Bananas are a somewhat unpredictable fruit…sometimes I buy very green ones and they last for days and other times I buy very green ones and they get overripe in a very short while.

If you’re not too particular about banana ripeness, this wouldn’t be a big problem, but I happen to have very specific ideas about when a banana is good to just peel and eat. It has to be just past being green…a light yellow, not too sweet, and still nice and firm.

Obviously, I can’t manage to only ever have a perfect supply of bananas at that stage of ripeness, so here are three ways I use up bananas that have moved past my idea of perfection.

1. Slice and top with nut butter

This is super easy, my kids love it, and the addition of peanut butter makes a slightly-too-ripe banana palatable even to me.

2. Slice and Freeze For Smoothies

I don’t really like the taste of overripe bananas in smoothies, so if I notice that I’ve got more perfectly ripe bananas than I’ll be able to use quickly, I slice them, freeze them on a cookie sheet, and use them in smoothies.

Using frozen bananas along with other frozen fruit makes for a delightfully thick smoothie.

Also, frozen banana slices can be blended (I actually do that in my food processor) with nothing other than a bit of milk to make something resembling soft-serve banana ice cream.

3. Make Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

The lovely thing about banana muffins and banana bread is that they can disguise bananas that are good for nothing else in the world (except maybe the compost bin).

So when I have bananas that are too soft to be spread with peanut butter and too overripe to slice and freeze, I make these banana chocolate chip muffins and my children rejoice.

Do you have a favorite way to use up bananas?  Share it in the comments!

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Today’s 365 post: This is a friend after my own heart.

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 lost the last part of a loaf of French bread. I’d gotten it out of the freezer to make croutons (and I did make two batches), but then the last of the loaf kinda got shoved to the side and forgotten about. French bread has so little in the way of sugar and fat (which act as preservatives), it’s prone to molding quickly.

I also found a bit of pizza that had been languishing at the back of the fridge, and a poor shriveled up, squishy avocado. I may cut the avocado open to see if it could possibly be thrown into a smoothie, but I’m not optimistic.

Oh, also, there’s an interview with me up on Expendable Edibles. Nancy and I chatted on the phone last week, and the post is kind of a loose transcript of what we talked about.

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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.

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Today’s 365 post: Double appointment

Joshua’s 365 post: Uh-oh.

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.

Last week, I wasted a couple of tomato products. One was a hairy tomato, and unfortunately, that mold seemed to have spread to the other tomatoes, because the next day, a couple more had gone south. I don’t have a picture of those, though.

Last night, we had a misc/useupwhat’sinthefridge kind of dinner, and I got out the bratwurst half to heat it up for Joshua. Unfortunately, I put it in the microwave and completely forgot about it until this morning (our power went out after dinner, so I couldn’t see what was in the microwave as I cleaned up dinner).

The bit of lunch meat is actually from our vacation to Massanutten…we brought it home, used up some of it, and it’s been buried in the back of the fridge since. It was probably bad last week, but I just didn’t see it.

And I have a little bit of milk that went so sour, even I wasn’t willing to bake with it.

I had planned to do something with it last weekend, but ended up not being able to (my reason is a happy one, and I’ll tell you about it on Tuesday!).

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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.

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Today’s 365 post: Our power went out last night.

Joshua’s 365 post: We are loving our lights!

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 bought a pack of tomatoes at Aldi and last night, I noticed that one of them had started to get hairy. I routinely salvage tomatoes that have a bad spot or that are getting a little wrinkly, but hairy tomatoes are never the recipient of such effort.

Nope, those go straight into the compost bin.

Also, this jar of tomato sauce got moldy while we were away on vacation and I forgot to mention it in last week’s food waste post.

I really need to remember to freeze opened jars of tomato sauce before we go away, because this is not the first time I’ve lost tomato sauce this way.

On a more cheerful note, I had some leftover salmon to use this week, and I’m proud to say it’s all gone (those of you who remember my bad adding-salmon-to-scrambled-eggs experience will appreciate this fully).

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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.

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Today’s 365 post: Lisey: Mommy’s making brownies!

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.

