As you probably know, an unexpected and very powerful storm hit the East Coast last Friday night, knocking power out for millions of people.
And those of us here at Chez FG were part of those millions.
Last year when Hurricane Irene made her way up the coast, we had plenty of warning, so I moved food to the chest freezer, filled the fridge with frozen water jugs, and made sure not to have a lot of food in the house.
But this time around, there was no warning.
Obviously, that meant I wasn’t quite as prepared on the food front this time. We did buy some bags of ice to put in our chest freezer and fridge, and I quickly moved some items from my under-the-fridge freezer to the chest freezer.
Thankfully, we got our power back on before the weekend was out, but the freezer under my fridge didn’t stay very cold. And since I’d rather err on the safe side than get food poisoning, I threw out the food that was still in there.
I didn’t take a picture, but it was about a plastic grocery bag’s worth of food.
On the upside, my freezer is cleaner than it’s been probably since I got it, which is quite lovely. Hopefully I can maintain that level of cleanliness for at least a little while.
Of course, another (large) upside is that all six of us are safe. And not only that, no trees or branches fell on our house or vehicles, so I really can’t complain!
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How did you do this week?
EcoCatLady
Saturday 7th of July 2012
Thanks for the tip on the frozen jugs of water in the chest freezer. We generally only lose power in the winter during big blizzards, so I'm sorta hoping that pattern will hold since in that case, ice would be easy to come by! Glad you and yours are safe and that the only casualty was a bit of frozen food!
No food waste here other than some potato plants that up and died on me. Some of the spuds were salvaged though.
You totally inspired me to clean out my pantry about a month ago. I tossed two boxes of stuff that was WAY past the expiration date and am slowly working through the backlog of "use it or lose it" things. My goal has been to incorporate at least one thing from the "use it up" pile into every meal. There's a LONG way to go, and I fear I may be eating pinto beans and rice at every meal from now until eternity, but it certainly has shined a light on my overly-exuberant stocking up tendencies!
WilliamB
Saturday 7th of July 2012
You are not responsible for Acts of God, even if that Act results only in food having to be thrown out.
Tracy
Friday 6th of July 2012
I am glad that your safe, that's the number one most important, Tracy
Katy @ Purosely Frugal
Friday 6th of July 2012
I think I actually got through the week without any waste!! But I do have to admit I threw out about a pound of hamburger meat last week. It sat defrosting in my fridge for a very long time, and when I went to cook it up it was grey and smelled weird, so I sadly tossed it.
Amanda @ Flour and Lace
Friday 6th of July 2012
It was a very, very bad week for us food-wise. And we weren't even affected by the storm, so no excuses here. It was mostly stuff that got shoved to the back of the fridge, the worst of which was almost an entire boneless ham. :(