Food Waste Fighting Breakfasts and Lunches | Edition #3
Every so often, I share a collection of my breakfasts and lunches because those are the meals where I typically work hardest at fighting food waste by using up odds and ends. I hope my food-waste fighting efforts inspire you to eat some odds and ends meals too!
breakfast | smoothie
I don't love smoothies in the winter (too cold!), but once the weather starts warming up, I do like 'em.
This one used frozen peaches (home-frozen from boxes of discounted bruised peaches last summer), the last of a container of yogurt, a banana, and some blueberries.
breakfast| egg sandwich on toast
I started this one out thinking I would use up the last English muffin.
And then I realized there were no English muffins after all!
So I had it on toast instead: two eggs, leftover bacon, some spinach, and some chopped hot cherry peppers.
breakfast | peach-cranberry oatmeal
For this one, I added dried cranberries plus some peaches, which I'd frozen from a box of bruised, marked-down peaches last summer.
This was a really good combo!
And it reminded me why I faithfully freezer bruised peaches each summer.
breakfast | oatmeal + cottage cheese
I fried up a bruised apple to go on my oats, and I ate that with cottage cheese, topped with a banana that I'd thrown in the fridge (to halt the ripening).
breakfast | omelet
I made an omelet to use up some peppers, and I toasted the last of the homemade French bread to eat on the side.
breakfast | spinach omelet
I used up more peppers in this one, plus some spinach.
breakfast | oatmeal
Oatmeal, made with this microwave method.
I added more of the dried fruit stash I'm working through, plus some fresh berries.
Clementines on the side, plus cottage cheese for protein.
lunch | chicken spiedies salad
I'd grilled chicken for chicken spiedie subs, but I had some pieces of chicken that were too small to put on the skewers. So, I put them in a container in the fridge, and the next day at lunch I cooked them.
And then I made a salad with those pieces and some leftover grilled pieces, using the spiedies sauce as a dressing.
lunch | but not for me!
Usually my kids fend for themselves at breakfast and lunch, but when I saw that we had leftover chicken and leftover French bread, I threw together a lunch pizza for Zoe.
lunch | peppers, eggs, sweet potatoes
Hungry Harvest sent me a bunch of tiny sweet potatoes + multiple red peppers.
lunch | peppers, eggs, sweet potatoes, II
Same meal, different day, different plate!
lunch | sweet potatoes
More Hungry Harvest sweet potatoes, plus some leftover chicken sausage, a Hungry Harvest pear, and the last slice of Muenster cheese.
Lunch | Spinach salad with leftover potatoes + fried eggs
I heated up some leftover roasted potatoes in a skillet, fried two eggs, and put them on top of spinach. Apple on the side. 🙂
lunch | turkey sandwich
This one used the last of the turkey, plus a Hungry Harvest pear and some Hungry Harvest carrots. Aldi hummus for the carrots.
lunch | leftover curry
Sometimes food-waste-fighting is extremely basic: heat up leftovers!
lunch | chicken salad
Leftover brineraded chicken, lettuce, and leftover basil mayo sauce.
And that wraps up this collection!
Want more? Here's the first edition of my breakfast/lunch series.
I'm loving the combinations. Eggs make everything taste good IMO! This is how we prepare many of our meals.
Everything looks delicious. I'm jealous of your ability to eat eggs, they no longer agree with me.
I was getting tired of eating salads but still had a bunch of avocados so I've been making avocado toast, a welcome change.
I love that you not only avoid food waste but that leftovers/random foods provide variety to your meals.
I also like to make a pot of soup to use up random vegetables, meat, and grains.
Oh man, that's so hard. Eggs really have an ability to make random leftovers into a meal.
I’m glad you’re still posting these— they are some of my favorite posts! They’ve inspired me to use up food in creative ways— you saved me over $20 last week. I fried bruised/old apples for oatmeal, used an expensive expiring package of carnita meat (bought for convenience from Costco but apparently never needed), old lemons, yogurt about to go, etc. I’ve also made the effort to vinegar rinse my produce so it lasts longer. It has really made me think hard about what I put in my fridge and how I shop.
