Food Waste Friday | a small sub morsel
I have one small thing that needs to go...the very end of a meatball sub. I'm not sure why someone didn't just eat this last bite or two, actually! It's such a small bit.
We must have very precise appetites around here or something.
Other than that, though, I don't need to throw any food away this week. Yay!
I even helped prevent my mom's food waste this week. She left some food in the fridge when she went on her trip, so last week I rescued some shredded cheese and put it in my freezer (you can freeze pre-shredded cheese, but blocks don't work so well).
Yesterday, I used the cheese to make Aussie Chicken and two loaves of cheese bread (I tried a different recipe than my braided cheese bread recipe because I wanted to make actual loaves). Considering that this is all that's left of the two loaves I made, I'd say it was a success.
I've also been busy freecycling my parents' extra garden produce and I gotta tell ya....club-sized zucchini are surprisingly popular on freecycle. 😉
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How did you do this week?
Yes, the ridiculous early morning post from me is back.
But only because Mr helped me. He's the best.
That is all.
I was wondering if you'd appreciate the early hour at which I published this post. 😉
OF COURSE I did.
Wow - quick off the mark today Kristen. I was wondering whether being in the UK it'd give me an advantage in picking the post up earlier than most haha! 🙂
Anyhow well done on the minimal waste - hardly anything there! This week I have posted my 'No Waste Tastes Great' but as I am challenging myself to 'Less Waist Looks Great' (I love my taglines!) I am planning a healthy balanced meal to use the last few items up out of the fridge (I've been doing my 6&6 Simple Eating & Exercise Plan all week). In my opinion proving that regardless of what you eat - meal planning is key. I meal plan every week, and ultimately it will eliminate waste with perseverance and effort. Thanks once again for the inspiration! Jo
Yes. I so hate the process of menu planning, but I love the results.
Shredded zucchini in 2 cup increments is frozen here for Winter baking. I also put up zucchini relish-delicious!
I actually use club sized zucchini to make zucchini bread. Since we have two plants out in the garden, it's been a staple around here! Three things on my food waste post today, but it represents two weeks, so I don't feel *as* bad...
Not nearly as bad this week. I wasted some cooked vegetables (cooked earlier last week and weren't that great so I didn't want the leftovers) and some black bean salsa that a friend brought over. I don't feel too bad about wasting the dip, since I didn't make it or buy it, but it was really good so I hate that I forgot about it.
I'm almost done with my freezer/refrigerator/pantry clean out - things are looking pretty bare!
Just a bit of going-moldy strawberries here, but I saved the rest making strawberry topping for ice cream, pancakes, etc. Next week could get interesting though....
Something... "interesting" ... is in the produce drawer in our fridge today. Found that out this morning.
Unbelievably I had nothing wasted-I'm still shaking my head. I even went back over the fridge last night to make sure I didn't miss anything. Kristen, you must be rubbing off on me.
I freeze bricks of cheese frequently, and aside from a teenie bit of separation I don't have any problems. What kind of problems do you usually experience?
I've thought the texture was kind of off when it thawed. I think mozzarella (not fresh, though) was the cheese I froze. Maybe firmer cheeses do ok?
Hard cheeses turn crumbly but taste fine, after being frozen. You could shred it and toss with just a bit of cornstarch (to keep it from clumping badly), then freeze. Haven't done this myself but heard positive results from a couple people who do. But I'm not sure how much cornstarch, you have to balance "enough to keep it from sticking" with "so much the cheese tastes of cornstarch."
I found that if I 'pre-freeze' the cheese, just enough so I can still cut through it. Then shredding is so much quicker and easier, and I have less caught up in the processor.
I did really bad! But I did save some brown rice by using it to make rice pudding!
How did that work out? I've never tried rice pudding with brown rice.
We are doing pretty good with our waste as we have none again.It is offically time to stuck up at the farmers market this week and I cannot wait to see what they have.
I'm pretty proud of the supper I made last night, very unwasteful and frugal. I made hamburger stroganoff with some slightly off sour cream, some juice leftover from a large hamburger cooking session, and some mushrooms that I had previously saved from going bad by cooking and then freezing them. And because I had so many mushrooms, I just had to use a very little bit of fresh hamburger. It was yummy, and I had the leftovers (just the sauce, not noodles) on toast for breakfast this morning.
