies to salad dressing, chili, brownies, bacon and BBQ sauce.

Coffee and bacon are staples of the typical American breakfast, but cooking the bacon in coffee is certainly a new idea to me!

NOTE: For my daily cuppa, I try to avoid “over-preparation” and waste of this global commodity by brewing small batches. Many days there’s nothing left in the pot, but it’s great to have ways to put it to good use on the days when there ‘s a half or full cup left over.

I also keep in mind the environmental costs and carbon footprint associated with my coffee enjoyment, as described in this Coffee Fact Sheet from the Oregon Department of Environment Quality.

A few other discoveries from my adventures in “Leftover Land”:

  • “LAST TWO BAGELS” bread pudding
  • Leftover FETA, OLIVE & KALE FRITTATA (lots of variations on this one!)
  • GREEN SMOOTHIE, featuring ripe avocado, and/or other past-their-prime fruits and veggies
  • SAUTEED WILTED LETTUCE  & GREENS — a great use of those partial-packages of mixed greens that might otherwise get dumped at the first sign of slimy-ness
  • YOGURT SUNDAE with leftover jam and coconut flakes
  • FROZEN BERRY-BANANA-“LYCOPENE SMOOTHIE” with — you guessed it — tomatoes left over from the last season. After all, tomato is a fruit!

JEANETTE CONFESSES:

Ugh! I’ve been doing the right things the wrong way. With teenager sleepovers, I never know how much batter we’ll need — but I figure I’ll use it up in the next day or two. The leftover batters were properly placed onto our “Eat First!” shelf, and I even date-labeled them. A Smart Strategy, right?

However, other still-edible Eat First items ended up in front of them and, well, they aged out. Creatively using up sour milk is one thing, but with raw eggs involved, there’s no way my pancakes or French toast would have been safe to use.

These wasted beets were a bummer — they also got left behind other leftovers. There were four cooked beets to a package, but I only needed one that night. Subsequently, I forgot the rest of them, despite my date label.

LESSONS LEARNED:

  • Be more conscientious about using up items on my Eat First! shelf.
  • Limit how much we put there so things don’t get buried — kind of the whole point of that area!
  • Be mindful about creating leftovers in the first place – make juuusst enough batter so there’s nothing to store.

$$ Wasted: About $2, for two organic eggs and those portions of gluten free pancake mix and almond milk. However, this lesson also presented a disposal issue, because we’re supposed to keep liquids out of the compost. Almost forgot my wasted beets — so ACTUALLY $4 in total.

Learning to waste less food is both a journey and an adventure!

No more “freeze it and forget it”!

If you were expecting a lurid foodie tale about eager veggies, twisting around each other in the privacy of soil, only to be exposed by a hungry, voyeuristic gardener, that’s an entirely different blog!

If you have forgotten freezer food, you are in the right place!

Many well-meaning freezer users have put good food away for later, but then forgot it there and it froze to death.

This unfortunate habit is just like throwing edible food into the garbage, simply because the outcome is the same… and composting it is only one step better than garbage. 

When you include the cost of running an overfull freezer, plus any gas spent driving it home, the cost of disposal (if you don’t compost it), all the many resources that went into growing it and so on, that forgotten freezer food could become your “kitchen confession”! Wasted food happens to all of us… even our staff!

The easy solution is a Freezer Inventory, one of our many Smart Strategies!  It’s a simple 8.5″ x 11″ form you can download, print out and hang on the front of your fridge or freezer, and change as you go (also en Español). We recommend using a pencil for easier updating.Here’s how to use it!

 

ADDITIONAL TIPS:

  • Another Smart Strategy is our Eat First! signs (also en Español), to use anywhere in your kitchen to help ID which items need to be used up the soonest. Simply print and trim, and apply to any food or shelf containing those items!
  • Overfull freezers function less efficiently! CONFESSION: Recently, my own freezer was too stuffed and the little vent/fan at the back sounded awful! It was working too hard, and frost had built up… if I hadn’t noticed, my whole freezer motor might have failed. Yikes! A lesson to keep it clear and not too full.
  • Items in the freezer door are subject to greater temperature variations, so be more mindful of what gets stored there.
  • Food safety also depends on maintaining consistent fridge and freezer temperatures, so be sure to keep your fridge between 38°F and 42°F and your freezer between 0°F and 5°F to be safe.
  • Remember: most frozen food is safe indefinitely, but be sure to double-wrap food and eat it before it’s freezer burned.

