Don't throw food away challenge

Hawthorn

Flat_Eric wrote: »

What is everyone having for tea tonight ? I always struggle on a Friday night as I can never be bothered to cook....

My husband and I had some whoopsied heart.....£1 for 3 and it was my first time cooking/eating it. I was pleasantly surprised

Kids had whoopsied sausages....80p.

We all had mash/gravy/veg with it

mizmir

Flat_Eric wrote: »

What is everyone having for tea tonight ? I always struggle on a Friday night as I can never be bothered to cook....

Beef stew - good comfort food for a wet Friday night!

debbiedeejay

What is everyone having for tea tonight ? I always struggle on a Friday night as I can never be bothered to cook....

We had bacon sarnies or wraps - same here could not be bothered tonight. But did use a full basic range pack of bacon so no waste.

Did earlier make a pan of celery soup including the celery leaves and added the left over sterlised semi milk. Plus made pumpkin and coconut soup using red onion that has been sat on windowsill for past three days plus the end of lingering pumpkin.

Both ok but nothing to write home about so dilema is do I keep/freeze both or throw and put it down to experience and taste as I don't think I would make either again (or try and give it away first probably) at least I tried before directly chucking dying veg away I suppose:o

TrixieB

Try jazzing them up a bit with curry spices/chillie/garlic

debbiedeejay

Try jazzing them up a bit with curry spices/chillie/garlic

aww thanks TrixieB - normally do spicy pumpkin soup anyways so putting chilli in should work ,it already has garlic in it so that's ok.

Plus in the celery soup I put nutmeg in but it definately lacks something else so yes might have to raid the spice jars agin.

Thank you again for inspiring me before I give in.:)

SpikyHedgehog

squeaky wrote: »

Hmmm... uses for undercooked bread... now there's a challenge!

At least it might taste like bread. Only thing I can think of is to pop it into the oven after you've cooked something in there and leave it to dry out. Then use it for breadcrumbs?

Thank you, Squeaky, it was mainly the raisin & carrot loaf, so I sliced it into chunks and spread out on a baking sheet & put in the turned off oven when I'd finished the next batch of bread. When I got home from work, it was better and has all gone now.

I did better with the cooking of the next batch, but think I need to line the tin for sweetened loaf... it stuck like I'd greased the tin with glue instead of oil . Hardly any waste though as I chiselled out as much as I could & put in a tub to take to work

JackieO wrote: »

Just lately when I buy Broccolli there seems to be more stalk than head .Anyone have any ideas what I can do with the chunky stalk to use it up as I don't like to see anything binned it its at all edible.I have been trimming it and bunging it in the freezer to keep and I have about four thick chunky stalks in there at the moment

I just trim off the dry bit at the base & that goes in the compost bin - depends on what I'm doing & how many boys are in the kitchen whether it gets cooked or eaten while cooking dinner...

mardatha wrote: »

What can I do with half a savoy cabbage that isnt going to last much longer? The hens got the other half but they arent keen on it lol so I suppose we'll have to eat it!

I use a sharpened knife to shred it very finely, boil or steam and serve as 'Chiffonade de chou' (SP?) because DS2 then eats it whereas he won't if I don't shred and tell him it's cabbage I saw one of those cooking adverts once for a 'super amazing cutting thing that you'll never be able to manage without' and the chap on there shredded the cabbage really finely & cooked it like that - he did say he wouldn't call it chiffonade de chou as it was a bit pretentious, but if disguising it helps the boy to eat it, that's what happens!

Not thrown anything away that I've counted though I did put all my veg peelings in the compost bin - only realised when I went to put the in the tub in the fridge and decided I wasn't going to get them out of the compost bin... Actually, I've just remembered I threw away the last couple of spoonfuls of my porridge as the cat was licking it - I guess I should have put the bowl down for her...

squeaky

And if you were to deep fry that shredded cabbage... it would be chinese seaweed!

rising_from_the_ashes

squeaky wrote: »

Whether you call food wasted that feeds the birds/cat/dog/goat/chickens/aardvark is entirely up to you.

The best definition I've seen posted was along the lines of...

"if it's food that I was going to eat - it's waste"

So anything that you hadn't intended to eat, especially if you manage to feed it to something else, or even get it into compost... you could reasonably not consider to be wasted.

It's your call

BohemianCoast wrote: »

I'm too using the 'if I bought this intending that humans would eat it, and we aren't going to, it's waste'.

mmmmm food for thought!:D

I think I'm going to have to count only things that end up in the bin .... I find it a bit hard to define if it was bought solely for me sometimes.

That might sound odd but as a single person, I often buy things that I know I'll not get through myself.

This can range from bread/rolls etc in the winter which I buy knowing some will be used for the birds - to a whole chicken / big bit of reduced meat that I know I'll get a few meals out of & will also do the dog & cats for several days (which saves using their food = saves money so is "justifiable" IMHO:)).


Had to throw a few potatoes out from the end of a 5kg bag that were horrible ... cost was 44p/kg & def under 500g so I'll say 22p.

I do find it hard to get through big packs before they go off - but even throwing away 22p worth - they're still significantly cheaper than buying smaller bags:(

squeaky

For taters, as long as you have some freezer space, avoiding waste is easy.

Mash, roasties and wedges all freeze well - so as you start heading towards the end of the "life" of your remaining potatoes - if you are cooking them in any of these three ways; just deliberately cook extras and freeze them. That way they should all get used up

Then live off your freezer stock before shopping for more. An obvious point I know - but so many times things get buried and forgotten about

rising_from_the_ashes

squeaky wrote: »

Then live off your freezer stock before shopping for more. An obvious point I know - but so many times things get buried and forgotten about

:DChuckling at this - my freezer's jammed packed with portions of this & that (incl mash!) that I forget about - must try harder.....

Job for the day ...... sort the freezers out, I'm very lucky to have 2 (DM upgraded to a bigger one and gave me her old one:D) so I can take advantage of offers etc.

The theory is to have "raw" things in one and portions/LO in the other - but they have got a bit muddled (sometimes feel lazy when I get in and don't take raw stuff out to the garage) - so a proper sort out & inventory will be done today! (promise:))