Food Waste Friday | This post is brought to you by the letter M.
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. If you're not a blogger but still want some food waste accountability, feel free to participate by leaving a comment.
First, I wanted to tell you that BlogHer sent me the winners for the REI giveaways. Liz M. and Marisa are the winners...congrats, you guys! You've been emailed. 🙂
On to the M part of this post. First, I let several mushrooms go bad. They weren't dry, they were moldy.
Dry mushrooms, I will rescue. Moldy mushrooms, not so much.
Normally I store my mushrooms in a small paper bag in the fridge and they're fine. This time, I just didn't manage to transfer them.
The other M thing I wasted? Milk.
I had some milk in a reused Snapple bottle, and it got shoved to the back of the fridge. Apparently, that's a really cold part of the fridge, because the bottle froze and cracked.
Once again, I will rescue slightly sour milk, but milk with shards of glass mixed in? Nope.
This might be a good time to talk about glass and freezing and how I manage to use glass canning jars to freeze applesauce, tomato sauce, and jam. As long as there's enough headspace for the food to move up as it freezes (water-based foods expand as they freeze), the jar will not break. The problem in this case is that there wasn't sufficient room for the milk to move up as it froze, so it moved out and broke the jar.
So, as long as you don't fill your jars too full, you can safely use them to freeze food.
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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: Back to the library
Joshua's 365 post: Sisterly Love
I had to throw out a jar of tomato sauce that was frozen with not enough head space...:(.
Sauce with shards of glass...no
That's so odd that both of us did that this week!
What a fantastic idea!! I've been trying to live more frugally, not for financial reasons, but because I'm all for simplifying my life, but I still waste some food... I'll make my own food waste friday post later today! This is inspiring!
Oh no! Lots of broken glass this week. I fished a bunch out of the dishwasher last night.
I reckon I may have some mushrooms also - I have postponed my Friday Routine (doing the fridge early evening) this week as I plan on posting No Waste Tastes Great later in order to leave my post up about how I reduced my grocery spend by 50%. Oh and I also spent the morning having all my hair chopped off so it's been a busy one so far! Have a great weekend! It's 28 degrees in the UK which is unheard o in Summer never mind almost October! I may have to put shorts on!
I wasted one portion of leftover hunters stew that hubs didn't eat from his packed lunch...bummer because I totally would have eaten it. Also, a small bit of leftover meatloaf (we did our best on this one but it just beat us). I also found some frozen pizza sauce buried in the back of the freezer from July 2010 that I tossed.
We chucked a pile of cucumbers yesterday. Reason: we chopped them all up for a salad, and then realized that a COUPLE of them were bitter, and we couldn't tell them apart from the good ones, and believe me I tried, but they just weren't it. Poor yummy cucumbers that got in with the bad ones.
Hey you did a lot better than me this week, although to be fair, with all that's come my way it's a miracle I'm still here (that's actually not much of an exaggeration)!!
No waste week = pretty dull post. But oh-so-rewarding! 🙂
OT - you changed your blog's font! How come? Personally I liked the previous one more... it was "warmer" 🙂
I did! I was trying to find something cleaner looking because I felt like my other one was a little bit hard to read.
Anyone else want to weigh in? Do you like this better? Or the previous one better?
That's strange... I noticed something was different but didn't know what, I would say previous one, but then again when something changes it can take time to adjust....
I like the previous one also but will read no matter what. Unless you add wallpaper. That's an offense against readability.
What? You mean you don't want me to download one of those "cutest blog on the block" backgrounds that scroll with you as you go down the page????
We were on our "staycation" this week so between eating out and eating down what we had/have,we have zippo waste. In fact I need to take time out of my busy vacation schedule to get groceries.
I cleaned the fridge out earlier in the week, the only thing I tossed was a partial bottle of Sangria and a half bottle of red wine. The Sangria I was bummed about, I don't generally drink much but I do enjoy a glass of it in the evenings. I forgot it was in there and it got shoved to the back. Guess it's time to visit World Market and pick up some more. 🙂
Hi Kristen,
Love your blog! Just wanted to ask -- what is a good way to use slightly sour milk? I would love to do that, too. Happens more often thsn i'd like to admit...thanks!
Kathleen
I like to use it to make chocolate pudding, and I also easily use it up by making muffins or breads that call for milk. They disguise the sour taste very well!
One of my fave uses for sour milk is fake buttermilk pancakes. It also makes great tea biscuits.
We did terrible this week- stuff kept getting left out of the fridge for so long that we couldn't eat it for fear of food poisoning. Sad sad. I hope I pay attention better next week!
I have a question for everyone - how long can I store corn on the cob in my fridge? I have some thats about ten days old now...
It's safe to eat (unless something strange happened), but getting less tasty by the day. If you don't want to eat it on the cob, then blanch it (boil or nuke for 2-3 min, drop in ice water to stop the cooking), cut the kernels off the cob (a pix is worth a thousand words - look online for a video), and freeze for winter soup.
I love your applesauce post. Not too bad this week. I wasted one apple. Darn it I could have used it to make your yummy stuff. Enjoy your weekend.
I had quite an eventful week with my waste. Check my blog!
Fish leftovers that I didn't order, from a restaurant meal. Some pizza crusts.
I don't feel responsible for pre-sliced peppers went bad the day after I bought them. Just managed to finish the approx 2 lbs of leftover deli meat. One more day and the ham would have gone bad. The peppers and the meat were from a backyard party - I got far too much food and still didn't waste any.
Also 1/2 hard boiled egg white[1], a bit of pizza fancy ham, and 1/8 c. cut fruit. Also got a great deal on local honeycrisp apples because I thought to ask for discards. Only one had anything substantially wrong with it.
[1] I deliberately toss the yellow - does that count as waste if it's planned?
I thought I had to throw out the bag of sweet basil I had, but I managed to rescue some of it , yay me! The mushrooms you had to throw out are my favorites... 🙁
I just blogged yesterday about how I had to throw out a bunch of food...it's no fun. I'm becoming more motivated to make sure we buy only what we're going to use, and then use what we have! It's hard, but I don't want to end up in the same situation as I found myself yesterday...