Let's see. What's happenin' on the food waste front?
The only possible bit of waste I have is this lemon, which came in a bag of lemons and was squishy when I brought it home.
(Check the bag better next time, Kristen!)
I may see if I could possibly salvage it for a stove-top air freshener, though.
So, that's all I've got waste-wise. Could I have some thunderous applause???
Alllrighty.
Here's a peek at a few things I did to avoid waste.
I grind my whole wheat flour from grain I purchase in bulk, and I had ground a little too much.
Freshly ground whole wheat flour gets a little stale-tasting if you don't use it or freeze it somewhat promptly, so I decided to use it by making some whole wheat bread.
I tried a cinnamon-raisin experiment with the dough this time around and while it was good (my children all approved), I think it needs a little more tweaking.
More cinnamon!
More raisins!
In other bread news, I thawed some frozen sweet potatoes and used them in a pumpkin bread recipe.
Nutritious? No.
Delicious? Yes.
In fruit news, I ended up with many bananas ripening all at once, so I sliced and froze a few of them both for snacking and for smoothie-making.
I also froze some leftover fruit salad that no one seemed to want to eat. No one complains about these same bits of fruit when they're smoothified, fortunately.
I made a cheesecake for Mr. FG's birthday, and he likes it topped with canned cherry pie filling.
The cheesecake was gone before the pie filling, though, so I rinsed off the remaining cherries and froze them to use in a smoothie.
I'm not sure how nutritious cherries from pie filling are, but this still seems better than throwing them out.
Here's how my fridge is lookin':
It's a little full at the moment because I went to the grocery store yesterday to buy things for Sonia's birthday meal.
(Why yes, it IS birthday season at our house! 4/6 of our family's birthdays occur within a six-week period.)
I don't have a lot in the way of leftovers in my fridge, which is always good news. There are a few grilled veggies, which I will probably eat with my eggs this morning.
And there's quite a bit of tortellini soup left from last night's dinner. The kids and I will eat a fair amount of that for lunch today, I think.
Leftover soup makes such a great lunch meal.
So! It was a good week at Chez Frugal Girl. I don't know why, but I've just been in a good food waste groove of late. Hopefully it'll continue!
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How's the fight against food waste going at your house? Tell us about your losses and saves, and feel free to leave a link if you've posted about your food waste this week!
Hi there! I always enjoy reading food waste Friday - I did not have such an excellent week, however!
Awesome, Kristen! It seems to really help that your family is so into smoothies as you can use all sorts of produce leftovers in them.
I also had very little waste this week so I'm happy about that. I posted my Food Waste Friday here: http://imperfectlyfrugally.blogspot.com/2015/02/food-waste-friday_27.html
My fridge, however, is packed to the gills with various leftovers which we will be eating this weekend. Also I bought too much milk: since I buy whole milk and try to remember to cut it with water when we reach the 1/2 gallon mark to stretch it and also make it more palatable for me since I don't like whole milk, the 2 gallons that I buy weekly have lasted us longer but I keep on buying 2 gallons every Wednesday. Also, my husband decided that the Grape Nuts he loves might not be the best thing for him to have for breakfast when he plans to attend "ab class" at the gym at lunchtime so he's switched to eggs for breakfast. That's great, it's better for my budget, but again, this means I need to remember to buy LESS milk.
Your fridge is looking pretty good Kristen ( I love. love. love. that you call it a 'fridge'!)
Mine's almost naked, but not quite. And I did have waste. Strawbs and Grapes. Not quick enough off the mark freezing them!
Have a fab Friday and a sooper dooper weekend y'all! #FoodWasteFriday
That must be an American thing, ey?
I'm canadian and call it a fridge too... How do people call it, otherwise???
This week I...
---gave the dog the leftover casserole I didn't want to eat (nothing he couldn't eat in it, and it was different from his usual kibble so he didn't mind!)
---made a random meal using leftover lasagna noodles, the last of a bag of frozen spinach, and a white sauce that used up some of the milk I need to get gone and goat cheese leftover from Valentine's Day dinner
---sliced and froze the many bagels I had leftover from scratch
Great job! You've prompted me to keep our water bottles filled in the fridge for easier grab-n-go. I've also been stroring some glass containers glass-side-up to more easily see what's in them. Last week I made a big "leftover veggie" soup from bits of different veggies that hadn't been eaten. Thank you for inspire us!
