Food Waste Friday | Some power outage casualties
As you probably know, an unexpected and very powerful storm hit the East Coast last Friday night, knocking power out for millions of people.
And those of us here at Chez FG were part of those millions.
Last year when Hurricane Irene made her way up the coast, we had plenty of warning, so I moved food to the chest freezer, filled the fridge with frozen water jugs, and made sure not to have a lot of food in the house.
But this time around, there was no warning.
Obviously, that meant I wasn't quite as prepared on the food front this time. We did buy some bags of ice to put in our chest freezer and fridge, and I quickly moved some items from my under-the-fridge freezer to the chest freezer.
Thankfully, we got our power back on before the weekend was out, but the freezer under my fridge didn't stay very cold. And since I'd rather err on the safe side than get food poisoning, I threw out the food that was still in there.
I didn't take a picture, but it was about a plastic grocery bag's worth of food.
On the upside, my freezer is cleaner than it's been probably since I got it, which is quite lovely. Hopefully I can maintain that level of cleanliness for at least a little while.
Of course, another (large) upside is that all six of us are safe. And not only that, no trees or branches fell on our house or vehicles, so I really can't complain!
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How did you do this week?
We fared the storm well also with only minor damages and outages. Unfortunately, several of my friends are still waiting on power. Food waste is big for them, but they're happy to have their houses in tact. I think the "don't know what you have until you lose it applies here."
Food waste caused by a 'force majure'! You Guys are safe and that's the most important thing of all.
On the food waste front, had a busy week making saves. The food ninja in me shone - haha! Still lost a strawberry and satsuma boo! - to mould. But considering how much rain we're having, I'm surprised I haven't started going green also.
That really stinks! Our power only went out for about 20 minutes at the longest stretch, so we just made sure we didn't open the fridge or freezer during that time and we were just fine. Which makes my food waste 100% my fault. 😉
Glad you're all OK. No storms to blame for my yogurt waste! In my defence I tried to 'save' some rocket but it wasn't an unmitigated success...
I feel bad for all who endured this latest wrath of nature. As you said, at least you're all safe, and your home and cars were not impacted. A little food waste seems to be trifling considering the circumstances.
My food waste has been limited to the garden. Things like not getting all the spinach picked before it bolted. Tried, but was very busy. I picked off what was salvageable, though, before pulling up the plants.
What does "bolted" mean?
I'm picturing the spinach running for it's life, and I'm sure that's not it.
(Can you tell I'm not a gardener?)
I am very pleased to announce NO WASTE in my house this week.
I'm so glad that everything is OK at Chez Frugal.
Spinach is a cool weather crop. When it is warm instead of being a leafy plant it sends up a flower stem (wanting to reproduce itself) This is refered to as "BOLTING" at that point the flavor changes and the leaves are no longer edible.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean for my waste report to show up as a reply to you question.
As AFS said, "bolting" is when it goes to seed. Greens get bitter and tough, as well as much smaller. Still edible, just it's about done with it's productive life, and then you replace it with something new. Funny mental picture, though, of spinach running for its life!
I "see" things in cartoon form all the time. I have a knack for the silly and improbable.
And thanks, everyone, for explaining this to me.
Seething with jealousy here... my spinach bolted back in April. Sigh.
I just had half a lemon and a tiny bit of fajita chicken this week. Not bad, although I wish that we'd eaten the chicken. It was yummy!
My biggest loss this week was my very-first-ever tomato plant. I had it on the deck in a pot and every single cherry tomato had blossom end rot. Too late, I learned that I should have used a much deeper pot and kept the soil moisture more constant. Next year, I'll have more than one plant in deep pots with mulch and hopefully will have loads and loads of yummy tomatoes.
Just got our power back LAST NIGHT. 😛
Lost almost everything--most tragic were two brand-new packages of cheese I had bought on Thursday and an entire gallon of milk that hadn't even been opened, yet. I did act quickly enough after the storm, though, to save 24 chicken thighs, a pound of ground beef, and 4 pork chops, which we grilled at a cook-out on the Fourth.
I am very pleased to announce NO WASTE in my house this week.
I'm so glad that everything is OK at Chez Frugal.
Sorry about the power loss, we have managed to escape that for a couple of years. I have distinct memories of horrible smelling freezers in my childhood, losing power never smells good!
