A week of food-waste fighting, in pictures
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.
We'll just get the bad news over with first, mmkay?
I'm not quite sure how this happened, but the end of a loaf of whole wheat sandwich bread went kaput.
You know how I think having homemade bread around all the time makes you less likely to eat it with abandon? Well, I suppose this is an example of that.
Ok! On to better and brighter things.
As you know, we went berry picking this week. When we got home, I sorted through our berries and picked out the ones with soft spots or holes and trimmed them up. We ate quite a few of those as-is, and I also froze some.
And you already know I used some veeeeery ripe bananas
to make banana chocolate chip muffins.
I got my every-other-week produce box this week, and on the day it arrived, I adjusted my dinner plans to include corn, blueberries, and lettuce from the box (plus strawberries from our picking trip).
The chicken is Cook's Illustrated's Parmesan Crusted Chicken, and as I was cooking the chicken, I realized I had more pieces than we'd eat in one dinner. So I refrigerated a few, uncooked, and made them for lunch the next day.
That felt a lot less like leftovers!
I needed three egg whites to make the chicken, so I ended up with three yolks.
(Note the counters which are currently stained with strawberry juice!)
So when I made some sweet rolls, I just threw them in in place of a single egg (yeast dough is pretty forgiving like that.)
One day this week, we were at the pool all afternoon. I had no dinner planned (the horror!) and we got home kind of late.
This is sort of a recipe for takeout (I am very not awesome at coming up with meals on the fly.), but I rummaged through the freezer and found some fish, shrimp, and English muffins, and cobbled together a dinner of sorts, with the addition of green beans from my produce delivery box).
So, I didn't get takeout and I used up some random stuff from my freezer. Yay!
If you follow me on instagram, you know I froze some bananas earlier in the week.
(What? You don't follow me on Instagram? I'm a picture-posting fool on there, and I regularly share food waste tidbits. Come join the party!)
I made 'em into strawberry banana "ice cream", using some of the strawberries I froze earlier.
It's just strawberries, bananas, heavy cream (nom nom. I love me some heavy cream.), and a bit of vanilla, and I'm pretty sure it's the tastiest way ever to avoid food waste. 😉
I think this might be the most picture-iffic Food Waste Friday post ever. I apologize to any of you who are still reading me on dial-up internet. 😉
Just curious, do you compost? Seems like that would be a redeeming factor for Food Waste Friday. =) We started vermiculture (worm composting) about 6 months ago, and although it reduces the food waste guilt a little, it definitely isn't for the faint hearted! But it's a superb cycle where our food waste feeds our worms and the worms produce rich black fertilizer for our garden which puts food back on our table.
I sure do! I don't have a worm bin, but I do have a regular old compost bin (which happens to have many earthworms living in it).
How did you make the ice cream? Did you just whirl it all in your food processor and freeze? Did you add sugar?
Freezer first, then blend everything together!
Hi, you can make ice cream in a food processor and not an ice cream churner? How?? Thanks!
Patti
Basically, it's just like making a really thick smoothie...frozen fruit with cream and vanilla. But I can do a post about it to further demystify it!
Thanks, that would be great! Yammie's Noshery had a delicious looking ice cream with Reese's cups that she just posted but since I don't have a churn I didn't save it.
Patti
I would appreciate a "demystifying" post! I've been wanting to try something like that, and I know your recipes are always trustworthy! 🙂
Your sweet rolls looks fantastic!
Wow, you've gotten local corn already? How was it? I'm all ears (pun intended). 🙂
Well, I'm not sure how local this was. The box I get is a mixture of local and not local food, especially at this time of year. It was good, though!
I love the cobbled -together dinner from your freezer stuff! That's the kind of unrelated foods we all have frozen away - your meal may not have been out of this world wonderful but it was filling, frugal and very nutritious! It's the kind of meal I will look to make right before I dial the number for a takeout place:)
There was waste at Chez WilliamB this week:
- Some moldy strawberries. I bought strawberries from "last week's picking" at the Farmer's Market. I knew there'd be more waste but the 20% savings more than made up for it.
- The last bits of the food ruined by the wacko fridge.
Saves:
- Those same strawberries. A considerable number were too soft to eat out of hand, so I froze them for smoothies.
- Today's lunch is mushrooms that didn't go well with the asparagus (they were each tasty on their own), leftover roast chicken, leftover homemade pizza sauce, and brown rice. Only the brown rice was cooked for that specific meal.
The ice-cream looks A-Mazing (said in the style of Craig Revel-Horwood)...
Coincidentally I also gave a shout out to Instagram this FWF. Instagram is fab!
I over-bought fresh fruit last week (sales!), but shared some with friends and froze the rest to be made into smoothies. I've also been really digging making a pitcher of "fruit infused water" to help quench my thirst in the summer heat. I guess the air-conditioning, combined with bouts in the outdoor 90+ temps, is making me thirsty! I've been easily chugging 2.5 liters of plain water, on top of several glasses of infused water and a glass of wine every day.
I froze milk before it spoiled, then took it out to make cheese sauce last night for mac and cheese.
I've also been doing the banana muffins thing, as well as the "pantry/freezer" cooking thing. Time to clear out the old in time for fresh summer produce!
Just threw together some "ice cream"- YUM!! Thanks for the quick, healthful tip!
Do you have a rice cooker? That is my saving grace for those last minute dinners. White rice only takes about 20 minutes, and in that time I can throw together a stir fry from whatever is lurking in the freezer or fridge. I always make more rice than I need, and then for lunch I make a stir-fried rice with leftover vegetables.
My rice cooker has a steamer on top, so I steam other things when I'm cooking the rice and we have a complete meal. Haven't done that in a while. Maybe tonight.
http://www.veeseasyvegan.com/layered-taco-bowl-gratitude-and-food-waste-friday/:
My fridge looks packed this week for a variety of reasons though I have already used up some of the "maybe waste" goodies ( it is Saturday here in Oz so this is Friday mornings fridge). Yes the ice cream looks delish and could be made with frozen banana no doubt 🙂
Kristen,
Your ice cream looks so delicious, if you don't mind,can you post the recipe?
Are the sweet rolls a recipe that is on this site? They look wonderful and I'd like to try them. Thanks!
I haven't posted that one yet, no. But a lot of you asked for it, so I've got it on my to-post list now!
The ice cream looks amazing. And you don't need an ice cream maker?! I would love to see a recipe for it 🙂