This avocado is just the start...
Part I
Today is Food Waste Friday.
I found a funky avocado earlier this week and snapped a photo.
I wish this was all the food waste I have, but I know I've got more.
But.
I haven't cleaned out my fridge, so I'm not sure what all is hiding in there.
So!
I'm gonna eat some breakfast, then tackle the fridge, and I'll update the post once I do.
I think it's gonna be bad...
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Part II
Alrighty! I've cleaned out my fridge and am back with a report.
Here's the view that greeted me this morning.
And here's the bad stuff I found.
Oof.
So. I have two summer squash, a few stalks of celery, several mushrooms, a forgotten-about piece of pizza, a teeny bit of chicken, and then the worst thing, a container of sloppy joe sandwich filling.
I'd gotten that out of the freezer for my kids to eat while Mr. FG and I were out on a date night (to use up a Groupon!), and I'd made some fluffy hamburger buns for them to use.
But somehow they ate way more buns than filling, and then every single one of the buns got used up the next day (toasted for breakfast, I believe), so there were no buns for sandwiches.
And then we just forgot about the sloppy joe filling altogether.
Oy.
But now my fridge is looking much better, and as always, I'm full of hope for the future week.
(I'm irrepressibly optimistic about most things.)
I cut up half of the watermelon into chunks because my kids and I will go thru an impressive amount of watermelon in short order if it's accessible.
Ditto for this bit of broccoli. Left in the fridge, I'd forget about it. On the counter, I'll mindlessly snack on it.
I also took some roasted chicken off the bone for chicken salad. Having it off the bone is gonna make me WAY more likely to use it.
Oh, and here's my freezer.
It's not doing too badly, especially because a lot of the contents are frozen fruit for smoothies.
And since I make smoothies on a super regular basis, none of that stuff is going to get freezer burnt.
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I really, really did not want to deal with my fridge this morning, which is exactly why I keep doing Food Waste Friday posts.
Knowing you guys will be reading about my wins and losses is what keeps me going some weeks, so thank you. : )
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How did things go for YOU this week?
My fridge is culled and cleaned! Yay! Life's good!
Lost a handful of grapes and also a whole punnet of strawbs earlier in the week. Off to the compost bin they went. Not great. Forgot I had the strawbs in the fridge and then went away for my birthday last weekend, to return home to find them mouldy.
Photographed my Friday routine today step by step today as I'd asked for feedback last week - and got it!
I understand! I've had those weeks too. This is my first real post postpartum!
http://eatdrinkandsavemoney.com/2015/06/19/apricot-glazed-barbeque-chicken-for-food-waste-friday/
It was an okay week. I thought I'd lost an entire pineapple that got pushed to the back of the fridge behind the milk, but only some parts were bad. The organic baby spinach I bought was largely wasted (we used about 40%). I don't think I'm buying that variety anymore--it's shipped across the country and doesn't keep long when it reaches us on the East coast. I also lost a small bit of fresh mozzarella. We'd had sandwiches to use most of it. I thought I'd add what was left to a salad, but no. I was too late. 🙁
Yay about the pineapple!
When I catch spinach that is about to go bad, I put it in the freezer for smoothies. Spinach is surprisingly mild in smoothies (so much moreso than kale!) and then it doesn't go to waste.
Of course, this requires catching it before it goes bad, which is a challenge.
We do this too, but with all greens. Even regular lettuce goes, if you don't put too much.
A good week for us on this front : lost 2 eggs.
We do have veggies that are past prime (a cauliflower, part of a brocoli, couple mushrooms, lettuce, 1/2 avocado), so I'll freeze the avocado and lettuce (yep!), for smoothies, and make something with the rest tommorow, maybe a casserole with pasta and chicken+veggies.
Bad week here, too, which doesn't surprise me because it's been busy-stressy.
- Someone else's smoothie, but several cups of it. It wasn't to my taste and too much milk to make good smoothie pops.
- A sweet pepper. I leave veggies on my desk at work to nosh. Usually that works well but during busy-stressy weeks I don't nosh so the food goes bad. I prefer the occasional food waste to not eating my veggies.
- Some lettuce, which I didn't eat at lunch because I don't eat salad at my desk and had other things to do during lunchtime.
- Cherries. About 2 c. cherries. How could I have let this happen?!?!! (Well, I know the answer: busy-stressy week also involves not eating right.) I sorted through them, composted the moldy or soft ones, washed the rest ~really~ well (soap, rinse, fruit wash, careful dry).
Busy-stressy ALWAYS leads to food waste for me.
I'm sorry you had a rough week!
