I am hoping to spend some more time in the kitchen today but I have been promising my girls I would take them shopping and today is the day.
I hate shopping, I hate malls and I am no fan of the teenage girl/shopping mall combination but my girls actually do need to get some things. Both are finally full-grown (I think) and really do need some new clothes as they have grown out of much of their stuff. I am grateful for what good shoppers they are (amazing how good when they are spending their own money). They are also willing to take my advice and they don’t get nasty when the answer is no. Well, they may get a little nasty but not for long and they always apologize. While they get some jeans and shirts I will be in housewares. My oldest son gave me a gift card for Christmas and I am going to spend it on kitchen equipment. I looked over my notebook and I see many things I would like. I need new pot holders but I can make those. I need some rugs for in front of the sink and stove, the two places I stand most. I can see the floor is wearing and I want to protect it. I need a glass, 2 cup measure as I shattered the one I got for a wedding gift 36 years ago. I also need a new pepper mill. Something is wrong with mine and it no longer grinds. The last thing I want is a cast iron dutch oven. I want the kind that is designed to hold charcoal in the lid and has an internal chamber, rather like a bundt pan. What I have read is that it works a bit like a pressure cooker/crock pot as the lid fits snugly and the chamber directs heat to the center of the food as well as from the sides. I am thinking that I can save a good deal of energy if I get the oven and pan really hot and then turn off the heat. I am sure I will need to fiddle with it some. I am hoping it will work well for beans, stews and less tender cuts of meat. It can be used on a wood stove as well as sit in a fire pit so it’s versatile. I found one in the Lehman’s catalog but the shipping made it prohibitively expensive.
I suppose my son thought I would buy clothes or something but clothes hold no fascination for me unless I get them second-hand or make them myself. I do enjoy finding some excellent outer wear on a 75 % off sale but beyond that, clothes to me are just not that interesting. But put me in a restaurant supply store and I am a happy girl. I have to laugh at my daughter, Karen. She will ask me very gently if that beautiful bowl I am drooling over is a need or a want. Will it give lasting value or just become clutter when the new wears off? Honestly. I don’t where she learned to talk like that.
I have been asked about my plan to rid my kitchen of as much plastic as I can. I am concerned about the plastic leaching chemicals into my food but a good part of the reason has to do with aesthetics. I love the look of glass. Convenience plays a role too. I like being able to see what’s inside without removing the top. That brings up a final word about organizing your kitchen. I have found several containers that have no label. Kidney beans are easy to recognize but a powdery substance could be any number of things. An indelible maker will write on a canning jar lid and not wash off without a bit of scrubbing. I also use a lot of stick on mailing labels although they tend to peel away from glass pretty quickly. What holds better is medical adhesive tape. It doesn’t come off until I want it off and I have many rolls of it.
As I cleaned my cabinets I saw that my supply of juice is running low. I used a lot when Jackie had the flu and I gave some to the food pantry. I will have to make a run to the market and restock. In addition to the cider I have in the freezer, I usually keep 30 cans of fruit juice concentrate, 20 big cans of pineapple juice and several cartons of things like Tang on hand. Tang is not real food but it will last for a very long time, provide some vitamin C and make stale water taste a bit better to children. I usually make my own fruit juice concentrate but it was a terrible year for wild grapes and I didn’t get any juice put up except for some elderberry concentrate. That’s all gone too as we used a lot for tea during flu season.
I enjoyed reading about your kitchens. It felt like I had been to visit.
December 30, 2009 at 10:14 am
You made me laugh out loud all alone in my kitchen with the comment about Karen and the bowl. Good way to start a cold winter morning. I’m very much enjoying this set of posts about cleaning and decluttering. Thanks.
