No Waste Food Tips...

[Donna]

The healthy eating vs. eat what you have thread got me thinking about ways people find to use everything they have in interesting ways. We've always tried to eat as no waste as possible and to compost food stuffs we have to throw away but the current situation has us being more creative.

A couple things we do...

-save all vegetable scraps (from preparing the vegetables for eating) in a bag in the freezer then once we have a full bag, make veggie broth with it.

-currently messing with sourdough starter and using what I might have thrown away during a feeding to make crumpets, pizza dough, pretzels, etc...

Would love more ideas so what creative ways have you found to be as no waste as possible?

[Laura Corin]

Eat veg through the week based on how well it keeps, starting with leaves, moving on to flowers, fruit and pods, finishing with stems and roots.

Edited April 15, 2020 by Laura Corin

[maize]

Well, we have chickens so food scraps get fed to the chickens and transformed into eggs; chicken droppings likewise become fertilizer for the garden to grow more food 🙂

[Lucy the Valiant]

For no FOOD waste, we use the "Triple Trio" for ALL leftovers . . . they either go in a smoothie, on a pizza, or in soup. (Occasionally pancakes.) We are at the "many hungry teenagers" stage of the game, and we literally NEVER throw away anything edible.

I'm also famous for making dessert on leftover nights, and nobody gets dessert until the leftovers are gone, LOL. 

[BarbecueMom]

I save the ends from our (expensive gluten free) bread in a bag in the freezer.  When the bag is full or I need freezer room again, I thaw the pieces, tear them up in a casserole dish, toss them in butter/sugar/cinnamon, and pour over the standard French toast milk/egg/vanilla mixture (1 egg per 1/4 c. milk, I usually need between 4-6 eggs).  Voila, baked French toast!

It takes us up to two weeks to go through a whole loaf, so we probably only have enough for this every 3 months or so.  Everyone will eat it though, even the heel haters.

[MEmama]

We have a teen. We don’t have leftovers. 🙂 

[Soror]

17 minutes ago, Lucy the Valiant said:

For no FOOD waste, we use the "Triple Trio" for ALL leftovers . . . they either go in a smoothie, on a pizza, or in soup. (Occasionally pancakes.) We are at the "many hungry teenagers" stage of the game, and we literally NEVER throw away anything edible.

I'm also famous for making dessert on leftover nights, and nobody gets dessert until the leftovers are gone, LOL. 

LOL, we will often have ice cream on leftover night, it is highly motivating.

[Donna]

12 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

If the bananas are getting brown and I don’t have time to make banana bread, plunk them in the freezer

We freeze bananas, too. DD used to make banana "ice-cream" with them but then developed a banana sensitivity to raw bananas so now she uses them for banana bread and just last night tried baking them before putting them into the freezer and wants to try banana "ice-cream" with the baked ones.

[SamanthaCarter]

The freezer is your friend, but keep things moving. The food shouldn’t go there to die. 😉

[HS Mom in NC]

1. Staying current on what's got the shortest shelf life and starting there. I write on the kitchen fridge calendar in pencil for the next few days what we need to eat soon so I don't have to rely on my memory or do it every day. 

2. Strategically planning meals around what ingredients don't get used up in one recipe.  For example, we use 1/2 a cabbage for Latin American slaw to eat with multiple Mexicanish meals in the same week (Chipotle Black Beans on rice, Barbacoa in tortillas, and refried beans and chorizo on tostada shells) and we roast the other 1/2 cabbage in mustard sauce with potatoes and apple chicken sausages. The leftover chorizo and  salsa will also go into either a black lentil soup or a Spanish brown lentil soup if there isn't enough for both.

When I used to have access to a large bunch of basil for cheap I made a Thai Basil Chicken dish, a Rachel Ray pilaf dish with pork, and Basil  Chicken and Zucchini hash dish the same week.

3. All leftover meats and soups are labeled and frozen in single meal containers for those days when I don't want to cook or someone just doesn't want what's for dinner.

Sometimes I roast a large quantity chicken thighs with olive oil, a little salt, and a little pepper serving one meal's worth with a pan sauce and sides and store the rest of it in the freezer.  I can use that meat for all kinds of dishes: curried chicken salad sandwiches, fajitas on tortillas or rice, Monterey Chicken and rice, Caesar Salad, pesto chicken sandwiches, chicken tacos, chicken soup, etc. 