Oh yay! I'm so glad to hear that!
I love these posts because it makes me more conscience of using leftovers. I would never think to use these kinds of combos!
I like the blog format. I hesitate to say “new” in case I just haven’t been observant. It is clean and easier to read. Long time reader and love your blog!
It is indeed new! I had to do some updates to please Google's new requirements; still working out some kinks though.
Spiedies! They're very regional from the area of NY State I was born. Every time we take a trip to my parents, my mom serves Spiedies.
This looks like a lot of my lunches: a little of this, a little of that; cook that last vegetable/fruit and use it before it's too late; throw the last of the meat in with freshly cooked veggies; make a stir-fry; make a salad; make a soup...
Nine times out of ten, the meals are delicious. Ten out of ten, they are fine, if not actually delicious. Why waste perfectly good food?
I like that your meals are usually quite colorful, which makes them seem to taste better, in my opinion.
I'm not a huge smoothie fan, although I do like them once in a while, but that smoothie you showed sounded scrumptious.
This is the time of year when all of our random odds and end are disposed of in my salads. Because I have lettuce right out my door. It makes me very happy. In the winter, those same odds and ends tend to end their lives in soups. Which also makes me happy, especially because I now have a good supply of pressure-canned stocks from our neighbor's beef and home chickens. That clean stock makes a huge difference in how good soup is.
I know how much you love having lettuc!
Love these posts. My heart skips an extra beat when I see one. Your meals are colorful, healthy and waste-free. Thank you for showing the way.
I am a diabetic with kidney disease, both rapidly improving with exercise, weight loss, medication and careful eating. Nearly everything you show is spot on for healthy, appealing eating. The portions are the right size, and I can only have a little meat, so the fact that you don't have big slabs of meat on the plate is wonderful to me. All your recipes are perfect for me, and I'm so thrilled to see them. It's clear to see why your family all seem to be a healthy weight! Good nutrition and not too many calories.
This was so inspiring! I know it was not your intent per the disclaimer post, but this really does improve healthy eating for me too, since produce is my most likely item to go bad so by doing this I eat more produce and less other things! I made an omelette with some wilted spinach and some cheese that was starting to mold(cut the mold off and shredded it) with a sliced up tomato and an apricot on the side. Delicious!
We have a sick Havanese, so I made some rice for her and cut up a chicken breast for her. Unfortunately, she is now in the hospital, so my husband is making us fried rice with chicken for lunch today. Adding some frozen veggies and some onions from my gardens. Had some cubed red potatoes from my gardens last night; sprinkled some Trader Joe’s everything but the bagel on them and baked. Delicious! Love eating fresh veggies from my gardens!
There is such a thing as leftover bacon?
Mysteriously enough, it does happen at our house sometimes!
I have to ask...
1- What is this basil mayo you mention with the brinerated chicken (which i am trying this weekend BTW...)
2- What recipe do you use for your Spiedes?? I haven't found one that works for us yet..
Always fun to see how you work to avoid food waste. I wish i was home to do the same, instead i have to try and encourage the kiddos to do it for me... always fun.
Here's the mayo recipe: https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/roasted-red-pepper-and-basil-mayo/
And here's the chicken brinerade: https://www.thefrugalgirl.com/the-best-chicken-brinerade/
For the spiedies, I used a Cook's Country recipe, but I think that one is behind a paywall.
It all looks so good! We love creating meals from leftovers.
I had two small delicata squash I needed to use up. We also had leftover rice from chicken Francaise we ordered in a few days ago. I roasted the squash with olive oil and some herbs, then stuffed them with the rice and some Italian blend cheese and heated until the cheese melted and served with leftover pita bread. Yummy!
One of our other favorite meals is a fried egg over rice with avocado on the side.
I love these posts!
My breakfasts and lunches are a lot like yours! I eat a lot of leftovers and piece together some odd combos but it works for me!
These posts are inspiring. Everytime I think there is "nothing" in the fridge to eat, I find I am not looking hard enough.