Freegan October Food Challenge

Viking_mfw

Aghast at the amount of food waste we're seeing by becoming Ol*o FWHs, we've decided to adopt a challenge for October: not to buy food. 
The rules: 
1. We are allowed to buy milk. 
2. We have 2 dozen eggs delivered every fortnight and we're not cancelling. 
3. We are allowed to eat down freezer and cupboard supplies. 
4. Child 1 gets fed at school 5 days a week and Child 2 3 days a week. This is prepaid. 
5. I reserve the right to buy some fruit if the children aren't getting enough. I mean, it goes without saying that if they aren't getting enough of the right things we stop. 

I can also get a free lunch at work most days if I organise my schedule around it. Just the poor stay at home dad who is going to have to fend for himself on weekdays! Luckily he likes sandwiches and is not averse to eating them a day or two after the use by date which is good for Ol*o maxxing. 

Normally we have a roast chicken on Sunday which provides another two evening meals somehow, and that's probably going to be the thing that makes the biggest hole in our meal plan. I've never seen an entire chicken through Ol*o! 

Challenge starts Tuesday 1st, but I've already done the shopping to last us til next weekend, so I am hoping that I won't feel the need to artificially stock up before we start.

We're also expecting my mother to stay for a few days at the end of the month so if we manage to get that far we'll suspend for the time she's with us. 

Frankly if it was possible to live on lettuce alone you could definitely live off Ol*o. We also have a lot of frozen pre cut carrots that weren't requested on the use by date. 

Other sources of food: 
There's a community fridge set up to reduce food waste where my kids have a weekend activity. Often only bread, but I'll be looking there too. 
I've been picking up windfall cooking apples where I work. No one else seems at all interested and we've had quite a lot so far. I would guess there's another week or so of those to come. 

mumtoomany

Sounds like an great/interesting idea. I'm trying to spend very little on food for the rest of the year, lots of repairs needed. I'll be following along, and maybe joining in ,with interest. Have you still got blackberries locally? Ours seem to be very late this year, still picking a few. Lettuce can be added to soups and stews. The Victorians would only eat it cooked, apparently. Good luck, hugs, mumtoomany.xx

Viking_mfw

Thanks @mumtoomany , definitely inspired by you!

Blackberries are mostly gone where we are but I did make quite a quantity of jelly style jam with them while they were here, using some foraged crab apples for the pectin. It turned out very well and the children like it. 

I did try lettuce soup a year or so ago and found it a step too far! But I will be eating as much as possible of it. I give a lot away the day after when I can't give it on Ol*o anymore to friends. 

PipneyJane

Good luck!  I will be following your efforts with interest.

One idea just occurred to me re your Sunday roast chicken: do you get portions of cooked chicken?  They can be wrapped in foil, frozen, defrosted overnight in the fridge, and then gently reheated in their foil in the oven, while potatoes are roasting.  (Say at 180c.)  Open the foil for the last 20 minutes or so, to enable the skin to crisp up a bit.

HTH

- Pip

joedenise

Braised lettuce, spring onions and peas make a good side dish.  It’s what I tend to make when lettuce is starting to go over.  Can use a small amount of onion if you don’t have any spring onions.

Viking_mfw

joedenise said:

Braised lettuce, spring onions and peas make a good side dish.  It’s what I tend to make when lettuce is starting to go over.  Can use a small amount of onion if you don’t have any spring onions.

Thank you! After @mumtoomany 's comment I have been googling lettuce recipes and am going to try 'roast' little gem with our dinner tmw, which is very similar to what you suggest. 

This evening husband was out so kids had a stew portion from the freezer with ol*o bread rolls and I had a spinach rocket and watercress salad with chopped carrot batons (all ol*o, all past use by date, all perfectly fine) and chopped pepper (lidl £1.50 f+v box) with boiled eggs. It was egg day today and we still had a dozen left so I thought I'd better get on it! I finished of with an ol*o Mango box that had been opened and not finished by child 2 this morning. 

Watercress is something I remember really disliking as a child. It was rather nice. 

Viking_mfw

Well, the 'roast' lettuce which was a Gordon Ramsay recipe and more fried/ braised was.... interesting. Certainly we ate it.  

Today I've been chopping and layering some ol*o nectarines with sugar to make jam. They're the kind that will go straight from unripe to rotten so not waiting around to try eating them, but they will make good jam and there is never a shortage of jam eaters under 10 round here. 

I did do a final shop, mostly because I should have remembered to buy cheddar and butter when I went shopping earlier in the week. I also picked up the sugar for jam making. But this is it! Partly because we've taken the remaining money out of the joint account and paid it off the mortgage, until the standing order hits at the beginning of the month. By which time we will be full challenge ahead. 

mumtoomany

Hi viking, I was going to ask what you were planning to do with the money you save. I should have guessed from your name really, either pay of the mortgage or maybe build a long boat. Haha. I'm hoping to buy nothing but milk for a few days. In town tomorrow for the dentist, but away again Wednesday till Friday, helping DD2 to move house.

Good luck with next month, hugs, mumtoomany.xx

Viking_mfw

Thanks @mumtoomany , yes, it will be the mortgage. Have finally converted my husband to the MF bandwagon. Good luck with your dentist. 

Had fun making jam today. Another batch to get on with, so I should really get off my phone! 

mumtoomany

Yes, they can sometimes be difficult to convert to overpayments. We bought our first house back in 1987, on an endowment mortgage, so interest only. The interest rates went up and down like a yo-yo, reaching 15% at one point! Each time they went up we raised the payment, but when they fell again I left it as it was. By the time we moved six years later, we had over payed by several thousand pounds. Dadtoomany was converted then. We became mortgage free in 2003. Best thing we ever did. Good luck with the overpayments. 

Hugs, mumtoomany.xx

Viking_mfw

Starting a day early. We had a mega collection yesterday and although a few people claimed quite a lot there was still masses left. I brought in some mange tout and snacks to work and handed them out. 

I had ol*o pre prepped potatoes, several days out of date, fried for breakfast. My lunch and dinner are both taken care off by work today. 

DH has day old sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. Lucky boy. 

I put together a tomato and basil pasta pot (quite large) with a little extra cooked pasta from the cupboard and a bunch of cooked chicken breast rescued from preprepared salad bowls that no one wanted, plus some frozen peas. Husband will grate cheese on it and bake it and serve to children for all their dinners. This unexpected concoction means we have the pizzas they were going to have (Also ol*o, from a few weeks ago) still in reserve in the freezer.