We’ve all been guilty of letting food in our fridges go to ruin. Our family had to throw food out every week until I started doing a weekly meal plan this past summer. With a meal plan I found that I was better able to monitor the leftover food in the fridge since I was more consciously trying to use what we had on hand. Even though we still have waste, there is less of it than there was a year ago.
Understandably no one wants to eat a piece of fruit that is mushy or shriveled, so try to think of different ways to serve it besides fresh. My favorite past the prime fruit is the apple. I actually get a bit excited when I find an apple starting to shrivel up in the fruit basket because I then have a good excuse for making baked apples or a cobbler. Apples as well as peaches and blueberries are also good for pie fillings. How about those bananas that have peels with more freckles than a redhead? Make banana pudding or banana bread. Pineapples can be thrown in to bake with a ham or salmon. Any type of berry (and bananas) can be added to yogurt to make a great smoothie.
Now, I wish that I could say I’m good about salvaging veggies, but I can’t. If the baby or my 3 yr old don’t finish up the last little bit of veggies in the fridge, then they do go to waste. I have heard that many people throw leftover veggies into a freezer bag and once it’s full they make vegetable soup. Sounds like a wonderful plan for those of you who like vegetable soup. Other ideas that I swagbucksed (is that word in the dictionary yet?!?) were chicken pot pie and mixed veggies over fried rice. I’ll have to give those two ideas a shot next time we have to many leftover veggies.
I read that the cheese around a moldly spot could be risky to eat. It’s best to cut at least a
half inch off around the mold before eating the rest of the cheese. Once mold has started to grow on cheese it should be eaten fairly quickly. Perhaps cheese dip or a dish with shredded cheese could be served soon? An idea to prevent mold on cheese is to freeze it. We keep our shredded cheese in the freezer and just drop the bag on the floor a couple of times to loosen it up for serving. It thaws within a couple of minutes and we have no cheese waste.
Can you think of any other ideas for food that’s about to go to ruin ladies? I know there are many of you who are wonderful cooks and are very skilled in being efficient in the kitchen. I’d love for you to share with us what works for you.
COMPOST!!! Love the stuff. If your veggies are going off, throw them in the compost bin.
I freeze blackened bananas whole for use later in baking or smoothies.
I bought several lbs. of strawberries the other night because they were past their prime. I sliced them, put them in a gallon ziptop bag, sprinkled them with sugar, and threw them in the fridge to macerate for several hours. Then, I put them in 2c. portions in freezer bags to save for later.
I tried composting once. I was so excited about it until after the composting was done. We opened it up and it reeked! Hubby says, you didn’t put any meat in there did you? Oops. No meat for composting!
I love this topic. It’s a big challenge to me not to throw any food away. I freeze the last servings of vegetables for soup but I don’t like veggie soup either – I always add meat to my soups.
We like fried apples alot with breakfast but I’ll make it with other meals too if the apples need to be eaten.
I freeze pretty much all fruits & use them in smoothies. My family doesn’t eat much bread so this is a great way to use up bananas.