 

I CONFESS: We were still “freezing and forgetting” stuff at home when we started No Food Left Behind – Corvallis. I hadn’t yet implemented this Smart Strategy! Since we did, we’ve had no more freezer-burned food, items are rotated out more often, and everything is getting used. The Freezer Inventory really works and our family is saving money in the process!

Not only that, but our meals have also become more varied as we’ve forced ourselves to get creative with ingredients we might not normally put together. I often consult BigOven.com’s leftovers page, which enables users to type in two or three ingredients and receive existing recipes that use those very items. Just click on “BigOven, what can I make?” – highly recommended! BigOven also offers an app – click here for NFLB’s favorite apps!

Thank you in advance for recommending our Freezer Inventory to any friends with forgotten freezer foods… and if you need one too, that’s okay! This is Kitchen Confessions, and your story is safe with us.  😉  We invite you to share your stories in the comments! Confessions? Or maybe you started using the inventory and want to celebrate? Let us know.

As for those lurid carrots, we’ll have to get to the ROOT of that some other day…

 

Pumpkin guts are good for you!

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

Another pandemic milestone is fast approaching — Halloween without much trick-or-treating. Thank goodness pumpkin carving is still CDC-approved! So is, we assume, National Pumpkin Day on October 26th.

The season of the jack-o-lantern brings to mind one of my (and my kiddo’s) favorite bits of macabre Halloween hilarity — Science Bob’s exploding pumpkins experiment on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Admittedly, it was also a frivolous waste of pumpkin innards, including all those nutritious seeds…

Did you know? Pumpkin guts are good for you!

In addition to its dense flesh containing essential vitamins, beta carotene, and minerals such as calcium, the pumpkin’s oval seeds are packed with a surprising amount of protein, fiber and omega fatty acids, as well as anti-oxidants and nerve-calming magnesium. Here’s an outline of the health benefits associated with pumpkin seeds from the BBC’s “Good Food” website.

So don’t toss (or compost) those punkin’ guts! (Slimy-stringy guts, ok.) It will take a bit of time and effort, but the reward will be a healthy, versatile snack that you made yourself — while saving a few $$$ you may have otherwise spent on fancy packaged trail or nut mixes.

As usual, we turn to the OSU Master Food Preserver program for the definitive how-to on Drying and Roasting Seeds for pumpkins, other squash and for sunflowers as well. The process involves these basic steps:

  • DIG ‘EM out, CLEAN ‘EM and DRY ‘EM well in the oven or dehydrator;
  • Add seasonings, oil and ROAST ‘EM in their white outer hulls (being careful to not over-cook them),

UNLESS:

    • You really want just the tender and green inner seed (known as a “pepita“) — particularly to make the seeds easier for younger kids to eat. Then you’ll be doing the extra work to remove the tough and fibrous outer seed hull before continuing on to the frying or roasting.  If you prefer, prepare a batch to use soon and eat raw.

THEN:

    • SNACK ON ‘EM as is, or THROW ‘EM in your salads, muffins, breakfast cereal, trail mix, what have you! STORE ‘EM in an airtight container in your fridge or freezer (not the pantry, where they will likely turn rancid).

A bit of clarification regarding carving pumpkins, a.k.a. “jack-o-lanterns” versus their non-exploding cousins the “pie pumpkins” which provide the best tasting “innards” for your winter and holiday dishes. Carving pumpkins are grown for their size and tend to have unpleasant-tasting flesh, while the smaller pie pumpkins are cultivated primarily for culinary uses. Right now you might be getting ready to do some pumpkin PREP to:

Don’t forget the pumpkin’s winter squash relatives — the striped and speckled delicatas, spaghettis, acorns, butternuts, Hubbards, etc. —  in your prep, preservation and seasonal meal planning!

HAVE KIDDOS? They’ll probably jump at the chance to get their hands in some “pumpkin guts” or puree to help you make kid-friendly recipes like Jack-O-Lantern Pancakes, pumpkin pudding or even fruit dip. They’re all part of FoodHero.org, a bilingual collection of nutrition learning resources from OSU Extension Service’s Family and Community Health Program.

On their pumpkin home page, kids will find videos, coloring sheets,  infographics and even jokes! The “Pumpkin Basics” infographic introduces key facts and messages such as “Store well, waste less” — which we love seeing!

