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.
First off, thanks to all of you that weighed in on the e-book topic question! I wouldn’t say there was an overwhelming topic winner, although the grocery topic and Christmas topic were probably mentioned the most, so I’ll likely make those two a priority.
On to food waste!
This week, I let a portion of pizza dough go to waste. I’d made enough dough for 4 pizzas, ended up needed to make only 3 and then I put the dough in the fridge with grand intentions of baking up another fresh pizza for lunch the next day.
But that didn’t happen and didn’t happen and ultimately a whole week went by. At that point, the yeast was sort of exhausted, and if I’d made pizza with the dough, it wouldn’t have risen right or tasted right, and then I’d probably have wasted tomato sauce, cheese, and toppings along with the pizza.
I also wasted a mango. I thought it was ripe, but it was way past ripe…it was brown and icky inside. I don’t buy mangoes all that often, so I’m not super skilled at figuring out when they’re ready to eat.
Unfortunately, I have no photos to share of these two items because I threw them out in a hurry earlier in the week. My apologies!
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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.
Today’s 365 post: My goodness, I love fall!
Moonwaves
Sunday 31st of October 2010
One more lesson from the book of 'saving it for a treat' this week - try saving the apple tart for too long and it'll go mouldy and that last piece you were sooooo looking forward to won't be quite as edible as you'd wish!
Wanda
Saturday 30th of October 2010
I wasted spaghetti and meatballs and pasta salad this week.They were left overs from late last week and I was on staycation this week and ate out more than home .
Jesilee
Saturday 30th of October 2010
Not so good a week... Our roommate has a new girlfriend that he met on tuesday, and so far the only night she didn't eat dinner with us was thursday. Really annoying that I made some spagehtti that she decided to leave a ton on her plate, and over half a burger tonight. There is one plate of spaghetti the roommate says he will eat tomorrow, I hope so. I had to throw out a few dinner rolls that were hard from last week, and a bit of leftover stuffing and turkey gravy.
But I am happy to say that I used the loaves of wheat bread I messed up (didn't rise right? Or maybe too much wheat flour. Eitherway way way too dense) to make breadcrumbs for my burgers.
Mary
Friday 29th of October 2010
I have done that exact same thing and it worked! I was making bread and for whatever silly reason it just didn't rise (yes I added yeast the first time around, lol). So rather than throw it away, I thought,what the heck, and decided to experiment. I mixed yeast in with warm water and a dash of sugar and let it rest a bit to activate and then I mixed it into the dough. My bread rose and all was well.
Dmarie
Friday 29th of October 2010
Read in one of Julia Child's cookbooks that if the dough fails to rise, add fresh yeast. If memory serves, she adds yeast that's been proofed in a little warm water. With a too-long refrigerated dough, I believe I'd have given it a try (once the dough was room temp.).