Food Waste, Food Saves, and Painting
It's Friday! Which means that it's time to talk about food waste (except on every other Fridays, when it's time to talk about food waste over at Simply Being Mum. 😉 )
Anyhoo, it's my turn this week.
My freezer is doing pretty well. I mean, the organization wouldn't win any beauty awards, but it's not crammed to the gills, so I'm giving myself 5 gold stars for that.
My waste for this week:
-some fish. I accidentally made too much and though I did eat some leftovers in a salad, I just did not get to all of it in time. Fish leftovers are not my favorite thing ever, which makes accurate appetite forecasting super important when I'm making fish. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don't.
-an avocado. BOO. But we ate somewhere around 5 good ones, so there's that.
The current state of the fridge:
I haven't done an impressive amount of anything in the kitchen this week, partially because it was Prep and Paint Sonia and Zoe's Room time on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
And then yesterday I was out almost all day with my kids (park day! swimming after dinner!).
On the upside, I did manage to cook dinner every night except Wednesday, which was my main painting day, and I did not want to stop to cook.
So we got pizza.
I did rescue several dark bananas by making banana chocolate chip muffins, which worked out nicely because we needed a portable something-something to bring to the park with us.
And I turned a bunch of tomatoes from my parents' garden into some sauce for the meatball subs I made last night, so, yay me.
How are things going food-waste-wise at your house? Inform us in the comments!
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You inspire me with these posts Kristen! I faithfully meal plan and shop with a list, but despite my best intentions waste too much food.
Factors conspiring against me include a new baby, fatigue, a broken dishwasher and recently, the 97F heat making soup (my previous leftover bits tactic) sound revolting.
You know, in the summer I tend to lean more toward salads and smoothies for using up odds and ends. Much more appetizing in the summer than soup. I really just cannot handle soup in July/August!
Also: scrambled eggs are GREAT for odds and ends. I know they're sort of hot, but somehow they still appeal to me in the summer, unlike soup.
Lastly: it's great that you're being mindful of waste, but yeah, when you have a new baby at home, some things will probably just fall by the wayside. But babies grow, so this is a temporary problem. 😉
Fried rice can also help use up a bunch of odds and end (at least the savory kind!) We often have leftover rice and I'll throw in any meat/veg into that. Its not COLD, but not as hot as soup!
Yes. Soup is just somehow WAY hotter-feeling than most other foods.
I have frozen many overripe bananas the past few weeks and I was just going to search for your banana chocolate chip muffin recipe....perfect timing! Can't wait to see the final painted room! Yay for you that it's done!
Yes! I'm so glad. I still have to do some touch-up and hang things on the walls and such, but the vast majority of the work is DONE. Yay!
I love that your leftovers are at eye level in your fridge! Mine tend to get lost on the bottom shelf. I'll have to employ your strategy.
I made some chocolate peanut butter soft serve "ice cream" by whirling some frozen banana chucks, cocoa powder, peanut butter, soy milk and ice cubes in the blender. So creamy and delicious!
It really helps to have a fridge like mine, where the freezer is on the bottom. It puts much more of the fridge at eye level! I love it.
Speaking of fridges, what brand do you have? Do you like it? Have there been any problems, etc.? I want the freezer on the bottom style and have been looking. They all seem to be the same, made by the same manufacturer according to what I have been reading, etc. I see good reviews and bad ones. And we all know bad reports are usually made first.
Thanks for the info you can share!
Mine is a Kenmore, and I think the line was called Elite? It's been some years since we bought it. I believe we got it in 2009 or 2019, and we haven't had any issues with it thus far!
ooooh, a fridge from the future, awesome, either than or just a plain few year old one, either way...
Thank you! I did see one at Sears made by LG. I read a few reviews that were telling of not being able to get it below 45 degrees. I'm sure there are lemons in every year. I really like this style!
I'm with you on the fish front! As leftovers it gets kind of rubbery I find.
I think we did not waste any food this week. It was mostly a "leftovers" week, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, so my freezer is slowly emptying.
Now, I have to tackle my own painting project, which is a big brown wall and a big purple room both getting the "beige treatment" and then white baseboards all around the house. Yuck, I hate painting. If it was not to sell the house it would stay as is, believe me!
Have a great weekend.
Your freezer looks fab. Mine looks pretty empty. It was thawed out last Friday while we were away soaking up the sun in South Devon - oh sorry parallel universe - I meant getting soaked by the rain (we Brits love to talk about the weather!).
I'll give you 10 gold stars!
