Don't Throw Food Away Challenge 2012

Firemunchkin

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?

Why not slice it up and freeze it with baking paper in between the slices. Then all you have to do for a cheeky weekend snack is warm it up in the oven and it's as if you've just baked it again!

Thanks to Oscar-the-Pug re the quiche idea. I have managed to offload some of the broccoli on the OH to go with a pre-frozen portion of chicken & leek pie for his lunch, all eaten I'm pleased to say. But there is enough left for a small quiche. I haven't a hope in hell of making one first time, but I'll get the OH to teach me.

We made tom yum gai (thai soup) last night, one of my fave dishes (great for using up a few leaves of coriander, some cooked chicken and a spring onion amongst other ingredients) but you need noodles in it. There was at least one portion leftover but the noodles go all soggy when left in the liquid. Instead of chucking the whole lot (like I normally would) I spent AGES fishing out the noodles and saved the rest. I WILL have it for lunch, so the wastage here is only about 20p (taking me to a total of £3.50 this month).

Also, the granola I like has raisins in it - I don't like any other granola but I also don't like the raisins. So I have a plastic cereal tub where I fish out the raisins and put them in there. Also, the end of the packet is usually mainly dusty and small bits, which I also don't like, so I pour those into the cereal tub too. Today I'm going to make some flapjacks with this LO mixture thrown in with the usual rolled oats.

Am also trying hard to come up with recipe ideas for swede, red cabbage, 1/4 celeriac, 1/2 fennel, 1 slightly yellowing broccoli and 3 leeks. I think I'll make: leek & potato soup (and if any LO I'll blanch and freeze the leeks), a seafood pie with the fennel (using up the mussels in the freezer in the process), I'll stir fry the red cabbage with garlic and walnuts for a side dish, and/or I'll make a red cabbage slaw with garlic yoghurt dressing, will probably grate the swede and celeriac raw into a salad (can't stand either cooked but raw they're lovely), and will blanch the broccoli then stir fry it with walnuts and grate over some parmesan - have it on the side of breaded fish or chicken.

This would be about 7 dishes so would keep us going happily till at least next Monday. Then I've got last week's veg box contents to think about so am quite pleased to say I can cancel the delivery for this week and save £13! Plus, I think I can keep our grocery shopping for this week to £15 or less which means we can definitely go out for a nice meal at the end of the month! Yay!:T

thriftmonster

I love celeriac raw in a mustardy mayo - sort of cheats remoulade. Red cabbage is also nice cooked long and slow with apple and onion, vinegar, sugar and cinnamon.

ScarletRaven

Haven't checked in here for over a week now and in that time I've a lot to report

Mushrooms = 45p, seafood sauce = 63p, celery = 23p, some coleslaw = 22p, some soup = 40p, bit of cheese from Xmas that just wasn't nice at all = 45p, some forgotten pasta sauce = 40p, a few cocktail sausages = 54p, some potatoes = 45p, one clementine that had gone off prematurely = 6p, piece of wrinkly pepper = 13p, a portion of HM apple crumble = 17p

This would really be easier if the other half helped with it a bit more, which he did the first week and has since gotten bored or forgetful... A number of these were things I'd left for him to use up (as he said he would) but later found he hadn't and they'd gone off I could have done something with some of the items if I'd have known! :mad:

So, that brings my total for this month up to £7.16/£10.00...

ALIBOBSY

Not posted for a while,but have worked hard not to waste stuff-been freezing alot more-especially that extra single portion we always seem to have from a spag bol/stew/curry type meal lol.
Had to throw a 1/4 tin of soup as DS had eaten the rest then stuck the tin at the back of the fridge and it smelt funny so about 10p.
Been putting leftover veggie peelings that aren't being frozen for future stocks into a bean trench to get ready for next years harvest .
Have some ready break OH bought last year,but no one wants it,so threw some in as replacement for oats in those famous "twinks" hobnobs,worked quite well and they didn't taste much different-maybe a bit less chewy and a bit more biscuity. So going to use it up in baking to pad out my oats so it gets used up.

Had some bread that went a bit mouldy on one side and oddly a bit sweaty on the other end-had been a whopsied cheap white loaf. In the end we took that and a couple of hard bread ends on a walk down the river to feed the ducks. So not going to count as waste as we had a lovely walk with the kids on a cold but sunny day and the ducks enjoyed it all for free lol.

Ali x

Willow92

Not much gets wasted over here actually...we don't buy enough fresh stuff for it to get wasted

VfM4meplse

I bought 2 medium-sized pineapples from my local fruit stall at the end of last week. The first (eaten at the weekend) was delicious, but when I cut into the second this evening I found it to be dry and completely tasteless. I think I'm going to have to throw this away as it's so ropey that even if I blitz it into a sauce / soup for extra fibre, I would worry about what it could do to my insides .

Unless anyone else has any suggestions?

ALIBOBSY

Just realised my post reads as though I replaced all the oats in twinks hobnob recipe with my ready brek to use it up, but it was more like half and half lol.

Not sure what to do with a dry pineapple? Would blitzing it and using it in a sponge cake help as you are covering the taste with the sponge. Or perhaps caramelising slices of it-the sweetness might help the flavour. Or soaking slices in some sort of booze than eating with something creamy/ice cream.

ali x

VfM4meplse

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Would blitzing it and using it in a sponge cake help as you are covering the taste with the sponge.

Probably not, as there is no taste to it at all! It really is the weirdest phenomenon!

ALIBOBSY wrote: »

Or perhaps caramelising slices of it-the sweetness might help the flavour. Or soaking slices in some sort of booze than eating with something creamy/ice cream.

I wish but I think that would be a waste of these ingredients, it would be like eating cardboard with syrup / ice-cream / rum.

60p going down the drain, going, going, gone....!

Kylieminoag

I have half a dozen bananas staring at me in the fruit bowl with tiny fruit flies circling like vultures.... :mad:I really need to do something with them before they turn into liquid but havent time to bake over the next few days.... if i peel and freeze them will i be able to bake with them once they have defrosted?

Thanks for any thoughts

Firemunchkin

Kylieminoag wrote: »

I have half a dozen bananas staring at me in the fruit bowl with tiny fruit flies circling like vultures.... :mad:I really need to do something with them before they turn into liquid but havent time to bake over the next few days.... if i peel and freeze them will i be able to bake with them once they have defrosted?

Thanks for any thoughts

If the fruit flies are circling it means they're perfect for baking cos all the sugars are coming out, lovely. Best thing to do is peel and mash them, stick em in an empty marg tub and pop in the freezer with a note on how many bananas are in there. I tend to freeze in batches of 3 as that's how many I usually bake with. When you want to bake, just defrost over a few hours out of the fridge and bake as usual - there's really no difference. Happy baking!!