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.
We love mini oranges around here…clementines or mandarin oranges; it doesn’t matter. I bought a bag a little while back, and it seems it was a bit too early in the season, because they weren’t nearly as juicy and sweet as we expected. So, three of them sat around too long and bit the dust.
Those can be composted, so no big deal.
But the other stuff bums me out more. I forgot about a lone chicken thigh, and I have no great excuse for why that happened.
The ham has upsides and downsides…on the one hand, I found leftover ham in the freezer and the kids and I made a meal of it one night when Mr. FG was out of town. So, yay for a meal using a once-forgotten freezer item. But then the last few bits ended up in the back of the fridge behind massive quantities of Romaine lettuce (which, I am pleased to say, I have nearly used up), and the ham was forgotten.
In other food waste news, I’ve been stabbing plastic bags for the cause. (Yup!) Click here to read all about it (and to find out why I’m wrapping banana stems).
________________________________________________
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.
Those of you who participate in Food Waste Friday can now grab a fancy-schmancy button to perk up your posts. If you copy and paste the following code into your Food Waste Friday post, this little graphic will appear.
If you blog on WordPress, just make sure you’re in html mode when you copy and paste the code, or it won’t work properly.
Cecee
Sunday 24th of November 2013
Considering that I cooked our Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, due to an upcoming surgery, our food waste was low.
We lost a 1/2 head of cabbage that got lost in the back of the fridge. We lost about a cup of chili that I forgot to put in the freezer.
Food Saves: I didn't cook for five days before the feast and we ate almost EVERYTHING that was in the icebox. I haven't seen it that barren in forever. Now we are stocked up on T-Day food to last us through my surgery
Liz @ Economies of Kale
Sunday 24th of November 2013
I had more disastrous food waste this week, when my one of my homemade cider bottles exploded, sending the olive oil tin onto the floor and spilling olive oil all over the carpet. It was a mess, but I eventually managed to clean up all of the oil and the glass fragments. I'm hoping for a less exciting week this week!
Kristen
Sunday 24th of November 2013
Oof. Oil spilling is the WORST.
lurker
Friday 22nd of November 2013
I think clementines and mandarins are delicious when they get dry and shriveled like that. As long as they aren't rotten or moldy, the flavor gets more concentrated the more water they lose. In fact I let them dry out on purpose when they're not super good to begin with. MFK Fisher left tangerine sections them on the radiator of her Dijon apartment to dry in the winter. She liked the contrast of the dry, crackly skin with the sweet juice.
Kristen
Saturday 23rd of November 2013
Unfortunately, these were moldy on the other side. I put the nicer looking side toward the camera, I guess!
Karen
Friday 22nd of November 2013
Has everyone heard the buzz regarding Aldi's and horse meat? If not, google it.
Reese
Friday 22nd of November 2013
Yes. It dealt with Aldis in Europe (UK specifically in the news that broke). But it wasn't Aldi-specific. And it wasn't THEM that was doing it. Their suppliers had used horse meat.
Aldi has issued a ton of apologies and are fixing the problem on their end. I will continue to support Aldi. None of the stores in the US were affected, I should note.
Beka
Friday 22nd of November 2013
I had the same problem with the oranges! So many of them ripened too fast. Normally, I'd use them in this recipe (using three clementines instead of one orange):
http://www.food.com/recipe/fresh-orange-muffins-14325
I didn't end up using them this time because I didn't have all the ingredients I needed, and it wasn't close enough to grocery shopping day to go to the store early.