The Snowball and the Delicious Stone
We've all got things like this. You may have caught a sale on the way home or simply grabbed your lucky number's worth of items on sale. The moment to use or cook these things arrives and suddenly that thing isn't as appealing as ordering pizza or just gorging on brownies and coffee and calling it a meal. The magic of these items faded to the back of your mind and the same thing happens again over your many grocery runs. That, SKTL readers, is what leads to full freezers and packed pantries. Let's nip this in the bud this month and reduce food waste and dollars spent shopping!
In 2019, I was mesmerized by the video of Babish's cauliflower pizza crust and went straight to Costco to get a big-ol' bag of riced cauliflower. The spell wore off when I grabbed a slice of REAL pizza from the food court, and that bag has become a plastic-wrapped snowball in my freezer. My wife did the same thing with a can of sweetened condensed coconut milk, which is now a sugary rock chillin in the back of our fridge. I think her plan was to make Thai curry from scratch until she stumbled across an all-inclusive packet. My point here is that we all have old things in our pantries and freezers that we should investigate. Ditto our closets. In a similar way, you may have tools taking up valuable space that could be sold or donated to the SKTL.
Yes, our pantry is those 3 shelves.
Eat. Your. Pantry. We're lucky in that our small apartment means we have to optimize our pantry. Some of you readers are burdened in this regard with more space and a larger family. However, shopping for all those people's (sometimes) individual needs could also mean you're throwing out more things during your cleanings. So this month, why not try to go through your pantry and freezer and cook these things before they expire? This brings potential benefits of staving off or reducing the next grocery bill, flexing your cooking skills with fixed ingredients and potentially reducing waste by using items instead of throwing them out. While you're taking stock, you can check your supplies' expiration.
Tell you what: after you clear some pantry space, why not borrow one of our vacuum sealers or the food dehydrator and fill your pantry with some delicious creations, like dehydrated ice cream sandwiches or your own homemade herbs and spices?