So, since arriving home from vacation last Saturday, I have not made an honest-to-goodness trip to the grocery store. I made a quick stop to pick up some milk, OJ, and produce, but that’s been it.

This means that we’ve been eating down our fridge, and it’s quite barren at the moment. My fruit and vegetable drawers are almost never empty, but they’re pretty darn close right now.

I do have some cilantro to get rid of (it was a pre-vacation purchase),

plus an orange that I peeled pre-vacation (it was one of those duddy oranges that didn’t taste quite right and so no one wanted to finish it off) and some old baby carrots.  The carrots were kind of dry and aged but we were feeding them to the hermit crabs.  Unfortunately, the hermit crabs recently expired (all 3 of them on the same day!  We think they got too cold when our power went out), so there’s no one left to eat the carrots.

So, that’s what’s new (or, um, old!) on the food waste front for me.

Oh, and the oven barbecued brisket I made the other night was delicious. The only trouble was, I had difficulty cutting it into slices (it kind of fell apart!), so I just cut it up/pulled it, mixed in some extra BBQ sauce and we made sandwiches out of the meat.

I’ve never made brisket before, but after an afternoon in a low, slow oven, it definitely reminded me of chuck roast. That’s good news for me, because I have several recipes that use chuck roast (Beef Au Jus sandwiches being one), and so brisket is no longer scary to me.

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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: I was going to throw these out before we left…

Also, don’t forget to enter in the Walgreens giveaway and the GE giveaway before it’s too late!

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.

So, I’ve only got one thing in my photo this week, but it’s a sad thing.

I always hate to waste meat because it’s more expensive than most other foods, money-wise and resource-wise and because I don’t have the proper composting resources.  But waste it I did.

Fortunately, this is mostly chicken thigh meat, which is not the expensive, happy chicken that I bought at the organic market (that store doesn’t usually sell thighs).

We have made it through a bunch of produce this week, though, and yesterday at lunch I had a delicious salad made with leftover chicken from Chicken Tacos (if you haven’t made those yet, you should!  So yummy.), plus chopped tomatoes, chopped avocado, and shredded cheese.  Totally tasty.

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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: Sometimes I take my wedding ring off.

Joshua’s 365 post: Squeaky the dinosaur

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.

We’ll start with the good news, because that’s just my perky way.

Yesterday, I made a batch of Banana Chocolate Chip muffins to use up 3 spotty, bruised bananas.  I also made 3 loaves of cinnamon bread, using up more of the eggnog (in case you don’t follow me on Facebook, I had some eggnog go slightly sour, and I made a small batch of cinnamon bread to use up some of it.  I froze the rest, in case the bread turned out.  It did!  And so I defrosted some more eggnog yesterday and made another 3 loaves.  I modified the Cinnamon Oatmeal Bread recipe to make this bread…I left out the oatmeal and also reduced the butter and sugar since eggnog has a lot of sugar and fat in it.)

See what riveting stories you are missing out on if you haven’t “liked” my Facebook page??  How do you even survive?

(please note that the previous sentence should be read in a dripping-with-sarcasm way)

Also, I made scrambled eggs for breakfast yesterday and used up a piece of bacon and several mushroom slices in the process (also spinach and Swiss cheese.  I love me some Swiss cheese).  And for lunch I had a salad made with all sorts of random stuff I found in the fridge.

Scrambled eggs and salads are excellent ways to use up food.

Anyway, I was the no-food-waste diva yesterday.

Unhappily, I do still have some waste to report for the week.

I’m pretty sure that the tomato sauce and the half and half are a result of the power outage we had last week as neither of those things should have gone bad so quickly.

I’m just pleased that those two things are appear to be the only waste that resulted from the outage, though.  It could have been much, much worse.

The two avocados that went bad, though?  Those are my fault.  I’ve been on an avocado eating kick lately (which is progress for me.  I used to hate them!), and when they were on sale, my eyes were apparently a little bigger than my stomach, and I bought more than I could eat in time.

If they were just mushy, I’d use them in some muffins, but sadly, they are a bit moldy, so they’re going into my compost bin (well, first they’re going into my winter compost bucket!).

