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.
First the not-so-marvy-fab part:
I found these two almost-empty jars of tomato sauce (the very tasty organic kind from Aldi’s Simply Nature brand) in the back of my fridge, and they are not fit for human consumption.
I almost never waste tomato sauce, because I usually make pizza weekly. But the last few Fridays have been a little crazy, and we’ve ended up picking up pizza instead. This tomato sauce casualty is the result.
But I currently have two batches of thin crust pizza dough in my fridge, so I am guaranteed not to opt for takeout tonight!
So, now for the more cheerful parts of the week:
I made a fruit and yogurt smoothie to use up some leftover pineapple that had gotten a little bit soft.
I made a pot of broth, using some turkey parts I froze at Thanksgiving and some chicken bones that were left when I deboned chicken thighs for Teriyaki Chicken.
And I made some butternut squash soup, using a slightly old squash. But the real food waste win here is that when I blended up the squash, I threw in some leftover sweet potatoes. I’m pretty sure they would not have been eaten otherwise, as they were looking a little less than appetizing (they weren’t moldy…they just didn’t look delicious!)
The soup was delicious, though, and it is entirely gone. So, yay!
(By the way, I’ll announce the winner of the Kindle at noon today, and also in that post, I’ll also share a moral conundrum I’m trying to think through, and I’d love your thoughts/feedback.)
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How did you do this week? If you blogged about your food waste, link us up by entering your info into the widget below. You’ll save money, reduce your trash output, and get a little publicity for your blog! And if you don’t blog, you can still share about your food waste by leaving a comment.
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Joshua’s 365 post: Claws
Katie @ The Surly Housewife
Thursday 23rd of January 2014
I have had minimal food waste lately. Mostly its leftovers from my kids supper. If they don't eat all their soup, for example, I will put it in a separate container, but I am so bad about reheating it again for them! I don't know if I am giving them too big of a portion, or it just something I have to live with lol. Any ideas?
WilliamB
Sunday 19th of January 2014
I wasted most of a pound of mushrooms (the salvagable ones went into a stir-fry) and 3 cubic inches of tofu.
I also did a great deal of meal prep for the week and I poked around in the fridge-freezer to clear out random stuff.
CeCee
Saturday 18th of January 2014
Hmmm. Food Waste. Well its been an interesting week here. We are doing our biannual pantry challenge. So we try to work through as much of the food in our deep freeze and pantry as possible. I always start the challenge with a deep clean and inventory. Since the last time we did a challenge I've bought a dry erase board that I have up next to the freezer to keep inventory on so that was good. The pantry on the other hand.... not so much... I tossed a couple of bags of chips and boxes of cereal with NOTHING left in them. It literally was a handful of chips at most that we just didn't finish. WTH?? I also tossed some stale marshmallows and a pack of pretzels that expired 6 months ago.
BUT I have a great food save story. We had been eating kind of the same thing over and over. That happens in a pantry challenge sometimes. You end up using the "easy" recipes first. I was getting to the point where ingredients were getting scarce, and I found a crockpot BBQ chicken recipe that involved making your own sauce. I had ALL of the ingredients needed.... SCORE.... Quick and easy dinner right? WRONG!! I don't know what I did, but the sauce went awry. It was just awful, and I used these two beautiful bone-in chicken breast. So I did what any rational person would do, I put the lid on it and stuck it in my refrigerator for two days and acted like it didn't exist. Finally on the third day I decided I had to do SOMETHING with it. So I stared at it for twenty minutes, then it came to me. I rinsed all of the sauce off of the chicken that I could-which took forever- and made soup with it! It was actually pretty good. So I now have a crockpot catastrophe soup recipe... Big food save.
Joanna Euans
Friday 17th of January 2014
I made molasses bran muffins to use up the crumbs of raisin bran cereal accumulated at the bottom of the bag! Just posted on the blog to share. Love your inspiration for zero waste!
Lazy Lady
Friday 17th of January 2014
No food wast for me this week! Yay!
Lazy Lady
Friday 17th of January 2014
Ooops, meant to say "waste".