Zero waste food challenge, day three
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Day two of our zero waste food challenge went really well and I have to admit to feeling pretty smug by the end of it. We had to pop out a couple of times and I just knew that if we weren’t doing this challenge, I would have ‘topped up’ on a few unnecessary items.
Little Miss green asked for salad in the shop today. I hesitated for a long time because I know her habit is to gorge on something and then not want it again. Salad and zero food waste are not good bed fellows. Once opened, salad is as unforgiving as a daisy chain.
After a conversation in the shop, where Little Miss Green assured me she understood about food waste this week, I bought the salad. For lunch she ate half a bag of it! Despite her namesake, eating greens is not one of her favourite pastimes, so I was thrilled and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that her salad appetite will be as hearty later on today.
I bought out the threat that one of our readers, Shymom, provided me with at lunchtime which was ‘if you don’t eat it, you’ll find it in your soup.’ Faces dropped and mouths opened because they both misunderstood me. I said ‘I’ll make soup on Sunday with any leftovers I find in the fridge.’ They both thought I meant they would get soup instead of Sunday lunch. Needless to say there was a lot of knife and fork activity, clean plates a dog would have been proud of and I didn’t bother to put them right with their assumption 😉
Yesterday for breakfast we had porrage and fruit with smoothies.
Lunch was the sausage pie that needed using, salad and left over baked beans
Tea for mr Green was the remainder of the sausage pie, dahl and beans. Little Miss Green had spied a sausage in the back of the fridge that I didn’t see yesterday, so I chopped it up and cooked it with pasta, sweetcorn, cream and cheese for a pasta bake, which was well received.
I did my usual tucking into rice, veg and lentils, which is pretty much standard fare for me that I eat on most days.
Breakfast this morning is rice pudding made with the goats milk that needed using, served with fruit. Little Miss Green is out for the day, so there is only the two of us to cater for at lunchtime. We’re going to buy some chicken to make a curry, but apart from that, there is no need to buy anything else. I’ll be making soup for Little Miss Green’s tea – either based on cauliflower or beetroot, I haven’t yet decided.
Mr Green, who doesn’t set foot in the kitchen except to get the corkscrew even suggested we ‘cleared out the freezer’. He’s actually quite impressed with what we are doing. But I’m going to take this one step at a time and keep fresh food waste to a minimum this week. I’ll consider venturing into the freezer next week after I’ve had a bit of practise at this level first.
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Tags: food waste
Yes I agree with you. I’m dealing with the fridge this week. Maybe when I have more courage next week I will venture into the hidden depths of the freezer.
Good job! I’ll be making soup today too!
I’ve sort of swerved sideways… Having checked the fridge I was pretty much spot on yesterday so there was very little in the needing to be used up category so I don’t feel too bad about getting some more fresh things today, and I was unusually creative and cooked a cheesy leek and cod pie topped with potato slices for tea and prepared chicken breasts with tomato/chilli puree, lemongrass, pepper and garlic which are marinading in the fridge for tomorrow.
I also managed to use two of my own tubs at the supermarket (fish and olives) and elicit comment again at the till with my trolley dolly net bags.
I didn’t however get round to the big sort of either the freezer or the cupboard… so those are still to come.
Hi Margaret and Di – thank you for your support. Margaret, courage is needed here too, to venture as far as the freezer!
Kris, it sounds like you had a fabulous day – your creations sound lovely. And as for your trips to the deli counter with your containers, well, I applaud you!
Here’s to freezer and cupboard sorting 😀
The Continental Market currently on in Cheltenham was a total pleasure and really accepting of my bags and containers (although the olive man did really tease me about it!) I bought cheese from two vendors which went into tubs (one with greaseproof paper, one without – helpfully cut to fit). Bread was put straight into a cloth bag, cured meat into a small plastic bag I already carried, nuts in paper bags went into a tub for travel and the only stall where I decided to go with the flow was the biscuits and cakes as my big bag used for marinating sprung a leak the other day so this is my new replacement!
It’s actually getting a lot easier to just bring out the tubs and bags now, and to be confident that a polite request will work.
Kris, that is wonderful! Your comment had me smiling as I read. It’s great how these things become a habit and how we get more confident with taking our containers and bags wherever we go.
Little Miss Green had a friend to visit yesterday and we had to go to the butcher. Apparently, she went home and told her Mum that we ‘took their own bucket to buy a chicken’. 😀