Blogging (and cooking) by the seat of my pants

My first blogs were very well planned. I wrote them in advance in Word and edited them extensively. Then I realized something: many blogs are more or less spontaneous, reacting to what life throws at you.

For example, I'm typing this blog at the library and have about 18 minutes left before it shuts off because the recent storm knocked our power out Thursday. I do three blogs a week and I'm not letting a minor detail, such as a lack of power or no clue what my topic is, stop me.

A good portion of what was in the frig are in coolers with ice at present. I don't think I appreciate sufficiently how wonderful it is to have all that food handy until something like this happens. We're trying not to open the frig as much as possible to keep the stuff good.

I'm used to convenience. It's easy to want to get something like Hot 'N Ready Pizza at Little Caesar's or McDonalds when you're in a situation like this, but that's really not the way my family does things.

The Coleman stove is perched on the inert grill outside and I had oatmeal with soy milk this morning. It was good to stick to healthy eating. Hopefully, the power will be on tonight. Hopefully, there will be something good at the graduation party I'm attending. Otherwise, it will be whatever we can cook on the Coleman stove or sandwiches for dinner: whatever's easy (and healthy) to fix.

P.S. It must be my lucky day: not only was the food at the graduation great (chocolate fountain with fruit and goodies, anyone?), but only one freezer (the side door one in the older refrigerator) had to be majorly purged. The other frig and basement freezer were intact. I'll also be cooking a lot of things that thawed but were still cold and improvising ingredients like crazy. How does a big breakfast fryup of chicken sausage and veggie soup sound?

Green Cleanup

Kitchen La Boheme, one of my followed blogs had a most excellent post on green products you can use in your kitchen. I thought it was an awesome post, and hope you read it!

It leads me to think of things we can do to make sure our cooking, eating and cleanup is greener:

A big one is to minimize the waste products we have by selecting items which use less packaging. 

Certain cereal boxes, for example, are packaged with less waste than others, such as Cascadian Farm organic cereals, making them better for our bodies and the environment.

Overpackaging comes in things like 100 calorie packs. Count out your own 5 Oreo Minis from a larger package, put it on a plate, put away the package and eat it at the table.

Buy fresh fruits and vegetables and recycle the plastic bags/boxes in which you carry them to the checkout.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. If you have any more green shopping, cooking or cleanup ideas, feel free to make suggestions in the comments area.

Melons and berries, oh my!

I am mad for melons and berries this time of year: cantelope, watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and the little blackberries in our treeline ... whatever's available.

It's truly amazing that I haven't turned some shade between red, purple and orange yet. If I do, I'll put a new, multicolored photo on the blog.

This is the best time of the year to get melons or berries, as far as I'm concerned. Check a grocery store, specialty market or local farmers' market near you. If you're not sure where to find a local farmers' market, see my prior post on the subject.