Food Waste Friday | This is a first!
Every week, I post a picture of the food that has gone bad over the last seven days. I started doing this in March of 2008 to help motivate myself to use up my food instead of wasting it and it's been very effective. Since it helped me so much, I invited other bloggers to join me in posting their food waste photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.
(note: if seeing mold grosses you out, you'll want to skip this week's Food Waste Friday post!)
Here's my waste for the week.
I've wasted citrus fruit before, but yogurt? I've never had yogurt in my photo before!
You know how sometimes on Food Waste Friday, I'm all, "I'm not sure if this is bad, but I'm going to err on the side of caution."?
This is not one of those weeks. Because this lemon...
is most definitely bad. And this yogurt...
is most assuredly bad. Yogurt jars should never be hairy.
I'm not quite sure how this happened. Normally when I make yogurt, I put the new jars in the back of the fridge and the old ones in the front, but I think I must have made a mistake with this jar.
The lemon will be composted and the yogurt will be washed down the drain, so at least I'm not going to have to chuck any of this into the landfill.
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Oh no! The hairy yogurt moment LOL! I've always wondered why lemons seem to go bad so quickly; you'd think all that acid would preserve them.
I had some rice this week, but I fed it to the birds, so it wasn't wasted in the end. I'd left it out at room temp for the afternoon and didn't want to take the risk with it.
That poor lemon had actually been in my fridge for a while, so I don't fault it for moulding. lol
I'm just amazed you can make a moldy lemon into a really cool picture.
Oh, I'm so glad to hear that I'm not the only one who things those sorts of things are beautiful in their own way. I've taken several food waste pictures over the last year and a half that I actually think are sort of pretty.
Having recently gotten a new stove and finding this blog, I've gotten totally carried away with baking. Too much bread waste this week. We ordered pizza for super bowl and had tons left over. Despite eating leftovers for three days, there will be some going in the garbage tonight. Ugh... I should have been freezing, but I'm out of ziplocks and containers. The weather made it hard to go out for that.
I'm soooo glad smells don't travel through the computer!! The thought of hairy yogurt is making my stomach turn...
Oddly enough, there was little to no smell!
Kristen, you've got some penicillium mold started somewhere. If you are not sterilizing your yogurt jars, time to do so. The dishwasher should take care of it, but there may be some nicks or cracks you can't see that's harbouring mold. Also, sanitize the refrigerator produce drawers and glass shelves, in case that's where the spores are hiding. Pencillium is endemic everywhere, but sometimes a little inadvertant culturing medium leads to an overgrowth. Since pencillium is a virulent allergen to some (like me!) it's best to err on the side of caution here.
If no one in Kristen's family is allergic, what's the risk?
I'm guessing any contamination came from the lids, as I don't put those through the dishwasher. So, I'll probably just boil the lids from now on before putting them on the yogurt jars.
Fortunately, none of us is allergic to penicillium!
This brings to mind a question I have about yogurt... Can you make yogurt with milk that is not brand new (week old milk)? How long does your yogurt usually last in the fridge? I'm fairly new to yogurt-making and have been wondering about this. Thanks!
Yup, I think you can use older milk. In fact, it would be a good way to use up milk that would go bad otherwise.
Unopened jars of yogurt have been fresh in my fridge for up to 4 weeks, and opened jars are good for a week to a week and half.
I am so happy to see this and I'm not sure why.... I think it is so lovely when someone shows you their real, very human side. It's funny because I am redoing my kitchen and I posted a picture of my "before" kitchen on FaceBook to illicit ideas and energy from my friends. Do you know that only one friend and one cousin posted a comment! That sort of got me thinking..... either this kitchen is so bad they have nothing kind to say or people don't like to see things that are not "pretty." Either way it is sort of funny.
Or maybe they all just lack decorating taste! lol
Sometimes even if you put the old in front and new item in back, they get shifted around when people are looking for something or putting something away.
I've tried to make the linky thing work twice without luck. Here is my food waste post: http://premeditatedleftovers.blogspot.com/2010/02/my-bad.html, where I confess to breaking a food rule. 😀
I tried again and this time it worked. I have no idea what I was doing wrong.
I don't think the linky thing worked for me either.
Not a good week for us, but almost all the waste went to compost at least. I had an onion go soggy and grow sprouts after only a few weeks!
I'm sorry the linky thing was acting up! and I even used a different one this time. Sigh.
I lost fish and bread pudding this week. The fish was frozen and put in the fridge for the next night's dinner. In the morning it had defrosted but had a ton of water in the bag and leaked on the bread pudding. (Only covered by plastics wrap.) After smelling the fish I didn't feel it would be safe and fishy-bread pudding isn't really a flavor of choice.
fishy bread pudding...oh my goodness, that is a gross thought!
I wasted a lemon, too! 🙁
I had some yogurt that I knew we weren't going to eat up in time so I made yogurt cheese out of it. It was actually pretty good. We ate some of it on cinnamon & sugar toast and then I blended the rest with marshmallow creme for a fruit dip. (I know, not the healthiest, but it was a yummy snack!)
I freaking LOVE dip made with cream cheese and marshmallow cream. It's like heaven when you dip bananas into it. lol
I've never made Yoghurt but am planning on it..... However I have been assured you can make pefectly good yoghurt from Yoghurt even after it has gone bad.... So it could be put to use if it ever goes bad again.
That jar was SO hairy, I would be scared to eat anything I took out of it! lol I dumped it down the drains and sterilized the jar and lid.
Ha ha ha, fair enough :).... Hey I think your blog would benefit from a subscribe to comments button so people can get informed by email when there is new comments on a post... I just came back here as I saw your twitter status.
Here is the link: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/subscribe-to-comments/
Your wish is my command! It's uploaded and installed. It looks like its working, but give me a holler if it's not.
I threw away a lemon too 🙁 I love lemons. Hairy yogurt. That just will not do. It evens sounds wrong, LOL.
Here in NZ we have a product called Hairy Lemon! 🙂
http://www.hairylemon.com.au/
Great job.