One bad clementine spoils the bunch...
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.
Or not, if you get it out soon enough!
I bought a bag of clementines and I thought I looked it over carefully, but somehow there was a squishy, leaky one in there.
Fortunately, I happened across it before it infected all the other clementines.
And the same thing happened in a container of strawberries. This one was so far gone, a vinegar wash wouldn't have come close to saving it (that's really better for prevention, not for cures!)
Since I don't have a photo of either of those casualties, here is a placeholder photo of strawberries. 😉
I did try to inspect the containers of fruit for iffy items, so I don't exactly think either of these things are my fault.
By the way, I've been having fun documenting some of my anti-food-waste efforts on instagram throughout the week. My user name is just thefrugalgirl if you want to look me up there.
And if you don't have instagram, I believe that you should still be able to see the things I post there by going to www.instagram.com/thefrugalgirl. Let me know if that doesn't work.
Edit: Thanks to a reader who suggested this link instead to access my instagram.
Oh, and if you're new around here (welcome!) and you want to know more about preventing food waste, here are my top ten ways to reduce food waste.
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I have friended Aldi on FB and they featured you yesterday. How cool is that! Oh and I think I have some grapes that have errr expired lets say. Dang it!
The instagram link doesn't work for me 🙁 (I don't have an account if that helps but I know I can view other people's accounts, sometimes).
For those who don't have instagram, try webstagram:
http://web.stagram.com/n/thefrugalgirl/
I don't have a post this week (I ran out of time), but I had some beetroot (beets) go to waste that I left in the fridge while I was away over Christmas. The last weekend I went to the supermarket and they happened to have some oldish fruit and veggies that were $3 to fill a large bag. I got a whole lot of cherries and cherry tomatoes, as well as some red peppers and bok choy. I've eaten quite a bit, but I imagine some of it hasn't lasted.
I agree that the strawberry and clementine are not your fault.
This week was not so good for me. I became a vegetarian over the last year, so I found 4 servings of Salsa chicken in freezer that needed to be thrown out (freezer burned). I also bought a Tofurkey for Christmas and hated the gravy that came with it, so 1/2 of the container was thrown out. I did manage to use up all the rest of the leftovers from the holidays, which was definitely a big win.
I'm loving Instagram! As a 'visual' person - it is great fun. Think I may be driving everyone potty on it though. I was up at 6am baking cakes, and decided to document some of it through Instagram...hmmm think after picture 3 it may have got a little boring....
My first No Waste Tastes Great (as part of FWF) post of 2014 is up over at mine.
New year - time to get back in gear. Focus. So I've revisited my Friday routine, not just for those who visit the blog, but for myself. Nothing like getting it down on paper to focus the mind!
Happy New Year y'all!
I know! I'm finding it to be way more enjoyable than I thought I would.
This is a hard time of year to avoid food waste. So, really you did well, if the strawberry and clementine were the only casualties, as they weren't even your fault.
What you should feel good about is that some other person might not have noticed the spoiling pieces of fruit in the packages, until really too late. And they might have wasted a great deal more fruit than you had. So, you actually "saved" food from being wasted, by being the one who purchased those packages.
Now I'm off to go make a very interesting breakfast, using up the last of the pumpkin, some rice, ham and pineapple that I found in the fridge.
Whoa. I am intrigued. What did you make with those ingredients??
Okay, so this may sound odd if you're used to sweet breakfasts. But . . . I made a skillet casserole. In a cast-iron skillet, I sauteed some onions in butter, added some flour, and milk to make a sauce, adding half of the pumpkin at the end (I'll have to use the rest in biscuits later today). A pinch each of nutmeg and salt, then the diced ham. And finally the rice. Heated it through. I topped this all with some grated cheddar, and put under the broiler, till toasty. And we had the pineapple on the side (I just couldn't figure how to combine the pineapple with the pumpkin, ham and rice.)
And . . . it was actually pretty good. My daughters said the cheesy topping really made the dish, and the whole casserole reminded them of a pumpkin soup that I make often.
Awesome! You get big points for creativity.
In an effort to prevent waste (whih is horribly inevitable this time of year) we hosted an inpromptu snow day leftover pot luck last night. School had been cancelled and so had evening activities so it got everyone out of the house and nobody had to drive. A few families from the neighborhood brought over whatever they had that would likely go to waste and we had a party. Since in most cases there were just a few servings of things, just about everything went. So no food waste for us- yay.
Things are still kind of crazy around here from the holidays, so I didn't get a formal food waste post up. However, I had to throw out a couple of cheese slices this morning. I was shocked because I can't remember the last time I threw away cheese.
We have box full oranges and I hope that one of them doesn't go the way of your clementine. We'll see.
Hello...I just found your blog a couple of days ago, and this is my first time joining Food Waste Friday.
With just two of us here, we don't have a lot of waste, but sometimes things slip by us, and I really want to be more careful about using everything up, what with the quickly-rising prices of groceries these days.
Welcome, welcome! So glad to have you along for the ride. 🙂
I don't have foods that gone bad over the weekend and I'm so glad and hoping I will keep it up (keep my fingers crossed!)
Thank you for all your wisdom! Great motivation to waste less.
I lost sweets. Lots of them. Not because of a New Year's resolution, but rather because I was tired of eating sweet things. I threw out a half of a piece of pound cake, marshmallow treats, cookies, candies, etc. I was just over all the sweets you get when the holidays come around.
Do you keep fruit in paper bags? I find that really helps especially for fragile fruit like strawberries