Turning them glass side up helps so much, doesn't it? Especially if they're on a low shelf.
Smushy lemon=garbage disposal cleaner?
If I had a garbage disposal, yes! But I don't have one. 😉
I use them (with salt) to scrub the tub.
couldn't you just salvage the peel? I think it would be just fine. Grated lemon peel would have been good in the cinnamon-raisin bread.
Also, I wouldn't call your pumpkin bread non-nutritious. I'm sure it was much less dense in calories than candy or bought snacks, and it is far more natural. Maybe not "max-nutritious."
This is true. It had more redeeming qualities than candy, at least!
Thanks for your encouragement to use up instead of throw out! My husband is very good at pulling together leftovers for his lunch. Last night I made a fritatta using leftover ham, assorted vegetables, and some cheese. That is one of my favorite ways to use leftovers.
This has been a great week leftover wise for me. I used leftover spaghetti sauce to use the sauce to make sourdough pizza. I had leftover venison roast earlier in the week that I repurposed into shepherd's pie. I technically have only had to cook 3 times this week - wow!
Love all your inspiration with what to do with leftovers, and how to have no waste - my frugal heart enjoys each post of yours about that! 🙂
1 pt tomatoes, bought for a chicken dish several weeks ago. Didn't make it because I've come down with The Ick that I'm trying to keep from becoming bronchitis or worse. Sad thing is roommate would happily eat them but I said hands off because it's for a dish.
Houseguests left a lime - now hard - and two lemons. I could turn the lemons into zest and juice, or I could take it easy on myself and put them in the disposal.
FYI, I found out with my first 50 lb box of bananas, that you don't have to slice the bananas before you freeze them. Peeling and freezing them whole takes less time and space, and you can break up up by hand or knife after they're frozen. Or just defrost them while still whole.
Hope you're feeling better soon!
Also:
- 1/2 lb mushrooms
- 1 sweet pepper
On the plus side, I made fried rice with:
- rice leftover from a Chinese restaurant meal
- rehydrated shiitake mushrooms, which I'd made to get the liquid for a different dish
- asparagus bottoms that were too woody to eat by themselves, but OK chopped up and a bit overcooked (overcooked is fine for fried rice but no good straight)
- half dozen eggs on sale
Also, also, dangnabbit: 1 cooked spaghetti squash. It was fine on Friday, inedible Sunday.
IOW, terrible, terrible two weeks.
I hate when produce is already bad when I bring it home! We did okay this week too: http://wp.me/p4yT07-1dT
THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE!
What are you using to line your pans when you freeze stuff?
I think she's using her silicone pan liners, "silpats" to use the brand name. That caught my eye because I just invested in four new ones to match my cookie sheets (they're not cheap) and I was wondering how else I could use them.
My Silpat-like sheets have lasted me at least 15 years. Maybe pricy upfront but the lifetime cost is miniscule compared to parchment paper or grease. Saves some clean-up, too.
Squeal! Thunderous applause! Yay!
I have two silicone pan liners that I bought from Aldi. I've never owned a Silpat, but I think these are very similar. I don't use them for actual baking very much, except for cracker making, but boy, I love them for lining freezer pans. Nothing sticks to the pan and I don't have to grease the pan either.
How do you freeze your sweet potatoes? Do you cook them first?
Yep, I just peeled, boiled, mashed, and froze them. I think I did this when I had some pretty dried up sweet potatoes to use...I figured all the moisture from boiling would be good for them!
In addition to a similar-looking lemon, I finally threw away some frozen meat that has been in our freezer since we got a half a cow...about four years ago. I was good about immediately giving all the organ meats to a friend whose mom loves them because I could barely look at them, much less eat them, but for some reason a few other packs just went unused. The guilt wasn't doing me any good, so I pitched the freezer-burned meat and have learned my lesson that we're just not half-a-cow people, and should just buy what we need, when we need it, even if the per-pound price is a bit higher.
First time commenting here! First off happy 4/6 birthdays for your family! I love that you froze the pie cherries, it makes sense to use them later in smoothies 🙂 Thanks for all your tips!
You say that your fresh ground flour goes stale. It makes me wonder if they put preservatives in store-bought flour. I thought I was being pretty healthy to make food from whole wheat flour, but now I am wondering. Do you know why it lasts longer?
I don't really know! Storebought whole wheat flour does taste a little rancid after a while, but it does seem like the fresh-ground stuff goes bad more quickly.