I find that mozza cheese is good after freezing. If you freeze a block, and then let it thaw only partially, you can just break it up into little crumbles that are great for topping pizza. Easier than grating it. I don't like to eat any cheese that has been frozen unmelted though; it just seems to have a weird texture.
And I think it's good that your family has the control to stop eating the last few bites when they're full. There's maybe 50-100 calories in that last bit, and if over time you stuffed yourself just to finish it, that would add up to a lot of unnecessary calories and extra weight. It would have been nice to have it eaten later, but I don't think it was much more wasted to throw it out than it would have been stuffed into someone who was full and didn't need to eat it, just eating it to get rid of the last bit.
Whenever I have a block of cheese (cheddar) that is getting old, I shred it. Then freeze the shreds for later use. I agree frozen cheese tastes best when it is mented. Although I use frozen Parmesean in salads with good results.
This week I lost a peach, 1/2 cucumber, and a hamburger patty. Kristen, the burger was particularly painful because it was the yummy recipe you posted a couple of weeks ago. Boo.
A pretty good week here, too. Half a jar of flax meal and some of the dreaded cilantro. My sister-in-law gave me the flax meal becasue they weren't using it up, but it was already rancid so out it went. I used cilantro in salsa, fajitas, and on spicy pinto beans but the last bit still went funky.
This was not a very good week for me. I forgot to put a half loaf of yummy homemade bread in the fridge before I left for the weekend and I came home to moldy bread. I also found half of a really rotten red onion in the fridge, it had been there awhile.
Not the best week for me. I held my feet to the fire by posting about mine today and found that when I looked closely it was worse than expected. 4 wins but 5 losses. Maybe next will be better!! Seems I've got a ways to go. And we have a vacation coming up so I really need to work at getting through what we have so we don't waste a bunch of stuff.
free veggies from the garden... awesome!
I didn't do super well this week- also forgot to write about the pineapple that molded overnight (!) How on earth does that happen? I brought it back to Whole Foods and exchanged it though, for a nice un-moldy one that we promptly cut up and enjoyed. It was so good!! Next time I'm putting the pineapple straight into the fridge!
Zucchini latkes are a great way to make use of huge zukes. They also freeze well and reheat well in the microwave at work.
I must hide my head in shame. I wasted some free food. My friend's garden fresh squash leftovers, which by the way, were very good! I also wasted a bag of organic spinach that was given to me.
I did much better this week, no pictures, but I only had to toss some strawberries, a little bit of applesauce, and something else that I'm blanking on at the moment.
I was really hoping for some zucchini from our little garden this year, but it seems to be dying for some unknown reason! I'm going to take sample leaves to the garden center to see what they can tell me.
Hurrah! Great to see progress in action. Did you do a bit of fridge cleaning as well?
I just discovered your blog and love the idea of fridge friday. I too have discovered that I am throwing away much to much food at times. I look forward to reading more.
Kristen, As you know I'm a fellow blogger on living simply and happily. But you may not know that I'm a pretty poor photographer. So rather than be #17 on your cool list and then have no visual food waste to show people, I'd like to offer a link to a dinner menu I once served that delighted my guests and cost only $1.56 per person. Hope it helps someone to avoid food waste. http://www.diamondcutlife.org/my-cheapest-tastiest-healthiest-dinner-menu/
Nothing of importance this week (I don't count the occasional berry or suchlike) - I think. But I feel I've been playing catchup for a few weeks. There's been a negative cycle that I'm trying to break: I eat prepared or junk because I don't have a lot of food ready, so I plan to cook a couple of big things so I have main dish foods ready. But then I get busy or don't feel like cooking, so the preparations get close to being wasted. So I get a little frantic about getting that dish cooked. For example, I'm fretting about the sliced raw pork that I defrosted a week ago. I had planned to cook it on Tuesday or so but then got busy, then realized I didn't have the lime juice needed so had to wait till I went shopping. I'll be grilling it tomorrow and fingers crossed that I'm not too late.
And just when I was getting a handle on the ton of fruit I'd bought (I do love me some summer fruit), I conducted an unintentional experiment to prove that watermelons are, indeed, subject to gravity. Even really big ones.
Not a regular thing...but I did do it this week!