Don't Throw Food Away Challenge

Mrs_Veg_Plot

Is anyone interested in trying this challenge this year? I hate food waste and try not to waste any at all. Luckily OH feels the same and he and the two DD's don't mind the strange combinations they sometimes get.

I'm having the last of the home made pea and ham soup for lunch h today with the last slices of a French stick toasted as they have gone a bit dry.

Ken68

I keep thinking to make soup from veg peelings, you know, the stuff that usually goes in the bin or on the compost heap. Chucked away a good part of a pineapple the other day, probably could have made up a smoothie added to home made yogurt. Smackie wrist.

Islandmaid

I,ve got to improve in saving food waste.

Today i,ve roasted some cherry tomatoes that were past their best - will put in soup with some bell peppers for work lunches.

Will also make cheese and onion tarts with the LO bits of cheese.

Mrs_Veg_Plot

I used half of a YS pineapple when I made a fruit salad on Sunday for a family party. I have just used the rest of it in a pineapple upside down cake.

Frugalsod

Mrs_Veg_Plot wrote: »

Is anyone interested in trying this challenge this year? I hate food waste and try not to waste any at all..

That is my normal state of affairs. I view it as throwing money away. So if it cannot be eaten it is not bought.

barneydee_2

I'm joining a lot of challenges this year as I really want to improve our finances, our health & the planet. What I am going to do this year is if I throw anything away I am going to calculate the cost of the food thrown away & put the money in a pot, the over a month I will see how much money I am wasting thus helping me to stop over buying. At the moment we have just gone from being three in the house to two but I am still adjusting to only cooking & buying for two .
I am trying to get my youngest dd to follow this sit as things are very tight for her & her partner & two kids & I want her to get out of the habit of the bank of mum & dad lol
Dee x

[Deleted User]

Looking in my fruit and veg I have around a kilo of spuds,4 leeks a bag of onions 5 apples (getting a bit wrinkly now) 2 oranges 4 banana's and a pineapple.The fruit is in my cold conservatory and the spuds are store in a potato cloth bag.Apples I will stew and freeze.spuds and leeks will help to make soup.Oranges will get eaten as they are in good condition and large ones.Bananas get sliced on top of cereal for breakfast .The pineapple I will take with me today as I'm looking after my DGS its the last day of term and that will vanish at lunchtime no doubt.In my fridge I have a small pack of steamed greens and a small plate of left over mash This will be reheated with a cooked chop tonight for dinner so no waste there I also have a small bowl of peeled carrots,brocolli brussels and cauli that are chopped and in water.This will be used for a soup I think and I make chuck some lentils in as well with a healthy dollop of sweet chilli sauce
My food waste is virtually nil as to me to throw food away is almost sinful ( worst of growing up during rationing with a frugal Mum) Great that January has become Use-it -up month on here I'm all for it.Perhaps if we get stuck we could post what bits we have and see what sort of meals we could come up with

Broomstick

I'm definitely on board with this one already but don't want to waver. We have thrown away very little food since before Christmas. Freezing surplus food is much easier now that I've sorted out my spare freezer containers. Now, I'm being much more careful to label and date them. No more mysteries! I think I need to sort out freezing single portions rather than family sized quantities so that my hungry DSs can use them up when they have the munchies. My parents gave us their old microwave last autumn and that makes reheating food much quicker. DS1 and I are consciously working on how we can organise ourselves regularly for him to take extra from the previous evening's meal into work for lunches to save him money as well. We've done this in a much more ad hoc way in the past.

I'm finding it's helping to look at our rubbish generation as a whole. Our recycling for kerbside boxes is easy to manage and the wormery seems to still be running ok (although it does need insulating before the big freeze really sets in).

I've now set up - thanks to an idea someone gave somewhere on these forums - a freezer box for useful veg peelings and scraps to make into stock and I'm rapidly approaching my first box full. It's so easy just to throw all the bits into the box after every meal preparation. I'm also saving onion skins in a jar on the windowsill to experiment with dyestuffs for my old supplies of handspun wool. All citrus fruit peelings are being left to dry by the wood stove to use as kindling since worms are not so keen on citrus.

I stuck a big label on the kitchen rubbish bin to say that if it can be recycled it should not go in there and everyone seems to be being very careful about it. It's interesting seeing what the problem items are, virtually no foodstuffs though. This year's rubbish so far would fit into half a small crisp packet.

Today I am making squash, tired red-pepper and even tireder courgette soup . My apple surplus will go into a crumble I think. Spuds, red cabbage, end of the broccoli and carrots are all being cooked for tonight's supper.

B x

MadamMim

This thread has got me thinking of the big bag of carrots in the fridge, which I will not get through fully before they go off. So you've inspired me to chop them up and portion into freezer bags, as they only get used for soup stock anyway

good_advice

I believe the most common food to be thrown away here is lettuce.
I do not buy it often but sometimes it is requested by the family.
Myself, I do not eat any salad. The tomatoes I can cook with and put on OH's dinner plate.
The tomatoes are often home grown in the greenhouse and we have a plentiful supply all summer.