Food Waste Friday-June 19th
The bad news is that there are three things in my food waste photo this week. The good news is that everything is compostable.
I don't think I've ever wasted spinach before, but I guess there's a first for everything. I did pick out a bunch of spinach leaves that were still good, but these ones were just too far gone.
I don't even remember what the two small pieces of tomato are from.
The cilantro is from the bunch I bought two weeks ago. I used up the whole bunch that I bought last week, happily, but these sprigs were underneath something else in the fridge and so I didn't use them.
Not wasting food is an exhausting job, I've decided. I put a lot of effort into not wasting food this week, and still I have stuff to throw away.
I ate leftovers, I made banana bread out of some black bananas, I made applesauce to use up some soft apples, and I even purpose bought a little less produce last week.
Oh well. This is a huge improvement over the way I used to waste food, so I'll keep trucking on.
My food waste consisted of 3 cooked beetroot - put in the oven and promptly forgotten about. I agree keeping track of food waste can be exhausting; it can be exhilarating too and I've learned to be even more creative with food, but this week, with severe lack of sleep creeping up on me, I'm with you on 'exhausting!'
You can view my post here:
http://myzerowaste.com/2009/06/food-waste-friday-and-weekly-weigh-in-year-1-week-3/
A half lb of sliced crimini that I started to cook before I checked for slime. Do you know that slime and olive oil are very hard to tell apart? Or maybe there was nothing wrong with the mushrooms. Either way, it was a dumb move.
Random small bits: one cup of animal crackers in a baggie; problem is there was also a flying insect in there as well. Half oz sliced turkey that got left out overnight. The too-soft bits of strawberries that I waited a day too long to wash. (The rest of each strawberry is perfectly edible.) One new potato that went squishy.
Danger list: 8-9 stalks asparagus that have survived 2.5 weeks in a glass of water, and - the perennial list favorite! - a half a bunch of cilantro.
On the plus side
- I made stock from leftover skin and bones from a Tea Smoked Chicken.
- I used up the remainder of home made teriyaki sauce by inventing Simmered Teriyaki Tofu and serving that over last night's rice. Two-fer!
- I used the carrots, middle-aged celery, slightly blooming broccoli, and other bits from the fridge. So much so that I have nothing with which to make omlets.
- Stir-fry is still my friend.
- The ice cream cooler bucket is in the freezer, in case the homemade strawberry yogurt needs to be made into a frozen treat.
I hope you get some sleep, Mrs. Green! I got the Mister Linky widget up after you posted, so I took the liberty of entering your info. 🙂
William, you could plant the potato. If it's small, you could just cut it in half and stick it into the ground. It should sprout and grow some new potatoes for you.
I wish you luck with your cilantro. lol I have no great words of wisdom for you there.
I'm cooking up the last of my leftovers today for my kids' lunch.
Not that tater! It was gooey/mushy throughout and had a white mold growth bigger than a quarter on it. As it happens, I have 4 potato plants growing already. In fact, I'm wondering if there's too much compost in the bed because the plants are very large, and too much nitrogen isn't good for potato production. I'll find out in a few months.
I aspire to buy tomatoes at Sunday's farmers' market (easy to accomplish) and making salsa with that cilantro (harder to predict).
On another note: remember I said I was going to use your production notes and refinish an old dresser? No longer. My friend's tenant sold all my friend's furniture so I'm giving her the dresser.
This week...an entire loaf of bread to be thrown out (composted). It was bad when I brought it back from the store, but since I bought it off the reduced rack I didn't think I'd get a lot of sympathy if I tried to return. 🙁
I had to compost a bag of baby greens that was left uneaten by my 20 year old and turned to mush! Everything else we are using up in creative ways.
I made whole grain English muffins from scratch today and they are divine!
Managing food waste can be a challenge. It's like having the food budget. Both are great goals. If you work at it and meet it so much the better for everyone/everything. With no goals there's no reason to pay attention to these matters. It's pretty hard to loosen your goals and say "well, I'll just work for some food waste". Go for the gold star. This week you got a bronze but next week...!
