Tag: conservation

Conservation Conversations

Given current prices on everyday necessities, it’s a great time for a conservation conversations. How can you stay on your required diet, eat healthy food, not exhaust yourself, and spend less money?

Let’s start with a given. It will not be easy. Fighting this fact will delay making progress and mentally exhaust you. The quicker you make peace with a need for change that may make portions of your life more difficult, the sooner you will be able to improve your circumstances and quality of life overall.

Pink round piggy bank with pennies around it on white background.

Here are a few guidelines to follow when conservation is required.

Explore things that can stay the same. This can make transitions easier. For example, instead of giving up meals at a favorite farm-to-table restaurant, reduce the frequency. Skip the iced tea or soda in favor of water.

Stop buying things you throw away. We all have things that sit in the refrigerator or pantry because we thought they were a good idea at the time, but we don’t use often enough to justify keeping them on hand. Cocoa powder, vanilla beans, saffron, lasagna noodles, and hot sauce are things I seem to think I need all the time. I don’t.

Use less. Following a low histamine diet has resulted in me recognizing how much flavor can be imparted by a smidge of tomato sauce, a spoonful of ranch dressing, or a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. Reducing the amount I’d typically add has made things tolerable for my system and saved me money as well. For what to do with leftover tomato sauce – freeze it in ice cube trays to make it go a long way. You can also share with friends or neighbors.

Rely on herbs, spices, and veggies rather than cheese. Cheese is delicious. Cheese is also expensive. You can enhance the flavor of casseroles with herbs and spices. Potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash, and even beans can be used to add a creamy element to casseroles, soups, and one pot meals.

Add rice and/or beans. A meal will feel more substantial if you serve it with rice or beans. You can pull back on the amount of beef, pork, or chicken per person by serving bowls that include rice and/or beans.

We’ve made it through five guidelines that don’t require extra baking, sorting through sales, or organizing coupons. That may be enough to keep your budget working. If not, consider a few more:

Make more soup. Soup is delicious and filling whether it’s hot or cold. As we enjoy the farmers market, it’s a great time to use bits and pieces, leaves, and stems in soup. Fruit is best used quickly, but vegetable bits can be collected in a container in your fridge for several days before you need to cook them. Think carrot tops, beet greens, Brussels sprout leaves, chard or broccoli stems. Prep them when cleaning up after the meal in which you used the rest of the vegetable. That will leave you with a container of prepped vegetables to use in soup.

Substitute ground turkey for ground beef. I’ve been doing this for a couple of years because I prefer it, but it also makes sense for budgetary reasons. In meatloaf and burgers, I add a splash of Worcestershire sauce to beef up the flavor (see what I did there).

Make yogurt. This may sound like a big deal, but yogurt is one of the easiest things to make. You don’t need anything but milk, starter, and a place to keep it warm. I prefer to use whole milk, packaged starter, and a yogurt maker that holds jars. But you can use yogurt with live cultures as a starter and an instant pot to keep it warm. Making your own allows you to process it for 24 hours to break down all the lactose if you’re lactose intolerant. It eliminates all the added sugar of flavored yogurt, and it means your yogurt isn’t housed in plastic. Lots of bang for a minimum of prep time.

Freeze gluten-free items. Instead of buying ready-made gluten-free muffins, pancakes, waffles, or cookies, make two batches at a time and freeze one. Since 2020, the selection of prepackaged gluten-free items available in local stores has shrunk and prices have increased. This makes an occasional afternoon of baking seem like an increasingly welcome activity.

Dispose of disposables. Paper towels, paper napkins, and disposable plates all have washable alternatives. If you’re already overwhelmed with laundry or dishes, this may not be the appropriate place to cut back, but it’s an option to explore. You can also conserve by saving paper towels used to dry clean hands for later use cleaning the table or countertops.

These ten guidelines don’t eliminate but do minimize change and additional effort while reducing costs. Keep them in mind as we all deal with rising prices and are required to have conservation conversations.

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Kitchen Conservation

Living in an RV automatically leads to kitchen conservation. When you have a limited amount of water, waste storage, and heat sources, you can’t take anything for granted. Usage and replenishment take center stage.

