Food Waste Friday |
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.
I haven't had the most fabulous week in the world, so my brain is too fried to come up with a lovely post title. Someone ran into my van while it was parked, which shattered the back window and dented the lift gate to the point where I will need a new one. I've spent a lot of time this week dealing with insurance mess, and I am now driving a rental van which is vastly inferior to my van. I mean, um, it's helping me to really appreciate the van that I usually drive. Yes. That's the cheerful thing I meant to say.
(I may have had some major crabbiness about this since it happened. Ahem. Usually I am awesome at finding the bright side, but it's been kind of hiding from me this week.)
So, let's try this: the good news is that no one was hurt and insurance is going to fix my van and hopefully it will be as good as new.
And when I get it back, I will hug it and kiss it and try never to take it for granted again.
Composted this week:
a bad avocado (so sad!)
two squishy kiwis (which, I promise you, were far more disgusting than they look in this photo) and about one cup of tomato sauce.
We ate four other kiwis yesterday, though, and I have two good avocados that I promise I will eat before they go bad.
Oh, and remember how I said you could just the busyness of my week by whether or not I had to make banana muffins?
Yeah. I had to make a double batch yesterday. =P
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Joshua's 365 post: Cells
It must be one of those weeks. My FWF post comprises a trip to A&E (ER) and a baking disaster. I can almost laugh about it today. Almost. I'll leave the last word to Robin "Holey Cake Batman!"...
Insurance is wonderful to have, but the red tape of dealing with it is a full time job. (Sorry to say, I know all about this.) Glad to hear that you were able to distract yourself with some banana muffins.
We didn't have any waste this week, but we weren't home during part of it and haven't been to the grocery store in a while.
I don't go shopping at all this week. We intentionally ate out the house plus we had garden veggies to utilize. I have some pears in the fridge that nobody ate. I see pear sauce in their immediate future (the ones that aren't really past their prime). Then last night I found my upstairs freezer open and it apparently had been for a few hours. So we lost ice cream. I have the food that defrosted in the fridge and will endeavor to use it today.
Sorry to hear about your car...getting a car fixed can be a pain
So sorry, Kristen. I hope the upcoming week is better.
Sorry about the car! But glad no one was hurt!
So sorry to hear about your van 🙁 Last year two separate people ran into the back of my car and it's not fun. I hope your van comes back to you soon.
I didn't have a good week in terms of food waste either - I wasted two punnets of strawberries and three zucchini that went slimy in the fridge. I did make kale pesto and banana bread though, so it wasn't all bad.
Sorry to hear about your van! I know what a pain that can be to deal with, just hang in there 🙂
Sorry to hear about your van! I hope it turns out OK in the end.
You could avoid the muffin-making metric by freezing the bananas for later.
My compost pile now includes:
- An entire package of asparagus, all my fault.
- 2 lbs sliced mushrooms, that got moldy after 3-4 days in the fridge, not my fault.
- 1 lb strawberries, that got moldy after 3-4 days in the fridge, not my fault.
And yet, somehow, none of the monster batch of choc chip cookie dough was wasted. Imagine that.
Yuck. I'm sorry to hear about the van smashage. But VERY glad it wasn't totalled (you'll still get it back!), that insurance is covering it (otherwise very pricey to replace!), and that everyone was safe with no injuries (the OTHER insurance might have been more pricey!).
Now..I had a horrible week of food waste. Tuesday was my 2-year wedding anniversary. We went out to Red Robin (total was less than $20. Call us romantics). When we got home, around 9:30 p.m. that night, walked into the kitchen to a freezer door WIDE open, and everything was warm. It was a 97-degree day. Freezer door, we figure, was open for 5 hours.
*sigh*
We didn't have ANY red meat/chicken/sausages or anything in there. We only had a half cup of raw baby shrimp that needed to get tossed. We had some frozen bananas/fruits that were soggy and gross that had to be tossed. Otherwise, I've been baking (sour cherry and sour cream cake that was TO DIE FOR), and cooking a lot (loaded baked potatoes, and random things fried inside wonton shells).
I'm moving at the end of the month, so this task of clearing out the freezer needed to be done. But I wasn't expecting it so soon. Grah. My floor is still all shades of sticky. I need to find a cleaner that will cut through syrup, and water, and whatever else leaked out.
Reese -
Firstly, happy anniversary to you both! Hubby & I celebrated our 2 yr mark back in summer via Costco cookies & Tecate (beer) nothing big, flashy or fancy but romantic to us 🙂
Secondly, I'd recommend using "method" all purpose spray. That stuff seems to get EVERYTHING clean. (available in US & Canada - not sure where you are)
Thirdly - glad you didn't loose too much from your freezer 🙂
I'm so sorry about your van. But it could be worse. Within one years time
1) a rock was thrown through my windshield as I traveled down the highway
2) My side window was smashed and my camera bag stolen while I was at work
3) I got a rock chip in my new windshield
I too look at the bright side. None of these incidents caused a financial burden because I had savings to cover the repairs. The rock-throwing incident happened at 4AM so when my windshield exploded there were no other cars that could have been involved had I slammed on the brakes or swerved.
