Food Waste Friday | Two Things.
Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. I started doing this in March of 2008 to help motivate myself to use up my food instead of wasting it and it's been very effective. Since it helped me so much, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.
After several weeks with nothing to show you, I'm back with photographic evidence of my waste.
I think I bought this nacho dip for our Super Bowl snacks back in, um, February. And given how un-food-like this is, I didn't even think it was possible for it to go bad.
Let me tell you, it can. Holy moly, that stuff smelled rank when I opened it.
So, it's going into the trash. I reeeeeally don't think processed cheese dip should go into my compost. 😉
I also wasted some green beans.
Normally I manage to cook just enough for us to eat at one meal, but I overcooked (or we under-ate!) this time. I don't know about you, but leftover cooked green beans are really, really unappealing to me. I had great intentions of eating them despite my lack of enthusiasm at the prospect, but I didn't manage to get past the intention part and into the action part.
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I had a disastrous week with enough food to feed an army. Some of it was truly rank too and I had to light joss sticks after taking the top off one container.
Ewww.
I don't mind green beans the following day; I flash fry them in butter with garlic 🙂
Some type of food poisoning here this week, so all leftovers are out the door....at least fridge is clean now.
We've done well this week. The fridge is nearly cleaned out which means it's time for me to shop and re-stock.
I don't care to eat leftover green beans plain but like you, we had some leftover this week. I used them a couple of days later in a beef skillet meal. They're also good used in a stir-fry dish.
Any mold in the con queso jar? 😉
We had some bad times here, some bread, some onions, and a Spanish Tortilla.
Not too bad here; an onion that had molded and a squash that I forgot about. I hate leftover green beans too. There are some in the fridge at the moment and I am feeling very uninspired about about eating them. Mrs. Green's suggestion about tossing them in butter and garlic is a good one; I might be doing that!
Ooh, there are so many things other than throwing away leftover veggies! Good suggestions so far - here are a couple more: put them in an omelet or quiche, add them to soup, or a pot pie; marinate them and add to a salad...
Good week here. We need our food too much not to eat it! (cash is low till my market season begins in a few weeks)
Leftover cooked veggies get tossed into the weekly soup pot around here! Or sometimes in a pasta dish. I didn't have any "new" food waste this week but found a couple things lurking in the back of the fridge that should have gone in last week's report. I've got a tip about preventing food (like bulk flours, etc) from going "buggy" in my post this week as well.
Two good weeks in a row for me! However, I expect to waste at least a little parsley next week, since the bunch in the crisper has started to dry up. I'm determined to use some of it though, so we'll see how much is left!
What about drying the rest in the oven and making your own parsely flakes?
Oops, I mean parsley!
I suggest letting the kids try snacking on the green beans... cold, or just a bit warmed up... with their fingers, like french fries. For some reason whatever my kids eat with their fingers is considered a treat. Maybe my kids are just weird... they sneak the spinach from the fridge too...
I don't like recycled cooked vegetables in general, so really try hard with my portion control!
Cooked, cold green beans are great in a green salad. I had half an apple this week that had to go.
One way I avoid having to eat leftover vegetables that are plain and unappealing is to freeze them together for soup. I keep a container in the freezer where I dump small leftover portions throughout the month. When it is full, I use it to make vegetable soup. Of course, I dump things like green beans, carrots, beans, potatoes, etc.
Another good week here with no waste. The whole family is in this now to make sure everything gets eaten. My husband now sort of plans his lunches around what needs to get used up. He's taken some mighty interesting lunches to work the past few weeks!
I did terribly this week! I guess my no waste karma from the past few weeks is being balanced out.
SEVEN hard boiled eggs went bad. This makes me very sad - I like HB eggs. I'd made them from eggs that had been around a while, and put them in a egg carton underneath the raw egg carton, and didn't label the carton "hard boiled." Lesson learned. Next time I'll put them in a bowl in the fridge. Also a cut apple I'd taken to work went moldy. As did some melon (which I also love). And some leftover dish although I don't remember what. Does leftover bread/tortilla from dining out count?
On the positive side, I made rice pudding from leftover rice, and bread pudding from leftover homemade bread, which I brought to my elderly neighbor who loved it. I rescued a lot of food by making an omlet of sauteed mushrooms, sauteed celery, minced water chestnuts, and almost-bad chix I'd preserved in the fridge. With garlic, a bit of tabasco, and Penzey's Brady Cheese Sprinkle it was good.
Mrs Green has a point - butter and garlic improves almost anything. If not, freeze it and put in the next soup you make.
I like leftover green beans! I can not stand leftover fish, so I usually make just enough for dinner. Most of the time it works out, but occassionally I end up tossing out a small piece of fish.
We had a pretty bad food waste week. Hopefully next week will be better.
I suspect you could sneak a few leftover green beans into any smoothie that had other green stuff in it without getting "caught". I doubt it would alter the taste much, especially if the other green stuff is spinach. Also a great add-in to gazpacho, chopped or pureed.
I think you're doing an awesome job of reducing food waste. Think about this as well: it's probably a good sign that the processed fake cheese product sat around long enough after the Super Bowl to go bad. Nobody at your house was interested in eating it. Success! I doubt that too many households with four kids would have the same experience.
toss those green beans into a container for the freezer...for future soups. OR cook up some rotini pasta, add some Italian salad dressing, the green beans plus red beans, garbanzo beans and whatever. fresh herbs if you have them. marinate awhile then yum!
I had a few slices of cucumber that got left behind when we traveled. After the year-old food I had to throw last week, it was a good week.
As for parsley, fresh herbs and other aromatics like celery and green onion - if they start to look dried out, chop them (I use kitchen shears) and freeze them in little containers, and take out what you need for sauces and soups. You wouldn't use them fresh in a salad, but cooked they are no different.
Not our best week here either. I had to waste three apples I got from the farmers market. Not because I didn't get to them they were already rotten when I went to cut them up. That is what bothers me more than anything already wasted before I can use them.
I also have a couple of potatoes that are on the fringe but I plan to cut them up,boil,then fry them up.
A no-waste week for us, yay! I think it was mainly because I did a "light" grocery shop this week since we had a huge CSA delivery and some leftovers already...
I actually have some corn in the fridge that I'm feeling the same way about. Blech!
I actually had a great week for food waste! It's because I bought a vitamix last weekend, so we've pretty much been eating nothing but smoothies and vitamix ice cream all week! You can even make soup in a vitamix!
A no waste week!!!
I had a great waste save this week. A few weeks ago I opened a can of coconut milk for a recipe and didnt' use all of it. I was afraid that it was going to go bad before I used it. Fortunately I found a recipe for Brazilan Chicken that used coconut milk and some other extras in the fridge. No waste and a yummy dinner!
I actually don't mind left-over green beans. If you sprinkle them with toasted seseme seeds or toasted almonds it greatly improves them.
I'm hoping that you didn't discard the jar as it can be recycled.
Hi Pat,
You must be a new reader. "Our" Kristin would never! Have fun reading the archives!
Heloise tip--- Store jared items like salsa cheese dip horseradish applesauce plus yougurt, cott cheese, sour cream etc. tightly close in the fridge upside down. mold needs air to grow Amazing how long the stuff lasts. Also any containers that have had mold in them soak in viniger to kill all of the spoors.
Left over veg's seal in small plastic frezer bag and add to soups. Each seperate do not add next days to yesterdays. could cause food poisening as yesterdays thaws a bit.