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. If you’re not a blogger but still want some food waste accountability, feel free to participate by leaving a comment.
So, since arriving home from vacation last Saturday, I have not made an honest-to-goodness trip to the grocery store. I made a quick stop to pick up some milk, OJ, and produce, but that’s been it.
This means that we’ve been eating down our fridge, and it’s quite barren at the moment. My fruit and vegetable drawers are almost never empty, but they’re pretty darn close right now.
I do have some cilantro to get rid of (it was a pre-vacation purchase),
plus an orange that I peeled pre-vacation (it was one of those duddy oranges that didn’t taste quite right and so no one wanted to finish it off) and some old baby carrots. The carrots were kind of dry and aged but we were feeding them to the hermit crabs. Unfortunately, the hermit crabs recently expired (all 3 of them on the same day! We think they got too cold when our power went out), so there’s no one left to eat the carrots.
So, that’s what’s new (or, um, old!) on the food waste front for me.
Oh, and the oven barbecued brisket I made the other night was delicious. The only trouble was, I had difficulty cutting it into slices (it kind of fell apart!), so I just cut it up/pulled it, mixed in some extra BBQ sauce and we made sandwiches out of the meat.
I’ve never made brisket before, but after an afternoon in a low, slow oven, it definitely reminded me of chuck roast. That’s good news for me, because I have several recipes that use chuck roast (Beef Au Jus sandwiches being one), and so brisket is no longer scary to me.
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Today’s 365 post: I was going to throw these out before we left…
Also, don’t forget to enter in the Walgreens giveaway and the GE giveaway before it’s too late!
Twyla
Friday 4th of March 2011
do you compost the waste, or just chuck it in the trash?
Cassie
Saturday 26th of February 2011
Not too bad!
I personally hate having to buy cilantro for a recipe. I know I will NEVER use all of it and, in my mind, it's bunny food. (Growing up I had rabbits and they were fed a diet of vegetables with only a little bit of pellets lol! My mom used to joke that they ate better than we did :) )
Sara
Friday 25th of February 2011
I wasted nothing. Sorry about your crabs.
Wanda
Friday 25th of February 2011
Not a good week. I wasted apples and Lima beans. I am giving up buying apples at the farmers market I never eat them all before they go bad.
Sara Tetreault
Friday 25th of February 2011
Hi Kristen, I did a post on food waste 2/15 and linked to your site. Just wait until your kids are teens - wasted food will be a thing of the past! Freezing herbs (especially cilantro) is a great way to preserve them. Just stick the entire bunch stems, leaves and all in your freezer. Put a tie on the end of the bag, first. You could also chop the cilantro first but I don't. When you need cilantro for a soup or stew, just break off a few sprigs and toss into your dish. Or just toss the whole thing in. No more waste!