Rats. I let the sun go down.
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.
So, my food waste picture has unfortunate lighting. Oh well.
These are some grilled onions and peppers that lived in my fridge for too long, which is really quite sad because I do like them leftover. It was just a case of having too many good leftovers all at once, I guess.
I also found a bad clementine in the bag shortly after I got home from the store, and one of the oranges in my fridge got moldy.
Those got composted promptly, though, so I have no photographic evidence of that waste.
Things are lookin' pretty good for the upcoming week, foodwaste-wise. I'm quite on top of my leftovers, and my produce is all still fairly young (I get nervous when I have a bunch of aging produce to deal with at once!)
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Joshua's 365 post: Untitled
Too bad about the grilled veggies because they look really good. After a good fridge clean out when I came back from a trip, I need to be on top of the fresh fruit and veggies that fill the fridge. I too get nervous when I have a lot of produce in the refrigerator.
I know what it's like to have too many good leftovers at once - something has to slip through the cracks. And the peppers and onions do look yum.
My food waste was fairly easy to keep on top of this week since my fridge was relatively bare and I was eating from the freezer and pantry. Unfortunately what should have been a zero waste week didn't quite turn out that way due to forgetting to put a couple of things into the fridge until too late 🙁
One biggie, and entirely my fault, and totally worth it. On Sunday I started making bread, then - seeing how fantastic the weather was, for the first time this spring - put it in the fridge to spend the entire day outside. Five days later, the yeast had given up the ghost and the bread was, dare I say it?, toast.
The future looks good. Last night I had the pleasure of unexpected guests for dinner, so a bunch of this-and-that was eaten.
I have a brunch guest on Sunday, which generally leads to leftovers. However since I have a houseguest all week so I anticipate no leftovers.
Hurray for houseguests, and not just because they prevent leftovers.
Doing pretty good at the Ray household. I was getting nervous that some leftover mashed potatoes and gravy were going to be wasted but alas some crockpot BBQ last night needed some potatoes and gravy to go with it. I too get nervous if I have too much fresh produce that I think might be going bad. I have found a trick with cauliflower. I leave it on its...stalk?...and just cut off a little of what I need for snacking. The cauliflower lasts from pay period to pay period which is two weeks!
My sister had an idea that I thought you might find interesting. She wants to set up a facebook page for any food conscious friends and neighbors in our area to be a place of "food sharing". Basically, if it looks like you might end up wasting food if it doesn't get eaten, but you know you have too much, post it and see if somebody else wants it. Does the grocery store have a good deal on milk, but only if you buy 3 gallons, which you don't need? Post about it and see if someone wants to go in on it with you. I love the idea and thought it might be right up your alley. 🙂
Mmmm, yes, "Surplus Anxiety". I get that when my freezers are too full. My solution is to just start cooking, and using up.
Although you had one orange go bad, due to the moldy one which contaminated it, think how many you saved by finding that first one when you got home from the store. I've failed to go through a bag of onions in time, before, only to weeks later find several which had gone moldy, and I could have prevented it.
We do pretty good with out leftovers here. My husband is pretty good about taking them to lunch with them him when he eats.
I've had to toss a lot of bread products this week - moldy whole wheat bagels and moldy hot dog buns. I don't like to put them in the refrigerator (if that even helps....??) and freezing them just makes them taste bad to me. I inadvertently bought a bunch of cilantro instead of the parsley that I needed for a recipe, so I know that's turning mushy in the crisper (I already *had* another bunch of cilantro I was trying to use up....) I'm trying harder than ever to not let food go to waste, but (sigh) this week was not my best effort.
Hey if your cilantro isn't totally spoiled, toss into the blender with minced garlic, pinch of salt and a healthy glug or two of extra virgin olive oil. You now have cilantro garlic sauce in which you can freeze in ice cubes then transfer to a freezer bag. Pull as needed to flavour cooking or melt over freshly steamed veggies. OR you could add more EVOO and keep in fridge. I scoop out enough to generously coat freshly boiled pasta. YUM!
(I don't recommend adding parmesean cheese until serving)
I forgot about a package of chicken that my houseguest had purchased and it did not smell good when I checked on it. So it ended up in the trash. I felt bad for wasting meat, but it wasn't the free range chicken that I prefer to buy at least.
I have a bunch of cilantro in the fridge that I forgot to use in my quinoa pilaf, so if it is still mostly good I think it might be time to make some salsa.
Definitely better to err on the side of caution with chicken!
Made soup again with my leftovers......
Made a huge crockpot of vegetable bean soup yesterday cleaning out the fridge. *thumbs up*