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?
I just did the same thing on the weekend…cooked up what was going to go bad and cleared the fridge before shopping again! I made grape salad (with cream cheese, sourcream and honey!) and roasted a bunch of potatoes with carrots, onions and celery! Oh and I made a cucumber salad (with asian style dressing soy sauce, ginger garlic and sesame oil) I only had to throw out a very sad looking avacado. I too am trying to do plant based diet…but I can’t get my carnivore hubby to jump on the bandwagon with me lol
Today was “use it up day for us as wel”l. Things can get pretty unusual. Random casseroles and soups. My friends husband calls them my “slops”. I told him it was about consistency and the casseroles could be categorized as slops but the soups as “swills”. The other thing I do is roll just about anything up in whole wheat toritillas, put them in an 8 x 8 in the fridge. Covered, they are ready to pop into the oven. One thing less to think about. Woohoo!!
Really love the apple, peach, pear concoction. I’ll try it tonight, with a substitution for the peach.
Thanks!
Kelly
We do the best we can. I have always had a huge issue with food waste, so I freeze a lot of things. However, you can take it too far by feeling like you have to eat it if it exists. These days I won’t eat what I don’t like so if something turned out badly it goes in the garbage. I don’t care if someone “should” or “could” have eaten it. Kandice, just make sure your changes are sustainable over the long haul.
We go grocery shopping on Saturdays, so by the time Friday rolls around, dinner is usually Random Crap In a Tortilla. That is its official mealtime title, and as you can see by the caps, it’s totally legit. No one seems to mind. It turns out random crap in a tortilla is pretty delicious, and you can get rid of a whole host of leftover foodstuffs that way.
I have been doing the same thing lately. I will dig in the fridge and find bits of this or that leftover and create another whole meal out of it. My husband says he can’t believe I make this outta leftovers. He also thinks I’m a much better cook now that we eat mostly plant based.
I used to do big cook ups on a Sunday after going to the market for the week. Anything old would be taken out of the fridge before the new stuff was put in. It was great and the freezer was always full. I need to get back into the habit. We think a lot about our waste, as you probably know, and I have been amazed at how little rubbish we can put out if we really put our mind to it. At the moment we are filling two small ice cream containers a week, excluding the odd disposable nappy. I am hoping we can reduce this further.
In an effort that was initially to lessen my grocery bill, I have one rule that also work very well to lessen waste : Once the weekly shopping is done on saturday, never buy anything more (except emergency) during the week. I find this saves time and also makes me cook more varied and inventive meals as I am forced to make do with whatever I have on hand (like actually try out that organic grain mix instead of buying a new packet of rice, or adapt the recipe to go around a missing ingredient). Other ways to reduce waste : take the leftovers to work for lunch.