Don't throw food away challenge

FrugalWorker

I've 4 dodgy looking lemons that I'll squeeze and freeze the juice - no where near good enough for candied peal or zesting.

3 oranges, I'll zest and squeeze. 2-3 apples and 2 plums looking okay ish.

I've just made soup from everything that looked dodgy in fridge - chicken stock, half a beetroot, some carrots, all but dead spring onions, end of a celery. Added in some left over wine/beer, a good splash, some red lentils and it's simmering away.

Stuck a ham in the fridge - best laid plans keep getting upset over last few days. Cooking it now and bringing it away with us for sambo's.

We're only away for the night, maybe two. Going to a home with fridge, etc.... so ham and soup will be used there.

I did need to throw out the end of a some tuna (was used to make sambo's about a week ago, while wasn't smelling, I just couldn't trust it. Figure I'm already on the hairy edge with the end of the fridge soup!

Thanks for starting this. Makes me feel much happier that I've used up all those odds and ends.

I'm reckoning that I've chucked about 15cent on the tuna, lost about 10 cent on letting the lemons deteriorate. On the positive side, I've rescued another two Euro or so from having a similar fate from making soup, and about 4-5 Euro for the ham.

FW

debbiedeejay

Well first waste to declare.

Bought two medium chickens at local shop for a fiver.

Stripped them and froze the breast portions seperately then with the 2 legs and 2 wings from each chicken shoved them in a freezer bag along with a mixure of blitzed red pepper,onion,garlic, paprika and whatever seasoning was handy and just under half cup of veg oil. Threw this in the bag giving chicken a good coating and popped them into freezer. I also added some sweet chilli sauce to the second lot just to make a bit different. To cook I will be letting them defrost, take the pieces out of the bag and baking them in oven.

Based this idea on "Dump chicken"-no idea if it will work but I liked the idea.

Anyway I cooked the 2 carcas (stock now in the freezer too) and stripped whatever reamining meat there was and made a pie filling - but couldn't make the pie as no room now in freezer so just bagged it up ready to use.

Dog got handful of scraps too:)

And the waste??

The 2 carcas I weighed it and worked out price to be £1.11 - 52p being just the skin as I took it off both as I jointed it.
Yesterday I wouldn't even have blinked at chucking it in the bin without second thought-but I can't think what else I could have done with it? Not sure.

So that's £1.11 to declare.


Then I realised I had thrown away the onion skin and top of pepper and garlic bits when I chucked the carcas out.

Oh well I'll learn.:o

fuddle

Dh just made rabbit stew and thyme dumplings. Really not to our taste but we ate majority. A couple of dumplings went in the bin with the rabbit bones, some mushrooms and onions in the stew stock went bye bye too.

It's so disappointing when you try something new and don't like it. I'm estimating at 50p wasted as we ate pretty much all the meat and veg.

Edited to add that I have turned all the onions that were passed their best into a chutney. It tastes delicious. I would recommend it

hex2

fuddle, congrats on the pg. I like the sound of the onion chutney, will you share the recipe please?

rachbc

pumpkin seeds left over from carving are roasting for a movie snack and the chickens love the fibrous bits from the midle and will get the flesh when we are finished with the lanterns

fuddle

hex2 wrote: »

fuddle, congrats on the pg. I like the sound of the onion chutney, will you share the recipe please?

thank you

I just half-inched the recipe from https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3576243 really nice though, well worth a go if you've lots to spare.

seehar

hey everyone, i'd like to join in this
just had a sort out of the fridge as tomorrow is first shopping day of the month tomorrow. I've wasted £3.72, so my target for the month is to not waste more than £3.

Got to find something to do with these though:
1/2 a swede - will go off before I can eat it i think, can I freeze it?
reggae reggae ketchup
2 jars of cranberry sauce (why? i dont know!!!)
nandos garlic sauce
tomato and garlic chutney (that i dont really like :-S)
sunblush tomatoes (again, dont like much on their own - was thinking bread maybe?)
a load of processed cheese slices

also got some odd things in the freezer, like 1 croissant...will it defrost ok?!

any ideas?!

Thanks

SpikyHedgehog

I've seen a puff pastry thingy on menus with cream cheese & cranberry sauce - could you use the cranberry sauce & processed cheese together? I thought you could mash the swede & mix with the cranberry sauce to make something like potato cakes?

DS2 didn't eat all his bread at lunch time, so I put it in the fridge & gave it to him as a snack while I was cooking dinner. But then he decided he didn't like dinner, so left about 3 spoonfuls of sauce out of his calzone. 3p into the bin I think. I remembered to keep the bits from the onion & carrots for stock, so they're in a marge tub in the fridge... Just got to make sure I don't leave them too long!

I blitz orange peel with my coffee grounds to put on the flower beds to discourage cats...

BohemianCoast

What a good thread! I claim to never throw anything out, but it turns out that I'm wrong compared to all you lot. I'll try for no more than £10 from now till the end of November. I am not counting veg trimmings or the food my son refuses point blank to eat (though actually the rest of us tend to eat that as seconds).

Groceries delivered tonight, so fridge got cleaned out. The main culprit is, as ever, fruit and veg. We generally get them from our local market, where the basic quantity is 'much more than you want' for a pound. So this time I've ditched:

a cucumber (25p) -- seriously soggy.
half a cauliflower (17p) -- black in parts (the parts that didn't go in the curry)
2 aubergines (£1) --eek. They've been balefully sitting staring at me ever since I cooked something different with the things I was going to cook with them. Planned to put them into curry today but they were really beyond hope.
the end of a big tub of taramasalata (30p)
The leftover sauce from when we had duck -- honestly this is the sort of thing that I used to not keep at all, but I had planned to do something with it. But it's been weeks, and good though my fridge is, I'm suspicious of it. (no money but what a shame).

Running total - £1.72. Roll on next week, when I shall do better.

Perpetuallyconfused

I thought I would ask here as Im on a £30 food budget per week this month for two adults. Is there anything I can do with outside leaves of things like cauliflower, broccoli stalks, etc? Can they be chopped up and used in soup? Also stale bread and orange and other fruit peelings? I literally dont want to throw a thing out that we can eat! We dont have a fridge or freezer right now though so it needs to be something that will keep for at least 2 days so that I can use it in the next meal. Thank you!