Well, mostly.
Last time I did a Food Waste Friday post, I had an abundance of potatoes, lettuce, and overripe bananas.
Here’s my potato collection from that post. After making clam chowder, mashed potatoes, potato bread, and potato wedges, though…
this is what I have left. And the three sweet potatoes just came in this week’s produce box, so they barely even count. 😉
Oh, and to use up the older dry sweet potatoes, I peeled, boiled, and mashed them and subbed them for the pumpkin in these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.
I made 24 and they are all gone as of this morning.
So, the potato situation is resolved.
The banana problem didn’t have quite such a happy ending.
I used up almost all of my pile of ripe bananas, but these ones languished until they were really unusable. I should have frozen them, but I kept thinking I would get to them and I did not.
I know overripe bananas are good for baking, but I felt that these had gone past even that point.
On the lettuce front, I have a mixed report.
I had SO much lettuce to deal with, thanks to a mistakenly delivered extra produce box + sick people who weren’t eating anything.
But I am happy to say that I only wasted this much:
And as of yesterday afternoon, I had only this left:
But.
I actually used that to make a salad for Mr. FG’s lunch today, so I have officially made it through all of that lettuce.
Phew.
And thank heavens Romaine lettuce keeps so well!
In other news, someone cut up a lime, used a little bit of it, and then left the rest to go bad. I suspect one of my children is the culprit.
And these beans are more my fault. We had a few left over when I made sauteed green beans, and I was so busy eating other leftovers, these got ignored.
I don’t know why I didn’t just eat those at the time…usually I just serve myself whatever is left because I know no one really is a huge fan of leftover green beans.
Other random saves that I did not photograph: I sauteed some mushy apples in butter for breakfast and I used a few other mushy apples to make some Apple Pfannekuchen.
Here’s what my fridge currently looks like.
By the way, all the greens in there are new arrivals! I really did use up all of my original lettuce. 😉
And here’s the door, which is mostly condiments.
So, I had a few losses, but overall I’m pleased with how well I managed to get through my abundance of produce, and I’m super pleased that everything in my fridge is pretty darn current and fresh.
Things are looking promising for this week, I think.
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How did food waste go at your house this week? Share in the comments! And if you need ideas for using up something in particular, feel free to leave a question. Readers here are super helpful.
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P.S. I’ll be back at noon to post a giveaway for the cute felted wool kits I showed you yesterday on Facebook, so check back in!
Jenny
Sunday 18th of January 2015
Might I make a suggestion about your fridge? Try storing your milk and cream (buttermilk, or whatever is in that carton in the top corner) into the main part of the fridge. One time I rearranged my fridge and started storing my coffee cream in the door, and it started going off 3 or 4 days before the expiration date, and was trash by then. I moved it back into the fridge, and now it is useable a few days past the date.
Apparently every time you open the fridge door it warms the things in the door a little and this causes them to spoil faster, but the air in the body of fridge warms much less. This might not be a problem with your milk if your kids go through it really fast, but with cream or buttermilk, I'd think a few extra days would make for less food waste.
I would say to store your soda or juice there instead, but I don't see any of that, so maybe your jams could go there, or pickles if you have them.
Kristen
Sunday 18th of January 2015
I've definitely heard this before, but the door is so stinking convenient for the oft-used milk, and since there are six of us here, I never have trouble with it going bad.
But I'll certainly reconsider once Mr. FG and I are empty-nesters and all the milk-guzzling offspring have moved out. ;)
Marianne
Saturday 17th of January 2015
It was not a good week for me & food waste, although not for the lack of effort. But I did make some saves -leftover chicken breast went to the dogs & they were happy about that. All my frozen rolls from Thanksgiving were not looking good as I did not wrap them well before freezing same with some bagels -those went to the birds n squirrels. Leftover ham was thrown out in the back yard for some starving critter, what veggies were rotten went to compost. At least a large black bird was flying away with either a roll or bagel in his possession. I also cleaned out some cupboards, dated peanut butter went to animal control for the dogs kongs & I am not sure what I can do with a number of canned soups that hubby wanted but did not eat and are really dated (early 2013 ex date). Ugh!
Cecilia Leffew
Saturday 17th of January 2015
I made apple pfannekuchen this morning too. Great minds think alike. Thank you for that recipe. I have used many of your recipes and my family thanks you.
Holly QW
Friday 16th of January 2015
Apples with no flavor, make apple sauce. I've added pears and/or cranberries and you'll have a delicious easy sauce. Peel apples and put in the crock pot with spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg...add the pears (with skin on) and cranberries and cook until smooth. Stir every hour. Yummy and freezes beautifully.
Nancy
Friday 16th of January 2015
I have some Costco organic apples in my crisper that have NO flavor. So, we don'teat them. Any suggestions as to what to do with them?