Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. Why do I do this? Because in March of 2008, I finally got fed up with the amount of food I was wasting, and I thought that showing my waste to other people would motivate me to use up my food instead of wasting it. Because this often embarrassing practice was so helpful for me, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born. If you’re not a blogger but still want some food waste accountability, feel free to participate by leaving a comment.
I’m sorry for the delay in getting Food Waste Friday up this morning…my computer was behaving poorly and I was having difficulty uploading my photo. I’ve got it all fixed up now, though. 
If you are a fan of The Frugal Girl on Facebook, you know that I was struggling this week to use up some leftover salmon. I ate some plain, and then I added some to my scrambled eggs.
Eew.
I ate my eggs and salmon, but I hated it. And after forcing my yucky breakfast dish down, the thought of eating any more salmon was really starting to make me feel nauseated. I might even need a couple of months to recuperate before I buy any more to cook for dinner!
So needless to say, I didn’t manage to eat the one last piece of salmon.
The good news is that I didn’t have any other waste this week, though.
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{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Must be the week for wasted meat!
I am not a fan of leftover fish at all. Something about it just grosses me out. I love fish, and we eat it often, but we are super careful to only buy what we will eat at dinner, otherwise it’s going in the trash.
No food waste for me this week!
I’m not even a big fan of fish when it’s not leftover, so the leftovers were really tough for me.
I did make it through ALMOST all of the salmon, though, so I’m not too upset with myself.
This was not a good week for me food-waste wise. I had an I-just-can’t-eat-any-more-of-this item that ended up getting wasted, too.
didnt have a hideous week but certainly not great, either.
No waste so far for me, but I will have to be careful in the next couple of days to use up what could become waste!
I hear you on the salmon. Probably even more so, since I consider most fish to be ruined by the application of heat. There’s something about salmon in eggs that just doesn’t work for me.
Terrible, terrible week and I knew it would be. I’ve known for months that there’d be weeks like this. See, I signed up for a CSA and I know that early on you get a lot of salad greens. Neither roommate nor I like salad greens much. I composted 2-3 qts (i.e. two large bunches) of salad and other greens.
Plus the usual odds and ends: the last piece of banana bread (the new CI version with 4-6 bananas, tasty!), the last Cottage Cheese Biscuit (made to use up cottage cheese), some of the scallions, ginger and rice from Chinese take-out (the Ginger Chix is really, really good but it has about 5 full scallions in it, which is too much for me).
On the plus side, I put the odds and ends into my new-to-me attractive compost crock, $1.96 from Goodwill.
I definitely have mixed feelings about this “food waste” topic. It has certainly been an eye-opener to me; and I’ve been wasting less food since I started reading your blog. I’ve also “right-sized” my shopping–which is nice on my budget. BUT…and this is a big but…I now look into my fridge and don’t just see food, anymore. I now see “pressure”–pressure to make sure none of that food is wasted! I’m not sure if I agree with choking down something that doesn’t taste appetizing, just to avoid wasting food. I did freeze some meat and rice this week, so it didn’t go into the trash…which is a benefit of watching that waste. But I’m not going to finish the last portion of chicken stir-fry (which doesn’t freeze well) just to avoid putting it in the trash–and it is going in there tonight. And I could start buying even less food so we won’t have waste…but I’m not sure if I want to be rationing food out at the end of the week, either, just to try to make the meals and the calendar come out even. Hopefully, I’m making some sense here. So, I think my new goal is to be aware of trying not to waste food–but I’m not going to necessarily drive myself crazy about it! If some food gets wasted, so be it.
Yep, that’s why I gave up on that last piece of salmon. I am only SO committed to not wasting food, and eating that piece was more than I could take. I don’t really care if someone thinks I’m irresponsible for it…I know I can’t eat anymore salmon this week!
I sympathize with the feeling of pressure…but I know that without that pressure, I cannot be trusted to manage my food waste well. lol
I certainly don’t want to put pressure on anyone else, though…I just want to encourage all of us to try our best to use up the food we have. So, throw away your chicken stir-fry, and know that I’m not thinking poorly of you!
I will be taking a picture of my food waste later this morning and posting it. You got me to join in!
I’m right with you on the salmon, Kristin. It’s the one type of fish I really don’t care for (and saying so is probably some kind of sacrilege here in the NW). Thankfully everyone else here likes it; leftover or not it wouldn’t have lasted long in our house.
No waste here this week, although I did have to toss about two quarts of strawberries from the discount flat I bought into the compost, but I knew before I bought them that some would be bad (that’s why it was discounted!)
What a coincidence! I couldn’t finish our last piece of salmon either! I tried telling myself I should and it’s so good for me but I just couldn’t do it. I like it but I started to feel slightly nauseous after my third helping this week. Other than that there were three small carrots that will need to be composted.
For some reason I have always really liked salmon (both the first time and every time after rewarmed). I think it is because I don’t have fish all the often because my husband doesn’t enjoy it.
