Food Waste Friday | Also, I need to clean my backsplash.
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.
Kindly overlook the spatters. 😉 We have more embarrassing stuff to focus on than that!
From left to right, we have some moldy grapes (forgotten in a drawer) a bit of fruit salad (should have thrown that into a smoothie), half a cucumber that got frozen in the back of the fridge, and the worst thing, an entire eggplant.
Whoops.
I don't really like eggplant, but I saw a juice recipe that called for it, and I thought, "Ooh! Maybe I wouldn't mind eggplant in a juice."
But you know, the road to the trash (or compost!) bin is paved with good intentions, and this eggplant is evidence of that.
Also, I had to get rid of a bad tangerine. I'm not sure this is my fault, though, because it's the only one out of the fairly new bag that went south.
Happily, all of this food went straight into my compost bin, so although it's a waste of money, it's not a total ecological disaster. 😉
And I have to say, I do love the feeling of a cleaned-out fridge. It's so nice to have a fresh start every week (back in my pre-blogging days, I'd go for a LONG time between fridge-cleanings, and the amount of stuff lurking in there got to be truly scary.)
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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You'll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don't blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.
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Today's 365 post: This kind of grosses my kids out.
Joshua's 365 post: The Things Sisters Think Of....
Milk, glorious milk. No use crying over it...
I have an "OCD" type obsession about bringing new groceries in to a dirty kitchen/fridge. I love putting new groceries in a cleaned out fridge. It also seems to help a lot when I am making my grocery list, if my fridge is cleaned out.
I may have food waste, but I'm not sure... I need some advice.
A pretty packed fridge (which makes for a different photo this week!) but it's all got a purpose - the slow cookers are going to be on overdrive making soup. Only area of slight concern is I have a head of broccoli - likely that's going to be turned into a soup also, but not sure where to go with it. I know Stilton works well with broccoli (but I struggle with blue cheese as well as dark chocolate - my two pet hates). Might give it a go anyway...
ps - Kristen, I clean my fridge every Friday as part of my Friday routine and No Waste Tastes Great (inspired originally by FWF over 12 months ago).
It gets stripped down (but seriously by Friday there's hardly anything in it as I only buy for 7 days at a time to reduce waste), and I give it a good going over with bicarb of soda and a cloth. A two minute job each week! I love looking in my fridge and also photographing it, I'm wondering whether there's a name for this kind of thing?
pps - Nov 15 was Clean Your Refrigerator Out Day in the US. Got to say this freaked me out a little, thinking that someone would need a national day to remind them to do something so fundamental as that - but different strokes for different folks eh?
Jo, are you sure that's your fridge?? It looks like mine when mine is "empty."
The pix was helpful to me. I have too many carrots and they're bitter so I don't want to just eat them. I didn't want to make plain carrot soup ... your version with lentils and ginger sounds tasty.
Have you tried Roast Broccoli?
- Preheat oven and flat pan to a high temp.
- Toss broccoli with vinegar, oil, spices. Ex: soy sauce, some sesame oil, and ginger; italian salad dressing; butter, ginger, sesame seeds, lemon juice.
- Drain broccoli, put on hot pan.
- Roast till cooked but not crispy or burnt ... can't tell you how long that takes because it depends on how big you cut the broc, how much liquid and, as far as I can tell, the phase of the moon. My versions have taken anywhere from 7 min to 25 min.
Or a stir-fry that includes meat or tofu, and oyster sauce (as well as other ingredients, ok?).
I reckon I'm in a pretty favourable phase of the moon at the mo so am going to give it a go this week. I'm not a massive broccoli fan and I'm hoping that stir frying could convert me?
YAY!!! We were waste free this week.
Not waste free but I found a good way to use up a fair amount of apples.
I've got a good/easy recipe for moussaka for the next time your got eggplant 🙂
I had no waste this week! Yet again
I had a very unfortunate fail this week...my husband's entire crop of jalapenos that I waited too long to chop & freeze. I felt terrible!
3-4 oranges that were just bitter enough to be unpleasant, but not so bitter that I could trash them without guilt. I'd already sliced them so making juice was more work than I felt like taking on.
It's not my week for citrus: the so-called clementines I bought are thin-skinned and hard to peel. I'm going to have to work hard to eat them before they go bad.
Last night's dinner for visiting family was
- leftover roast pork layered with sliced potatoes, topped with a strongly-flavored red wine gravy that's been in the freezer for 8 months;
- a half serving of pan-roasted brussel sprouts;
- a half serving of broccoli;
- the last of the home-made bread;
- a pot of rice;
- dessert was the last banana, the last apple, and some of the so-called clementines, laid out prettily.
Now I just need to figure out what to do with the daikon radish I bought on a whim.
No blog post today as I am on vacation, but we wasted a ton of food this past week since we all were sick. 🙁
We'd get something out for the kids to eat, only to have them have a change of taste after a few bites and not want anymore. Of course, we had to toss the food and not save it because there were germs from being sick in there..
Yes. A catastrophic food waste week was what we experienced. Next week will definitely be better!
Ever tried making eggplant parmesan? Yum! Everything tastes better with some baked/fried cheese on top. 🙂
This week I tossed a very squishy sweet potato that I could have easily made into baked fries for the kids for lunch.
Nothing! It's a nothing week--high-kicking from the kitchen to the computer to report! What a good way to start the weekend!
I tossed a left over dish of onion smothered chicken, for some reason I never ate that left over and my husband ate some, but not all of it. It had molded.
I threw out one banana as I didn't have enough to make banana bread, but will try freezing the next one so that I can have three at one time. IE I make a very low oil banana bread that needs three bananas otherwise it is a bit dry.
Have not used the cauliflower the person gave me, but that cauliflower soup that someone mentioned does sound good. I just hope I like it, so it can be all gone before we leave on Wednesday for Thanksgiving. IE now is the time to either empty your fridge in preparation for Thanksgiving food and leftovers or for the trip for Thanksgiving.
I think that was all the waste I had this week.
Nothing spectacular to report food waste wise - I had a little bit - but reading other people's comments - I've just learned you can freeze bananas for use in banana bread! That's really useful.
Okay Kristen, I finally linked up. I have been privately following your Food Waste Fridays for nearly two years and have been doing fairly well. But I had a very bad week. A throwback to my old days of terrible food waste. Time to try for the public humiliation factor that seems to have helped you a lot 🙂
Welcome, welcome!!! I'm so glad you joined us. : ) I hope FWF helps you as much as it's helped me!
I always thought citrus and onion should not go into compost?
Why did you think that?
Anything that was once alive can decompose. This includes all foodstuffs. (Even bones. Although in practice, bones decompose too slowly for most home compost piles.) Also, many folks choose also to leave out meat, or meat and dairy, because these items are thought to attract more critters.
I think this is just if you are doing vermicomposting (with worms). I had a worm bin in my classroom a few years ago, and we were informed that the worms don't like either citrus peels or onions/garlic.
I love clean fridges too, and Food Waste Friday is helping me maintain that..thank you!!
I just finished reading a book called The Cheapskate Next Door and in the book the author mentions that about 25% of our food goes to waste every year!!! Hard to believe, but I guess if we're not careful enough it could easily happen.