unclutter | Entries tagged with food

So cleaning- mostly the basement- has basically helped me find a heck of a lot of our tools and battery chargers. The ones I can’t find either parts or no longer work have been disassembled and had the internal batteries removed. (The county does offer repair clinics, but those are usually too far away from me.). I’ll drop off the batteries and other hazardous waste at a collection happening in my neighborhood about two weeks from now.

We have a donation table in the neighborhood for clothes and other items that I’ve been leaving items at pretty much all summer. About the only items I’ve taken are a hockey book I haven’t read yet and a Chicago Bears daily calendar from 1990(? I haven’t seen it a while. Maybe Mom tossed it?). Most of the cleaning I’ve done in the garage so far has been sorting through tools and I haven’t done much in any other room since April.

I’ve joined a challenge that runs throughout August to stop food waste in my county and two neighboring ones. Depending on the weather, I’ll relocate some day lilies away from the air conditioner.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Upstairs
Current Music: Fan blowing

the_broken_tower

Who knew? Meal planning can go a ways in helping keep a kitchen clean.

Elliot M and I have been working on the fridge. He wiped down a place where a Miscellaneous Substance had oozed out of the produce drawer (possibly from onions), and I washed down the drawer they were in.

We were meal planning, and a stop at the grocery was next, so I went through and cleared out older things that belong in the bin - aging parsley, browning spring onions, something in a jar that expired last year.

Groceries have since been gotten. New produce has been cut into pieces for grazing and kababs, things have been rearranged to better use space, and the fridge is looking much friendlier. I took out a bag of chicken thigh from the freezer to thaw and will see tomorrow if it is, in fact, still good.

Things have been much easier to keep up with after the initial decluttering efforts last year. These occasional lighter edits are keeping everything in shape, and the meal planning means there are regular times to check what's in there, get rid of older stuff, and make plans for what's next so it doesn't re-accumulate.

We're also trying biweekly bulk tea: I used up almost all of a pack of a white mango something-or-other blend for cold tea the next few days. The massive bag is being re-steeped in my nightly pot, so it gets a little more use before being composted. Bulk cold tea is looking more promising in using up the herbals and whites in the infamously over-stocked Tea Drawer(s) than trying to rotate out breakfast cups.

(And a bonus: I saved and planted some seeds from the grocery poblano to try growing. They'll mostly be gifted out, if they sprout and get their true leaves.)

The next cleaning-related goal is... Taking the recycling out in stages. It desperately needs emptying.

- Maïma

the_broken_tower

... Finally back at the baking to clear out the pantry's generous flour shelf.

I decided to prep dry ingredients for later tonight. The recipes I'm using mix all their dry ingredients first, so everything could go into one bowl.

The whole wheat made it easy for me. I unrolled the top and bugs came out. The bag went into the trash.

Instead I used the last of the Rye to double a recipe for Chinese Almond Cookies. There will be a lot of them, so hopefully they'll be edible.

Next up for the running are spelt and bread flour.

At this point, the surplus flour has been reduced by 50%. Most of what's left are specific-use items (like glutinous rice flour for mochi, and okonomiyaki mix) and local mixed flours. The two remaining big items are masa flours.

- Cobalt Amber (he/him)

Update with recipes and cookie tax

Everything has been made! There are two new packaged, labeled hunks of dough in the freezer. Tasting portions of each batch were baked per how this goes.

A small strawberry print plate with four cookies, with two the same kind each placed diagonal to each other. Two are small, round, and flattened with slightly golden edges, and specks of spice visible on the pale dough. Two are the same diameter, but are large and round. They each have three sliced almonds arranged on top, with a golden halo of eggyolk wash.

A small strawberry print plate with four cookies, with two the same kind each placed diagonal to each other. Two are small, round, and flattened with slightly golden edges, and specks of spice visible on the pale dough. Two are the same diameter, but are large and round. They each have three sliced almonds arranged on top, with a golden halo of eggyolk wash.

The recipes are Chinese Almond Cookies, with sunflower oil and rye flour subbed out for the regular, and Lavender Lemon Shortbread with different spices (ground rose petals, rose water, cardamom, grains of paradise, and hibiscus powder).

I cheated a bit with the shortbreads - I was not going to roll and cut them. That is a whole mess. Instead, I laid a sheet of parchment paper over a plastic cutting board, rolled tiny balls of dough, placed them, and then smooshed them with a measuring cup and a strip of wax paper acting as a non-stick intermediary between them. Works so much better than dealing with sticky dough on wide surfaces. The entire sheet went into the freezer, and then slipped off onto a baking tray with the parchment paper.

