Sophie Wille

For the challenge this week I focused on food waste again. My partner gets a turkey every year from his job for Thanksgiving, but with it being just the two of us it's really not possible to eat that much. So this year, we decided to break down the turkey before roasting it. We have the wings, legs, breasts, and tenders (minus what we ate on Thanksgiving) in the freezer, so none of it will go to waste and we'll have meals for a few weeks. We also make stock and gravy with the bones and giblets. I only got a small bit of gravy, but we have 4 quarts of stock to keep in the freezer. I've already made a batch of soup with the stock, and it's amazing how much better it tastes when it's all homemade. I think holidays can be really tricky for food waste, because there's a lot of pressure to have all of the traditional things for meals, even if a lot gets wasted. I was really happy this year that my partner and I chose to only make our favorites (turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, and brussels sprouts), and didn't let any of it go to waste.

This week for the consumerism challenge I decided to track my spending habits and try to have no spend days. I bought groceries on Monday and Thursday, and ate out on Tuesday. On those days I only spent money on food, not on products. Friday was the only day this week that I bought products, and they were thrifted items. Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday were no spend days for me. This was a fun challenge and I think I'll keep up with this one, because it helped with both budgeting and consuming less.

This week for my transportation themed challenge, my partner and I participated in an Oregon DOT survey. We used an app to track our trips, and answered questions about what modes of transportation we used to get there (walking, biking, driving, transit, etc). The survey got done last night, (Sunday-Sunday) so I decided to post this morning so that it would be completed. From my understanding, they use the data to help inform how people use different modes of transportation, and it was a pretty simple and easy way to contribute some data.

Since I keep feeling like my biggest issue with nearly every category is how much meat I eat, this week I tried making some more meatless dinners. My partner and I only ate meat once this week, and it was chicken. I made carrot and lentil soup one night, and we had the leftovers the next night. We also experimented with some tofu recipes, and while my partner wasn't super on board I liked it. We shredded some firm tofu and cooked it like taco meat, and also pan fried some breaded strips to have in a sticky soy dipping sauce. He was more of a fan of the crispy one, and I think we could easily make that a weekly meal. I feel really good about moving toward a less meat reliant diet.

This week for my eco challenge I focused on some aspects of both community and food. I think our field trip was an important part of that, because it allowed me to participate in a program that’s already doing a lot of good, and it also inspired me to try some things myself. I really want to participate in some of their events going forward, though they don’t have any scheduled right now. I decided that I wanted to host some activities that incorporate food and community, so I invited a group of my coworkers over for a dinner party. I got stuff to make vegan chili and cornbread, so the food we eat will have a reasonably low impact. I think it’ll be 5 or 6 people, so that will also be good for avoiding food waste since we’ll likely finish the whole pot. I’m really looking forward to this, and I think it’s a good way to make connections. The other thing I did this week was carve pumpkins, so I have a lot of pumpkin seeds to roast! I plan on sharing these since it would be too much for me to eat on my own.

The first thing I did this week was find a water footprint quiz to see where I was at. I checked all my faucets, my shower head, and my toilet to see if they were low flow, which happily they are. The quiz showed that food is definitely one of my highest categories for indirect water use, so I want to address that moving forward. But for this week, after doing some research and getting input in class, I decided to reuse my cooking water for my plants, turn off the faucet while washing my face, and turn the faucet off between washing dishes. My actions were pretty small this week, but moving forward I know I need to take a more serious look at my meat consumption, which has shown to be a big issue.

After reading about seasonal produce this week, I decided it would be a good idea to buy my two veggies and one fruit from the farmers market instead of Safeway. I went to the Wednesday market, which is happily only a couple blocks from my apartment, and got come new potatoes and a Kabocha squash (I've never tried this before, but it came on high recommendation). I already have broccoli, grapes, and carrots, so I didn't get much this week, but I plan to not get any produce from Safeway next week, and exclusively shop seasonal and local. Plus, I just got enough for my partner and I, so it was very affordable!

Hello! My waste themed challenge this week was to reduce the amount of produce I waste. Usually, I buy broccoli, asparagus, carrots, herbs, and citrus about once a week. Unfortunately, more often than not, some of my produce has to be wasted because it grows mold before I use it. I did some research and found the best ways to store broccoli, asparagus, and cilantro, since these were the produce items I purchased this week. For the asparagus, I sliced off the ends and stored it in a jar of water in the fridge. I did the same with the cilantro. I decided to blanch the broccoli, pat it dry, and stored it in a reusable container in my freezer. It will last in there for about 3 months before going bad. The asparagus lasted 4 days before I ate it, and tasted fresh! The cilantro is still in the fridge, and has not started to wilt yet. I’m happy to report that I did not have to throw out any produce this week! I’ll definitely continue to use these methods to store my fresh fruits, veggies, and herbs.