Don't Throw Food Away Challenge 2012

VfM4meplse

hilstep2000 wrote: »

My Dad gave me three bananas today which were walking they were sooo ripe! Got a banana bread in the oven at the moment!

Yum, don't tempt me!

squeaky

sunflower76 wrote: »

Any ideas on what to do with half of a loaf of banana and chocolate bread? It's past being able to be eaten as is but not quite ready to go to the chickens - any ideas at all ladies?

I've got a tea loaf that is getting on a bit. So I cut a slice, warm it gently in the microwave and then slosh a dollop of left over Christmas booze onto it and, finally, smother it in custard.

Makes it edible -and, with enough booze - who really cares?

debbiedeejay

Approx 25p of bacon thrown away - didn't fancy it even if it did have that slight green tinge to it!

wannabee_in_credit

I made a stir fry with 'straight to wok' noodles that were so far beyond their date they had obviously gone rancid. Ate as much as I could but the leftovers are in the bin. That'll teach me not to check before I start.
There's some ham starting to get a bit past best so I'll omlette for brekkie tomorrow.

Mags_cat

Tonight I have transformed some extremely elderly tomatoes (They were on Aldi "Special 6" at 39p before Christmas :eek:), some bendy carrots of approximately the same vintage, the inside few stalks of some yellowing celery and some (actually quite fresh!) onions into some delicious pasta sauce that I can now freeze. I did have to to throw away the best part of half a carrot, but to be honest I feel quite virtuous :rotfl:

Mrs_Veg_Plot

Added some lettuce leaves that were wilting into the HM veg soup and blitzed it. No one knew it was there, they all enjoyed the soup and no wasted lettuce.

Had rice pudding for desert made from leftover rice from the curry on saturday night. Added a few raisins as well. Yum.

D&DD

Found 1 and a half red peppers more wrinkly than me in the salad drawer so made up some red pepper hummous today need to sort out some wrinkly courgettes tomorrow but will probably stick them in a chocolate cake

Beaches

Found a couple of chunks of elderly parmesan and some peppers, onions and cherry tomatoes to use up - turned into a veggie risotto. The kids had seconds.

Very glad to have found this thread, although I'm a bit late to the party, but I'll join in mentally now and get into the habit for a proper joining up from 1 Feb.

PurpleCat

I've lurking on this and other threads since the start of the month, being very inspired by you all and your challenges.

I'm a British expat who lives on a tiny island in the far away seas and although its lovely and warm so we don't have to worry about heating bills we do have challenges in other areas. Such as food shopping.
To get my groceries I have to put in an email order to a nearby larger island and the items get packed and shipped down to us once a week. We never know if they have filled the order in full, sometimes they just don't have any of those hard to find things like ....... onions or beef or custard powder. So we tend to over order and hope for the best, menu planning is not possible until the actual boat is unloaded and the box has been taken home. The other problem is that the quality of the food is not always at its best, so often there are wrinkly veggies or moldy fruits on arrival. So its usually a case of feast or famine.

HOWEVER since reading this thread and the Grocery Challenge among others I decided that I wanted to eat out of the freezer and cupboards for as long as possible, and haven't placed an order since Christmas. I am happy to say I've had to throw out only the smallest of amounts of food as thanks to this thread I'm looking at what needs eating up first before opening something new. My fridge is looking rather sparse but day 17 I'm still eating well. Obviously I haven't had any fresh veggies this month but as I cooked and froze a number of meals for myself over the Christmas break I'm still getting my 5 a day. Luckily for me I don't eat bread or drink milk as they are the hardest items to get fresh here.

I'm interested to see how long I'll be able to go for without having to put in an order (needs to be 4 days in advance of the boat day) but wanted to drop a line to say thank you to everyone who has given me some much needed encouragement in this area as I would often find myself throwing things out in the past.

I'm going to make it official and join the challenge in February, till then will do the best I can.

thriftmonster

Wow, Purple Cat - that would make meal planning very interesting!!! I take my hat off to you for doing so well. I suffer from exactly the opposite problem in that I live too close to too many supermarkets - and often buy reduced items in excess of what we need.

I really need to join in as I am embarrassed at times how much gets eaten by the dog as opposed to us. I had a really good declutter of the larder laast week and I am not going to buy stuff that we don't use, no matter how interesting it looks. It was more of a consolidation than a declutter - two open jars of horseradish, 4 (!) open packets of ground rice etc.......

So last night I made lamb curry out of lamb from Sunday and stretched it with lentils and frozen peas, served with rice and naan bread (BB 11.1 - they were fine). I also found potatoes and cooked kale from Sunday - so half went into a Spanish omelette for packed lunches tomorrow and half into a sort of Innocent veg pot for my lunch today. I love those things but honestly the price! Chinese takeaway container with some kale and crumbled potatoes, topped with some of the lentil curry sauce before I added the lamb, some peas, cherry tomatoes and a tbsp of rice - ready to be microwaved at work this lunchtime.

I can normally stretch a penny till it squeaks - but have been really bad recently - this thread is encouraging me to get back on the bandwagon - thank you all so much.

Oh - I also turned a soft pineapple into coconut upside down cake for supper last night and packed lunches for 2 days - served with some soya custard dated ........2009. It was fine - well both children are still here this morning.