Food Waste Friday | Of Peppers and Pancakes
A slimy pepper half was living in my vegetable drawer, so now it's gone off to my compost bin.
And last night, one of my kids was helping me making Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes.
Which was awesome and all, except that due to a slight sous-chef error, we had baking powder in our pancakes instead of baking soda.
The pancakes from that batter were flat, oddly-colored, and had a kind of bitter taste to them.
If we were totally destitute, I suppose we would have eaten them, but since we can afford not to eat flat, bitter pancakes, I mixed up a new batch (with baking soda this time!) and got rid of the other batch.
(We ate them with blueberries and whipped cream, both from Aldi. I was so happy to see that heavy cream is a summer seasonal item this year. Yay!)
On a happy note, I had some grape tomatoes that were getting a bit squishy for raw eating, so I cooked them up with some onion and Italian seasoning, pureed them, and voila, they turned into tomato sauce.
I too was so excited to find heavy cream at Aldi last week! Perhaps they will soon decide to make it a regularly available item.....
That is interesting the mistake that was made with your pancakes. About a month ago I was making pancakes and the recipe I use (from my mother in law) calls for baking powder and not baking soda. I switched the two and our pancakes tasted awful! I guess there's all kinds of pancake recipes and if the combination that is being used isn't correct, you can end up with interesting results!
Yay! This is my second Friday participating along side you in the Food Waste Friday. Last Friday was some grilled cabbage and two pickles that were kind of slimy in the jar (ewwww as my 2 year old granddaughter would say). This Friday.....notta, nothin. I made sure to freeze the spaghetti that wasn't getting eaten and the taco meet that was left over. Sweeeet!
Oh forgot to mention...I love Aldi. That is where we do the bulk of our grocery shopping. Their produce has come along way too. Kudos to Aldi.
I, too goofed this week, adding baking soda instead of baking powder to my banana muffins. Fortunately, it was only dry ingredients when I realized my mistake & I was able to scoop most of it out. Oooops, I forgot to add that baking soda to my food waste list!
We have been doing great...but that's mostly because we're moving several states away and I haven't bought groceries in over two weeks. 😉 And I don't know where you live or what your city's codes are on having backyard hens, but hens are great for tons of reasons--kids love them, they gobble up bugs (especially out of the garden) like mad, they lay delicious eggs (waaaay better than store bought) AND they'll eat just about anything that's gone bad in the kitchen. They really don't cost that much to maintain or get started and they're so helpful. That's what we do with our old food anyway!
-Rachael from The Rehomesteaders
I didn't blog about it today, but I wasted way less than last week!
I was feeling so proud of my family for not wasting (really it's their appetite that does it --they're like Hoovers on steroids when they open the fridge). Then I found 4 beets, from last years garden, behind the big bag of yeast. Oh well, at least they can be composted.
I got way too excited about the cheap veggies @ Shaws this week and bought too much for just me and my husband! But I've been having salads all week for lunch at work so we're doing ok on it!! I did have to throw away a bunch of stuff last week 🙁 Oh and almost an ENTIRE American Flatbread Co frozen pizza. I cooked it and it tasted like plastic. I had 2 pieces and just coudln't eat it anymore 🙁 I emailed the company. It was a sad day!
I think the pizza doesn't count against you! I wouldn't eat anything that tasted remotely like plastic...
I kept meaning to write to you about this but a couple of weeks ago I was so proud of myself! There was a dried up lemon in the fridge that wasn't good to eat or use in water or anything, so I squeezed the juice into a bowl w/ cream of tarter and baking soda, and used it to clean the tub! And then I used the rest of the lemon and put it in a bowl w/ water and steamed the microwave clean with it! And then we had a package of hot dog and a package of hamburger rolls that were stale, I used them to make a baked french toast for breakfast, and then kept 2 hot dog rolls to make garlic bread for dinner! I wish I could do it every week but with a 10 month old, a 40 hour a week job, house construction going on, and my husband working 40 hours plus overtime or going to conferences every week...it's hard!
I think you're doing fantastically, no matter what the food waste may be.
Wow!! You did great with that lemon, and the stale buns!