December 30, 2009 at 10:48 am
Kathy, I am most curious how “intensive” your gutting the kitchen of plastic is going. This fall, at my annual checkup, my PA ran a hormone check (blood). It came up with an above normal range SHBG. Her questions then became “how much bottled water do you drink (none), Where do you purchase your meat (NO more grocery store chicken), Do you microwave food in plastic (sometimes we were lazy – not anymore!)”. Her recommendation: Rid our house of food stored in plastic & KNOW that your meat source has no hormone influence (good-bye to All grocery store meat). I came home that day & essentially rid my kitchen of plastic, but am stuck with what to do with certain things. I find myself looking at each item I want to purchase – from Tang (comes in plastic – remember when it used to be glass?) to whatever, & thinking “how will I store this?”. Yesterday, I dried 3 loaves of bread left from Christmas (frozen) into cubes for stuffing for future use & made garlic croutons. The croutons are stored in wide-mouth jars, air-locked with the foodsaver (hopefully will keep them from going rancid). The gallon of plain cubes will need jars, as well. Do you simply have thousands of jars? I worry I won’t have enough jars to can with, next summer! =8-0
I also had a chuckle over your comment about the restaurant supply store. Our youngest daughter is moving out this weekend. When, around Thanksgiving, she made her plans known, my older daughter was absolutely gleeful! Rubbing her hands together with a twinkle in her eye, she said, “Oh, THIS is going to be FUN!” Together, we swept through the kitchen sections of various stores & equipped her with what WE thought she would need, and that’s what youngest DD got for Christmas! Being in the kitchen section of a store is like being a kid let loose in a candy store!
December 30, 2009 at 11:15 am
What do you use for leftovers in the fridge, if you don’t use plastic? I have mason jars but they take up alot of room if I just have a little bit of sauce or say gravy left. Or are you just talking about getting rid of plastic for the cupboards? I too use jars. I also have a pump and seal so I can use any old jar not just mason and I also use it to take the air out of wet stuff that goes into the fridge (ie salsa) so it keeps longer. If we have a SHTF situation I can still seal my dry goods. Got a foodsaver for Xmas, Now I will start to seal those jars without putting a hole on them and using the pump and seal, but at least I have the security of still having it around.
December 30, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I am so with you about the shopping! About the only kind of shopping I enjoy is prowling thrift shops and old bookstores. I also have a perpetual goal of ridding my kitchen of plastic and boxes, so I always search for glass jars and canisters. I found a pair of 2-gallon sized big old glass jars with glass lids on them, the kind that coffee shops have out on the counter full of biscotti or dog treats or something. Now they have beans and rice, respectively. $5/each. Now that’s an exiting find! I also use a lot of half-gallon canning jars, if you can find them they’re great for lentils, oatmeal, etc. I get mine at the feed store.
December 30, 2009 at 3:56 pm
Let me know where you find one of those cast iron dutch ovens. I’m looking for one with a flat lid, but I want the insert for a pie pan to sit on and the muffin ring insert. I’ve lloked all over the area and so far, only heard of one at Cabelas in Hartford…not gonna happen right now!
My daughter has picked up the same trick of asking if it’s a need or a want, good to know they listen to us!
December 30, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I use small glass jars. I get baby food jars from my sister for really small amounts and 4 ounce jelly jars. I take it you like your pump and seal. I would get one if I found one at a thrift shop. I would love to be able to reuse regular jars.
December 30, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Kathy – Although we have never met, I feel a real kinship with you especially after your column today. I am about to go downtown to look at the Christmas decorations and also have a gift certificate to the bookstore. I plan to visit the cookware department at Macy’s. I need some new pots and if I locate a good sale, will purchase. The clothing department does not have much attraction for me either, although my children always love new duds. Your potential buy of the dutch oven sounds interesting! You have motivated me to start my inventory and today I looked over our mudroom/laundry for possible reorganization. Thanks for the ideas!
December 30, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I am getting very serious about ridding my house of plastic. The question is what to do with it. I do have a lot of grains and such stored in food grade plastic buckets. I guess I could line them all with mylar bags but I hate to. It is one more thing to buy.
December 30, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Clothes are not that interesting to me anymore, either. I pretty much live in jeans and t-shirts, but I do enjoy the odd “splurge” when it comes to high quality clothing that makes sense for my increasingly outdoors/garden/animals oriented lifestyle. For Christmas, my husband got me a chicken coop (!) and a pair of tall, green Hunter wellington boots! I can’t stop looking at them – they are practically a work of art! He thinks it’s so funny that a pair of boots could make me so happy. He used to say he got off easy in the jewelry department with me (no interest at all), but now that I am lobbying for goats and chickens, not to mention a 5th child (!) he is thinking maybe a pair of diamond earrings would be a bargain!
