DIY Life

At my house, we really try our best to live in an environmentally friendly way, for our health and the Earth's. We eat local, fresh food as much as we can, we never use chemicals on our lawn or plants, we don't clean the house with chemicals, and we have quite the raging compost pile.

It seems that we got a bit overzealous with the composting, in fact. Last fall, after carving a stunning Jack-o-lantern, we responsibly dumped the innards of the pumpkin into our composter.

Throughout the autumn, we had several pumpkins displayed on our walkway and stoop. When it was time to put up the Christmas decorations, we plopped the pumpkins in the composter. Follow me after the break; I'm going somewhere with this...

After a long, cold winter, the bountiful seasons of spring and summer are here. Fruits and vegetables that often disappear from local markets over the winter are plentiful and inexpensive. With food prices soaring, it's tempting to take advantage of sales on produce, bakery items, and meat. Unless you have a way to store those perishables, however, buying in bulk will just lead to throwing away in bulk when the food goes bad.

The freezer is the perfect place to keep food good for a longer period of time. Most foods can be frozen for at least three to eight months, making that "buy one get one free" sale you just discovered a lot more tempting!

Suite 101 has several tips for freezing fresh foods, including breads, cheese, milk, and herbs, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables. While those tips are relatively simple and straightforward, a user at Epinions has some more advanced techniques, for those of you who are really trying to squeeze pennies out of your food budget. Finally, Love Food Hate Waste has five tips for preventing food waste (and dollar waste) in the kitchen. When every penny counts, these tips might help.