I nearly lost an avocado through ignorance. I'm new to avocados so when I saw a very dodgy looking skin on the one we'd forgotten to take on our holidays I thought it was a goner. Then the magic of social media stepped in - quick photo on Instagram and I had confirmation from avocado experts that in fact it was perfect! yay! So into a breakfast smoothie on #foodwastefriday it went.
Your summer looks fun! Ours has just started!
Hi Kristen!
I also had an avocado to waste 🙁 I have started buying them after seeing you rave about them all the time LOL! We are sloooowwwwly learning to tolerate them.
Britt
No bad! Sounds like the painting is going well. I've been a bit lazy over here. I didn't clean out the fridge this week which means next week is going to be a bad one!
I cleaned out my fridge yesterday and tossed out a few really old items. I won't list their sell by date for obvious reasons. 😉
But now my fridge feels really empty.
I don't even bother with leftover fish. If there isn't much, I let the cats have it. If there is too much, I toss it. I don't really mess with any leftover seafood!
Our waste was from a turkey we just couldn't finish. I never froze it because I had plans....that never too place. I also made some biscuits that I forgot about in the oven. They got too crisp and my daughter and I ate one when they came out, after that they were terrible.
That was it. I was glad to get to the grocery store today!
I had to throw out a mandarin this week - why is there always a bad one hiding in the bag somewhere! I find avocado freezes really well - just mush it up and put it into a ziplock bag with a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. I then use it for a quick and creamy pasta sauce.
I brought two bunches of super cheap, but past their best bananas yesterday for use in baking. I will have you give your recipe a try. I intend to freeze at least some of the bananas. I have never done this before. Any tips?
Easy peasy. Peel the bananas; freeze individually (lay out on a flat surface in the freezer (plate, baking sheet, or whatever will fit) that is either greased or covered with a silicone sheet or freezer paper); put in a bag in the freezer.
They will keep forever as long as they stay frozen. You'll be pureeing them when you use them so who cares if they get freezer burnt.
I like slicing them so they're in smaller pieces, but yep, whole works too!
I freeze them as is, in peel. Then I take one frozen banana, microwave it for 30 seconds and put it in whatever I'm making (smoothie,muffins, etc).
As my banana bread recipe uses 4 bananas, I peel and toss them into a quart size bag until I have four bananas, then I start the next bag. Next time I want to make banana bread, I set put the bag in the morning and make the banana bread later. I do try and avoid looking too much at the banana after they are thawed. 🙂 But it takes me about as long to stir up banana bread, as the oven takes to preheat, which for me is quite nice.
Thawed bananas are super disgusting-looking!
We lost a tomato and some leftover white beans cooked down with tomato. I was out of town on business and the hubs will eat beans but does not love them - ergo, he did not feed himself those leftovers. However - the canned beans were part of a clean-out-the-pantry effort so I don't feel entirely bad about it.
My main loss that I remember this past week was two pears. I bought three pears and wanted to sit them out on the counter to rippen. One was attacked by our kittens/almost cats and had scratches and bruises all over it. I ate one, then the other was attacked by the kittens/cats. I have since bought three more pears, and so far, one was played with a tad, but is still quite good and eatable. I put them in the refrigerator over night the other day to keep cats away. Wonder if I could use a cat scratched bruised pear in cooking? Probably, great pear recipes anyone?
If the cat damage is bad enough that saucing is a wise move (plenty of cooking time to disinfect!), you can sub pearsauce in any applesauce recipe. Slice, cook on stovetop with a little water until soft, food mill to separate out the skins and seeds and other undesirable bits.
We sent about two cups of shredded cabbage to the compost pile this week. The cabbage was from the garden and we just couldn't finish it before it went bad. We still have several green and purple cabbages left so wasn't too much of a loss.
After hosting dinner with my folks, sister and brother in law Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evening (phew!) I did a leftovers haul on Wednesday that we ate for lunches. I did end up tossing a spiced chicken breast (cue sad violin) that had been languishing in the fridge... Also sent a four inch cube of fuzzy sweet bread to the chickens. Pretty much ALL of the fruit was gobbled by said relations along with the four kiddos here on Tuesdays and Thursday's (and my own two every other day;) considering the crazy I think it was an ok week.
Thanks again for your inspiration! Could you share your recipe for tomato sauce? I also have extra to natives from my dads garden.
l did freeze some bananas and wanted to use them for btead but some relative thats lives here thought throw them out whats the differance lf they are frozen some pple are just so vety picky and sometmes have to freeze milk so it wont go bad when its thawed just stir it good
Well, i use my imagination and voila - chicken soup with the leftover from the previous night. Or home made pizza with, well, almost everything from the fridge. And all that in the name of the greater good - a zero waste lifestyle! But what's more important is that everyone in the family is happy.