Beyond the Bin: Recycling Clothes, Furniture, and More

Most people know to recycle paper, cardboard, plastic, metal, and glass.  But many other things can be recycled, too.  Go to your favorite search engine and type in "how to recycle [thing]," and you'll probably find something.  Still, we wanted to have a page here for these items.  We've just added it, and we'll try to update it periodically.  If you know of a great resource, whether local or national, let us know, and we'll add it to the page!

Potatoes

Continuing on my "prepared foods" binge, our next topic of discussion is potatoes.  Well, I guess we could call them hash browns... hashed browns?  You can buy them in the frozen foods section of the grocery store, but I like my potatoes out of the ground with a little dirt on them... I can hear my dad saying "man up" already.  

Anyway, I do buy potatoes in the store, or more recently, receive them in our CSA.  Hash browns are half of my breakfast every morning and since we are trying to do better on the zero waste front, I decided it is probably just as easy to make them myself vs. buying them pre-shredded and in plastic. 

Actually, I started this little adventure by making home fries.  I would chop the potatoes into small cubes and par broil them...you know, those were pretty good.  I'll just give you the recipe:

Home Fries:

1.  Cut as many potatoes as you want into 1/4"-1/2" cubes. The smaller the better if you like crunchy home fries like me.

2.  Put them all into a pot, and fill the pot with enough water to just cover them.

3.  The goal is to par broil them, meaning soft, but not falling apart.  Usually they come to a boil and need about 5 minutes.

4.  I keep enough to cook for one meal now, and put the rest in a container in the fridge for the rest of the week.  

5.  Mince some onion and throw it in a skillet with some oil (this is optional, but adds a lot of flavor).  Add some cumin, paprika, salt, and anything else that feels right.  (I stop just shy of the kitchen sink.)

6.  Add the potatoes and get everything well coated.  The longer you cook them, the crispier they get.  

Add a couple of eggs and BAM there's breakfast! (Just try not to bam those eggs all over the floor...)

Anyway, back to the hash browns.  If you have a food processer this should take all of 5 minutes.  If you don't, well, this might not be worth it.  It probably isn't worth your time to sit there and grate 2 full potatoes.  Then again, if that's what you have, go for it!

Hash Browns: 

1.  Wash the dirt off the potatoes.  Seems obvious, but Stephanie had to train me on that one. (that was for you Dad... cue the Tim Allen grunt.)

2.  Cut the potatoes in half so they fit in the food processer with the grater attachment.  (I know this is a silly step to have, but I've got to have more than one step in the process right?)

3.  Grate the potatoes...

4.  Dump some into a pan with some oil and cook on medium heat.  

5.  Place the rest of the grated potato on a silicone mat on a baking sheet.  Spread them out into a single layer.  Don't skip the mat on this one, believe me, they will stick to the pan.

6.  Put the sheet pan in the freezer and give it 4 hours.  When they are frozen, take them out, break them up, and put them in a silicone ziplock bag.  Place back in the freezer for tomorrow.

7.  Quick! back to the pan it's going to burn!  Flip the potatoes and finish frying them up.  Add salt to taste.

8.  That's it!  You have just made breakfast and frozen prepared hash browns for the week! 

Food processer!

Hash browns in the skillet

Frozen hash browns