I needed to replace my bag, telephoto lens and spare battery but I had the camera with me so they didn't get it. There were many other valuables in the van at the time and apparently the burglar was scared off before they had time to take more.
The rock chip was repaired for just $20 because my neighborhood glass company was running a special that week.
Its true I was beginning to believe there was a big bull's eye painted on my van but other people have to endure so much more challenging events I count myself as blessed.
Yes! It could always be worse.
Oh, and I have a sneaking suspicion that you were too kind to mention that the other driver did hang around and 'fess up to the deed. So sorry, but glad that everyone is okay. On the bright side, your replacement door will have new seals and lifts, so it may provide easier operation and a quieter ride in the future.
So sorry to hear about the accident.
My food waste for this week was just about 1/2 cup of pad thai at the restaurant. Not enough to ask to be packaged up. Other than that all was good.
So sorry to hear about your van... Hope that it all gets sorted out quickly!
My food waste for the week was 1/2 package of organic spinach and 1 avocado. I forgot all about the spinach in the back of the fridge, and I think I bought the avocado a little too ripe to begin with
For me, we have been having some bad weeks of food waste. The CSA that we were in this year for our first time ever proved to be a challenge that sometimes I wasn't up to. Eggplant doesn't seem to last long in the fridge. Some of the tomatoes didn't last long either, but others did. Hard to know what to use first and hard to plan meals until you receive the CSA, etc. Almost done with the summer CSA and then probably will try and do better next year. Also, we don't tend to eat a whole watermelon as only my son eats it and boy do they get sticky and messy! I still have sticky stuff all over, some of it near a light switch or two. Need to clean it. I do hope they don't give us another watermelon for our last CSA pickup. I am also tired to trying to find ways to cook eggplant that we all like. My hubby liked eggplant parmesan, I did not. I liked the pureed eggplant with Italian sausage stuffed in a big noodle, but my husband did not. Also, I have to adjust how much I keep in the refrigerator, as I like my family to have choices for lunch, but now my son is in school and doesn't have a microwave he can use. This means he isn't eating the left overs, or the hot dogs, or smoked sausages, etc. I need to reduce how many choices I keep in the refrigerator at all times, so as to waste less. Tossed out one smoked sausage link this week, hubby tossed some cold cuts. I tend to keep a couple choices of cold cuts in the refrigerator, honey ham for me and others for other people, but I think I need to cut it down to honey ham and one other thawed at a time. Going to try and do better.
I've wasted a lot this week. Mostly b/c I wasn't paying attention. It was also one of those weeks where I just didn't care to cook and let dad take over only to discover that he pushed everything to the back of the fridge to die while keeping his cooking and leftovers up front to be seen first. Hrmph!
I'll be back on the ball for this upcoming week thats for sure!
My sympathy for the van incident...glad that with the benefit of a bit of time you're able to see the bright side...Monitoring the food waste situation closely went under here too the last couple of weeks, but we haven't done too badly.
I'm sorry you've had to deal with "owies" on your van...but I love the way you write---AND that you always try to find the bright side!
Thank you!
Sorry to hear about your van. 🙁 Nice job finding the bright side!
I have a food waste story that makes me cringe to think about it. On Friday I made a double recipe of a taco casserole to save time later. I took one casserole out of the oven to serve it, and somehow the other one was left in the oven . . . overnight. I thought my husband put it in the fridge, he didn't think of it, and since the casserole contained not only ground beef but also mayonnaise (recipe called for that, and since hubby can't have sour cream I went with it--actually pretty good!) I had to toss it when I discovered it the next morning. Ugh, that was painful.
When I have a cucumber on its last leg, I cut off the bad parts and run the rest through a blender with a can of spicy diced tomatoes to make some refreshing salsa. I also keep dill pickle packets on hand...I'll slice the cucumber into wedges and cook up a quick batch of yummy pickles that don't last more than a couple of days in my house.
I've also resorted to using my vacuum storage machine to vac store my leftover meats in individual portions and putting them in the freezer. I resorted to this because I noticed my husband and kiddos would pull egg rolls or pizza bites out of the freezer and nuke them before they'd ever consider eating leftovers out of the refrigerator. Now I've forced them to eat our leftovers (without them know it..) by taking our leftover steak or chicken and turning it into quesadillas that I freeze in individual portions. I even label the packages for them.
Now when they open the freezer they see a quesadilla that just needs to be taken out of the package and nuked...just like they would a frozen dinner. Keeps me from wasting money on those sodium filled frozen dinners/snacks and...it' gets my leftovers eaten. That's a win win to me!