Living Smart 101: No Waste in my house!

I've mentioned how crazy the gardens have become this time of year as they wind down and produce way more than we can consume before the produce goes to waste. We've taken things a step further and been canning. We've canned over 60 quarts of pickles, created several relishes and been working on some hot pepper sauces, gumbo bases, banana pepper rings, pickled peppers and jalapenos, hot refrigerator pickles (those have been the hit of the summer) and salsa just to name a few of our many products! I think I could probably start a SCB line! LOL

Luckily, Mike's grandmother has retired from the canning business :) and gave us all of her jars. Mike's mom gave us several as well. We made a goal- NO WASTE! We didn't want to look back during the Winter months and remember all the produce we had right now and instead enjoy the fruits of our labor all year round. With times the way they are right now- utilizing every resource available is crucial. We used coupons to get our spices, supplies etc. ...we even found a coupon for the lids for the cans. We had a few cans pop their lids and we wasted those but had so many cucumbers that we just sanitized the jars and tried again. We used traditional, no fail recipes and our family and friends have loved our results.

Again, we've taken this mindset to a new level. For example, we had 3/4 of a gallon of milk that is expiring tomorrow. Milk was fine but no way it could be drunk today. Was I going to let it go to waste? HECK NO! I had a bag of potatoes that needed to be used, a killer week coming up with Curriculum Night Tuesday night right after Scouts so I made Baked Potato Soup! It's ready to be heated up when we rush home from Daisy Scouts and have just a few minutes before the babysitter gets here and we need to be at school. Had milk left- so I made 2 boxes of mac and cheese for the girls to eat throughout the week. It will work for Mac's lunch (get it? Mac for Mac? LOL) and again, it's all ready, easy week with meals already planned and prepared for the most part!

There are other areas too to think about. I needed half a red onion the other night. I chopped the whole thing and froze the remainder for future use. Tomatoes are going faster than we can eat them so we made Garlic, Basil and Tomato Soup this weekend.

Just think outside the box and make it your goal to see how much you can utilize what you have and eliminate as much waste as possible. Before you know it... it will be second nature!