Take out the take-out!

What does our garbage chez-nous consist of these days? The bathroom's garbage is mostly from disposable diapers (boo on us for this one :<). Our kitchen's is mostly of pieces of packaging that can't be recycled or composted. I think that since doing take-out (DH decided that we had to do this in order for me to have a break from cooking with a crying crawler attached to my leg and a noisy preschooler howling and running around, slamming the fridge and freezer doors and drinking from mylk and juice cartons). Unfortunately, there really aren't any good places to take out from!

If I'm thinking coherently while ordering some Chinese food on the phone, I would ask them to leave out celery and any extra packaged sauces (do people actually add extra soy sauce and chili sauce to whatever is already too salty???) as well as not give us a menu. Our take out experience hasn't improved since beginning this weekly routine. The pros of taking in: no stress in preparing dinner so that I can play with the children and wait for dinner to arrive home with DH; not too many dishes to wash afterward. Cons: poor quality food, cost, waste and guilt of putting unhealthful food into our bodies. We usually order from an Asian place (Chinese or Thai). It's hit and miss whether they will put your food in a styrofoam container or an aluminum one with a cardboard lid line with foil. The Thai place in Oshawa (yes, there's also the mileage that you have to pay for picking it up and bringing it home) uses plastic reusable containers. I used to love them because I could pack food in them without having to buy proper Tupperware. Well, we're trying to reduce pastic containers for liquidy or hot foods, so I tried recycling the containers. The recycling guys didn't take them. The only things I reuse are the brown paper bags. I'm able to recycle the aluminum containers but not the lids, styrofoam and the plastic. That's a lot of waste for one week. It's annoying bulky waste!

There must be a way to by pass this unhealthy take-out routine. If I had a dream restaurant to order from, it'd be like this:
This restaurant would be accessible to walking as well as driving customers. It's a place that welcomes their customers to bring their own containers for the food that they will bring home. For customers who do not have their own containers, the restaurant provides reusable containers that can be returned later. For customers who are from out of town, they can either choose to purchase reusable containers (mostly stainless or glass) or a compostable ones. Customers can bring their own bag or choose from compostable/reusable paper bag or a reusable cloth bag from the restaurant.
The food is made fresh daily. Choices range from organic salads, soups, noodles, stews and casseroles consisting of seasonal local ingredients. This food is so delicious that there is no need to add extra sauces.
Maybe I should open this restaurant... for now I'll just keep dreaming. But I am going to figure out how to prepare meals without stress so that we can drop the garbage that take out brings in. We'll be healthier, and we won't spend so much money.

Little R and Little S developments - a new blog

It's been difficult keeping up with green concentration because something else of great urgency is consuming my energy right now: autism and how to treat it effectively. Please see my new blog: neigenuagers.blogspot.com. I plan to update it more regularly than this one so that I can track the developments of Little R and Little S.

An "eggs"-hausting day

Little S still cries to get me out of bed about 3 times a night. Since we've been sick (it all started with Little R) all last week, I couldn't just let her cry in her crib. I made sure to get out of bed to give her some breast milk. Well, not sleeping enough is making me very tired during the day now, but particularly today for some reason.

I kept yawning all morning while making breakfast, feeding breakfast, cleaning up and playing with the children. Unfortunately, what we ate probably didn't help with the low energy I was experiencing. I made white rice congee that we ate with some deep fried brioche that my mom had brought over yesterday. We also had some frozen vegetarian steamed buns (yes, I did steam them before eating) from No Frills. They weren't very good, but the kids ate the white bun part. It was basically a very low nutrition breakfast. Don't worry, I usually put together adequate breakfasts to start off our days; today was just a very exhausting one right from getting out of bed.

Luckily after lunch Little S decided to fall asleep on her own in her crib during some silent reading time. Lately, since being sick with cold, she has been only falling asleep while I carry her on my back. While she slept, I took Little R downstairs to literally run from wall to wall using the stuffed animals to chase him. He loved it! We were able to warm up and get out lots of pent up energy. Since it's been so cold we haven't been able to go out much for the needed exercise. But as soon as I sat down, I was tired again. I lay down while Little R played with some cars. I rested... until he jumped on me!

While Little S napped, I was even able to chat on the phone with a friend. After chatting I felt a bit more energized to prepare supper. I needed to make something very easy but good to give me back some energy. Potatoes, it was. DH loves potatoes; and the kids seems to like them too. I also decided to make a quinoa salad. All I had to do was prepare the sauce, cook the quinoa and chop up the veggies... and I also let Little R help with putting the chopped veggies into the big bowl.

Things were going well. Then Little S started to cry; she wanted to get out of her crib. I picked her up and changed her diaper. But before I could finish dressing her Little R ran into the room biting on an egg with the shell on. Eeks! I quickly took the raw egg from him, picked up the baby from the change table and followed Little R into his bedroom. There was no sign of eggs there. Then I hurried to the kitchen. Little R had slid the door closed. What was behind the door? I opened it to reveal the cracked eggs on the floor that DH has just mopped yesterday. I put Little S back into her crib, and went back to the kitchen to take a picture for evidence.

How would I clean this mess up? Of course I thought about how much money was just wasted, how much salt and paper towel was I going to use to clean up the mess. I do not like using paper towels unless it's for something like this. I was also worried about salmonella poisoning since Little R was actually trying to bite into the raw egg that hadn't cracked. As I was trying to pick up the eggshells to put back into the carton (this is how we compost them here), Little R came to the kitchen with his pant crotch all wet.

Sigh.

I took him to the bathroom to change him. Little S was crying more now because she did not want to be in the crib. I called DH to ask where the paper towels were. When I finally got them the cat was sniffing at the egg mess. Luckily he didn't get any on his paws to muck up more of the house. I poured some salt on to absorb some of the gooey eggs, spooned what I could into the carton then used the paper towels to soak up the rest. Of course washing with soap and water then spraying with vinegar came after.

Finally, "eggs"hausted, I took the kids downstairs to watch Diego, and waited for DH to come home before doing anything else. Luckily, DH came home early. We went upstairs, put together some salvaged eggs, peas and bean burgers with the potatoes. It was rather satisfying, and I wasn't exhausted anymore.