Sigh. The hubs and I both had unexpected dinnertime meetings throughout the week, so this wasn't our best effort. But last night hubs decided to prepare all if our usable leftovers and call it tapas - bites of this, a smattering of that. Well done, and oh so nice to come home to after my all-day meeting!
Fridge is cleaned out. Had to throw away a lemony-melon a cross between a honeydew melon and lemon. At the local market said people love them. My husband and I gave it two thumbs down.
On another note, while doing laundry today I unbottoned my husbands collars as you suggested and it was as you said!! Yea, we will save on work shirts! Thank you so much
Yay! Glad his shirt collars are safe. 😉
There is a lot in our fridge....didn't do so well this week. There is some baby squash that needs to be used asap....otherwise I might freeze it for squash casserole later. Also have a large bag of fresh green beans that need to be blanched and put in the freezer. I had bought them with a purpose in mind, which didn't happen. 🙁 And some lettuce that will be made into salad for dinner tonight, along with some leftovers from earlier in the week. And some soft peaches and strawberries - smoothies on the horizon! That's about it.
Hi, this is my first week joining in. I cleaned out my fridge - it really needed it. I hate wasting food so much that I hoard it! I have nice clean fridge now and I want to keep it that way. I am hoping that by facing up to my waste each week it will help me take control of it, rather than just feel guilty about it. My full confession is here including a picture of my lovely clean fridge – http://moretimethanmoney.co.nz/2015/06/19/confessions-of-a-food-waste-hoarder
Well, I ran out of repurposed jars and had to throw away some whey (that I was probably not going to use), and I had to throw out an entire head of broccoli that had gone bad. Sigh.
Otherwise, I did well. I bought 2 pounds of chicken on clearance ($1.99/lb for boneless skinless breast) and instead of freezing it raw, which makes it "hard" to use, I cooked it up as shredded taco chicken. Now it will be calling my name from the freezer :-). And instead of throwing away the white tops of the scallions I bought, I planted them! I don't have a garden yet, so I just used a container. I already see them sprouting! Never-ending scallions, here I come.
Alright. I've been dreading this one all week. We had a birthday and house guests last weekend, which always results in me losing track of things. I threw out an avocado, about half a package of goat cheese, a peach, and an almost full cans worth of beans. Oy. On the upside, my farm share also started last Friday, and I did not waste any of that.
I did really good this week! Which is surprising, because we were out of town at a funeral last week, and I've been down with a cold this week, which usually leads to not-noticing-food-about-to-die syndrome. Instead I:
Used the last piece of bread as toast,as it was starting to go stale (homemade bread gets stale so fast!)
Tossed the leftover beans and taco meat from last week in the freezer, as it was obvious nobody was going to eat them. They said they wanted spicy, so I added a can of jalapeños, then they complain. Can't win...I'll toss them in with enchiladas or something later on.
Added the leftover broccoli from earlier this week to the carrots we had for dinner tonight. I don't normally cook on Fridays, but wasn't up to it last night (see cold, above) and I needed to cook the pork tenderloin I had gotten out of the freezer. So a double win, saved the meat too 🙂
That IS impressive. Being sick makes it hard to deal with food!
Yup, things that are all cut up and ready to eat seem to fare the best! For myself, food waste isn't even much of an issue, so that's not what I do it, but it's the best way to make sure I eat raw vegetables.
Mmmm MmmmYum,,my chickens would have LOVED your fridge throwouts!! You just gotta get a couple of chickens Kristen!
I had a couple of pretty good "saves" this week, but lost two hamburger buns and about three slices of bread to mold. I forget to refrigerate it when it's humid...
My saves: I bought a GIGANTIC watermelon, and didn't realize just how big it was until I started cutting it up. I ended up freezing a quart size container of it for smoothies, giving 1/4 of it to my mother, and eating the rest. I also had some yeasted banana bread (your recipe!) that was getting dry, which I made into French toast.
This week was much better than last.
I lost an avocado. That seems to be a theme for me. I always lose one. I could buy 2 and eat one or buy 25 and eat 24. I just can't find the magic number.
Otherwise a maybe 10 grapes and 3-4 tomatoes. All into compost.
I was able to use up the last of kale and cherry tomatoes between layers on a homemade pizza.
We aren't grocery shopping until the 1st. We are having more month than money after an emergency vet visit. So it's a two week pantry challenge here.
Cracking up at the idea of 25 avocados. That might be too many even for me!
Aldi had screaming good deal on spiral hams, bought the smallest which is to big for the 2 of us so I froze some and and taking ham and potato dish to my dad today. Glad it did not go to waste.
On a side note, a piece of plastic broke off the barrel of my hair drying roll brush so rather than buy new I used a zip tie to keep it together. I will see how long my fix will last. I think your blog and The Non-Consumer Advocate made me do that. Ha!