Don't Throw Food Away Challenge

meritaten

I worked in various supermarkets and most just 'write off' waste. on and induction day for one supermarket I worked for, they claimed they gave food to 'homeless' charities........in the year or so I worked for them - it went in the bin. deli was one of the worst - they would sell off whole out of date pies quiches etc to staff, but anything that had a slice out of - was binned! half a sliced ham left? - binned. a whole ham left? well, management used to nab that! While they were very good at managing useby dates - they were crap at stock control and the amount of good food that was binned was shocking!
at the same time - the fruit and veg dept was dire - it looked awful as the stock rotation wasn't managed properly - so most of that was binned too! as the customers went to the market next door for fresh fruit and veg! I mean large amounts of fruit and veg - it was about a lorry load a week went into the bins.
in these days of EPOS stores (and the store I worked in was supposed to be a model for EPOS - there is no excuse for over or under ordering.

charlies-aunt

We share our lives with our pets - dogs, cats ponies and rabbits plus a garden full of wild birds and the ever hungry compost heap so its unusual that any food is binned.

Watching people fussing and pandering to finicky eaters and picky kids drive me nuts! My philosophy has always to cook one meal and either its eaten or its not.... but if its not eaten, that's fine - there is no pressure to "eat up" but there are no between meal snacks, sweets or treats either.

Its shameful and shocking that so much good food is binned by the supermarkets when many night shelters and food banks would gladly accept food stuffs to offer to their users.

[Deleted User]

meritaten wrote: »

its simplicity itself Jackie

Red Pepper soup
one onion chopped
Red peppers chopped you need about 3 to one medium onion
either chicken or vegetable stock.
salt and pepper.
saut! your onion slowly as you want it translucent and not browned. (you can add a clove of garlic if you want at the end of cooking)
add your peppers and saut! them slowly too. you want them 'mushy'. but not browned.
add enough stock to cover the peppers and onions and about an inch or two over (it doesn't really matter if its not exact).
add a little salt and pepper and bring up to boiling point then turn down and simmer for about 15 mins.
taste! adjust seasoning if you need to. (edit - or add more stock - I like a very intense 'pepper' taste), then either blitz in your processor, use a stick blender or a sieve, and return to pan. warm through. either serve or add any fresh herbs you fancy with it. I like both basil and parsley (not at same time), and some garlicky croutons (stale bread sprayed with olive oil and baked for a few mins in hot oven if its on) or fried in pan.
I like it 'as is' OH likes it with a little cream added.

Made some this morning and used up all the peppers Thank you for the recipe :) No waste here at all

meritaten

JackieO wrote: »

Made some this morning and used up all the peppers Thank you for the recipe :) No waste here at all

What did you think of it Jackie? its one of my favourite soups because it tastes so good with minimum effort and ingredients!

EstherH

I used some of my salad bag in a stir fry last night and put some more in soup today which was basically the last onion, a few smallish carrots, the last stick of celery, the last few mushrooms, a tin of tomatoes and some frozen peppers. It was surprisingly good. And loads left. Esther x

kboss2010

modern_millie wrote: »

Very much agree with all the above. Maybe how to prevent waste should form part of the new cookery and nutrition classes coming in in schools - using up leftovers, how to preserve by freezing and other methods -seems second nature to most of us, but we learned it somewhere!

Something I do is always to freeze at least half of a new loaf - only two of us most of the time and we don't always use a lot of bread - and I always eat the crusts!

My cooking teacher gave us these "healthy" recipes to use leftovers: pasta bake with oodles of butter, cheese and salt
Tomato pasta bake with a crushed tortilla "crumble"
*facepalm*

Now that I'm back to cooking for one, everything I don't eat before it's expiry date (esp. Yellow sticker stuff) goes in the freezer - baked beans, bacon, sausages, fish, cheese...the only thing I haven't frozen is an egg lol

CFC

I confess we tend to end up chucking fruit. I always buy it because I think I ought to but I don't care for it much at all and OH doesn't always fancy it. But I was brought up to think there must always be fruit in the house. There's only crisps once a week and no bix or cakes, but there's always apples and oranges and bananas waving at us uninvitingly from the fruit bowl!!

Westywoodpecker

That sounds a bit like us cfc until Jamie Oliver said recently that you could freeze fruit.

I've just frozen bananas I would have usually have thrown away and a pineapple going soft with really good results.

When Aldi have their 6 including peppers, I'm going to have a go & freeze those too!

RevolvingDoor

Frozen bananas make a very creamy milkshake if you blend them up just with water in a smoothie maker/blender.:) I always try to freeze mine if they look like they are going brown.

donny-gal

Totally with you there Jackie. Hate waste, often get called "tight", but even though we do not have to watch every penny, it just comes natural, maybe why we don't.

I only buy lettuce in a bag if it is definitely going to be used within 1 day, they have such a small shelf life. An Iceberg lettuce lasts for ages, if you cut a piece off with a plastic knife it does not turn the edge brown, and it only takes a minute to chop it up. For a change I will get the lettuce hearts, which also last ages.

With a cooked (Sunday type) dinner will cook enough for two days, and then have it warmed up in the microwave the next day. DH fortunately never minds eating the same meal two days running. Again any cake getting dry is served with custard as a pudding.

Like Hester I look in the fridge to decide what we are having, i.e. what to use up, and if I know I have almost used up, then check the freezer to see what we can do.

When going away once I had a load of peppers, so just chopped them up and froze them on a tray, before tipping them into a bag, so had a handful for anything I was cooking.

DG