Daily Chatter: 12/4/12

Well, here’s how my completely-empty-out-the-refrigerator challenge ended:

As of Sunday afternoon, all that was left (aside from condiments) was a few cups of mozzarella cheese, 3/4 a brick of cheddar cheese, a pint of cream, some feta, ginger, two baked potatoes, a cabbage salad, and celery.  Not quite completely empty, but awfully close to it.  As of today, we’ve finished the baked potatoes, mozzarella, cabbage salad, and some banana peppers (from the condiments section) and I’m bound and determined to make sure that I use up the ginger, feta, and celery before it spoils.  (The cheddar cheese and cream will not be a problem to use up – I can’t remember the last time I threw either of those items away  because I left them spoil.)

While I didn’t have any grand revelations while I was cleaning it out, it did strike me that the food that we had on Friday lasted a lot longer than I thought it would.  I figured we would be out of refrigerated food by Saturday afternoon, but we made it through Sunday lunch before I know that I absolutely had to go to the store.  (And in reality, we could have made it through Sunday night, too if I thought I was going to be able to go to the store on Monday morning.)

I know that if I’d not done this challenge and continued my normal habits, at least a couple of the items that I used up would have been throw away due to spoilage.  But, because I was concentrating on using it up and there wasn’t much else to use, I had to cook it and we ate it and we probably got an extra meal for “free” because it would otherwise have been thrown away.  And honestly, we ate quite well when I was focusing on using it up – it wasn’t as horrid a mish-mash of foods as I thought it might be!  I was also more creative than I might normally be, adapting a recipe for pumpkin muffins to use some carrots and buttermilk.

It really makes me think that I should, perhaps, do this more often.  If, by challenging myself to use up what’s in the refrigerator once per month, I delay grocery shopping by a couple of days, I will probably end up spending less on groceries.  In some respects, it is like cooking for free for a couple of days since you are forcing yourself to use up whatever you have – items that might normally be thrown away.  (Hey, that sounds like an ebook that I’m working on! :)

Well, anyway, you are probably tired of me talking about my refrigerator. :)  Yesterday, I used a Groupon and took the kids to lunch and then we went to the zoo.

Though slightly chilly, it was a perfect day to visit the zoo – there was almost no one there, and a lot of animals were very active.  We saw the wolves, otters, grizzlies, tiger, lynx, mountain lion, gorillas, and orangutans about as active as we’ve ever seen them!

My 2yo is potty training now.  She’s been ready for quite awhile now, I think, but I wasn’t ready.  We decided to start yesterday – a kid that can drink lots of fluids and keep their diaper dry all morning and afternoon is probably ready to be potty trained, you think? :)  The thought struck me that when she is potty trained, I will have just one kid in diapers which will be really nice!

I’ll close with a funny kid quote.  This weekend, one of ours told Jeremy, “When I grow up, I’m going to be a nurse, and all I’m going to do is pick people’s scabs!”  And then we heard this same child later asking a sibling if they wanted their ears picked.  LOL!