It’s Friday Guys – My turn once more to host Food Waste Friday!
Each week since March 2008, in order to motivate her to waste less food, Kristen The Frugal Girl, has posted a picture of any food that has gone bad over the last seven days. She found this embarrassing practice so helpful, to her, that she invited other bloggers to post their own photos, and Food Waste Friday was born.
I started participating in October 2010 and have found, that 2-years on, the amount of food I waste is minimal. In fact every Friday, as part of my No Waste Tastes Great routine, I account (and devise a plan) for all my potential food waste as well as confessing to any items that I failed to save.
Kristen has kindly asked me to host Food Waste Friday, alternate weeks (when she doesn’t post herself), and her initial invite for everyone to join in is cordially extended here!
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Simply Being Mum’s Friday Fridge
Click here to learn more about my Friday routine
Not quite as sparse as last week. (What a poor quality image! Sorry Guys!)
Top shelf is the usual mix of spreads, fats and cheeses. Including parmesan. I’ll come back to that.
All other food stuffs have a destination in mind.
Can you see the rapidly deteriorating broccoli on the top middle shelf?
My Simple Broccoli and Stilton Slow Cooked Soup was retweeted this morning. Coincidentally I’ll be slow cooking this recipe today, but substituting cheddar for stilton. I’m the queen of adaptation!
But it would seem, not the queen of using up pate.
My food waste confessions this week are a tiny handful of salad leaves, and shockingly almost half a packet of pate.
The pate was an impulse purchase. Proving once again that meal planning is the way to go in the war against food-waste.
Can you freeze pate? That’s what I intend to do going forward when the craving to bypass my shopping list grabs me. Half in the fridge and half in the freezer.
Let’s go back to the parmesan.
It’s the remains of a recipe I conjured up last weekend as part of the Dine With Aldi Challenge, that’s currently running in the UK.
I was selected to submit a dish, using Aldi ingredients. There’s no news yet as to whether I have been shortlisted as one of the top 3. But if I am, it’s highly likely I’ll be telling you Guys about it…
In fact, I was so pleased with how the dish turned out – the recipe will be up at the blog next Monday.
As always I’ll leave the last word to Kristen…
“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.
**I’ve decided not to include the LINKY for the foreseeable. My blog doesn’t allow links on the actual post, and being redirected to another page isn’t ideal. Please drop your link in the comments section.** Jo
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
Good luck in the Aldi challenge. I look forward to seeing the recipe you submitted. On the waste front, I had a tomato go bad this week.
Good luck in the Aldi challenge. I look forward to seeing the recipe you submitted. On the waste front, I had a tomato go bad this week.
Still a ways to go on catching up with my routine, but showing improvement.
Wasted:
– 2 cucumbers, which I missed because the bad bits were on the undersides.
– Bits of biscuit dough, which I gave to the houseguests’ children to play with. By the time they were finished playing and pounding and reshaping, the dough was utterly tough. Baking them would have been a waste of energy.
– 1 pint stock from pho that I put in the freezer just a day too late.
Saves (I woke up early to do these; good for me that I did so, bad on me that it was necessary):
– 2.5 lbs beef, which I *finally* ground and cooked for cottage pie this weekend.
– 1/2 lb mushrooms, purchased by my food-restricted houseguests but not used.
– 2 c. raw spinach, cooked with the mushrooms. Raw spinach is my version of FG’s cilantro – a constant challenge. I like it, but not enough to each even the smallest bunch sold, and I’ve never been able to grow it myself.
– Baked potatoes, turned into twice baked for weekend consumption. I’ll probably add the shrooms+spinach to this as well.
Still a ways to go on catching up with my routine, but showing improvement.
Wasted:
– 2 cucumbers, which I missed because the bad bits were on the undersides.
– Bits of biscuit dough, which I gave to the houseguests’ children to play with. By the time they were finished playing and pounding and reshaping, the dough was utterly tough. Baking them would have been a waste of energy.
– 1 pint stock from pho that I put in the freezer just a day too late.
Saves (I woke up early to do these; good for me that I did so, bad on me that it was necessary):
– 2.5 lbs beef, which I *finally* ground and cooked for cottage pie this weekend.
– 1/2 lb mushrooms, purchased by my food-restricted houseguests but not used.
– 2 c. raw spinach, cooked with the mushrooms. Raw spinach is my version of FG’s cilantro – a constant challenge. I like it, but not enough to each even the smallest bunch sold, and I’ve never been able to grow it myself.
– Baked potatoes, turned into twice baked for weekend consumption. I’ll probably add the shrooms+spinach to this as well.
I keep my parmesan cheese shaker in the freezer – it lasts forever. It would also make a good addition to your broccoli soup if it wasn’t already bad … mmm, now I’m wanting broccoli soup 🙂
Last weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada, and with a surplus of food I am not surprised to have waste. Unhappy, but not surprised! Some sandwich ham got pushed to the back of the shelf and now has to be thrown out. Likewise with a boiled egg. Otherwise, I’ve done better than usual. Now I just have to get the leftover turkey into the freezer, use up the last of the leftovers tonight, make soup from the carcass, and freeze the broth I opened to add to the gravy. Thinking about no-waste each week has really helped me develop a better eye for using things up; it’s always a work in progress, though!
P. S. Looking forward to the recipe! Very nice to be selected to submit to the Aldi competition – how exciting!
I keep my parmesan cheese shaker in the freezer – it lasts forever. It would also make a good addition to your broccoli soup if it wasn’t already bad … mmm, now I’m wanting broccoli soup 🙂
Last weekend was Thanksgiving in Canada, and with a surplus of food I am not surprised to have waste. Unhappy, but not surprised! Some sandwich ham got pushed to the back of the shelf and now has to be thrown out. Likewise with a boiled egg. Otherwise, I’ve done better than usual. Now I just have to get the leftover turkey into the freezer, use up the last of the leftovers tonight, make soup from the carcass, and freeze the broth I opened to add to the gravy. Thinking about no-waste each week has really helped me develop a better eye for using things up; it’s always a work in progress, though!
P. S. Looking forward to the recipe! Very nice to be selected to submit to the Aldi competition – how exciting!
Good question about the pate…can you freeze it?
No waste to report here 😀
http://myliladventures.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/food-waste-friday-101813/
Good question about the pate…can you freeze it?
No waste to report here 😀
http://myliladventures.wordpress.com/2013/10/18/food-waste-friday-101813/
Would you be interested in becoming a Friend of the Devon & Cornwall Food Association (DCFA)? Please email me for details.
Will do…
Would you be interested in becoming a Friend of the Devon & Cornwall Food Association (DCFA)? Please email me for details.
Will do…