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.
How about we start off with a photo of my fridge?
Mine can NEVER compare with Simply Being Mom’s lovely, empty fridge. I was chatting about this on Instagram this week with some of you…I just can’t seem to get my fridge very empty without running out of important things.
I don’t know how Jo does it! (although I think she has a slightly smaller family than I do, so perhaps that helps a bit.)
Anyway, here’s what went bad in my fridge this week:
-some roasted cauliflower and Brussels sprouts
(There were other, far more appealing leftovers, so these got skipped!)
-a few grapes
(My kids love grapes, but these got into the back of the fruit drawer by accident and were forgotten.)
This isn’t waste yet, but my butternut squash apparently has a bruise, which is going south.
I think there’s still plenty of salvageable squash here, though, so I’m planning to make and freeze a batch of butternut squash soup.
If you haven’t tried that soup, you really should! At least, if you like butternut squash. It has just the right amount of butter, oniony goodness, and it tastes ridiculously good considering how few ingredients it has.
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How was food waste at your house this week? Any sad losses or brilliant saves?
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P.S. The winner of the Toys R Us gift card is commenter Erin W. Erin, you’ve been emailed!
Jo@simplybeingmum
Monday 17th of November 2014
Busy weekend (overnight in Chester with girlfriends, and then we had our annual fundraiser yesterday at the house) so have only just had chance to pop by! I do lurve a fridge photo! Looking good Kristen!
My fridge isn't typical. In talking with friends, they are surprised at how empty it is. My freezer is pretty minimal too, and really my cupboards aren't stacked out either. There was a conversation about condiments the other day, and why do I have so few. Basically I may buy one or two dressings, or sauces at a time but that's it. Then we use them till they have gone, and change for something else. I do not keep multiple bottles or jars of different things, I find if I do this they do not get used up and sometimes go to waste.
I have received criticism in the past for this approach - and I do appreciate the point of view, although I don't believe I am being 'irresponsible'. Because I live in suburban Britain - the shops here can be open 24/7 most days, and I can walk within 5 minutes to a shop to get groceries if I need to. Where I live rarely do we experience adverse weather, or any other force majure. My neighbours are fabulous also - if I need an egg (halfway through a recipe), there's always someone I can call on. And I have - I'm not saying this should be a regular occurrence, but in an emergency we help each other out.
I'm also a dab hand at rustling up meals from unusual ingredients, and definitely can 'think outside the recipe' when I need to. We don't go hungry.
There's a post planned soon on how I have changed my shopping habits. This will explain why I hold so little stock - I am shopping for fresh more regularly.
Elizabeth Vega
Sunday 16th of November 2014
An entire basket of organic blueberries got moldy in the fridge this week. I could cry.
I did call dibs on the turkey carcass from our office's Thanksgiving celebration, though, and bring it home to make stock. So I feel a little better, I suppose.
Tamara
Friday 14th of November 2014
I am currently in love with roasting my butternut squash. I coat it lightly with olive oil, salt and pepper, roast it at 400 for about 25 minutes, then toss it onto our dinner plate as is, or conversely, add it to risotto or pasta (sometimes with roasted chopped walnuts . . . yum!), and very soon onto pizza, having just sampled and gone nuts over Trader Joe's new Kale, Sweet Potato and Butternut Squash frozen pizza.
WilliamB
Friday 14th of November 2014
3 *quarts* of rice and beans. :-<
A new recipe tasted hideously badly and the texture was even worse. A Cook's Illustrated receipe, too. But the muddajara (sp?) from the Sep14 issue wasn't great when fresh made and became terrible after freezing. I couldn't even choke it down so into the compost it went. The silver lining is that financially it wasn't much of a hit: 8 oz lentils, 1.5 c. rice, 2 lbs onions, stock.
Kristen
Friday 14th of November 2014
This is upside of not cooking with filet mignon, I suppose.
On the other hand, it's sort of hard to make a disgusting filet mignon?
Cari
Friday 14th of November 2014
Just curious and for the fun of it, what did Erin W plan on using the gift card for? Congrats Erin W!