Use it up!

[happystuff]

Are there ways you tend to use up food before it goes bad just so you don't have to throw it out?

If I'm cleaning out leftovers from the fridge, I'll often throw everything into the crockpot with some broth and make my "everything soup". It's different every time I make it, but tends to be pretty good.

I had about 1/2 bag of spinach that wasn't going to last much longer, so I made some wraps using a recipe I saw online - one cup of spinach plus two eggs. Liquify in blender and pour onto a baking sheet with parchment (except it stuck to my parchment! will spray pay next time). Bake about 15 minutes in 350 degree oven. They actually tasted good as a wrap with ham and swiss cheese. LOL.

Anyone have any standard use-it-up recipes to share?

[iris lilies]

it’s a rare time when we throw out food because it’s bad. When I buy fruits and vegetables, I use the ones that go bad towards the front of the week. The ones that last much longer such as apples, oranges, and hard surface vegetables, I can take my own sweet time in using up.

[early morning]

generally, wasted food has gotten lost in the fridge, and when found, is way past using. Other than that - most things will freeze. I freeze almost expired milk, if I don't have time to make pudding. We freeze sad veggies, especially spinach and avocado, and dry celery when it's gotten too floppy for anything else. We don't use much fresh celery, so that happens off and on. Lemons get squeezed and frozen into juice cubes. We don't really much like most soup, so while using up ends in soup is a great idea, for us, then the soup would just get wasted. I just try to watch things closely and use them up as soon as. If I do have some bits and bobs, I'm more likely to put them into fried rice. You can hide a lot of stuff in fried rice!

[pinkytoe]

Just today, I cooked a half package of Kamut wheat that was getting old and made a grain salad with old red bell peppers, arugula and dried up dates. DH does most of the cooking so I just have him throw older veggies into the stir fry or soup. I also add older veggies to the stock container in the freezer.

[catherine]

I was going to start a thread with this topic last week, happystuff! I was annoyed with myself because I wound up throwing out too much food. Our refrigerator is in the pantry and to see what's on the bottom shelf you have to crawl on your knees.. often things get pushed to the back and found much too late to save them.

Because I make soup a lot I tend to scavenge in the fridge and freezer for to use. I have been considering doing what my greataunt did when I lived with her at her beach cottage. We would go "uptown" to shop almost every day, and we'd eat what we bought that day or the next. I find that I waste the most when I buy too much to begin with.

[rosarugosa]

I've been pondering this because we throw away so much food! Not just produce, but chicken, steak tips, haddock. I think it's often because the package of whatever is too big for us and the leftovers often go to waste. I think one thing we need to do is portion up and freeze some of the animal protein we buy, and then take out and defrost as needed. Unfortunately, we're not very good at managing freezer contents either. We kind of suck at this food thing. We're in our mid-sixties, maybe we'll figure it out someday . . .
I wish our friend who grapples with food insecurity lived close enough to come by and have dinner with us!

[happystuff]

rr, I've gotten into the habit of dividing up meal portions of animal protein pretty quickly. I, however, have to do a better job of labeling what I'm freezing! LOL.

[catherine]

I've been pondering this because we throw away so much food! Not just produce, but chicken, steak tips, haddock.

Funny you said haddock! Haddock was exactly what made want to start a thread on waste. DD bought it from a local farmer, so it's not like it was a loss leader deal at the supermarket. He probably paid $20 for the one-pound package. But it sat in the fridge in plain view beyond what I use as the deadline for eating fish--3 days. We were busy those days and just never got around to cooking and eating it. I would have cooked it but I like to bake fish and DH likes to fry it, so while in some cases I'd just use it up even if he bought it, in this case, I thought he would get mad.

So it didn't eaten, either baked or fried. What a shame.

[early morning]

My labeling is sporadic at best. AND I reuse freezer bags until they have holes. This can be problematic... last night I was looking for a flat bag of frozen tomato paste. I found it, but the bag said spinach. My lemon cubes are in a bag that says peppers. *sigh* I'm always so optimistic (aka unrealistic) when I put things in - always in a rush- and tell myself "of COURSE I'll remember what's in this bag!!". *double sigh*

rr, I'm in your age group, and I too hope to figure out a LOT of things - someday-.

[iris lilies]

I've been pondering this because we throw away so much food! Not just produce, but chicken, steak tips, haddock. I think it's often because the package of whatever is too big for us and the leftovers often go to waste. I think one thing we need to do is portion up and freeze some of the animal protein we buy, and then take out and defrost as needed. Unfortunately, we're not very good at managing freezer contents either. We kind of suck at this food thing. We're in our mid-sixties, maybe we'll figure it out someday . . .
I wish our friend who grapples with food insecurity lived close enough to come by and have dinner with us!

Honey, you need a dog.

with us the very few bits that go bad can usually be consumed by a dog. I had a small bag of turkey that was at the back of the refrigerator and it was slimy, so I didn’t want to eat it, but boy that was perfectly fine for our dog. Their little systems are built for scavenging so they can scarf down too old food and be fine.