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And now for this week’s Kitchen Confession:

KAREN CONFESSES: This can of butternut squash was once intended as the main ingredient for a nice soup, but got “left behind” in a secondary pantry storage area that I hadn’t inventoried until… this year!

Although StillTasty.com advises that it is still safe to eat as long as the can is undamaged and its seals intact, I didn’t feel comfortable using it.

$$$ WASTED: $2.49

LESSON LEARNED: Consolidate and reorganize my pantry storage by placing older items in front of those with a longer “Best by” date. Check for other items nearing their date and transfer to upcoming Meal Plans!

 

“Local Eats Month” is underway in Corvallis, with special menu offerings at selected local restaurants celebrating the farmers and foods produced within our six-county region. Between October 18 – November 14, check “Sustainable Corvallis” on Facebook for announcements from the Food Action Team about the latest specials from participating restaurants. On Instagram: @sustainablecorvallis

 

How do you like (not waste) them apples?

photo by Jeanette Hardison
photo by Prisha Brown

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

Apples are a quintessential taste of autumn. Whether you enjoy them fresh off the tree or from the market, where would we be without this crisp and colorful fruit for our pies and cobblers, applesauce, muffins and cakes, Thanksgiving stuffing, or our traditional Halloween treats drizzled in caramel?

Apple cultivation and cider-making is as old as America, and many apple stocks migrated westward with the pioneers to the Pacific Northwest and the Willamette Valley. In 2019, apples represented a $39 million chunk of Oregon’s agricultural economy, and are a valuable export crop. One regional grower is even offering its heirloom and other apple woods for the first time so that new orchards can be established.

Apples in abundance also means cider time. The kids in our featured photos had fun learning how to make it the old-fashioned way, with a hand-cranked cider press. You can learn how to do it at home with this helpful publication from the OSU Extension Service.

If you’re a fan of hard cider, there’s plenty of apple varieties to like at the annual Harvest Party celebration put on by 2 Towns Ciderhouse, a Corvallis establishment that has grown into Oregon’s largest craft cider producer of crushes from carefully-selected Northwest grown varieties.

So how do you like — and not waste — “them apples” on your counter? Help them retain their delightful aroma, taste and texture by utilizing the following Smart Strategies and resources:

STORAGE/PRESERVATION

PRO TIP: Apples, as well avocados, bananas and some other fruits, emit ethylene gas as a normal part of their ripening cycle, and that may accelerate spoilage for any nearby fruit or vegetable items. So keep ’em separate!

USE “THEM APPLES”

  • Them apples getting wrinkly or mushy? Prep ’em quick and pop ’em into a batch of muffins, a casserole, a smoothie or a creative dish involving something from your “Eat First” shelf.
  • If you want to go “zero waste,” you can even use the core in many dishes (first make sure there’s no mold)!
  • Stumped for ideas? Download the “Big Oven” app, type in up to three ingredients, and see what pops up!
  • KIDS WILL LIKE THEM APPLES MORE (probably) if they get involved in making apple sandwiches, applesauce, apple bars or other kid-friendly apple recipes at FoodHero.org. It also offers videos and resources in both English and Spanish to help kids learn about nutrition, kitchen skills and even gardening.
  • Try this Simply Seasonal baked apple recipe from the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition’s Food Action Team.

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This week’s Kitchen Confessions also involves apples!

KAREN CONFESSES:

After only a few servings from this bottle of commercial apple cider, I let it get pushed to the back of my fridge where it sat until well past its “Best by” date. It didn’t smell bad but I thought I saw something suspicious floating in the liquid, and tossed it down the drain.

Maybe I made hard cider without realizing it!

$$$ WASTED: About $2.50 (1/2 the cost of the bottle)

LESSON LEARNED:  Buy a smaller bottle next time (this size bottle was bit too much for one person to consume). Learn about the fermentation process for hard cider…

JEANETTE CONFESSES:

Unfortunately I didn’t follow our own advice to store apples in the fridge, and ended up with a handful of shriveled specimens on the counter. But luckily, they weren’t moldy, just a bit dehydrated and still tasty! I was able to peel and dice them, to add some sweetness to a yummy green salad!  They also work well this way in oatmeal.

$$$ WASTED: zero!

LESSON LEARNED: Move apples to the fridge within 5-7 days of bringing them indoors.

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Enjoy “them apples”! And check out some Northwest-grown varieties you’ve never had before. Just ask at your nearest farm stand or Farmers’ Market.

