Food Waste Friday: A Slip, A Recovery and A Save!

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!


I didn't blog about my Food Waste last Friday, in no small part because I knew I had some food waste, and just couldn't face writing about it! I felt pretty awful about slipping up after four zero Food Waste weeks in a row.

So last week I lost half a bunch of kale, some watercress, and about a quarter of a tub of cream cheese. I was upset about each of these, because all of these would have been easy saves (kale and watercress could easily have been thrown into a salad, and that small amount of cream cheese could have disappeared in a single lunchtime meal of cream cheese and jam on toast). But I got busy, and a little overwhelmed and the items all went way past their good-to-eat stage.

But, this week, I picked myself back up, dusted myself off and got back in the proverbial saddle, for another zero Food Waste week - yay me!

Also, I had a huge food save, which I was really proud of. We were prepping for a picnic dinner last weekend, and My Good Man helped out by hard-boiling a dozen eggs for some egg salas. He decided to experiment with a new cooking method, which went a little awry, and we were left with a dozen cold, soft boiled eggs. We tried re-boiling them, but they just started to get tough outer whites, but still soggy inner whites and yolks ... not so good for egg salad. I put them aside, and hard boiled a new dozen eggs for the salad, which worked out fine.

But what to do with the dozen soft boiled eggs?! I peeled a couple of them the next morning, mashed them up a little, and just cooked them in a skillet, making a sort of chunky scrambled egg. Served on toast, no one batted an eye! I served the rest of them on subsequent mornings, until they were all gone - total save! Double yay! (I really felt bad at the prospect of wasting a dozen fresh-from-the farm eggs).


So how was your Food Waste this week? Feel free to share, or add a link back to your own Food Waste blog post; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday: Adventures in Avocados

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!

After my usual Thursday afternoon rummage through the fridge, cleaning everything up, and trolling for food waste, I found an avocado for the bin. Which made me really sad.

Avocados are fairly expensive, and one of our favorite foods to boot. It is rare for an avocado to get wasted.

So I duely take a photo of my avocado to post here ...

 But taking a photo of my avocado like that doesn't do it justice; so I cut it open to show the yucky-ness of the gone off avocado ...

And it's perfect! Save! Needless to say, I am really glad I cut the avocado open!

I also had a really great Food Waste save. I had a couple of portions of oatmeal that had been forgotten, and several jars of fruit butter (homemade pumpkin, apple and peach) plus some homemade apple sauce. All of the jars had been languishing in the fridge for an extra week or two, and I really wanted to use them up before they went bad. I used this recipe, which I have found to be incredibly forgiving to changes. I substituted all of the butter for my apple sauce/fruit butter concoction, forgo-ed the vanilla, and added chocolate chips rather than raisins. Delish!

So, all this means that I am four for four! Four zero Food Waste weeks in a row! Woo hoo!!


How about you? How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday: Three for Three?!

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!


I did a clean of my fridge. Reorganized my cupboards a bit. Had a rummage through my pantry. And what did I find?

Nothing that constituted waste!

Nothing got thrown out this week at all, and I didn't find anything lurking that was ready for the trash bin. So this marks my third zero Food Waste week in a row (save for a couple of bad pieces of fruit; they were bad when I bought them, so I don't count this as a fault on my part!)

Now Food Waste and I have had some really awful times in the past, so I'm curious as to what is so different now. We are not really eating different foods, but I have started to shop really differently, and this may just be the key for us.

We are now doing just about all our shopping in bulk. All of our pantry items are bought in bulk so they are almost always on hand. Then each week I am just buying produce for the week, and that is about it.

I started to write out a more detailed list of my grocery shopping list, but it started to get really long. I'll save it for another day!


How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share, or add a link back to your own blog; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday: A Pretty Good, and Boring, Week!

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!


I let you know yesterday that my camera had died, which means I have no photos to show of my food waste this week, resulting in perhaps the most boring of all Food Waste Friday posts - sorry!

But, I really had to share!

Last week, I had a zero waste week, which was fab, but made me a little nervous. After such a good week, it seemed inevitable that I would have a bad week.

But no!

Two bananas (that went so black and mushy, they would taste awful even added to something in a recipe) and one moldy kiwi out of a newly bought package.

Not too bad!! Yay!


How was your Food Waste this week? Feel free to add a comment, or a link back to your own blog if you wrote about Food Waste Friday too; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday: How Did That Happen?!

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!


