Food Waste Friday | The Bad Picture Edition
Please excuse the lame photo that is grainy, blurry, and slightly yellow. I had the fabulous idea to check my fridge for waste last night instead of this morning, and the picture-taking conditions were, uh, less than fabulous. And for some odd reason, it did not occur to me to switch to my faster lens. Duh.
Next week, maybe I will clean out my fridge on Thursday before it gets dark outside. Actually, next Thursday is Thanksgiving, so who knows if I will manage that.
Anyhoo, we have here a bit of bacon, half of a Beef Au Jus sandwich, and some cooked beef in broth (the fixings for Beef Au Jus sandwiches). The sandwich would probably not have been great left over, and there are only a few small pieces of bacon, but I'm really irritated with myself over wasting the beef, because beef isn't exactly cheap.
On the upside, we did manage to eat all of our vegetables. Oh, wait. I just remembered that I threw out a few cubes of cooked potato earlier in the week (they were left from the potato I cooked while making Deep Dish Pizza). So, we didn't exactly eat allll of our vegetables.
It has been f o r e v e r since I've had a no-waste photo, but I'm really, really going to try this week.
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Take the bit of leftover potato, grate it up and put it into a bag in the freezer. Every time you have a bit leftover, do the same. After a few weeks, you'll have enough for the entire recipe.
Last time I made potatoes, I made a ton of them and stored the grated potato in 1 cup measurements. I smashed them flat and froze them. When I want to make pizza, I just microwave the frozen potato disk and add it to my dough. Works marvelously and saves me time when making pizza. Think I might make pizza tonight!
I did terribly this week: that beans & rice dish - made to use up more cilantro - just didn't cut it. No way no how. And the romaine I bought for salad did not treat my scratchy throat well, it died too. Departing roommates (5 day trip) left a bit more. For the period that it's just me, I expect no waste at all.
well done Kristen; your food waste is still minimal compared to the masses. We had some cake and jelly this week; I tried my best to salvage it, but alas not ...
I managed to salvage the rest of my butter leaf lettuce (which is good... that crap is expensive). But a WHOLE container of grapes was gone! It hid in my drawer behind some greens and went bad. So angry at myself for that.
That's all I have this week so far.. but a few radishes are going to go bad soon. Know of any good radish dishes????
I started the week with a ton of leftovers tht needed to be used ASAP or would shortly end up in the Garbage Bin.
We started the week with:
1.5 cups leftover chicken
1 cup leftover mashed potato
6 slices london broil
2/3 cup rice
1 cup leftover black bean soup
2 cups leftover spaghetti sauce
On monday I made a chicken shepard's pie with
Tuesday was steak and cheese quesidilla's with the london broil AND rice topped with the leftover black bean soup that I let simmer to thicken
Wednesday was leftovers from Monday
Thursday was homemade pizza with the leftover sauce plus store bought meatballs and onions
The leftovers are gone and I did not have to grocery shop at all last week.
This is my first time tracking waste and I am so very pleased with the results. I really made an effort to use it up so I would not have to throw it out.
Saryn
No waste this week for us- yay! It's been awhile.
Your kids don't seem to be huge meat eaters. Not a bad thing.
I am really embarrassed at how poorly I did this week. I wasted a lot of food: 2 loaves of kaak, 3 slices of white bread and half a head of lettuce. I was doing really well, but I guess it just got away from me while I was getting ready for the tests I had this week. 🙁
Angela-none of the six of us is a big meat eater. My kids all prefer protein that comes from things like yogurt, cheese, or nuts. I mean, we do eat meat, but it's not a big favorite with any of us.
Allie-what the heck is kaak?? lol And I TOTALLY understand about how busy weeks interfere with food waste efforts. That's happened to me a lot.
We found a portabello mushroom that got shoved to the back of the fridge and had decided to try sweet potatoes since they were on sale but were not thrilled with them. I just baked them because I had no idea what else to do (didn't want a sweet potato pie). Also had two apples from a 10 pound batch that were not reached in time; kinda mushy:P
Pictures look great to me....I guess I know nothing about good picture taking and should start paying attention!! Would not have had a clue if you had not pointed it out-same with the rolls earlier in the week. The first pics looked just fine to me! lol
@Linda
What can I say? I'm picky about my pictures! lol
Ashley, mushy apples work great in homemade applesauce. You can also use them in baking.