Back to school eats and Eco-Edutainment
Autumn Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! For everyone with children who are physically back in school (K-12) this fall, we hope the adjustment is going well. Students need good quality food to assist them in learning — so HOORAY for all those who help make that happen, including school food service workers, nutrition program administrators, and …
Converting Confessions to Lessons Learned
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! We’ve all come a long way since the start of Kitchen Confessions, haven’t we? Doing the best we can to keep on living, working, virtual learning, shopping, cooking and eating our way through a pandemic. Getting real about wasted food in our homes, and doing what it takes to get the …
Kids rocking the waste-less kitchen
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumer Families! In this edition of Kitchen Confessions, we’d like to offer some resources and support to families of Future Chefs and Conscientious Consumers. It’s the middle of summer vacation, so hopefully you are having some opportunities to enjoy spending time in the kitchen together! How many of your treasured memories involve …
No “Alligator Pears” left behind
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! The sunshine season has finally arrived here in the Mid-Willamette Valley, and with it the bursting cornucopias of fresh colorful fruits and veggies in our local gardens and Farmers’ Markets — from strawberries, beans and broccoli to cherries, peaches and snap peas. Hooray for our local growers and harvesters! One “fruit” …
Carrot Top Pesto & other “zero waste” ideas
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! We’re still giddy over the response to our first-ever Leftovers Recipes Contest (Drawing), in which local Conscientious Chefs shared creative methods for wasting less food and money at home, one meal at a time! Thanks again to all who participated. We’re pleased to highlight in this blog some of our Recipe …
Leftover Recipe Contest Winners!
Happy Earth Day/Week, Conscientious Food Consumers! Our first-ever Recipe Contest featuring YOUR LEFTOVERS is a big success! Many thanks to everyone who participated. You ALL are winners in the No Food Left Behind movement! We received 25 submissions for tasty, homey and creative meals, including ethnic and zero-waste-inspired dishes. Our contest chefs reported saving anywhere …
Waste happens. Own it-Track it-$ave!
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! With spring unfolding here in the mid-Willamette Valley, it’s time for some cleaning, clearing out and… confessing! We’ve been saying it here for almost a year now: WASTED FOOD = WASTED MONEY. But exactly how much, and why? That’s where our newly-updated D.I.Y. Wasted Food Discovery self-audit form, both in English …
Recipe contest for leftovers!
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! It’s time for something different with our Kitchen Confessions. We’re going to talk about recipes — and we’re going to ask for YOURS! You could win one of three $30 gift cards to First Alternative Co-op! We haven’t delved much into the topic of recipes before, but they are certainly key …
Waste-less cooking for one can be fun!
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! Back in the pre-COVID era when we tabled regularly at the Corvallis winter and downtown Farmers’ Markets, I had interesting encounters with all kinds of folks who ventured over to our booth to pitch questions and comments, play our “Food Storage IQ” game, take the waste-less pledge (like our market patron …
Keeping spices spicy with Smart Storage
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! After an unsettling start to this New Year, I’m finding a lot of comfort in the kitchen these days. (Not just while snacking!) And it’s in my spice cupboard. When was the last time you savored the simple delight of homemade spiced apple cider (also known as wassail)? Ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg …
Our Top Takeaways of 2020, for 2021
Happy New Year, Conscientious Food Consumers! We, the staff of Kitchen Confessions, would like to extend to you a virtual pat on the back for wasting less food at home during this historic past year. We know you did that because you’re reading this blog. And thanks, by the way! You’re doing your part to …
Smart shopping and $aving — not just for the holidays!
Happy Holiday Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! As we head into the final stretch of this unprecedented year, we hope you are discovering some new and creative ways to experience holiday cheer this season. Not to mention good bargains (no matter which holiday you shop for)! Those holiday sales at the grocery store can sure make …
Smart shopping and $aving — not just for the holidays!Read More
Happy fridges for happy holidays
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! We hope your first (and hopefully last) Pandemic Thanksgiving was safe, enjoyable, and as waste-free as possible! For myself, I’m happy to report this year’s experiment with a smaller dinner party, smaller menu/portions and long-distance well-wishing worked out fine. No Leftovers Left Behind, either: – No leftover turkey-wrangling for me this …
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 …
Counting our blessings and $avings this ThanksgivingRead More
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 …
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 last week’s carrots, but it’s one of those everyday challenges that we all face. Those miscellaneous meal remnants, half-full containers, and portions of …
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 …
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 …
How do you like (not waste) them apples?
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 …
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 …
Zukes & cukes & squash, oh my! It’s Preservation Time.
Greetings, 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 …
Zukes & cukes & squash, oh my! It’s Preservation Time.Read More
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 …
Caring and sharing food in a crisis: “It’s On Us Corvallis”Read More
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, …
No Questions Left Behind (ok, a few)
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! As autumn approaches, we can all look back on how our lives have changed since March, and the reality of COVID-19. Like most everything else, No Food Left Behind Corvallis has transitioned online, and in April we launched “Kitchen Confessions.” Before COVID-19, NFLB’s outreach happened in the schools, community presentations, and …
Mind your ‘maters!
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! When was the last time you delighted in the taste experience of a ripe exploding cherry tomato? For many, one of the greatest pleasures of summer is the color, aroma and savory satisfaction of garden-fresh tomatoes, that ubiquitous vegetable (actually a fruit) that gardeners tend to have in over-abundance this time …
‘Chillin’ with those summertime fruits and veggies
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! It’s “chillin’ time” — mid-summer — here in the Mid-Willamette Valley. We endured a heat wave in late July with near-triple-digits, while our gardens and markets were bursting with colorful varieties of seasonal produce. Now the challenge is on: getting it all harvested, properly stored, processed, prepared and onto our plates …
No strawberries left behind… And hooray for the harvesters!
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! We Willamette Valley dwellers are so blessed to be living in one of the largest berry-producing regions in the country. Strawberry season is here! Luscious, juicy and vibrantly red — like these, picked fresh from a Corvallis backyard garden — the local bounty of strawberries is just now waiting to delight …
No strawberries left behind… And hooray for the harvesters!Read More
Hooray for our local “helpers”! And less wasted food.
Greetings, Conscientious Food Consumers! Now that we’ve all had a number of weeks of staying home and doing our part to fight the spread of the coronavirus, how’s the “new normal” at your house? Besides keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe, healthy and constructively occupied, it’s been a lot about food, hasn’t it? We’ve …
Hooray for our local “helpers”! And less wasted food.Read More
Not just another Earth Day
Happy Quarantine Earth Day, Conscientious Food Consumers! It’s the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, and the theme is Climate Action, as it should be! We applaud the roll out this Earth Day of a campaign called “FoodPrints for the Future,” challenging us to accept responsibility for the impacts of our food choices and habits on …
Welcome to Kitchen Confessions!
Hello, Conscientious Food Consumers! No Food Left Behind, a project of the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, welcomes you to our new “Kitchen Confessions” blog for sharing fresh facts, resources, tips, lessons learned and anecdotes around issues of wasted food in the home. This blog was already in the works before COVID-19, but now since most of …