So, I have had a couple of pretty huge FWFs in the past (Food Waste Fails), like this one, and this one. Let's just say that Food Waste Friday and I have had a bit of a rocky relationship over the past couple of months.

So, this will make a nice change of pace!

This week, I have no food waste to inform you all of. Nothing at all!

Instead of the usual photos of yucky, gone off food, this week you get to see the inside of my zero-waste fridge!

Here is the part that I hope is not going to really disappoint you, because I'm not sure that I did anything special towards my zero waste week. I did a big shop at the beginning of the week, and had masses of produce in the fridge, but between big salads for lunch and plenty of veg with evening meals, it's about all gone.

Now, let's see how next week looks!


How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday! Better ... Finally!

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!


I've had a run of really disastrous Food Waste weeks,really just disastrous. But, it gave me the opportunity to clear out my fridge and take a closer look at my grocery shopping and meal planning.

And, as a result, I'm pleased to announce that I had a minimal food waste week! Yay!

I lost half a fresh pineapple, which went fizzy and fermented really quickly, and an avocado which was just so yucky and mushy when I cut into it that I couldn't bear even adding it to a smoothie. So out they both went.

And of course, I realized that I didn't take photos of my food waste, so instead you get a shot of my fridge and my two Little Ones (who are magically drawn to the fridge whenever they hear the door open ;-)

Now I just have to maintain my minimal food waste ... oh, the pressure!


How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday! Breaking Some Eggs ... Metaphorically!

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!


So, I have had two pretty disastrous weeks in a row (here and here), and I know that on first glance this week won't look much better.

Are you familiar with the saying "you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs"? Well, this week is my attempt to make things a whole lot better, but it had to get worse first!

I've been really inspired by seeing some of the pictures of the contents of people's beautifully organized and sparse refrigerators on other blogs for Food Waste Friday. So inspired that I actually cleaned out my fridge ... and found a bunch of really expired stuff. And some stuff that was just wasted, too. But I think that the combination of actually knowing (and seeing) what is in my fridge, and better menu/shopping plans, will be just the ticket.

(So you have to know, before you see the picture of the inside of my fridge, that My Good Man is the King of Condiments (really! - that is one of my nicknames for him!) so the fridge still has a lot of his sauces and whatnot in it).

Not too shabby! Let's see if it looks this good in another week!!

(I'm realizing that I'm not very good at remembering to take before pictures, only after ones, although I'm not sure you would really want to see the inside of my former, disorganized fridge).

And now for the not so good stuff ... the waste :-(

A jar of mincemeat from at least the previous decade, moldy pasta sauce and butternut squash soup, hard sauce (for Xmas Puddings!) and a half used sachet of yeast all bit the dust. I was really upset though about the breadsticks. They were made by me from left over pizza dough, and I was really pleased that I had found a great way to utilize the leftover dough. So I baked them, and popped them in the freezer ... and when I took them out to accompany a meal the other day, they were as hard as rocks. So now they're breadcrumbs in the freezer (thanks for the tip, SimplyBurbs readers !) but still it made me sad.

Mashed potatoes pulled from the freezer for a particular meal, then our plans changed and we didn't eat them, then they got pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten, until they were all slimy and yucky. I tried to reuse these in something like potato bread, but they were too far gone. And these were potatoes we dug up ourselves from our CSA Farm, too.

Very old jar of fruit spread, jar of marmalade sauce (ditto, very old), herbal tinctures (about a decade past their best before date) and a plum pudding from a previous decade all saw the trash can too.

So, this looks bad, really bad. But actually the only real food waste from this week was the pasta sauce, soup and mashed potatoes; the rest is the result of a disorganized fridge.


How was your Food Waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday! Not Again ...

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!

After the debacle that was last week's Food Waste Friday (posted about here) I vowed to pull it together and turn myself around this week.

Let's see ...

One of the things I like about oranges is that you can keep them in the fruit bowl for more than a couple of days, and they will still be fine ... apparently that isn't so with these ones :-(

I found this container in the freezer, with some serious freezer build up! I'm not sure is in it, to be honest, but I do know I haven't used those containers for a while.

The sad state of cleaning out the cheese drawer ... those sad little remnants of moldy, dried out cheese. And the ginger? I always think I love ginger, buy it and then realize that actually I don't cook with ginger often enough to warrant buying it fresh like this.

But the salad made me really sad; salad is pretty expensive, and I really hate to waste it. This was just too far gone to use.

There was also two kiwis, one popover and half a Chinese carryout meal that went out (My Good Man got to them, before I had a chance to take pics).