Best,
Kate
December 30, 2009 at 8:20 pm
I haven’t completely gotten away from plastic in the kitchen, my last hold over is using it pretty much exclusively for freezing, but most everything else is in glass jars and bowls at this point. I avoid microwaving in general, but at work that is pretty much our only option if we want a hot meal, so I got us a pack of the pyrex glass storage containers. They come with tight fitting lids, which are plastic, but we just remove them before putting the dish in the microwave.
I’m in S. CA so bugs in the pantry can be a real challenge since we pretty much never get a hard freeze (heck, we barely get frost!). Discovering pantry moths a couple years ago is what started me down the anti-plastic road. I now have almost all my dry goods in glass canning jars (I do still have my larger quantities of flour, sugar, and oats in plastic containers – I’m nervous that I will drop a large glass jar since I don’t store them on the counter so I have to move them when I use them…). I use p-touch label-maker to label all my jars. It’s probably not the least expensive option, but they are easy to read, stay put when I hand-wash a jar before refilling, and they match (which makes my OCD happy). I’ve only recently started down a larger food storage path, for which I was able to find a really good price on 5 gallon plastic pails. Due to the aforementioned bug issue I am using mylar bags for storage in those buckets. They also allow me to seal my grains and beans in smaller quantities so I don’t have to open 30 pounds at once, since it is just two of us right now. I have used some vacuum-seal bags for some smaller quantity items, and those are obviously plastic but I’m not sure at this point what would be a better solution.
I’ve been wanting a cast iron dutch oven too. You might try amazon.com, Lodge has a good selection on there and they may have better shipping rates.
December 30, 2009 at 11:55 pm
I’m still using plastic. Although I dislike the smell of it, I brown bag my lunch each day and had an unfortunate accident where someone ran into me in the cafeteria and skewered my bag. My glass jars broke all over. The plastic is easier to transport and less likely to leak.
December 31, 2009 at 8:38 am
Kate, you and I are sympatico! For Christmas, I got a pair of what the kids call “chicken poop boots” and three 5-month old Ameraucanas! Yay!
December 31, 2009 at 8:59 am
I love my poop boots. I have two pair as my daughter outgrew hers and they fit me. I am so jealous about the chickens.
December 31, 2009 at 10:30 am
I too am jealous about the chickens, I spent an afternoon researching about chicken arks (tractors) only to find our city altho it is a small one under 130,000 people has a no poultry by law, bummer. I so wants some girls.
December 31, 2009 at 11:55 am
I don’t believe I have any plastic food containers at all, and not much plastic in my house period.
I store my dry goods in 1/2 gallon mason jars (Lehmans carries them for sure, possibly Ace Hardware in the USA). You might also ask if you can special-order them from your local hardware store.
For more-than-a-bowl-but-less-than-a-pot of soups, chilis, etc., I have the pyrex/anchor glass bowls that nest inside one another. Yes, the lids are plastic, but they don’t really touch the food.
For meals to go, I have “tiffins” or “tucker tins” (I’m not sure what you would call them) – metal (stainless steel) dishes that stack on top of one another & snap together. Examples can be seen at the following link:
http://lifewithoutplastic.com/boutique/food-storage-c-66.html
I have the single (with an insert), the two-high & three high – they work great for sandwiches, salads, thick soups like chili. They may work for thinner soups as well, but I can be rough with my stuff as I bike to work (things turning upside, etc), so I’ve never tried.
I also always have one when I go to a certain restaurant – their special is too much for me to eat comfortably, so I slip part of the meal into that to take home. I’m not uncomfortably full, I’ve saved the restaurant money in packaging my “doggie bag” and there is no waste packaging when I get home.
As a bonus, in an emergency you could cook/heat food in them as well. Probably not a good idea long-term, the metal sides are a leetle thin for that & it’s not the purpose for which they are designed, but I have done it & it is possible.
You may be able to find something like this in a camping store – my local, independent trail shop has started carrying them (finally! Hooray!) – or you can try a surplus army/navy shop; I don’t know what you would ask for, but I found something similar in one once. (And by the looks of it, it * was * designed to work over a fire.)
Also … depending on where you live (& how much you eat
), you could look for Japanese Bento boxes: wooden boxes with partitions built in.
I think they are beautiful, but they wouldn’t hold enough for me, and as I said earlier, I generally need something I don’t worry getting knocked about.
Hope this helps!
His in JOY
(: Sunshine