Stop Throwing it Out: Onboard the ‘Food Waste Friday’ Wagon-It’s Keeping Me On My Toes!

I love the blog The Frugal Girl. It’s a regular inspiration to me. I subscribe to this blog and it’s listed in my blogroll because I love what she does over there. She has a great regular Friday series called Food Waste Fridays. The point is to see where you’re throwing money away by letting something go bad in your refrigerator. You might be surprised to realize how much food you are tossing out on a regular basis. I know I was! And I’m pretty frugal to begin with. Food waste costs money. If you aren’t careful it can cost a lot of money over time. It has brought me to a new level of awareness on how to prevent losses by making sure I use food before it goes bad. The Frugal Girl has a call-out on her blog for other’s to jump on board with Food Waste awareness and I think it’s a truly worthy one so I’ve jumped on board. This is week 2 for joining in Food Waste Friday.

So how did I do this week?

This week I actually did fairly well. I wasn’t so sure how I was going to do. My refrigerator seemed awfully full at the beginning of our week. I went on a bit of a shopping bender for fresh produce last time I went grocery shopping. There is little that makes me happier than a fridge well stocked with plenty of fresh options. I love my fruits and veggies (yes, I’m kind of granola-healthy about my food and a little nerdy about it). I have to say I was pretty surprised by the results this week. Knowing I have this post coming that calls out my successes and failures, I find I’m staying more on top of it and making regular mental notes of what needs to be used or preserved so we don’t lose it. Thank you Frugal Girl for your blog call-out! It’s keeping me on my toes and saving me dollars!

My successes:

• My trip to the Farmer’s Market a while back found me buying some amazing fresh sage. Unfortunately fresh sage doesn’t last forever and I am still trying to find recipes to incorporate it into some of our meals. The sage was still managing to look decent but I figured it was time to figure out how to preserve this bounty of fresh sage. I found that it’s super easy to freeze sage, that it won’t need to be thawed to use it, and it will stay fresher tasting than if I dried it. So into the freezer it went. According to several websites it should last several months this way and I’m hoping it will get me to Thanksgiving because I use plenty of sage for my Thanksgiving recipes. I’m also looking forward to making one of my absolute favorite dishes: Brussels Sprouts with Browned Butter and Sage. YUM. Fresh-frozen sage should make this dish that much better!
• I managed to save some more strawberries that were starting to look a little less pleasing and washed and added them the bag of strawberries already in the freezer. I’m getting quite a nice bagful this way. I always seem to have strawberries on hand for smoothies now. And I’m sure if I felt the whim I could whip up some strawberry sauce for ice cream or to top a waffle with. Always good to have some frozen strawberries around! As a side note to this I found that my berries are looking poorly a little faster and getting moldy more quickly as we are now heading into the end of summer and nearing the end of berry season . My friend send me this great tip from FoodLush blog to help berries last longer and keep them from getting moldy. I’ll be trying this one out. I thought it was too good a tip not to share here!
• I had nearly a dozen eggs that were getting close the the use by date. We made peanut butter cookies and had a French Toast Breakfast dinner one night. That did the trick! Not one egg tossed out!

My failures: 

• That sage. I didn’t manage to save it all. Some of the leaves were pitiful and beyond redemption. But I did save most of it so this one falls into both categories this week.
• Half of a baked potato no one managed to eat. I had planned to cut this up for lunch for my toddler the day after I made baked potatoes but I clearly forgot. Then it got pushed to the back of the fridge. It’s too dried out to even imagine salvaging this.
• A biscuit from Cracker Barrel that came home from eating dinner out when we went to town last week. It was a treat to go. My son loves it. I figured the biscuit would make a good breakfast addition for someone. Apparently not. It is now rock hard. And still greasy. So ick. It goes.

Going forward:

I need to really keep an eye on what is getting pushed to the back of the refrigerator. It’s “no mans land” back there. Once something finds it’s way to the back that shouldn’t be there, it’s usually beyond all hope. It doesn’t often get found till I’m cleaning out the fridge. My goal this week is to be vigilant about what is getting pushed to the back.

Comment Worthy:

So how about you? How aware of your food waste were you this week? Did you have any successes?

My Food Waste Friday Failures for week 2

Food Waste Friday-week 2: My successes. Save it by freezing it!