People! I ate leftover fish.
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.
I'm going to tell you about one of my triumphs first this week. Remember how in my menu plan, I told you I made a seafood casserole?
Well, it made a 9x13 pan, which ended up being a lot for the six of us (since some of us aren't big fans of fish), and about half was leftover.
Leftover fish + me....well, let's just say we don't have a very good history.
Unless we're talking about fish cakes, in which case I am golden.
But I realized that a lot of what went into that casserole was like my clam chowder recipe, so I scraped the now-soggy cracker crumbs off the top, put the remaining casserole into a pot and added enough milk and half and half to make a soup.
It wasn't quite as good as straight-up clam chowder, but I am pleased to say that the whole leftover portion got eaten. So, the only thing that was wasted were the soggy cracker crumbs.
Now, onto my waste for this week.
The first thing is actually still in my fridge, because I'm wondering if it's salvageable. These radishes have gotten sort of wrinkly, which just means they're getting dry, not that they're rotten. But I'm not too sure what to do with wrinkly radishes, and I'm taking suggestions.
The other thing?
It's so already in the compost bin.
This poor bunch of asparagus got frozen in the fridge, which is partly my fault because I should have cooked it more promptly.
Anyway, not an awful week overall.
And to finish this post off, here's a photo of my fridge as a nod to Simply Being Mum, who posts her amazingly empty fridge every week.
(For the eagle-eyed among you who are wondering...that's a loaf of homemade bread to the right of the fridge there. It's just in a reused bread bag from the store. 😉 )
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This is really off-topic for today's post, but I saw that Groupon has My Publisher books available
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This should be a national deal, so just hop over to Groupon and search for My Publisher.
(This is my favorite photo book service...I wrote more about it right here.)
If you don't have a Groupon account yet (Have you been living under a rock or something?? 😉 ), go get one (it's free!) and then you can snag this deal.
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I have had pretty good success soaking wrinkled vegetables in ice water. They usually absorb enough water to be edible again. I would have been really upset about losing that bunch of asparagus. It's so expensive and so good, but these things happen to all of us. I had a couple of pieces of bread molded this week, but otherwise did okay.
Yep-we do all love asparagus and it's not cheap. But at least it's compostable, which I wouldn't have been able to say about the seafood casserole!
But the birds would eat it if you put it out on a birdtable.
In addition to the excellent suggestion about soaking them, I think you could just slice or shred the radishes and be good to go. Perhaps add them to a salad or serve with a dip if you decide they're a bit dry on their own.
Radishes are yummy roasted!
Now that I would never have guessed. Huh. Maybe I'll give that a try, because you don't need them to be crisp for roasting. Do you just roast them like any other veggie?
Yes. We use them for roasted red potato stand-ins sometimes. The radish flavor mellows a lot after being roasted.
We make a lot of juices with our Vita Mix. So if I were making a vegetable juice today it would contain my carrots and whatever other vegetables I have to use PLUS a few Radishes and a few sticks of Asparagus! Not enough to overwhelm the basic juice, but it would add the goodness of the radishes and the asparagus.
We often throw a fruit or veg that is past it's prime into a juice. (Not if it is bad of course, but you can often remove questionable parts of an apple or strawberry before tossing it in.)
Just a thought.
we roast radishesas well - especially watermelon radishes (just like any other veggie) - delish!
Would the radishes be good if slices up super thin, like in the food processor, and eaten in a salad? Second idea (triggered by the first): could they be shredded in the food processor and added to a recipe calling for ground beef (something like burgers or meatloaf), or a sauce (like a tomato sauce),or even put into the blender and added to a soup, since there are so few of them? Lastly, what about added to scraps to be used for making broth?
Asking for my own benefit, too! I still throw away a lot of veggies.
One more thing: so impressed that you rescued the fish!!
Radishes are also surprisingly good in an Asian-style stirfry! They lose some of their bitterness and soak up whatever sauce you're using really well. (Things you discover with a farm share and no one in the house who will eat fresh radishes.)
Lots of eggs 🙂 My family is a big fan too.
Is that a sleeping ginger cat on the shelf or a dead chicken with a tail? ☺
You do know that I'm kidding right Kristen? It's just this insane sense of humor that was saddled with by my parents! (Gotta blame someone!)
Oh, Thank goodness I'm not the only one that saw that. It looks like a dead monkey to me. Although I'm sure it is not.
Nope! It's a butterflied chicken, seasoned and salted and waiting to be roasted. 😉
I always pickle wrinkly vegetables like carrots, I'm sure radishes would work well too. I do like the idea of roasting them though, I'll have to try that.
Maybe the asparagus could be used for cream of asparagus soup next time? I just recently had two bags of broccoli slaw freeze in our outdoor refrigerator (currently known as a freezer) and after I tossed it, a friend suggested I could have made cream of broccoli soup with it. I'm prepared now if it happens again!