Check before you chuck it

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

As we hurtle toward the holidays and the dark days of winter, so many are planning ahead, stocking up and proactively preserving, packing and pickling (as covered in our last posting of “Kitchen Confessions”). Be sure to give yourself a pat on the back for these efforts to not waste food and make the most of your household’s groceries!

So what happens when you head to your fridge, reach for an opened carton of something, a container of leftovers, or that half-eaten something — and find it’s in the last phases of its consume-ability? What if that item that got pushed back on your “Eat First!” shelf/area now looks kind of shriveled, spotty, wrinkled, a tad moldy, or smells a bit “funky”?

What happens when you encounter — omg! — a food package or container with a label informing you that its “best by,” “use by” or “sell by” date occurred last month?? (Three months ago? Or more… That’s happened, for sure, in my home!)

Take a deep breath, Conscientious Food Consumer. Many of those food items do not have to be left behind. The following resources and tips hopefully will inform and reassure you in your efforts to save even more food from going to waste while saving money too!

Food safety is a vast topic, and there is an equally-vast array of resources devoted to it, including food safety apps, books, websites, governmental agencies, advocacy groups and food industry organizations. Regulations for food date labeling also vary from state to state.

As usual, we refer you to the knowledge base at the OSU Extension Service’s Home Food Safety and Preservation program and in particular its publication on food label dates (2013). We also drew from this very informative web page by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) while researching this blog posting.

About those “Best by/Use by/Sell by” dates

As advised on page 4 of our A-Z Fruit and Vegetable Storage Guide: “a product should be safe, wholesome and of good quality if stored and handled properly.” This is a particularly relevant concern if you’re stretching your food budget by shopping discount shelves or at markets that offer popular brands and other products for significant price markdown due to their impending “Best by” or “Sell by” dates.

Prior to 2018, these dates — and terms such as “Best by” or “Use by” — referred primarily to a manufacturer’s claims for how long the product could be considered at its best for flavor, texture, odor and nutritional value (except for infant formula and some baby food labeling requirements from the federal government). The “Sell By” date helps retailers manage their inventories.

Fortunately for consumers, simplified and more uniform guidelines for food date labeling were adopted industry-wide in 2018 by the Food Marketing Institute and the Grocery Manufacturers Association. They specify that:

  • “Best if used by” refers to a product’s quality; it may not taste or perform as expected after the date, but it is considered safe to use or consume.
  • “Use by” applies to products that are highly perishable, thus involving food safety concerns. Such products should be consumed by the date shown on the package or discarded.

Cases in point: Our cornbread mix pictured above… and I’m still using up a jar of Thai curry paste labeled for 2018!

Check it before you chuck it. Ask your nose: does it pass the smell test? Then apply common sense and trustworthy guidelines like these from “Your Ultimate Shelf Life Guide” at StillTasty.com. It provides comprehensive advice on how long your favorite food or beverage will stay safe, with a searchable database of thousands of food items in every food category.

SMELL TEST: Merely “funky” smelling or looking
(some degradation in quality but not yet a “science experiment”)

  • This is your signal to ACT before it ends up in the compost or garbage! 
  • BREAD: Is it merely stale or is it moldy? Stale bread = croutons or bread crumbs.
  • DAIRY: Even if your milk smells a bit off or tastes sour, it’s still potentially usable for cooking and baking (unless it contains traces of mold). Think pancakes, soups, and fried eggplant batter. Or think of it as buttermilk! Hard cheeses with a little mold can be rescued by cutting one inch in and around the affected area. (Consuming soft cheeses with mold removed is not recommended.)
  • MEAT: Don’t take any chances with raw meat! It’s not supposed to have much of a smell when it is still safe to prepare and eat. Just because it’s no longer bright red doesn’t mean it has spoiled. Example: Is Raw Ground Beef OK If It’s Turning Brown?
  • FRUIT/VEGGIES: In many cases, you can simply remove the bruises, the brown or mushy parts and still use the food item. Wrinkly produce works just fine in many dishes, from casseroles to stir fry and soup! Again, visit StillTasty.com to check your specific item.
  • Check carefully for mold, indicating potential food-borne pathogens.
  • Clean your refrigerator every few months to inhibit bacterial growth, and make sure it is operating consistently at or below 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

SMELL TEST: Revolting

Obviously, you’ll want to “chuck” most anything smelly, sticky or slimy, which is an indication of advanced bacterial growth (a.k.a. science experiment)!