Oh dear, we had a terrible week. Lots of leftovers that we just couldn't eat ONE MORE TIME. I made too much food!
You're right - working to eliminate food waste IS exhausting!
My problem is that I get rid of stuff throughout the week, so it's hard for me to exactly estimate what my total waste is. I think maybe I'll try keeping the camera near the fridge for a week.
Does anyone have a good recipe for only 6 muffins? I've made muffins two weeks running and have thrown out the last 4-6 because they get moldy before we eat them (we tend to only eat muffins on the weekends).
Freeze the muffins you don't eat for later consumption.
I'm in agreement on tracking food waste being exhausting (especially now that my husband and I are also trying to keep track of a newborn!), but on those weeks when we DON'T waste anything, it's absolutely thrilling. One of my main motivators is when I remember that throwing away food = throwing away money.
My food waste consisted of some leftover frosting, a bit of ham lunchmeat, 3 hard boiled eggs and some milk. This is only my second week, but I can see that milk is going to be my nemesis. The kids won't touch it past the sell by date, and I am stuggling to find ways to use it.
@EngineerMom
How about freezing the other half dozen for next week?
If not, you can cut your recipe in half, unless it calls for an egg. I find it more work than it's worth to beat an egg then split it in half.
Rats, I hit "submit" by accident.
Kim - what about decanting your milk into an opaque pitcher? Then it'd be much harder for them to know what the sell-by date is. Your excuse is that milk is healthier from on opaque container than a clear one.
Alternately, no one gets milk till the current container goes bad, even though that'll mean there will be milkless days. There are even more hard-a** policies, such as measuring how much milk went bad, then buying that much less the next week. E.g., if 1 quart of a gallon went bad, then buy only 3 quarts next week.
Ohhh, I can help with the milk! Whenever I have too much milk, I bake with it (tons of bread recipes call for milk) or I make pudding with it. You can make pudding with milk that's gone even a bit sour and it's still just fine.
William's idea of putting it into a different container is a good one too, though!
Engineer Mom, I would totally freeze the muffins. I never have to do that with muffins (12 muffins don't go that far with six people), but I do it all the time with other baked goods. And muffins are so easy to defrost, since they're nice and small.
Browsing through my personal recipe collection, I found a possible solution to the Eternal Problem of Cilantro.
Turkey Chili:
1 onion, chopped
1 lb ground turkey (or other ground meat)
3+ cloves garlic, crushed
1 c. dry white, black or pinto beans, soaked
28 oz chopped tomatoes & juice
1-2 c. spicy salsa PLUS
2.5 c. liquid (mix of water, tomato juice/V-8, chicken stock)
1/4 c. cilantro, chopped
2 c. corn
toppings: tortilla chips, cheese, more cilantry
1. Saute onion till translucent.
2. Add turkey & garlic, saute till meat no longer pink.
3. Add beans, tomatoes, salsa, liquid; enough to cover bean.
4. Simmer till beans cooked, 60-90 min. Or pressure cook till bens done, about 10 min.
5. Uncover, add cilantro, simmer off excess liquid.
6. Turn off heat, add corn.
7. Let rest a day before eating, then season to taste.
I've not had much luck with freezing muffins... they just don't taste as fresh and yummy. Instead, if I have muffin leftovers, I cut them into small bits and let them dry. You can use them to make bread pudding
(very yummy), or toast them in the oven and eat them like grape nuts.
If you have a food dehydrator, cilantro dries very quickly and is just as good as fresh in your recipes. Much better than the store bought in the bottle type. Or use the oven on low heat if no dehydrator.
Fruits and herbs do great in a dehydrator
I thought I was the only person with the Eternal Problem of Cilantro!! The turkey chili recipe is a good one. My mom also makes a cilantro bean dip that's amazing, but you use a whole bunch of cilantro, not just a bit.
Now that it's summer, the best solution to this problem would be to grow a little cilantro! That way you can just clip off what you need.