When I live in my regular home, I have no idea how much water I use, how many weeks of food are in the pantry, or how high my gas bill will be until I receive it. I am lucky. I have the luxury of not worrying about those things.

Now that Cooking2Thrive is on a road trip, I’m living in an RV. That’s a whole different ballgame. I know exactly how much water I use. I can easily gauge with a quick glance how many days of food I have. And I know how often I must empty my waste tanks.

I’m learning how to anticipate the lead time needed to replenish supplies without having to create new storage areas in seats and leg spaces. And I recognize how little laundry I can generate and groceries I need when I’m thoughtful.

That’s the key. When you have less space, you have to be more thoughtful about every choice.

While I’m not limited to my two-burner propane cooktop and microwave, to keep in the mindset, it’s sometimes fun to plan meals as if I am. Small amounts, fewer pots, and simple prep are principles to guide the planning.

For example, single serving microwavable brown rice makes more sense in this environment than a bag. Frozen vegetables are fine but must be used right away because I don’t have a freezer. One pot dishes containing protein, vegetables, and starch are winners every time. They allow me to conserve dishwater and can be stored in a single container.

I currently have a container of ham, potatoes, and asparagus in my refrigerator. These flavors pair well together seasoned with just salt, pepper, and garlic powder. To keep the prep simple, I buy ham that’s already diced. Potatoes can be microwaved until almost done, then easily peeled and diced. And asparagus can be steamed in a skillet or the microwave, then chopped. I combine all three in a microwave-safe storage container so I can reheat and eat for several meals. 

For even less waste, I can leave the peeling on the potatoes. Or I can make this a pantry generated meal by using canned, diced potatoes, and canned asparagus.

My RV pantry always contains salt, pepper, garlic powder, and olive oil spray; canisters of coffee and almonds mixed with raisins; coconut milk; single serving peanut butter, gluten-free instant oatmeal, microwavable brown rice, gluten-free pretzels or crackers, canned black beans, canned potatoes, and a canned green vegetable. There’s usually a sweet potato or potato in the cabinet, and some kind of fresh fruit and plain unsweetened yogurt in the refrigerator.

When there’s room, I add a jar of salsa or my favorite jam to the pantry selections. I also like having a stash of mini Kind bars handy. Single serve containers of mandarin oranges, olives, and condiments can be useful. The goal is to keep it as simple as possible while having enough to throw a tasty meal together in a pinch.

Last week, I ate brown rice and black beans plus mandarin oranges for dinner on a night my original plan was not workable. The remaining beans and rice became a side dish when groceries arrived.

Once a meal is finished, I wipe down all of the dishes so no crumbs, bits, or film remain on the surface. This means I can conserve soap and water when I wash them. When it’s just me eating two to three meals, I can wash dishes in 32 – 48 oz of water per day. I’d call that decent conservation.

I find it makes the most sense to buy salads from restaurants. All of the ingredients are there in a single container and they’re already clean. That means the only waste is the container in which they arrive (and sometimes that is reusable). Most entrée salads will last several meals when used as a side salad.

If I were preparing salad in the RV myself, I’d use triple washed spinach as the base and most likely include raisins and almonds from the pantry in the toppings. The spinach can be easily wilted to eat alone or added to an entrée if I get tired of salad.

Using portable cotton hypoallergenic washcloths creates some waste, but means less laundry and fewer wet things cluttering my space. I use these to wash dishes, prevent coffee grounds from going down the drain, and to wash my face. I’ve also used them to wipe down countertops and dust TVs.

Right now, I’m drinking coffee I rewarmed from yesterday’s batch. I’d like a little more, but I’m considering whether it’s better to conserve water and time by drinking a cup once I arrive at the office. Conservation will most likely win out. It usually does when living in 100 sq ft.

Will I carry any of my new kitchen conservation habits home?

I can’t really predict whether they’ll stick, but I’ve added a whole level of awareness that I believe will serve me well in many environments. That’s a real benefit of shaking things up. Your point-of-view changes with each increase in knowledge.

Kitchen conservation and simplicity increasingly seem intertwined and I love both.

I Want Simple