But it doesn’t have to go into the landfill if you’re a resident of Corvallis or Philomath (OR), where curbside composting is available. You can toss nasty, spoiled food — including meat, dairy and bones — in the gray Yard Debris (“Mixed Organics”) cart provided by Republic Services. They have a serious industrial process for turning it into a high-quality compost product.

*****

This week’s Kitchen Confession has a happy ending.

Karen Confesses/Lesson Learned:

During the summer, I came very close to composting about two cups of these “ugly” cherries, which had been neglected in the fridge instead of being enjoyed while fresh. (Remembering to practice what I preach,) I “rescued” them from the compost pail, inspected for mold, rinsed them and trimmed off the brown and pitted spots. The remaining parts of the cherries still looked and smelled good, so they got popped into the blender with some frozen blueberries and leftover ice cream for a delicious treat!

$$ Wasted: Zero

So DOES your food pass the smell test? Remember to check it before you chuck it!

 

 

 

 

 

Zukes & cukes & squash, oh my! It’s Preservation Time.

Photo credit: OSU ExtensionGreetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

With the colors of fall brightening our dwindling hours of daylight, the harvest scramble is underway, along with a new season of eating.

Colorful outdoor displays of pumpkins, varieties of apples, corn and squashes of every shape announce the season at the grocery stores and the farmers’ markets. Neighbors are sharing/offloading zucchini and other overflow garden items.

Following the autumnal equinox, the race is on to get it all prepped and into our fall menus, our freezers, fridges and pantries. Speaking of menus — check out our “Budget Bites” page featuring delicious ideas for meal planning on a budget from NFLB/Sustainability Coalition partner, First Alternative Co-op. We love the Co-op’s recipe blog! Even more inspiration for eating seasonally is available with recipes from the Food Action Team of the Sustainability Coalition.

This year, along with COVID-19, interest is surging in old-fashioned food preservation practices like pickling, freezing, dehydrating and canning. If you’ve shopped at Bi-Mart lately, you may have noticed posters in the aisles with food preservation safety tips for everything from making jelly to jerky, courtesy of OSU Extension Service’s Home Food Safety and Preservation Program.

In the following sections, we will also make use of that expertise to help you make the most of your autumn abundance. You can also get your questions answered by a Master Food Preserver volunteer by calling the toll-free hotline at 800-354-7319 from 9 am to 4 pm, Monday-Friday, through October 9th.

DRY OR DEHYDRATE IT
Skip the snack aisle at the grocery store and bake your own crispy, healthy chips from apples, beets, kale, sweet potatoes and even sliced zukes! It’s not hard to find recipes online, but “Downshiftology” has a million fans (literally) for good reason.

For longer-term preservation of a variety of fruits and veggies using your oven or a food dehydrator, check out this how-to booklet.\

TIP: Use extra caution regarding food safety by following the pre-treatment instructions for destroying bacteria on food items prior to drying.

Beyond trail mix — how to use and enjoy fruits and veggies after drying.

FREEZE IT
– First prep, blanch, and package your future winter meal ingredients, just as for summer fruits and veggies (see our “summertime chillin'” blog).

– Use our Smart Strategies: Storage guide for Freezing Fruits and Vegetables for specific treatments.

– Download the FoodKeeper Food Safety app from the link on our website. It’s a mini-reference guide from the USDA on safe food storage and freshness guidelines for hundreds of food items.

– Don’t forget to make notes on your Freezer Inventory List!

PICKLE IT
For no ‘cukes left behind — nor mushrooms, peppers, corn onions, beans, beets, cabbage, zucchini or what have you! (Can you recite that old tongue-twister about Peter Piper and the pickled peppers?)

Pickling — using vinegar or fermentation — is one of the oldest methods of food preservation. The process has been improved through research and the evolution of food science during the last century, and now there are also resources for those with low-salt or other special dietary requirements. For the safest results, the experts at OSU Extension Service recommend using “up to date recipes from reliable sources.”

No offense to your great-aunt and her recipe!

CAN IT
Whether you’re experienced or a novice, OSU Extension Service has the detailed information you need for successful pressure cooking and/or canning, including checklists for steam- versus pressure-canning methods. It also lists publications on how to care for your home canning equipment.

Veteran canners will also appreciate the new Canning Timer and Checklist App!

