Food Waste Friday | Yay! But next week might not be so good.
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.
I have nothing to take a picture of this week, which is awesome. For some reason, muffins were the main weapon I used in my fight against food waste. I used up some sweet potatoes by modifying a pumpkin muffin recipe (yum!), I made some zucchini muffins to use up some zucchini that was going south (those were not so yum, probably because I stupidly tried a recipe from a low-fat cookbook.), and I made some chocolate chip banana muffins to use up some banana slices that had been in my freezer for a long time. And of course, I've eaten quite a few leftovers at lunch this week.
However, I still have a number of leftovers in my fridge, and I am not overly confident that I am going to get through them all before they go bad (and not all of them can be frozen). So, this week I'm all good, but I will be surprised if I make it to next week with no waste!
_______________________________________________________
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.
Do you freeze your baked goods? I also have 2 zucchini to use up, which makes 2 batches of my Dad's zucchini bread recipe.
You could try telling us what you have and seeing what we suggest, allowing us to return the favor of frugal help. (And some of us enjoy the challenge.)
Would "us" mean you? lol
I have/had stromboli, spinach, spaghetti, leftover grilled chicken, grilled veggies, a bunch of tomatoes, and maybe some other stuff that I can't remember.
I have made my way through some of that stuff and have frozen a few things too.
I didn't have any food waste this week!!! We cooked in nearly perfect quantities and used up our leftovers!!! YAY!
When you have food items to use up and decide to make muffins, do you have a basic muffin recipe you use and then add the other ingredients, or do you google, for example, "zuchinni muffins", or use cookbooks, or do something else? This is something I've been curious about for a while and would love your input.
Yes to all of that. lol I look through my cookbooks and recipes and if I can't find anything there, then I go look through google. And occasionally I sub ingredients like I did when I made the sweet potato muffins.
No waste this week for us! And a picture of a very empty fridge (that kinda makes me happy!)
I did really well this week, which is particularly impressive considering how often we were taken out to eat and how many leftovers and "we're going out of town so you take this" were crammed in the fridge. The fridge even hit the dreaded point of hiding food from me, which is a food waste disaster in the making. But with some strategic freezing and general like of leftovers (no work! few dishes!) we survived the experience frugally.
The Thai fish is probably going to be waste next week, though. No one in my house likes coconut milk. I also need to use up the failed brioche (50% whole wheat), I see a bread pudding or french toast in my future.
We had some vegetable rice to throw to the worms. Your ideas of using up leftovers sound delicious, but I agree with you - low fat cooking is not good for taste / enjoyment!
Just a picture of a fairly empty fridge from me. I feel like I semi-cheated since I've been out of town most of the week *but* I planned ahead before leaving so last week's leftover food was packed up and frozen to be used this week between trips instead of being tossed out. I'll be gone for almost a week again soon (then back for a day before leaving AGAIN) so I'm not letting myself really cook right now, just focusing on eating through my frozen leftovers.
I love summer squash and my husband hates it. To make room in the freezer I defrosted some summer squash from my in-laws garden and made bread with. I used a zucchini bread recipe and it my husband liked it and helped me eat it!
Oh yeah, I've totally done that before. Works great!
I just became a fan yesterday and can't wait to try your pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe. Anything is good with chocolate!!
I have a yummy zucchini bread recipe, if you are ever interested...and if you like cinnamon. It's a great excuse to "let" your zucchini go bad, lol. My husband doesn't like zucchini but will eat this up! It's definitely not low fat.
Thanks for sharing your tips on living frugally.
It's tough when it's just odds laying around in the fridge... I guess you should freeze the freezable's now and just concentrate on the ones that will have to be chucked if not used!
I'm new to Food Waste Friday, but desperately need take part! We waste a LOT of food (and I also keep things in the fridge WAY too long), so I'm hoping this will be the kick in the pants I need. My posts will probably not happen until Saturday or Sunday, though, which is when I grocery shop and inevitably clean out the fridge. Thanks for all your tips and guidance!
Maybe you can start making soup with what's in the fridge and getting towards the edge of usability. It's a nice sterilizing technique. Just simmer it in water for a while and add some other ingredients and presto! dinner!.
This week my Food Waste Friday fveatures 3 pint containers of split pea soup gone bad because I neglected to freeze them. Also, half a quart of homemade soymilk and a small pan of rice porridge. Actually, this stuff has been bad for weeks in the fridge but I didn't want to deal with the containers until today.
P.S. My fridge (and freezer) is slowly getting cleaner with more open space as I haven't been shopping much and have been "working" on the food that's already in there.
Just found your blog and am looking forward to having a dig around the archives. I decided to comment because I immediately thought the same as WilliamB - "tell us what you have and we'll give you ideas of what to do with it". I'm not sure what stromboli is (sounds like some kind of cold meat to me but I'll have to look it up later) and not sure if by spaghetti you mean the pasta, the sauce or both together but the rest of it says 'quiche' to me. I did the same last week as I wanted to use up the last of my dried tomatoes from last summer and had a packet of feta cheese to use up as well. Those two along with some onions and smoked chicken made the best quiche I've had for a long time yet I would never have come up with the combination if I hadn't been deliberately trying to use up everything from the fridge.
Of courese I will probably start reading through your archives now and the first post I'll find will be the one where you're allergic to eggs or where you explain why quiche is the one and only food you really, really hate! 🙂