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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: Yogurt and Jam x4

Joshua’s 365 post: Some of my reptile art

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.

It’s really more like a sick-couch, actually. My bedroom is too isolating and cold for me to want to hang out there when I’m sick.

I’d share a picture of my sick self, but I look scary beyond all reason at the moment (Mr. FG said he’s not sure he’s ever seen me look so sick), so we’ll stick with pictures of my surroundings. 

I’ve got my hot drinks and thermometer (because I have a perverse interest in keeping track of my temperature!).

And a blanket to keep me warm (plus I am wearing two pairs of pants and 4 shirts (a tank top, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater and a fleece). Because even on a good day, I have trouble staying warm, and when I have a fever, it’s even worse!

And fortunately, I have the laptop and a USB camera card reader, or I wouldn’t be managing to blog at all today.

Because using my regular computer would require me to get up off the couch, and I just don’t see that happening any time soon.

Needless to say, I’m also not up for cleaning out my fridge (can’t do that from the couch, after all!), so I don’t have a food waste photo to show you.  I think I have some cooked onions that are past the point of eating, but beyond that, I don’t think there’s much in my fridge that’s waste.

In fact, my fridge is pretty empty!  The last time I went shopping was two weeks ago, and I was due to go again yesterday or today.  But of course, that’s not going to happen unless I use one of those internet-ordering systems (that’s the only way you can grocery shop from the couch!).

I’m also not going to be able to go speak at the local homeschooling seminar tomorrow.  I don’t think I’ll feel well enough, plus a couple of my kids seem to be coming down with the bug and I am not about to share that with a babysitter.  It’s kind of a bummer to have done all the prep work to speak and then not be able to actually do it, but I am resting in the knowledge that even the flu/cold germs that get me are sovereignly ordained, and that the most appropriate place for me right now is…the couch.

Oh, and thank you all for your sweet comments and emails and prayers for my recovery.  You guys rock. 

Also, don’t forget to go enter in my America’s Test Kitchen giveaway. I’ll be randomly choosing a winner tomorrow morning, so don’t let the 880 prior  entries (holy moly!  You guys love you some ATK!)  discourage you.

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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.

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 seem to be having a hard time getting into the food waste groove this month. Boo.

The picture contains a bit of cilantro that I didn’t manage to use in time, but that’s not the sum total of my waste.

I let half a peeled cucumber get slimy, and I also have two pieces of chicken in my fridge that I think are probably bad. It’s very sad that they might be wasted, but they were from a new recipe I tried that didn’t work out so well.

I also lost a few clementines, but I don’t hold myself responsible for those. They were in the bottom of our new clementine box and given that we discovered them the day after bringing the box home, I’m thinking they were bad when I bought them.

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On to the new something from Joshua! This year, he’s working on a 365 project of his own. Though he’s my unofficial staff photographer here at The Frugal Girl, we thought this would be a fun way to help him practice taking pictures on a more regular basis.

He’s using my old Olympus point and shoot camera, and I’m having fun seeing what he’s coming up with for his posts.  I think you might enjoy seeing our lives through his eyes, so if you’d like to follow his project, just click on over to his blog.

And if you’d like to get his posts in your inbox each day, just enter your email address in the subscription box on the right side of his blog.

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How did you do with your food waste 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: Juxtaposition

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.

After a two-week hiatus for the holidays, Food Waste Friday has returned. And after taking a little time off from photographing my waste, I’m ready to get back in the saddle.

I opened this sour cream container earlier in the week only to find it covered in pink something-or-other.  Definitely not salvageable.  It was about 2/3 full still.  Boo.  If I’d realized it was about to go bad, I could definitely have incorporated it into some of my baking (I could have sacrificed for the cause and made a Cherry Coffeecake!)

The rice left in this bag amounted to less than a cup, and it expired a while back.  Not being one to take expiration dates as gospel (this one was actually a best-by date), I sniffed it, and unfortunately, it had that rancid smell that grains get when they’re old.

So, I bought a new bag for the risotto that’s on my menu plan.

I also have 2 sprigs of cilantro that are funky and need to go into the compost bucket.

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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: This is a table