In this week’s Kitchen Confessions:

Jeanette Confesses:
These two remnants of artisan cheese were bagged and buried in the meat/cheese drawer of our fridge. By the time we discovered them, they were definitely over-aged!

$$ WASTED:  $3-4

LESSON LEARNED:  Place on “Eat First” shelf next time.

Karen Confesses:

These pears from a neighbor’s no-spray tree were almost ripe when they were given to me, so they wouldn’t end up rotting on the ground! I put them in a clear plastic clamshell in the upper area of my refrigerator compartment, since my “Eat First” area was already crowded. They degenerated into this state while I was temporarily absent from home during the worst of the wildfire smoke.

$$ WASTED:  None (gift); Cost: guilty conscience

LESSON LEARNED: Prepare and eat them right away! Make note of/rotate items in my “Eat First” area.

Wildfires Update: A month ahead of Thanksgiving, we are immensely grateful for the return of breathable air and for the heroic efforts of those working to contain the massive wildfires here in Oregon.

Caring and sharing food in a crisis: “It’s On Us Corvallis”

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

Blessed rain has returned to western Oregon during the past week, bringing fresh air to our lungs and progress in the containment of the monstrous fires raging in our region since Labor Day, including the Holiday Farm and Beachie Creek conflagrations in nearby counties.

A number of those displaced or made homeless by the fires found temporary shelter here in Benton County, at hotels, motels, in private homes or camped out at the county Fairgrounds, which also provided facilities for displaced horses, farm animals and other livestock. Many local resources and volunteers have been mobilized in the spirit of caring and sharing, and we at NFLB salute all of these efforts.

In particular, we’d like to give a shout out for It’s On Us Corvallis  — a fellow project of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition — which has helped comfort those evacuees, host families, and others who have suffered financial hardship due to the wildfires with freshly prepared meals and food boxes. This also prevented countless pounds of food from going to waste during closures due to smoke. And it’s all been made possible by more than $62,000 in donations from our generous local community!

Between September 8th and 18th, IOU Corvallis was instrumental in the mobilization of a massive community-based food distribution effort on behalf of evacuees. Numerous local restaurants, nonprofit and hotel industry partners, farms and volunteer food preppers sourced, prepared and delivered 8,000 meals to local hotels, shelters, the Fairgrounds — even to people sheltering in their cars along the waterfront. They worked with local officials and hotel owners to monitor daily need and prevent waste.

As expressed on the IOU Corvallis Facebook page, “This is an effort to reduce food waste, show community support to our neighbors displaced by fires, and allow our community restaurants to recuperate some of their lost revenue from yet another economic blow.”

This short “Thank You Corvallis” video featuring IOU Corvallis’ key partners in the effort — Bombs Away Cafe, The Brass Monkey, Forks and Corks Catering, and Kalamata Bistro — will make your day!

When hazardous air quality shut down the outdoor markets, IOU Corvallis, Common Fields and the Corvallis Albany Farmers’ Markets  organized the collection and distribution of 170 food boxes of fresh produce from local farms, thus preventing revenue losses and waste of those market-bound products.

While NFLB’s primary focus is reducing wasted food at home, we applaud the IOU Corvallis effort to prevent waste at businesses and restaurants, and get fresh, quality food to local people who need it. Especially during the COVID-19 era, food sharing and donation are crucial for addressing food insecurity. The U.S. EPA’s Hierarchy for Food Recovery lists it as number two among sustainable food management practices.

Prior to September 8th, It’s On Us was famous for introducing local residents to the experience of the fabled “free lunch” — known as “community meals” — at a variety of local restaurants. Using the “pay it forward” method of crowd sourced fundraising, IOU Corvallis solicits tax deductible donations from community, and uses the money to purchase bulk food orders from local restaurants. The restaurants then prepare and distribute a limited number of individual servings (say 250) for the public on a specific date and time, as announced on IOU Corvallis’ Facebook page.

Anyone could wait their turn (in a socially-distanced line) to receive a free pre-made lunch to-go with no questions asked. The unspoken rule: “Pay it forward” (donate) when you can. I myself enjoyed a wonderful veggie curry from Corvallis’ popular Evergreen Indian restaurant, but others went away empty-handed because they hadn’t gotten in line early enough.

These community meals are now on hold as of September 8th, when It’s On Us announced it was taking a break for evaluation purposes. That was also the day when the wildfires turned our skies orange and IOU Corvallis quickly pivoted toward disaster response.