So ... what is my lesson learned here? Buying too much? Unclear planning? Eating on a whim, rather than checking the fridge? All of the above?! I'm not sure, but seeing these photos every week, is making me realize that Food Waste (something I would have previously thought I had under control) is somewhat of a problem in my kitchen.


And how was your Food Waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday! Really, Very, Incredibly Not Good.

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!

And ... well, the title of this post says it all really.

My only defense would be that we had house guests over the holiday period so there were lots of bits left over from meals (it's hard cooking for a large group and getting the portions just right every time!) and that we were busy-er than usual.

And now for food waste Hall of Shame ...

We have left over Chinese carry out sauce, macaroni and cheese, mushroom risotto, spicy pinto beans and (gulp) salmon.

And we're not done yet ...

Next we have a Pannetone, that had been opened and then left to go stale.

A wedge of pecan pie, bought because we all thought we would like pecan pie, only to find out that we didn't.

Asparagus that was left out on the counter overnight (which I'm usually so picky about, but this seemed distinctly slimy the next morning.

Fresh pineapple that was left to go fizzy and fermenty.

And a heel of (nice) bread that was left to go so stale, there was no use for it.

And the really, truly most awful thing about this? I started to clean out my refrigerator this morning, saw that there were more things that should really be added to the list, and decided to put off cleaning it out, so my list wouldn't have to be longer.

The title of this post says it all ... really, very, incredibly not good :-(


How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday ... A for Effort, F for Follow Through

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!

After last week's trip up over my veggie bin, I thought the worst was behind me. Apparently not ...

The fresh produce hurts the worst. And the apples in particular; they are my beloved Nittany apples *sob*

I also lost a batch of Breakfast Muffins (aka, my leftover oatmeal muffins). They usually keep for quite a while, but for some reason this batch went moldy really quickly.

And the rice bread was a left over from the time period that we had 12 month old Little Boy on a restricted diet to help with his eczema. He liked it well enough when that was the only bread option, but once he had access to real bread, this loaf was pushed aside.


And how was your food waste this week? Feel free to share here, or on the Frugal Girl blog; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday, with a Big Bump Down to Earth ...

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. And she invites the rest of us to join her!

Last week I was thrilled to announce that I had had a zero food waste week; I may even have been a little smug about reporting this.

Of course, this week I'm being brought back down to earth with a big bump.

I opened up my veggie bin, the one where I store things long term, and found moldy sweet potatoes, and something really yucky at the very bottom of the bin, that I think used to be a pepper. Hmm ... and of course, as soon as I saw those, I realized that they were probably there last week too, back when I was feeling all smug. *sigh*

(I just couldn't face taking a picture of the food item previously known as a pepper; it was really ucky).

 Also on the waste list is a bowl of yogurt, that has been in and out of the fridge a few too many times, and uncovered to boot.

And how was your food waste this week? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday ... And An Advent Blessing

 

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste. ,

Here's the funny thing about Food Waste Friday ... when you know that its coming, you try really hard not waste anything. So I have a zero waste week.

Nothing!

Which is good for my fridge and pocketbook, but doesn't make a particularly exciting blog post.

So, rather than leave you with that, here's a picture of our Blessing Board! Every couple of weeks, I change out the blessing on our chalkboard, and we recite it before our evening meal. A nice little ritual :-)

More on Advent another day (ours so far has been ... interesting, and unexpected!)

How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share here, or at Simply Being Mom (where Food Waste Friday is being hosted this week!); I'd love to hear from you!

Food Waste Friday

I just love The Frugal Girl blog. Really - just love!

Each week (well - most weeks) she blogs about her food waste, a kind of public declaration, aimed to reduce her own food waste.

Which is totally frugal, and Simple. Waste less, buy less!

So, I kept track of my own food waste over the course of the last week or so ... not awful, but not great either.

Fresh green beans and basil were the first to go. The green beans in particular made me sad ... they were the last of the produce from our amazing CSA, and they just got forgotten at the back of the fridge.

Homemade pumpkin pie filling which just spent an extra day in the fridge, and was looking a little slimy - uck.

 

Apple slices ... that were just a little too dry from their extra time in the fridge.

 

And lastly, the last pieces of a loaf of homemade bread. This loaf was mysteriously not good; it didn't rise properly, and didn't bake very well ... so it wasn't a huge loss. I think we were all silently hoping it would go bad, so we wouldn't have to subject ourselves to it any longer :-)


And how about you? How was your food waste this week? Feel free to share here, or over at The Frugal Girl Blog!