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, 3-years on, the amount of food I waste is minimal. Every Friday, as part of my No Waste Tastes Great routine, I account for all my potential food waste as well as confessing to any items that I failed to save.
Kristen kindly asked me to host Food Waste Friday, alternate weeks and her initial invite for everyone to join in is cordially extended here!
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Simply Being Mum’s Friday Fridge
Rather a full Friday fridge this week.
Top Shelf – Spreads, fats and cheeses – all in date
Top Middle Shelf – Smoked salmon and carrots
Bottom middle shelf – Grapes, salad, peppers and broccoli
Bottom shelf – unopened Greek yoghurt
As always, there’s a plan.
A #nowastetastesgreat plan.
Saturday lunch typically consists of leftovers and whatever is hanging around in the fridge. We do conjure up some strange combinations at Chez Wright. But as strange as they may sound, and sometimes look, they usually taste great.
All the salad items and salmon will be used up over the weekend.
The carrots and broccoli will slow cook into a great spicy soup. An adaptation of this recipe. I use this recipe a lot to reduce potential waste. It’s my go-to-souper-save-recipe.
Those who follow me on Instagram will know that anything goes, on the food-front, some days at Chez Wright. Last Saturday’s lunch was definitely worth sharing on social media. The Kids concoctions were slightly more unusual than my own cheese, pepper and sweetcorn panini.
Katy, the non-consumer-advocate, shared one of her breakfasts this week on Instagram. It was a medley of cereals. A mash-up. It looked very similar to a lot of the breakfasts here. As I said, anything goes.
Unfortunately I don’t always make the save. Also on Instagram this week was an unrecoverable burnt breakfast waffle. Lashings of chocolate sauce could not disguise the damage.
My first food waste confession this week. One waffle.
My second confession is considerably worse.
Despite rustling up one mackerel salad, I wasted one and a half further mackerel fillets.
Not good. Not good at all.
I’m not really sure how it happened.
Salad is another sure-fire way to make a save. Once again, anything goes on a Wright salad. It seems I forgot to make another salad.
My post-waste-analysis would be – I just forgot. It happens. Not often, but it does happen.
What I didn’t forget is that The Guardian launched their Live Better campaign this week. I’ve signed up here. The first month’s challenge is to reduce food waste. Onwards and upwards Guys. Onwards and upwards.
What lengths will you go to, to make the save?
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 blog link into the comments section 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 without a link.
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
Another “full” fridge for you. Is this part of your effort to have a fuller fridge to help it run more efficiently?Or is this just the way it worked out this week? I didn’t have any waste this week, but I do have some spinach I’d better get to soon or it will be showing up on next week’s post.
Nope no deliberate full fridge…just circumstances. Good luck with the spinach. I’d be looking at a lasagne to use it up…
Another “full” fridge for you. Is this part of your effort to have a fuller fridge to help it run more efficiently?Or is this just the way it worked out this week? I didn’t have any waste this week, but I do have some spinach I’d better get to soon or it will be showing up on next week’s post.
Nope no deliberate full fridge…just circumstances. Good luck with the spinach. I’d be looking at a lasagne to use it up…
Terrible, terrible week here.
– 1 c. tea-smoked chicken.
Not only did I waste meat, I wasted meat that took some effort to make and that I love. I’d bagged it up for work lunch then didn’t go to my usual workplace for 5 days. I should have frozen the container but it literally went bad overnight – it was fine the night before but slimy in the morning.
– 1 c. smoked tofu & sauce.
A new recipe and I oversmoked the tofu: it tasted scortched. I ate about half of it.
– 1/4 of a Buckwheat Coffee Cake.
Another new recipe, and not a very good one. I’m pleased as much got eaten as it did. It came out too dry; I think icing might have saved it but I’d rather toss the cake than take the additional nutritional hit.
I’ve probably forgotten some things, too.
That’s a long list for you WilliamB. But typically you make the save, so I wouldn’t take it too hard!
The cake sounds good, shame about the taste! I’m planning on trying out a few no-fat no-sugar desserts soon. Trying to eat a little healthier myself.
Terrible, terrible week here.
– 1 c. tea-smoked chicken.
Not only did I waste meat, I wasted meat that took some effort to make and that I love. I’d bagged it up for work lunch then didn’t go to my usual workplace for 5 days. I should have frozen the container but it literally went bad overnight – it was fine the night before but slimy in the morning.
– 1 c. smoked tofu & sauce.
A new recipe and I oversmoked the tofu: it tasted scortched. I ate about half of it.
– 1/4 of a Buckwheat Coffee Cake.
Another new recipe, and not a very good one. I’m pleased as much got eaten as it did. It came out too dry; I think icing might have saved it but I’d rather toss the cake than take the additional nutritional hit.
I’ve probably forgotten some things, too.
That’s a long list for you WilliamB. But typically you make the save, so I wouldn’t take it too hard!
The cake sounds good, shame about the taste! I’m planning on trying out a few no-fat no-sugar desserts soon. Trying to eat a little healthier myself.
I love using salad and crockpot to ‘save’ stuff vs throwing it away if I can help it. We have a substantial amount of crockpot mac & cheese that I tried to make. I hurried it along (cooked on HIGH vs low as instructed) and its a bit more ‘firm’ then we’d like. Its not being eaten up fast enough so I either have to toss it into the freezer OR will make soup in the crockpot and toss that in as well 😉 I hope that mac & cheese doesn’t make an appearance on my list next Friday!
Happy to report no waste this week 🙂
Linking up:
http://myliladventures.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/food-waste-friday-3714/
I’d like to try mac’n’cheese in the crockpot, but I envisage complications. I’ve never been able to make rice-pudding in the slow cooker. It always turns out like creme brulee with uncooked rice at the bottom.
That’s on my list of things to try in the crockpot! 🙂 The only way to know if it works is to try right?
I love using salad and crockpot to ‘save’ stuff vs throwing it away if I can help it. We have a substantial amount of crockpot mac & cheese that I tried to make. I hurried it along (cooked on HIGH vs low as instructed) and its a bit more ‘firm’ then we’d like. Its not being eaten up fast enough so I either have to toss it into the freezer OR will make soup in the crockpot and toss that in as well 😉 I hope that mac & cheese doesn’t make an appearance on my list next Friday!
Happy to report no waste this week 🙂
Linking up:
http://myliladventures.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/food-waste-friday-3714/
I’d like to try mac’n’cheese in the crockpot, but I envisage complications. I’ve never been able to make rice-pudding in the slow cooker. It always turns out like creme brulee with uncooked rice at the bottom.
That’s on my list of things to try in the crockpot! 🙂 The only way to know if it works is to try right?