Back in April, as we all reeled from the stresses of quarantine and the COVID-19 threat, many local restaurants and food businesses were suffering heavy financial losses. So a trio of local volunteers — retired German professor Elizabeth Jones, Food Action Team leader Aliza Tuttle, and Leadership Corvallis alum Ashley Relf — came up with an innovative way to show appreciation to local health care and essential workers, and stimulate local economy at the same time.

They created a GoFundMe campaign, recruited some businesses and volunteers, and It’s On Us was launched.

Since then, the project has tallied the production of 10,500 meals involving 40 locally-owned restaurants, and inspired 700 individual donors. In May, it became an official project of the Sustainability Coalition’s Food Action Team.

You can support It’s On Us Corvallis by making a tax-deductible donation through the Sustainability Coalition, via GoFundMe, or Venmo: @itsonus_corvallis.

Let’s keep the caring and sharing going, and support local businesses feeding our community!

Post-apocalypse produce

Cover photo: squash plant ash accumulation in backyard garden in Corvallis (staff photo)
Ash accumulations on bean plant leaves, lettuce, and tomato plants (photos courtesy of Eating Rainbow Garden Coop, Corvallis)

 

Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers!

The skies have finally begun to clear during this second week of horrific and historic wildfires in northwest Oregon, but evacuations continue and the extent of the destruction of lives, property and natural resources has yet to be assessed as this edition of Kitchen Confessions is published. NFLB staff joins everyone in witnessing and mourning the tragic consequences of the massive wildfires raging in Oregon, throughout our region, and in our neighboring states.

Here in the mid-Willamette Valley, the menacing orange and brown hue overhead is gone, and our local Air Quality Index has finally begun to incrementally improve — from “Hazardous” or “Very Unhealthy,” to merely “Unhealthy.”

The losses to Oregon’s agricultural industry are likely to be catastrophic. Backyard gardeners and larger-scale farmers alike lost more than a week of tending and harvest time. Both the Corvallis-Albany Farmers’ Markets and the South Town Farm Stand and Market had to take a week off.

At Midway Farms near Albany, owner/farmer Cynthia Kapple says her primary losses resulted from consecutive days of hazardous air quality that kept her and her employees from harvesting which left crops rotting in fields, and, the continuous smoke haze blocking out sunlight. That meant her strawberries could not properly sweeten up, her chickens were stressed and stopped laying, and even her cow was coughing. Cynthia’s concord grapes took on the smoke flavor – no telling yet whether this will affect the taste of the jelly.

Local farmers need everyone’s support now more than ever!

After watching the local AQI closely for a week, my neighbor and I donned our N95 face masks to see how well his garden held up under the continuous blanketing of smoke and hazardous ash.

The verdict: surprisingly well, despite noticeable deposits of the powdery-gritty fallout and the extreme de-humidification from the massive fires in our neighboring counties.

Whether you have a garden or not, it’s now important to thoroughly inspect, rinse, re-wash (and dry if not preparing immediately) and carefully prepare produce that has been exposed to the hazardous residues of the wildfires’ destruction.

Once again, we turn to the experts at the OSU Extension Service for advice on dealing with smoke- and ash-tainted produce. While smoke and ash can definitely ruin the quality of some crops, that exposure is not necessarily a food safety issue unless the skin of the fruit or vegetable has been broken — allowing for contamination by toxic particulates and residues.

However, unless you’re part of a direct-to-consumer or commercial produce business, it’s a matter of personal judgment whether to simply cut out the damaged portions and make use of the rest, or to dispose of the whole item or batch. In my case, I harvested two pints of cherry tomatoes, but ended up composting nearly a whole pint with cracked skins. Sometimes food does have to be left behind…

My remaining tomatoes, squash and a batch of broccoli were treated with a 10% vinegar rinse (see photos) — which gave me peace of mind as well as the satisfaction of consuming something I freshly harvested myself! Pizzas and omelets are the perfect match for these garden rescues — so noted on this week’s Meal Planner.

Light ash accumulation on yellow squash; cherry tomatoes and broccoli in separate containers with vinegar water rinse. (Staff photos)

Especially during times of emergency, food can get left behind. But as we prepare for the winter of 2020 under the shadow of both COVID-19 and the devastation of wildfire, let’s make the most of what remains available to us. Our food is more valuable now than ever!