Way to go, Barrie! I don't call that waste at all. And it's sort of how I look at having to compost something, at least the food is getting used, to help this next year's garden.
Ooh, good for you! I love it when I can manage to find a use for non-edible food.
It was bad. Very, very bad. We didn't eat everything in the fridge before we left for the long weekend, and the meatballs I took with us on the trip to eat were inedible. 1.5 lbs of organic beef in the trash, in addition to the leftovers in the fridge. 🙁 Since then it's been better - I used 2 leftover cooked hamburgers, some boiled potatoes and misc. other things to make a variation on a cheeseburger quiche. Not a bite of leftovers, so at least I won't have to worry about THAT going bad! 🙂
I would love to know how you make your tomato sauce as it looks amazing. This is my first year growing about 14 tomato plants and we are growing garlic and other items to put in it but have never made the actual sauce. I have several tomatoes that are ready to pick soon and since my family doesn't eat them plain we are planning on making sauce. Thanks.
This week I think inattention to cooking actually paid off - I only wasted half a lime but there's not much else in the fridge besides that. Gotta get myself some summertime structure up to do more cooking!
LOTS of food kicking around here but good reason...
Your pancake story reminds me of the delicious looking chocolate cake I made for a Cub Scout cake sale, with baking soda instead of baking powder...Husband kindly said that if I took it to the sale he would buy it, so that the Cubs would still get the benefit. Just as he was about to do so, somebody nipped ahead of him and bought it and Husband didn't like to say anything! I felt awful as it must have tasted foul!
Just a few things today: Tortillas and some pasta that I tried to save but it ended up just not tasting very good. Not bad!
half a cabbage this week, no excuses - just lazy :0(
no food waste for me- two weeks in a row,if I go another week I'll tie my record.
I wish we had an Aldi!! When we lived in the DC area there were several. But now that we've moved we're left without one.
I put baking powder in my pancakes, and they're delicious and fluffy. I guess it's a matter of the recipe and proportions.
Anyway, we have very little waste in our house this week. Some lettuce had to be composted and I had one rotten cucumber. We have a small fridge, and I think that helps immensely.
Never join in, but always carry the idea of "Food Waste Friday" with me...especially when four squash and half a watermelon went to the compost last week. :/
The fridge was almost bare today as it took part in it's weekly photo-shoot. A little bit of fruit - snacks for the weekend. Some buttercream to use up from my jubilee cupcakes, so some more of those on the list to bake this weekend. All good! Hurrah!
Is the tomato sauce recipe on the blog? I'll have to do a search. I'm trying to find a really good sauce that I can use for pizza topping, ragu for my spag bol and also just to pour over cooked pasta. The Aldi version of chopped toms and herbs we have in the UK is fantastic for all 3 of these uses, but I really would like to have something as good if not better that's home-made....
I did good again this week!
Tomato sauce! You are SO resourceful!
This is the week I changed my fridge! Everything that is a leftover of something goes on the top shelf in my fridge. I explained this to the husband and he thought it was great! I just moved things so the big stuff like milk fit in the middle and so on. Now that leftovers of everything and anything are on top we can see them all and know we need to eat it 😀 Such an ahah moment for food waste Friday.
Off-topic - when I saw this little whale headband I thought of Zoe, and had to send you the link. 🙂
http://www.flaxandtwine.com/2012/05/felt-hair-pretties.html
Cheers!
I did not blog about our food waste this week... But I want to report that I wasted $10 worth of dumplings!
After I got it, I left it in the fridge and forgot to freeze it until 3 days later. I cooked them maybe another week after. Then, I remembered, when they were still in boiling water, that the dumplings had air bubbles in them when I bagged them to put in the freezer. It suddenly clicked what those bubbles mean - these dumplings had gone bad! I was right 🙁
Not only did I wasted the dumpling but also the water, the gas and the time trying to cook them. My family had to wait another 45 minutes before I was able to put some food on the table.
Sad.
Note to self: meat needed to be in the freezer. In the Freezer. IN THE FREEZER!
Don't think I really threw anything out this week. Next week might be a different matter though as I went to the farmer's market and I think I will use up the strawberries and sugar snap peas. But I do find myself with a bit much lettuce, so we shall see!