If you're like Cobalt and don't read the directions about using cold butter... Literally do not worry about it. I used the room temp stuff he set out, ended up with a very paste-like dough, and the cookies did not die. Just freeze it first.

The only thing left (apart from a remaining mixing bowl to wash) is to put the bread flour into the newly-vacated AP flour container.

- MK (he/him)

the_broken_tower

LY came to the conclusion last week that the only (realistic) way to make more space in the apartment is going to be getting rid of stuff.

Today I went for the fabrics. There are only a few projects that any of that fabric is needed for - the rest needs to go. All in all, I reduced it to about a third of what it was. Half is sitting out for donation, and the rest is waiting for a garbage run.

The closet and dresser were next. One bag for donation - out of the way.

I cleared out enough to convert one drawer into storage for camera equipment and miscellaneous dance items, which means that all of those items are no longer occupying surface space.

- Elliot M (he/him)

yukonsally

The current state of the world and the United States, concerned covid-19 and having to stay home, has not helped my decluttering. I am sure we are healthy in this house and we do not have covid-19 viruses on our things. Theoretically I could donate a few things (very few, not quite worth the trip) but then there's the going out part, and the second hand store is generally thought to be not quite clean on a good day.. Well, I could recycle a few electronic things at a different store, though that's still going out and we're not supposed to. None of these are urgent errands. Sales have dried up and I don't particularly want to offer things to friends online that I'd have to mail because that's a visit to the post office and that seems a bad idea right now.

Instead!

We make do.

We are making do with what we have. We fix what we can. I stitched up two rips in a coat and put the coat away. Child will probably outgrow the coat before next winter, but the coat is ready for someone.

I tried on a shirt I really like... and it doesn't fit right. So I put it away for future wearing by a child. That's one less shirt in my closet.

I'm trying to use up everything in the pantry, something that's more fun and exciting than it should be. But the meals are pretty good so far, nothing too creative yet. I organized a few things in the pantry, put all the last-granola-bar-in-the-box-es into a single basket for easy access. At the end of this (there will be an end), we can start the pantry from scratch again, like we did when we moved here years ago.

And now is the time to use up the good craft materials we've been saving. That pretty yarn. Those special beads. That good paper. The expensive paint and nice canvas. Send the good postcards. Make that model you've been saving.

Read that book you've been holding on to and see if you want to keep it afterward. I have a pile of five books on my nightstand right now to help me remember which books to read next. Under my tablet with ebooks, but you know. Easier access.

And get rid of the fear. That is something we can declutter without leaving the house.

yukonsally

Sometimes, decluttering means eating that last serving of ice cream or the last cookie in the package.

Be good to yourselves this weekend!

fred_mouse

This is a belated post, covering last weekend, and mid-week.

It occurred to me that one of the areas I don't clear out regularly enough is the freezer (both the little one inside, and the free standing one in the garage). So, last weekend, I did a pass through the small freezer, and identified a handful of things that need using up in the little one. Ends of loaves (which the kids *claim* they eat) went in the chooks. Other than that, there were 3 (now 2) containers of cooking bananas, and 3 (now 2) containers of guava. I've made one batch of guava paste (like jam, but only a little water and sugar, so it doesn't gel, but it does spread nicely), and one batch of fried banana. Next set of tasks on this are to make another batch of guava paste, which should get through the rest, make more fried banana, and then start moving things that need using up to the inside freezer.

fred_mouse

email - cleared 700+ emails relating to organisational volunteer work out of two inboxes! Including dealing with the fact that many of these were duplicates, because I read on one email account and answer on another. Some of these date back to 2014. Deleted duplicates, filed by year, decided anything more than six months old that I hadn't read didn't need it.

food - cleaned & threw out a tomato sauce bottle and a bbq sauce bottle each with a token amount left - these were squeezy bottles of a type we don't usually buy, from a birthday gathering in December.

paperwork - more bits of random stuff had appeared on the counter. got rid of much.

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uncluttering one day and one thing at a time

Entries tagged with food

And the end of July brings an update.

Fridge Cleaning and Tea Storage

Pantry Uncluttering Continued

Fabric De-Stashing

week's work

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on clearing out the freezer

email, pantry, papers

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May 2025

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