I wasted a little bit of homemade strawberry jam (which I don’t feel bad about because the strawberries were going to waste in my parents garden when I picked them and I used up most of the jar I made). I also threw away 2 or 3 stalks of celery and half a tomato that I had cut up for salads and forgotten about. It wasn’t too bad of a week for me.
Meat is always the easiest for me to get rid of, but I just don’t do fish. I have a hard time getting to all the green stuff before it’s wilted and gross. And this week, I found two moldy slices of Swiss cheese that I thought had a lot more time left. Oh well, I’m getting slightly better.
Ha – I actually just cooked salmon sucessfully for the first time last night!
Do you purchase fresh fish or frozen fish and then defrost it? I bought fresh because I wanted to cook it right away, but it was something like $11.99 a pound
There were frozen fillets that were 5 for $10 in a bag, but I didn’t have time to defrost them. Would have been a lot cheaper though!
Believe it or not, I’ve never even tasted leftover salmon. That’s because we love fresh wild salmon so much that I splurge for the incredibly pricey stuff and we share one half pound piece. I would prefer doing that once a month or so than eating frozen or farmed salmon. So there has never been salmon sitting in our refrigerator.
We also eat salmon patties, which is canned salmon and since one small can makes about four small patties, we also never have any of that leftover.
Having said all that though, as much as I love fish, the thought of leftover fish is pretty unappetizing. I actually think that the reason some people don’t like fish is because they have eaten some less-than-fresh, “fishy” tasting fish.
We had food waste, but I was so busy I didn’t have time to clean out the refrigerator or figure out what we had before I left for work this morning.
Hi. Have been reading your blog for a couple of months but am joining in FWF for the first time properly this week. I had been doing really well on making sure I only bought enough food to make what I would actually eat (not what I thought I might eat) and using it all up when I first started reading but have slipped back again in the last couple of weeks after coming back from holiday. So I needed to blog it immediately. Hopefully one or two of the things I mentioned will actually get used this weekend since I now have the pressure of having admitted to getting so close to having wasted them. If I don’t they will definitely need to be dumped next week!
Just an idea for leftover salmon… we sometimes eat it mixed with pasta & alfredo sauce. It is very Yummy. We rarely have leftover salmon at our house, my girls love it. My brother gave me a recipe for a salmon sauce ( brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, & black pepper) cooked & served over rice. My mouth is watering just thinking about this. I might have to put Salmon on the menu next week
I have the best salmon pasta salad recipe ever, its amazing. We just had it two nights ago. Its so delicious with string beans & pine nuts, among much other deliciousness. I normally serve it with a fruity bread & it makes for such a fun summer dinner. I’m thinking I should email this to you if your ever in a salmon jam again.
This was a horrible week for us. I wasted do much I hang my head in shame.
This week was not terrible but not great, we had one golden kiwifruit go bad and I wasted a little bit of left over custard, better luck next week!
If you zizz cooked salmon with a little butter or cream cheese (don’t know what you call that in the States) and add some seasoning, herbs and lemon juice, it makes a nice pate that can be frozen until needed. Or just wrap it well and freeze it anyway.
I am so inspired by all of you that I have vowed to join in and keep accountable :0)
I am not doing so great but will strive to do better!!!
Thanks for your inspiration, I have a couple of blogs but only post all the fruglies to the dreamin of debt free. I am thankful to have such great inspirations to keep me going! Now I am going to start recycling as well!
I finally added my Food Waste Friday post, but on Saturday? Oh well!
Have been reading your blog for a few weeks, was looking in my fridge earlier today and realised that the amount of food that is going to get chucked tomorrow is downright embarrasing!!!! Need to get myself to join in to help make myself accountable to myself, have been toying with the idea of going back to food planning and shopping every 2 weeks so will need to get my act together in all these departements, thanks for being my inspiration for today
I have a question, and hope that maybe someone can help with this. My husband and I both are working full time right now, and only one of the kids is going to camp this summer on a regular basis. That leaves Middle One and the Eldest at home during the day. Middle One is pretty good at not making more food that she can eat, but the older one doesn’t seem to care whether she makes a whole pot of pasta and only eats a bit. How do other parents handle this situation. I don’t want to be a food Nazi and not let the kids make their own food during the day, but how to you make them realize that they need to be concious of what they are making and have a plan to use up the extras. Any ideas?
I use up leftover salmon or any type of fish leftover by making up a batch of basic baking powder biscuit dough and rolling it out flat to about 1/4 inch. Mix the fish with a little mayo, onions, sweet corn, whatever you fancy. Put the mix on the dough and then roll it up.
Cut it into sections (it’s like you are making cinnamon buns) and bake in a square cake pan.
Serve with a creamy white cheese sauce. You won’t even know you are eating salmon!
This works great with a can of tuna fish as well.
Salmon is one thing that never goes to waste around here; I’m addicted. I eat it cold at night while I’m watching tv.