What didn't survive
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.
When I cleaned out my freezer the other day, I found a few things that were too far gone for saving:
The corn smelled super freezer burnt, the chipotle peppers had been in there way too long (The ones I mentioned in my post yesterday were from a new can), and the ham had been hastily thrown in there without any wrapping (??) to keep the lid shut, so the ham was super-duper dry.
Aand, I had to compost a bad avocado (whyyyy do I ever buy avocados from a store other than Aldi? I hardly ever get a bad avocado from Aldi.)
Freezer Challenge Update
Yesterday I finished using up the random bits of bread from my freezer (Yay!).
I made a small batch of garlic croutons, which my kids and I devoured in about 5 minutes.
And I made a pan of bread pudding.
(No one complained about that.)
I used eggs that had gotten a bit cracked and stuck to the carton. I just turned the carton upside down over the bowl and broke the eggs one at a time.
And if you follow me on Instagram, you already know I made a pot of broccoli noodle soup to use up broccoli and turkey broth from my freezer.
(I'd forgotten to mention the turkey broth in my freezer inventory.)
So, I've used up bread odds and ends (lots!), bananas, broccoli, turkey broth, and whole wheat flour so far.
Might be time to tackle some of the meaty contents of my freezer next...
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How did you do on the food waste front this week? And if you're doing the freezer challenge, how's it going?
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P.S. Totally forgot to tell you all that Ashlyn is the winner of The Make Ahead Cook giveaway. Congrats, Ashlyn! And happy cooking. 🙂
For freezer-burnt or dried-out foods, I find soup to be a satisfactory use, as long as there's not too much. The freezer-burn on veggies is mitigated by the long simmering. And since I mince the meat so the flavor is distributed, it gets moistened up again and no mouthful includes too much.
The problem I'm facing I put too much (fresh) kale in to Garlic Black Bean Soup. It's going to take me a long time to c/h/o/k/e/i/t/d/o/w/n/finish the soup. I'm seriously considering making more soup, sans kale, just to dilute the kale component.
Oh dear. Good luck with the kale.
I usually use corn in Chicken Tortilla soup which isn't really a long simmering soup (I'v tried using freezer burnt corn in it before with yucky results).
One could note that my corn storage habits could use some help. Chest freezer, Kristen, chest freezer!
Unfortunately, I have had a couple of tomatoes go bad this week. It's hard to keep up with them this time of year. Also I'm not officially doing the freezer challenge, but I have had a couple of meals out of there this week before some of the older things got anymore freezer burn.
Way to go. Muchly impressed. Love the bread pudding.
What is it with avocados? I have 2 hanging around. And I must have read at least 3 food waste friday posts last week that featured them.
I've put a request for help out on my post as to what to do with my avocados this week.
In fact I've also put out an invite. My alternate Food Waste Friday posts - when I am not hosting on your behalf (No Waste Tastes Great) were starting to get a little stale. When you start to bore yourself, its time for a change! 😉
Hope you are happier with your freezer now!
Probably too late, but I'd recommend using the ham to make a split pea or lentil soup. Even if you didn't want to eat the ham itself, you could throw it in there in big pieces while it was cooking and remove them at the end. Then at least you'd get some of the smoky, salty, meaty flavor out into the soup. Although I think I'd dice up those pieces and throw them in there at the end too.
Nothing went bad this week! I have to be extra-careful, because I'm trying to stick to my grocery budget this month and I only have $40 left. Tamar Adler's book Everlasting Meal is helping me come up with ideas for things I would normally throw away, like celery leaves.
Celery leaves are good minced for salad, or sauteed in most circumstances in which you'd saute celery stalks. Most of mine go into the freezer for chicken stock, along with onion skins.
Yes Kristen, you once again inspired me and I finally cleaned out my chest freezer. The good news is that I didn't have a lot of meat waste and the bad news is that I had A LOT of bread waste. From now on I will mark the date on my bread before it goes in the freezer. Hopefully I will be able to use it up before it meets the cold fate. I cooked up some turkey bones and made stew which turned out to be delicious!
Remember you are reaching me in a tiny Cape Breton town and I am probably twenty years senior to you. Loved your podcast too.
Well, it's way better to waste bread than meat, since meat has a much larger footprint. 🙂 So you had your priorities right.
I cooked up turkey bones from my freezer pretty recently too. It works out very nicely in place of chicken broth.
So glad my blog blesses you!
Ugh. I found a small container of mushrooms that just looked a little mushy. Fine because I was going to cook them in pasta sauce. But when I opened it. Gag! The smell meant it got tossed. Sad. I had just forgotten those little guys.
And what's with an avocado that never gets soft but goes bad. All black inside but never was ripe. Hate that! And it was an Aldi buy. But rare. The others were all perfect and yummy.
Used up lots of odds and ends from the fridge making potato salad and baked beans from scratch. Pressure cooked great northern beans from dry. So yummy!
Also used up various bits of bottles of all sorts of condiments concocting homemade barbecue sauce for slow cooker barbecue chicken.
Composted veggie trimmings and egg shells.
All in all not too terrible a week!
Oops! forgot that I made a quick blueberry cobbler using frozen blueberries from last summer. My in-laws grow them and have given me new ones from this summer.
Also cooked up chicken from the freezer. That's what made the crockpot barbecue chicken!
Wow, you are doing awesome!
Recently I read an article on Penniless Parenting where Penny went away for a holiday and came back to a freezer full of dethawing meat. She writes about what she did with it to save it. Do not eat meat but can imagine the work. http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2014/09/what-to-do-with-entire-freezer-full-of.html
On my own home front excellent week here. No waste at all 🙂 I too came home recently to my hubby cleaning out our freezer and defrosting it so I used up bits and bobs then and my freezer is pretty clear. My biggest challenge is bread which I freeze and then end up with loads of bags of bread with 4 slices or so.
http://www.veeseasyvegan.com/poached-pears-in-citrus-sauce-talking-about-food-and-plastic-waste-home-made-delights/:
Great work! What is your go-to cookbook for recipes.....like broccoli noodle soup or bread pudding? Just curious!
I use a lot of Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen recipes, and I also have a basic Better Homes and Gardens cookbook that I use for basics.
Hi Kristen! After a couple of years off publicly declaring my food waste, I'm back, because without this accountability I slack off 🙂 Things end up in the bin and I think 'oh well, never mind' when, if I have to declare it at the end of the week, I am more likely to notice and make a save before it's too late!
Thank you for this forum and the encouragement it has given me to waste less!
This week I had some eggs that I didn't save, and half a lemon! Not as good as I wanted for my first week back, but not too bad 🙂
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8668842627180577443#editor/target=post;postID=3238331768941303583;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=0;src=postname
Oh man, I am SO the same way. I really need the accountability.
Clare - dropping this link in for you as the above link is taking me to Google sign in page. (like other link from FB)
http://www.doingitsimply.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/food-waste-friday.html
Speak later x
We lost a half of an avocado and few bites of pot roast that we thawed on a lazy night. All in all not a bad food waste for the crazy week we had. We are closing on a house, and had several appointments (vet, doctor, work, and otherwise). It was a very stressful week, so to have few leftovers was good
I'm so happy to see this effort to raise awareness about food waste. I am definitely an offender--mine is usually fresh produce that I wait a LITTLE too long to use--but I am determined to use every every last bit of food that I've spent money on. I'm constantly working to balance the cost of food with the quality of food, so if I've purchased beautiful produce from local food growers and happily paid a little more to support those hard-working folks, the least I can do is not let the food die in my vegetable crisper!