how much food do you through out every week

Churchmouse

kezbradley wrote:

Hi, don't mean to sound silly but what is blanching

Not silly at all! Blanching is plunging into boiling water, and then keeping boiling for anything from a few seconds to a minute or two. Then usually plunge into cold water to stop the cooking process. Helps keep fruit and veg nice when freezing.

SusanCarter

I agree that freezers are very helpful for preventing food wastage. I tend to do a big shop once a month and cook meals with fresh food for the first week/fortnight after that. I cook more than enough and then freeze the rest for the intervening period before the next big shop. Admittedly this is easy for me as I grew up in a family of six so find it easier to cook large meals and am only cooking for myself and husband now. Another thing I do is chop up things like carrot/parsnip/swede when I buy them and freeze them. If you're boiling them or sticking them in a stew you can then use them straight from the freezer. Also sometimes do this with reduced veg which is going out of date. In between the big shops I just pick up odd bits of fruit and veg (along with bread/milk) so not too much is wasted.

Any fruit and veg which can't be used goes in the compost heap. Just cut out the worst bits if food is going bad. My mum used to do bananas in custard if we had lots of ripe bananas. I make bread and butter pudding with old bread and my Auntie makes scones with old milk. Eggs are usually okay well after the date - I've used them up to month out of date and not had any problems. Can always make scrambled egg in the microwave and have scrambles egg on toast.

I've just remembered I have some week and a half old gravy and a turkey bone in the fridge. :eek: Usually use them quite quickly but with all the hot weather we kept having salads.

I've never bothered with blanching - I just put a tea towel on a tray and lay out the chopped veg then bag it up once it's frozen.

exlibris

culpepper wrote:

I throw out pastry.I nearly always make too much and think I'll pop that little bit in the fridge to use tomorrow,then ofcourse I dont make anything that needs pastry for ages and its gone nasty.
I know it will freeze but I always think, I'll have to wait for it to thaw ,might as well just fridge it.
Note to self ...Must weigh ingredients for pastry so I dont make extra.

Roll out the left over pastry, put some dried fruit, al ittle sugar and a knob of butter in the centre. Damp the edges of the pastry and gather it up to the middle. Roll it again to flatten it slightly and bake off. (Think a flattened Eccles Cake)

Can be eaten cut into pieces maybe with butter of the top.

This is a good way of using up the offcuts of pies too!

AnniMag

Oh happy childhood memories! Would there be enough pastry left to make "sad cake" as it was known in our house [Eccles cake ].Mum must have always made a bit of extra pastry as there was usually enough to make one each.