I did a little poking around the internet and it does sound like manufacturers put some preservatives in the flour. If you buy a no-preservative flour like Bob's Red Mill, they suggest storing it in the freezer, so that sounds a little more like the flour I'm grinding at home.
Kristen, you have made me much more aware of my food waste!!!! I am not yet to your level of non-food waste, but it's something I aspire to. Any thoughts on avoiding food waste but trying new recipes? I use my crockpot a lot (busy working mom here) and sometimes the recipes I choose just don't work out, or aren't appetizing enough to eat the leftovers. Thoughts? I guess I need to work on picking better recipes? =)
Occasionally I have recipes that are duds too! I have fewer duds by sticking to Cook's Illustrated or America's Test Kitchen recipes, though. They've got a number of slow-cooker cookbooks that maybe you'd find really helpful.
If a recipe is a casserole or something like that, there's not much you can do to salvage it. But if it's something more plain like a roast, sometimes you can make the leftovers better by turning them into soup or taco fillings.
Unfortunately I cannot help you with the lemon, but I really enjoy reading your Food Waste Friday posts :). I'll write my Food Waste post tomorrow and then I'll leave a link. ...Ah, I have to try with freezing bananas as I've never done that!
Frozen banana slices are really tasty! Almost like a little slice of banana ice cream. My kids love to snack on them.
I constantly struggle with food waste! It's often difficult to get through certain produce when you live by yourself, since there is nobody else around to help eat them before they go bad. Plus, when shopping at the grocery store I have a problem deciding what I will actually need (i.e. things I will actually eat) versus what I want to eat (i.e. healthy foods that I often end up not eating). Since I only go to the store once a week, you can probably see how this can be a problem come Friday when I have a ton of the "what I want to eat" about to go bad.
I will have to try the the frozen banana idea, as that is one thing I misjudge and they often go bad on me.
Wow one lemon! You did great. Me not so much this week. We are moving and I am trying to use up things I don't want to move or don't have room to store in the ice chest until the freezer gets cold again. I had two pint jars half full of beef (pork shhh) stew, one lonely pork chop, fresh green beans that were not so fresh. Not sure how long they have been in the frig. Finally, two pieces of stale bread, because I did not want to move them lol.
I had to laugh when I read that you rinsed off the cherry pie filling and froze it for smoothies. I thought I was the only one who did that sort of thing. My husband and brother make fun of me because I freeze everything at least once. I figure better to try and freezer for later than waste it. Besides that is how I learned you can freeze eggs. 🙂
Potatoes! I have four or five little potatoes I need to throw out today. I don't buy potatoes often as my kids won't eat them, and everytime I buy them we don't eat them fast enough and the last few go bad. I know a million ways I could use them up, but I never seem to actually do it fast enough.
I finally admitted that the tiny bits of goat yogurt and vegan buttery spread at the bottom of their respective tubs are no good anymore and threw those out.
Hi Kristen! I bit late, but here is my link, thank you !!
http://frugalitalianfamily.blogspot.it/2015/02/food-waste-friday.html
My food waste this week was almost nil : half a small can of pizza sauce and a couple of lettuce leafs. Yay!
As other have noted, smoothies are a great way to avoid wasting fruits and vegetables ... and of course, better for you than most snacks.
Bad food waste week for us. I threw out probably about half a small roasted chicken, as I never made a dish out of it, and noone else grabbed some to make a sandwich or a salad like is often done. I just somehow wasn't in the mood for it, and let it go to waste. 🙁 I rarely ever let that happen. Also tried a healthier strawberry sweet roll recipe. The original recipe called for a liquid sweetener, that I read you use a tad less of than regular sweetener, but I thought we don't tend to like really sweet stuff, so I used the same amount of splenda in it and well the final product was a tad bitter to me and as I have to count my calories, I just didn't want to spend the calorie on it. My husband and son said they wouldn't eat it either, so it went bye bye. I hope this week is better. I will say today I cooked up some chicken and veggies with some Asian Sesame salad dressing to go with my left over lo mein noodles, as there was no other way people would eat them. It was all eaten, so that saved a possible wasted item.
I think that makes sense with the sweet roll. There's no point in eating an empty-caloried thing just to avoid wasting it, whereas there IS a point to eating vegetables and such in order to not waste them.
No food waste for me last week ! It has really been a good week 🙂