Freegan October Food Challenge

Viking_mfw

Very tempted to go and buy heaps of chocolate this morning but have just made some potato wedges and shoved them in so that ought to help with the carb cravings. As well as using up a bunch of fancy salt from OH's Christmas stocking last year. 

Viking_mfw

Potato wedges were delicious and kept me nicely happy along with some crisp cucumber slices. Kids ate masses of sliced apples in the afternoon and we made up a bun kit from last Christmas, which has been sitting on top of the kitchen cupboards. Icing gave another fun afternoon occupation and the children and OH are now enjoying them (I can't, they're gluten-y). 

Picked up the Ol*o collection from Sainsbos and listed it all, taking off some noodles and stir fry veg to have with some defrosted cooked meat in a stirfry dinner. Kids *love* noodles which is just as well because I have a strong suspicion that the many many packets of both we now have are not going to go by tomorrow so it will be a duplicate dinner tomorrow for them. I will probably have something else - or the same but with rice instead of noodles as there are no more non wheat ones. 

Viking_mfw

In fact the noodles and stirfry all went which was excellent. Slim pickings over the weekend, a lot of lettuce and not a lot else. We had some excellent chicken curry from previously frozen chicken and ol*o veg, including carrot slivers I'd picked out of a salad bag. We compost most of the excess lettuce, which is mostly actually dead by the use by date, but at least it's being separated to compost rather than getting binned wholesale. 

Omelettes on Monday with mushrooms separated from previously unwanted stirfry, a giant spring onion, final dregs of cooked pork and using the honey butter pats rescued from unwanted bags of ready to microwave veg that were past it. (We eat most of these but the ones with petit pois in are usually already grey by the time we get them.)  The honey butter was slightly odd but it worked. 

I think I have to relabel this as 'almost freegan' because I did buy some bacon to make bacon cabbage and potatoes for dinner on Tuesday. This is basically Colcannon but with roasties instead of mash. 

Last night I had a work dinner (free!) and the family had stew made with previously bought stewing beef and a bag of ol*o diced carrot and swede etc. OH had out of date quorn sausage rolls for lunch and pronounced them quite nice. 

Last night's late pick up had no salad which was a delightful surprise. It did have a lot of pots of cheese dip stuff in alpine fondue and margarita flavors. The family will have cauliflower (ol*o) and macaroni (cupboard) cheese with those tonight but they contain wheat so I can't have them. So I'll probably have a mushroom omelette and some random ready to cook veg. It is egg day today and we have managed to run out. 

Most of last night's collection, oddly, was bags of carrots (whole not sticks). As they are bb I've listed them and hopefully many will go today. We kept a couple of parsnips and am hoping for parsnip soup. Last night also had 3 pineapple pots which never go and don't last well so I bagged and froze them. I might make pineapple upside down cake with them for a weekend treat. 

I have also bought a pack of baked beans. On my list for this weekend is stock cubes. It does seem key to using up stuff as much as possible to have some.enabling ingredients/ companions. The Children will eat most things if enough ketchup or baked beans are supplied with them. 

Viking_mfw

Oh and very pleasingly I found a tiny zero waste shop and took my glass jar to buy popping corn, something which the children have been missing since we ran out mid September. "Movie night" is a often requested treat which is more about the homemade popcorn than the film....

Cherryfudge

I've just found your thread and subscribed. I'm fascinated.

I think you said you buy yogurt. If you get free milk at all, could you reserve a small amount of a basic live yogurt, and save the milk by making a new batch of yogurt? I do mine in an instant pot as I couldn't get the temperature right using a flask, but it's a really handy way of saving the milk and I can get through a lot of yogurt.

My DH is living off windfall apples, which has saved us a few ££. He's an apple addict. There are also a few blackberries still available to pick and if I'm brave I may harvest a few Jerusalem artichokes. Someone recommended a long slow cook to get the best out of them but I've yet to try it.

I'm looking forward to your next instalment. I love the creative ways you turn your Ol1o finds into meals.

Viking_mfw

Thanks @Cherryfudge

There is rarely free milk - that's one of the other things we buy. I have thought about making yoghurt to avoid the plastic pot waste but given I've managed to go 25 days so far with only one pot - made it a sort of treat rather than a staple which it was - I think maybe that is the way to go. For me the problem is breakfasts because I am gf and there's not a lot of gf bread on Ol*o - indeed we rarely seem to get normal bread but luckily there are other people who do and the community fridge project can't get people to take enough of it! 

Have managed to pass on 4 bags of carrots over the last 48 hours. Today my mum arrives for a couple of nights so she will probably take a couple. Unfortunately the spouse doesn't like carrot soup so we'll probably just be eating carrots for every meal for a while.. 

This was always the weekend we said we'd need to shop for. In the end I think I'll get a chicken to roast (again, that's suddenly an immense treat instead of main weekly staple) and some blue cheese to go in a parsnip soup. And the stock cubes my OH is so desperately longing for 😄

Tonight we are having haggis (homemade by my stepdad) with neeps (we got a whole swede mid week) and tatties (got a large bag when I covered for someone late night midweek) and baked beans (I caved and shopped) and probably random veg since we have a few bags of mixed stuff. 

LotsOfTea

I've really enjoyed hearing about how well you're doing at reducing food waste in this way. It's really impressive and eye opening as to what gets wasted from supermarkets. 

Since you've got so many carrots I'll add my using up carrots suggestion. I often grate a carrot and add it to my porridge oats with a shake of cinnamon and cook together. Top with a few walnuts and a drizzle of honey and it's carrot cake porridge! 

t14cy_t

love reading everything on this thread. i try and collect and distribute olio. last week had 2 pack of coconut and turmeric sausages,  would never of though of buying them , but they were gorgeous!! just goes to showe.

Viking_mfw

@LotsOfTea that sounds amazing, thank you! I spoke too soon on the carrots though- 2 more requests and they'd all gone by the time I left for work this morning. 

@t14cy_t those sound nice! We have some.vegan plant based fillet steaks I froze at 11pm on their use by date which we haven't tried yet - I will probably give some to a veggie in the village who semi regularly requests next time she does, but I am interested to see what they are like. On the other hand OH and child 2 were not at all certain about the jalapeño pizza they had to have for lunch earlier in the week 😄

Viking_mfw

Roast chicken was a real treat last night, and the chicken and some cream to go with the pineapple upside cake were the only bought bits. Despite what appeared to be masses of pineapple going into the cake it all seemed to have disappeared when we ate it - I suspect the other half of the cake will have a heavy pineapple to cake ratio!!

I shall make up a chicken pie with the leftover and a veg bag, and then top it with mash mixed with the left over mashed neeps from Friday and freeze it for later. Today we're having baked potato skins which will creatively use up the masses of chive and sour cream dip in last night's collection. Lunch will be leftover parsnip soup for adults and corn on the cob for children. Half term this week so I anticipate the OH making things complicated by eating unexpected lunches with the children