Some pictures would have been helpful...
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.
Whoops.
I somehow did not manage to take a picture of any of the waste that happened at my house this week.
But I had to compost one avocado that sadly turned mushy instead of ripe.
(This is what I get for trying to buy one that was close to being ripe. I have so much more success when I buy them rock hard and let them ripen at home.)
Also, I threw out two pieces of tilapia. I did eat one of the leftover pieces, but didn't manage to get through the rest, due to a glut of other more delicious leftovers (which we did manage to eat!)
I can't very well publish a post with no photos, so hows about one with a happier avocado view?
(That's Mexican Rice from Good Cheap Eats. I topped it with grilled onions, peppers, shrimp, chicken, and beef. Plus pico de gallo and guacamole. Always guacamole.)
Avocados show up so frequently on my instagram feed, this week one follower suggest I check into AA (Avocados Anonymous).
But as I told her, if avocados are wrong, I don't want to be right. 😉
And at Aldi, they are so affordable, I pretty much don't see this stopping any time soon.
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How's food waste going at your house? Any sad tales or great saves to share this week?
Tell me about no pictures! I photographed my routine step by step only to not be able to upload them! Arrrgggghhhhhhhh!
Have fudged my post to get something up!
Oh well! These things come to try us and all that 😉
Tomorrow is my fridge cleaning day, so Im not sure what lurks in the recesses. Actually, I kid, because I have gotten so into my routine of refrigerator accountability that it never gets too bad! I know there's some couscous with cranberries that neither of us was too thrilled about eating leftover, not that it was bad, it just didn't get bumped into the rotation somehow. I'm still not so hard core that I'd serve it with, say, pizza, just to save it....
And I want to say, Kristen and Jo, that both of you have the two most enjoyable blogs that I frequent. I mean that sincerely! Love you both.
Ah, thank you! And I totally agree with you about Jo...she is so delightful. 🙂
Back atcha' Kristen! 😉
Sandy - what a truly lovely way to start the weekend, such kind words! Thank you so much! I'm so pleased you come over. And I love your fridge accountability. I'm a fan of having a fridge regime 😉
One thing my fault, the rest I consider part of the price of trying new things:
- about 1.5 c. of rice that went crunchy in the fridge because I didn't have a cover for the TellFresh (and didn't think to use saran wrap).
- last night's broccoli experiment went awry - 1 c. broccoli.
- always a couple of small tomatoes from the batch.
Probably too late for this...but if you still have the rice, could you rehydrate it? I've had great success turning VERY dry takeout rice into rice pudding.
The rice was salty and savory and extraordinarily crunchy, so no good for rice pudding or fried rice. I suppose I could have tried the fried rice but I thought it was more likely I'd waste whatever else I added - not a good outcome.
Also, inquiring minds want to know: what did you do to the broccoli??
Ha, wondering the same thing!!
A variation of the CI recipe for pan-browned broccoli. Brown cut broccoli in a fry pan, then add water to finish cooking it via steam.
I tried using soy sauce instead of water, and it came out too salty and concentrated. I'm very glad I made only a little.
How to Kill Broccoli, by WilliamB.
Now I know what to call all my cooking failures.
You would be so proud of me this week Kristen! I used up a not-so-good watermelon in several fruit salads; I used a leftover piece of trout in fish cakes and, if I do say so myself, they were delicious; leftover turkey in a casserole; and the last bit of a container of creamy feta I found hiding in the fridge on a bagel which was hiding in the freezer. I almost forgot my zucchini, banana, chocolate muffins to use up, you guessed it, zucchini and bananas!!!! I can hear you cheering....hurray for me.
Whoa. You are rockin' the food waste thing this week!!! Good for you!
Fantastic!
We have a farm share, and it has been more than we can use lately.
I made a huge pot of pureed soup to use up vegetables that were threatening to go bad - onion, carrots, parsnips, butternut squash, and turnips. I put five quart jars of that in the freezer for quick dinners or lunches. Hooray for that!
I froze some fresh herbs so that they wouodn't go bad in the fridge the way last week's herbs did.
I also packed up my crock of fermented green tomato salsa that used up most of the green tomatoes from my garden.
As a busy singleton, I find food waste really hard to manage because there's only so many times I can eat the same thing. But I will consider it a "food waste save" that I managed to freeze single portions of three kinds of meals: chili, minestrone soup, and rice and beans. The freezer is very small and houses about 10# of peaches (and some other fruits) from the summer that will become Christmas gifts, so I have to be careful about this tactic.
Some of the minestrone that I was supposed to eat (ie that went into the fridge instead of the freezer) did not survive, because the weather turned suddenly warm and not soup-like.
Also, I took the suggestion from some of your readers to put jugs of water in the fridge. So I haven't been losing my produce to fridge-freeze syndrome lately. That's a long-term win, in my book!
Kristen, you have been such a motivator for me to cut down on food waste! This week I finally cleaned out and defrosted our small upright freezer, and also cleaned out the fridge freezer. I am embarrassed to say that I had not cleaned either for a LONG time, so unfortunately had to throw away some things. However, I made a (long) list of what can still be used. With the exception of fresh fruits & veggies, I probably won't have to grocery shop for a couple of weeks...maybe longer. So I am happy about that. 🙂
I threw away a moldy bite of fresh mozzarella, but we had managed to eat way more of it than last time I threw away the moldy fresh mozzarella.
I had to throw away a banana that had fallen out of the stroller and got run over.
I also threw away one serving of pasta. I had made like a whole pound of eggplant pasta and it was just OK--the kids and Mr. FP didn't go for it. I ate it for lunch like three times--including one day when I had made pizza for the kids, which takes willpower!--and then moved on!
Most of your pictures are very nice, although they are often showing up blurry on a C5 device. On a larger screen such as a laptop Mac, the rendition of the images is very sharp. Nobody likes to look at blurry images on these tiny cephone screens. Sometimes I wonder if the tekkies in Silicon Valley are aware of this.
Hmm...does this happen to you on other websites as well or only on my blog?
I spend alot of quality time thinking about avocados. I love them and would say they are my favourite food ever. If i have to discard one I am sad I did not save it. I feel your pain!
My week on food waste.
http://www.veeseasyvegan.com/easy-vegan-blueberry-muffins-food-waste-friday/:
I guess with having a family of 7 eating in our household saves a lot on the food waste, because we hardly ever have any. Usually the only things we have to toss out are moldy veggies (that really should have lasted longer!) and even then that's a rare occurrence. My biggest problem is keeping food in the house! They eat it as soon as I get it. Ah- the joys of having 3 teenagers. 🙂
I am a bit behind, but I finally went through my freezer and made a list of the contents. There are some things in there that will be somewhat challenging to use up. I did end up throwing away a few slices of bread and two hamburger buns that were all pretty freezer burned. I also threw out some sauce for fish that hadn't turned out well in the first place. It might take me a while to work through the freezer, but I feel more confident about it now.
This is a great idea! I hate throwing away celery, which seems to happen once a week around here--I buy it really intending to feed it to the kids, make tuna salad, and seven days later it's floppy and awful.
Has the internet guilt gotten you throwing away less? I just started an internet accountability plan of my own, to help me focus on getting more family dinners during the week. I'm hoping it'll go well!
Oh my yes! I used to throw away SO much food and I'm way better now.