Saving the Environment, One Turkey Breast at a Time

About author / Sarah Christine Bolton

Coffee addict; professional food writer; food fusion. Her slow cooker recipes go above and beyond your normal crockpot fare.

I’m convinced that Wal-Mart is only open after 9:30pm. That's because that’s the earliest I’ve ever been. Wal-Mart, or really any grocery store after 8:00pm, is a very dismal place to be. The fluorescent lights seem harsh and accusing after the darkness outside. The late-night workers have clocked in for their shift, and they pull merchandise out of dirty plastic with great enthusiasm and energy, well disguised by boredom.

I do have to give Wal-Mart some props. The last time we were there, they had reusable grocery bags for sale as you stand in line. Supposedly, each bag is made out of six plastic bottles, lasts for a long time and replaces lots of plastic bags.

Maybe it was so late and I was so hungry and the line was so long that somehow I decided that this was the most brilliant idea Wal-Mart had come up with since the whole Super idea. So I bought several.

This whole plan would have been brilliant on a normal Wal-Mart run. However, on this particular evening, not only were we buying the reusable grocery bags, we were hoping to have the cashier ring them up, and hand them back to us, so we could start saving the environment right then and there.

Brilliant, except that we ended up in the line with the slowest cashier on earth. It took him, on average, about 30 seconds per item. The pattern went something like this: He would pick up an item, look at it as though he had never before set eyes on such a thing, search for the barcode, attempt to scan the barcode, fail, look at the barcode closely, attempt to scan again, repeat, repeat, finally get item to scan, carefully place item into bag, rearrange item in bag, look at it one last time. Repeat entire sequence for a full shopping cart. And this was just the people in front of us.

When we finally got to him, and I tried to explain how we wanted him to ring up our reusable grocery bags, take the tags off, and give them back to us to use. It shook up his entire worldview. Somehow, we managed to get out of there before midnight. My husband blamed the entire predicament on my efforts to be environmentally-minded.

I felt bad, so I promised to make him dinner the following night. Me making him dinner happens almost as rarely as a blue moon, so it’s definitely a make-everything-better move on my part. When he called to tell me he was on his way home the next day, he asked if there was meat involved with my make-up dinner. I assured him that, yes, there was plenty of meat, 3 pounds of it, actually.

One of the infamous items that had been carried home in the environmentally-friendly Wal-Mart bags was a turkey breast. I threw it into the crockpot with some potatoes and broccoli, and it came out tender and juicy. My husband loved it, and decided I wasn’t a psycho hippie chick who was determined to have him living on tofu and solar-powered bicycles.

So, my personal philosophy for saving the environment is as follows: Make emotionally-charged and lack-of-sleep driven decisions about possible options to save the environment (like purchasing reusable Wal-Mart shopping bags). Somehow manage to make those decisions at the most inconvenient times. And then, when your decision backfires, and your husband is ready to chop down every tree in the world just to prove a point, cook him whatever kind of food makes him love you again, so that he will continue to support your eco-friendly urges.

As for me, I am determined to save the environment, one turkey breast at a time.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 3 pounds boneless turkey breast
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons rosemary
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 medium potatoes, thinly sliced
• 2 cups broccoli florets