Food Waste Friday | Dear me.
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.
Well, any of you that have been feeling too shy to post your food waste should feel better after this week!
I wasted:
- a slice of pizza. This was a victim of the shoved-to-the-back-of-the-fridge syndrome, which means I forgot about it until it was too late.
- some grape tomatoes. I'll pick through these to see if there are any salvageable ones, but most of them are bad, I know.
- a not-pictured regular tomato. The rest that I bought that day were fine but this particular one started to mold.
- some grilled pizza dough (well, it's the ungrilled dough, obviously!). I only grilled 3 of the 4 pizzas this recipe makes, and I refrigerated the dough because I was going to use it to make another pizza at some point (oh, good intentions!). Problem is, it's been almost a week now, and the dough is so fermented, I'm not too interested in using it.
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The fermented dough looks pretty bad. Did you dare open the bag? 😉
I didn't! lol I haven't worked up the nerve yet.
You can make beer from fermented bread.
Somehow.
This is my first time playing along and I didn't do to bad. I have been following your site for weeks now and want to thank you for being so inspirational!
I did not do so great this week either. Let's see...a small bunch of grapes that got moldy in the bottom of the drawer, a small piece of lasagna, 2 tortillas that got hard cause the bag was not closed all the way, and one other thing in a small container that I can not remember now. So obviously the plan is to do much better this week.
Oh no! It looks like we've swapped over this week! Last week I ended up with a personal food mountain; this week it's much better!
Never mind; perhaps we'll both achieve zero food waste next week 😉
Ouch, we wasted a bunch this week, including a mostly-full package of baby greens. I stopped doing Food Waste Friday because I figured I had enough of a handle on our food waste that I didn't need to. Boy, was I wrong! I've been tossing food left and right. Apparently being accountable to the internet has been a great way to shame me into being creative with my leftovers! I'll be participating again next week with a lowered head. 🙁
Oh my goodness, I totally hear you. When I skipped doing FWF for two weeks at Christmastime, I wasted SO much more food. I really need to be held accountable. lol
I was sooo close to a zero waste week - just one little item snuck through! I'm determined to pull it off next week 🙂
I think grape tomatoes go so quickly. I'm always trying to use them up before they shrivel up.
I'm kind of amazed (and happy) to report we have no food waste again this week. I could live with this!
I still am so amazed that pizza goes bad at your house, lol. IF there are any leftover when we have it, they call my name in the night! (I'm a big fan of pizza, lol!) We tend to suffer from pushed-to-the-back-of-the-fridge syndrome here too, so I feel ya. Oh well, on to a new week!
lol! And it was my favorite kind of pizza...with supreme toppings. I just forgot about it.
Pizza is one thing that never goes to waste at my house! But I can sympathize with the tomatoes!
That pizza dough...scary! I have some zucchini and a bell pepper that are nearing their final countdown. I plan on putting that in a soup this weekend. The soup should last for two days, a blessing! 🙂
Aw, too bad, but we have all been there. I thought we were going to have a no waste week, but then I found a rotted tangarine. Ugh.
I had no food waste - except - wait for it - a mystery parcel in the freezer. Actually, I know what it was, but no one else did, so it's just as well no one ate it! It was something "sent home" so it wasn't something purchased, but no one wanted it it right away. I froze it, found it, decided to toss it rather and rather than shame the generous, I won't mention what it was. Really, you wouldn't have eaten it either.
I am so thankful you posted your sweet potato muffins. I am making them today. I had a couple of sweet potatoes that were ready to plant! I cleaned off all those roots, peeled and cubed them and boiled them in a bit of water. Went so quickly. Waiting for them to cool to puree. I am going to use Karen's changes to the recipe from last month. I also grind my own whole wheat flour but will use the whole eggs. I think eggs get a bad rap and I buy the free-range ones with the high Omega-3. I am out of chocolate chips, so I was going to elimnate them but that dark chocolate is so good for you 🙂 , think I will just shave some of my dark chocolate bar and add at the last minute.
I totally agree about the eggs...I get mine from a local friend, and I feel fine about eating them yolks and all.
I used my fresh-ground whole wheat flour when I made the muffins, and they still rose just fine. I think I used 50/50 white and wheat.
Not such a great week for us either. Determined to do better next week.
Sweet potato muffins? I don't remember seeing those. I must look that up since I am a huge fan of pumpkin bread- and due to the shortage I haven't been able to make it for several friends who love it.
I must say the muffins turned out beautiful, so moist and delicious. I ended up using 1/2 and 1/2 with the whole wheat and unbleached flour. I was afraid to use all whole wheat the first time. I will always make my "pumpkin" muffins like this - starting with fresh sweet potatoes! None I have ever made or bought stand up to these!
Another no waste week for me!!
No waste for me!!! All my crafting makes me hungry. {I guess!}
WOW! SO you waste food so you can post it on your blog?!....way to go Los%&$!
No, dear new reader. 😉 I post my food waste on my blog so that I will be motivated and accountable in my fight to reduce my waste.
Seriously, some people are ridiculous! Kristen, your attitude, even in the face of such horrible attitudes is really inspiring to me.
I am proud to say I didn't have food waste this week. I also cleaned out my cabinets, and got rid of some items we won't use. (Items had wheat or gluten in them and have been sitting in the cabinet for far too long.) I won't call it waste though cause we gave it to "Stamp Out Hunger" with the post office this morning.
I didn't do so well this week. I forgot about the potatoes and they got seriously scary and mushy.
I also tossed a bag of pretzels rods-WalMart brand they were entirely too salty and made the digusting and I couldn't eat them.
Is that pizza made from the grilled pizza recipe you posted or another one? The crust looks great.
lol! Nope, that's Pizza Hut pizza from my birthday. 🙂
lol...man, I was excited for a new recipe to try! I did find a deep dish recipe/pizza hut copy cat that is pretty good, but didn't look *that* good. I guess I know why! lol
i love this portion of your blog. everytime i throw away food now, i think of you. it is really disgusting the food i throw away because i just didn't use it =(
Over-fermented dough that's been refrigerated makes really good pizza or flatbreads. Actually, I make a 2# batch of dough every couple of weeks and leave it in the fridge in a plastic container for whenever I want a quick flatbread or pizza. It starts tasting like sourdough towards the end & is actually quite yummy. If you let it go three weeks, that's too long, but 2 weeks is ok. It will begin to tear easily though at this age so how I deal with it for pizzas or flatlbread is that I coat the piece I will be using in flour or masa harina, roll it out to the desired shape,, then recoat it with flour so it won't stick to itself and fold it in fourths to transfer it to the griddle/pan. Once it's on the pan, I unfold it to full size again.
What a wonderful idea. I just found your site, as I am preparing for my husband's retirement in about a year. I'm going to try this too, and also work this into the other areas of my life. Do I need a new t-shirt or can I revamp this one? Can I stop wasting money?
Thanks for your inspiration! Down with consumerism...