Today I'm slow cooking a 3.5 lb. chuck roast for pot roast tonight and Barbacoa for tomorrow with leftovers frozen in single meal containers.

4. Cooking 2 meals worth of a dish, putting one out to eat and putting the other in the fridge for later in the week. If you do that 3 days a week, you get 6 meals. Plan the leftovers for the days you don't want to cook. It's more efficient to shop for, prep, cook, use up, clean up after, and store a higher volume of ingredients that make 2 full meals and do that 3 times a week than it is to plan for 6 different meals with different ingredients or few ingredients that overlap in the recipes.

[May]

Hubby isn’t a big fan of leftovers😕 so I try not to have any. If I do, I’ll eat for lunch. I will freeze soup though and pull that out for a quick meal.

[73349]

In addition to a shopping list, I keep a "do not buy" list for things we have and need to use before getting more.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Great ideas!

- Buy what you know you'll eat, not what you think (out of guilt, because you saw that kale will extend your life by 47 years, etc.) you should eat.  

- Scale DOWN recipes if you have a hard time pushing leftovers.  

- A friend of mine has a cool alternative for making veggie broth.  She saves all her peels and puts them in her food dehydrator, then throws the dried stuff in the blender until it's crushed into powder.  I think she then mixes it 50/50 with salt for veg broth.  The powder is shelf-stable and very compact compared to quarts of broth in the freezer.  

[Tap]

If you find that people just keep eating at a meal, to avoid having bit and pieces left.  Try pre-measuring portions to avoid that.

I use a measuring cup to scoop how many frozen veggies we need into a pan. Each person gets 1 cup, so I only need x amounts of cups. That way there are no left overs to deal with. 

I serve salads pre-portioned into bowls (vs a large serving bowl on the table). That way I control how much each person gets of what toppings and can avoid having a couple of small portions left over. 

Although it is more expensive, I buy portioned bags of chips (I know some people portion bags themselves). This way a serving is the portion you get. Someone isn't sitting with a bag in front of the TV and eating handfuls of them with out paying attention. 

I have friends who clean and close the kitchen between lunch and dinner.  She chases away any grazers who aren't picking up a piece of fruit.   It saves on mindless snacking an messes.

I have another friend who has bins for each kid. Once a week, she puts portions of junk food snacks in the bins, along with juice boxes etc. and that is each kids portion for the week. 

I put my own snacks above the fridge. I want a few certain things, but everyone else will  go crazy on them and they won't be there when I want them. A pack of cookies lasts a day or two for the family, but if I want one later in the week, it is gone. If I want cookies, I would have to buy or make some for everyday leading up to the day I may want one so there will still be one in the house by that day. Instead, I put them in a special cupboard that is just for me. Everyone knows my cupboard is there but must ask permission if they take something from there. I usually share, but there is no whining allowed if I say no. 

Bits of left over fruit can go  in smoothies, like others are saying about saving veggie scraps in the  freezer.  I often toss a good, but going soft apple in a smoothie, or toss grapes in the  freezer for another time. 

If you have kids who chug milk or juice, use a mason jar to separate and identify individual servings and label with tape, sharpie or wipe off marker. Even left over spaghetti jars or what not, will work for this purpose. 

[J-rap]

I mainly use up almost old food three ways...

1)  If fresh veggies, I turn them into a smoothie (honestly, I throw anything into smoothies these days... broccoli, any type of greens, herbs, celery).  Mix in a little fruit and coconut milk and it's good to go.

2)  Leftover bits from meals I put into a bowl in the freezer to eventually turn into a stew.  For example, leftover roasted carrots, cooked corn, potatoes, half a chicken breast with sauce, rice, you name it.)  

3)  I often turn leftovers into pasties...   I'll make many of them in one day, with whatever leftovers from the past week I have on hand.  So I might make some with chicken and rice, others with hamburger and potatoes and carrots, others with curry vegetable.  They're perfect for quick lunches or snacks.  I'll stick them in the freezer and use them as needed.