How to beat the "I-want-to-eat-fresh-vegatables-but-I-always-let-them-rot" blues

At the store, buy carrots, celery, broccoli, a few onions, a small bag of potatoes, a small package of sausage (Italian or sweet, your preference) and a cake of bird suet (because you ought to, but seldom do). Total, $12 at the Big M in Spencer.

When you get home, throw a load of laundry in the washer. This only takes a sec.

As you unpack your groceries, get out a pot, knife, and a cutting board.

Fill the pot with 3-5 cups of water and put it on "high" on the stovetop.

Peel three of the carrots. Cut them lengthwise, and then chop them into small pieces. Throw them in the pot. Put the rest of the carrots away in the fridge. If there are old carrots in the fridge, pull them out, cut them into a few big pieces, and throw them in a plastic grocery bag or a bowl for compost.

Wash the broccoli. Cut off the tough end of the stems and toss them in the compost bag. Slice off the rest of the stems up the the floral part of the broccoli. Throw the good stems in the pot of water. Break apart the broccoli florets and put them in a ziplock bag so they are ready to munch on them when you are hungry. Put this in the fridge. Look for more old veggies in the fridge to pull out and throw in the compost bag/bowl. Old bread, etc. are also fair game. Don't ask "Is it expired?" Ask "Will I really eat it?" If the answer is "no" throw it out now.

Cut off the entire top of the celery bunch. Throw the top in the compost bag. Wash the whole remaining bunch. Chop off about a cup in small pieces. Throw these in the soup pot. Wrap the celery in foil and put it in the fridge. Pull out the old grody celery you'll find in the vegetable drawer.

Pull out a few of your new potatoes. Hopefully you got some in good enough shape that you don't need to peel them. Wash and cut three potatoes into bite sized pieces. Put the rest of the potatoes away in the cupboard. Look for old potatoes to toss. Throw these in the compost bag. You may need to cut the old potatoes in half so they will rot faster.

Peel and chop up an onion. Throw in the pot. Put the rest of the onions away. (ditto discard old onions you may find...)

Rinse off the cutting board. Take the sausage and cut into 4-5" long pieces. Slit the skin on one piece and put in a small frying pan. Wrap the remaining pieces individually and put in the fridge for future cooking options. Fry up the sausage, breaking it into little pieces.

Put half of the sausage in the soup pot and keep the rest in the pan. By now the soup should be boiling. Turn it down on "low." Don't let it boil over or it will just piss you off, ruining the whole exercise.

Immediately wash up everything you used, wipe down the counters, throw away anything that needs to be thrown away, and put away remaining groceries.

Take the old vegetables and trimmings out to your compost tumbler, compost pile, etc. Bring your suet with you. If you don't have a composter, take the scraps as far from your house as you can and throw them out for the critters. Scatter them, don't dump them in a pile.

Don't do this if you have bears. :)

If you don't have compost or a country back yard, I guess you have to throw the trimmings out. What a pity.

Put the suet in your suet feeder. Fill your bird feeders if they need filling.

Wash your bowl/throw out the plastic bag.

When the soup has been boiling about 45 minutes and the veggies are soft, take it off the heat. Take a smoothie wand and put it in the soup and turn it on for about 10 seconds. This will puree about half the soup, making it thicker. Throw the rest of the sausage in. Turn the soup off if dinner is an hour or less away, then warm up right before dinner. Don't overcook. Freeze the leftovers in dinner-sized portions or save some for lunch the next day.


How will this keep you from wasting your fresh vegetables?

It won't, but when you discover they have rotted in your fridge or cupboard in a few weeks, you can console yourself that at least you got one batch of soup out of them, did your laundry, fed the birds, cleaned your fridge and your pantry (so you won't encounter future nastiness), ate at least part of the broccoli if you remembered it was in the little ziplock bag, picked up your kitchen, and had sausage to use for spaghetti or breakfast.

Your house will also smell good for a day. You will have gotten a nice feeling of accomplishment once everything is done.

Then the future-forgotten veggies won't seem like such a waste.

And it only took a half an hour.

Unless you blogged about it. Then it added another 20 minutes.