A lot of food waste this week. But I'm moving so I'm using that as my excuse. >.>
We don't get storms or hurricanes here so I don't have to worry about that but I did have a random 24 hour power outage a few months ago. It was a bright sunny day with no warning at all. A car hit the wrong power pole and our power was out for 24 hours. I lost everything in my frig. Thank goodness our two freezers stayed cold.
I would recommend hitting your power company's website for recommendations on throwing food out in your frig. I found a list (after I already threw out catsup, mustard, teryiaki sauce etc.) I guess vinegar based condiments last without refrigeration. Who knew? Also, the more processed the cheese, the longer it lasts (like cream cheese, baby belle type of cheese)
I don't even keep these condiments in the fridge, just out on the counter. I have ketchup, mustard, soy sauce, mayo, and bbq sauce out, and I've never had one of them spoil on me.
Glad to hear that you're ok!
Not too much food waste here, just some salad and spaghetti sauce.
Here in Indiana we got hit by storms to on Friday afternoon. We only lost power for 8 hours and as soon as it went off I told everyone not to open the fridge or freezer, so I didn't loose any food, well at least not due to the power outage....we did have some milk go bad this week, but that was just because we are not big milk drinkers so we have problems finishing 1/2 gallons before they go sour, normally I do up a batch of pancakes, but its been too hot to cook!
Not the best food waste week here. Threw out some left over rice and a tiny bit of left over couscous and an attempt at a chicken mole sauce I had made awhile ago. I did eat some of the left over mole sauce, but wasn't quite right. But I think other than a bowl of salsa rice, there is few leftovers for possible throw out this week. IE the pasta left overs will be eaten, as will the homemade breads. Not much else in the fridge leftover wise. I think the older yogurts are finally mostly being eaten anyway, even though I think one upset my stomach a little bit the other day, but I know the rest aren't quite as old, so hopefully are okay.
HELP! I have chicken I defrosted two days ago"”un-breaded cutlets already cooked. What can I do with them to serve them for dinner? I didn't really think this through but I can't refreeze them. Thanks ïŠ
One of the easiest is to cut up the chicken, pour a bottle of alfredo sauce over it, heat threw and serve with pasta and side veggie. Could throw some spices on it, then heat, and cut up for salads. Or cut up throw in some taco seasonings, and make either tacos or quesadillas. All kinds of things you can do. 🙂
You can refreeze them safely, btw (unless they've gone bad already). There will be two effects:
1) The texture will suffer from the second freezing; and
2) they may not last as long after being defrosted the second time around.
Some ideas of usage:
- Chop or shred and throw into pasta sauce.
- Shred and use in Tex-Mex food: tacos, nachos, burritos, etc.
- Make croquettes or patties, by shredding and mixing into a thick white sauce.
- Soup, stew, pot pie.
- Chicken salad.
- Sandwiches.
- Deviled chicken.
It was a very, very bad week for us food-wise. And we weren't even affected by the storm, so no excuses here. It was mostly stuff that got shoved to the back of the fridge, the worst of which was almost an entire boneless ham. 🙁
I think I actually got through the week without any waste!! But I do have to admit I threw out about a pound of hamburger meat last week. It sat defrosting in my fridge for a very long time, and when I went to cook it up it was grey and smelled weird, so I sadly tossed it.
I am glad that your safe, that's the number one most important,
Tracy
You are not responsible for Acts of God, even if that Act results only in food having to be thrown out.
Thanks for the tip on the frozen jugs of water in the chest freezer. We generally only lose power in the winter during big blizzards, so I'm sorta hoping that pattern will hold since in that case, ice would be easy to come by! Glad you and yours are safe and that the only casualty was a bit of frozen food!
No food waste here other than some potato plants that up and died on me. Some of the spuds were salvaged though.
You totally inspired me to clean out my pantry about a month ago. I tossed two boxes of stuff that was WAY past the expiration date and am slowly working through the backlog of "use it or lose it" things. My goal has been to incorporate at least one thing from the "use it up" pile into every meal. There's a LONG way to go, and I fear I may be eating pinto beans and rice at every meal from now until eternity, but it certainly has shined a light on my overly-exuberant stocking up tendencies!