This past Saturday I took a look in the refrigerator and hobbled together a couple meals for the family with what we had. I knew we’d be heading to the Farmers Market on Sunday to stock up for the week, so I wanted to eat up as much as we could. I discovered a few sad, moldy cucumbers and part of a tomato, and those went to the compost bin. Mostly, though, I cooked what I could.

For lunch I roasted up some veggies (top picture). I chopped up a few apples that were starting to bruise, one last pear and a couple of peaches. I put them in a baking dish and sprinkled them with cinnamon and coconut sugar. It was super delicious. (Middle picture.) The last of the kiwi and oranges were diced up for a little fruit salad. I cooked a huge pot of brown rice and we finished off the last little bit of a veggie curry I’d made earlier in the week. For dinner I made beef fajitas for Stephen and the kids, using up the last of the parsley and the juice from some lemons as a marinade, and we finished up the last of a head of lettuce and the rice I’d prepared earlier in the day. I’m trying to eat a plant based diet, so I made a veggie soup in the Vitamix with the leftover veggies from lunch and a tomato. I poured it over some rice and put some shredded cheese on top.

At the end of the day we were left with a few onions, lemons, potatoes and an apple. Not bad. Our frig is full again with the food we’ll eat this week. I have to say, we’re making excellent use of our homemade compost bin (a big plastic storage bucket). We’re generating much less trash and recycle more than we throw away. This is a huge improvement over where we were at the beginning of our Simple Year. I find that I’m making an actual effort to prepare the foods that we have before they go bad or chop them up and throw them in the freezer.

Do you all pay attention to your food waste? Do you employ any strategies for limiting what you do throw out?