I'm amazed at how you can take a picture of wrinkly old asparagus and still make them look beautiful. Good for you!
I have been pondering the pictures of food on blogs lately, and how there are never crumbs in the pictures, but there are always crumbs in real life. I haven't come to any conclusions. 🙂
Great idea with the soup! I love seeing fridge photos because they give me ideas for my fridge. Is that chicken cut down the back to lay like that? I wonder what you're going to cook with that
Oh Kristen how ironic that this is a week there's no Friday fridge photo over at mine! Yours looks amazingly organised though. Love it. Alls well that ends well (with an organised fridge).
My FWF consists of 'out of focus photos' (no fridge one though) and wasted meat - so if the weather in the UK isn't enough to get you down, my post will.
On a cheerier note it's Chinese New Year, so we'll be partaking later in some off-the-shelf goodies courtesy of not-aldi-variety (oh my! I'm a traitor).
Instagrams looking better though. Just popped a picture on there for you. An idea on what to do with your polka dot cases!
My suggestion for the radishes would be to juice them up or make a smoothie with other veggies. Radishes, carrots, apples, perhaps even some spinach thrown in would be a good combo.
While I don't "formally" participate in Food Waste Friday, I have done surprisingly well this week by not throwing anything out. We have eaten practically all of the leftovers which I'm patting myself on the back about. I do have some funky smells coming from my vegetables though so I think some roasting is in order tonight.
No waste this week - woohoo!! 🙂
Toss the radishes in olive oil, add some sea salt, and roast for half an hour at 425 degrees. You will be amazed by their mild, creamy flavor.
My suggestions for the radishes - either smoothies, like others have said, OR what I do - finely chop/julienne, then add them as a slaw for tacos! I'll chop up cabbage or lettuce or whatever with the radishes, add very finely chopped onions, then add a bit of lime juice, seasonings and a dash of olive oil. ALSO - this would be a great way to use up old fish. Fish tacos with a seasoned slaw is my favorite dinner ever!
You can soak radishes (because they are a root) in cold water and they will rehydrate. This also works for semi-wilted lettuces (cut the stem end again) and carrots. If that doesn't suit you, I'd just slice them and eat them in salads...you won't notice the wrinkled outsides if you're eating the still delicious insides.
I've been waiting forever to get a mypublisher groupon it seems like so today when I read you saw one I hopped right over and picked it up. Then when I was checking out the mypublisher website it told me you can have get a free hardcover book if your a new customer, which I am. So I got two books for the price of one discounted book! yeah happy day!
Yay!!!
I wasted chicken stock this week - what's up with that?!?!! Only a few tablespoons but still. It was in a Tellfresh, labeled and everything - all I had to do is move it from fridge to freezer. Sheesh. No other waste but I think my outrage over this stupidity makes this feel like a bad week.
A new recipe for pizza dough was a total failure: it didn't rise at all. I even tried baking it unrisen (matzo-pizza?? 😉 hoping to save the dough, but all I got was a very encrusted pizza stone. I don't feel responsible for the waste resulting from a bad recipe but that was food into the compost pile rather than the stomach.
Brilliant save on the casserole. If you needed more soup, you could have left the breadcrumbs in to serve as thickener, and use more liquid.
I had no brilliant saves but I did freeze old fruit for future smoothies and tinkered with a cookie recipe on the fly so I got cookies and not burnt crumbs.
I've read you can rescue slightly old chicken stock by boiling it...it'd be safe to eat, but I have no idea if the flavor would be compromised.
Not if it smells like that stock smelled. Not even I, with my famously proven-to-be-cast iron stomach, was interested in touching it.
Well, you probably did the right thing then. Noses are pretty trustworthy when it comes to spoiled food.
I have some masa I made up for corntortillas. I made some into tortillas and saved the rest for later use...but I have a feeling it's too late now. I also have some chocolate chip oatmeal bread that I made to use up some already cooked oatmeal, but we haven't quite finished it and I think it might need to get tossed.
Someone may have suggested this - but you can soak carrots in cold water in the fridge and they will recrisp up. I wonder if the same could be done with the radishes. If it works I'd be curious to know (if you could post an update). Thanks 🙂
Wanna really freak folks out with those wrinkled up radishes? Saute them. Yup, cook 'em. Rinse them off, cut off the tops and roots, then toss them in a frying pan with a little butter, salt, and pepper. Saute until tender. Absolutely delish!
Put your radishes in a dish of water and let them soak for a day. They may revive.
For the my publisher deal, do you ever see cheaper shipping? A $10 book shipping for $10.99 seems like not suck a good deal even if it is half the price of the original. What do you think?
Oh, nuts, it's $10.99? Usually with the Groupon/Living Social deals, some cheaper shipping comes with it.