Day 3 of my zero food waste week challenge
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Using upi vegetables to make soup
So far so good and my bank balance is loving it!
Yesterday’s breakfast was mashed banana with yogurt and oats mixed up and topped with apples.
Lunch was fish pie made from all of Sunday’s vegetables mashed, the remainder of the cream, some of the brushetta topping and the sardines. I mixed these up, topped with mashed potatoes and baked in the oven. The peas, cabbage and leeks from Sunday were heated through with butter and herbs.
Pudding was left over blackberry cake from Sunday.
Tea was Ma Green’s soup kitchen. I made two delights: one was broccoli, potato and watercress (aka Iron soup) which I threw the cheese and cream in to and the other was vegetable, made with one of the onions, the courgette, all of the carrots and the brushetta with a hand full of red lentils, barley and oats.
By the end of the day I knocked many ‘must use up’ items from our list. Here’s what it looks like now:
The fruit bowl contains:
- 4 lemons
- 1 grapefruit
- 1 orange
- a couple of bananas one banana
- lots of apples 2 less than yesterday!
- an avocado
- lots of pears
The vegetable box ‘ things which need using up before they are compost bin casualties’ items:
- 4 onions 3 onions
- 1 bulb garlic
- 2 broccoli heads
- around 1kg carrots
- 1 courgette
Things which need using up in the fridge are:
- 2 pots potatoes – 1 mashed and 1 cooked and diced
- 1 tub home made tomato brushetta topping
- bit of black pepper cheese
- pot of cream
- Some left over cooked vegetables from Sunday lunch
- 1/2 tin sardines
Wahee! I’m really pleased with that. It means we will be eating soup for the rest of the week, but there aren’t too many scary things left now. We can certainly manage the fruit and on closer inspection I think I might have another week on the onions and garlic any way. How are you getting on?
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Tags: food waste
The great thing is that the lunch from Sunday’s veggies plus bruschetta and sardines actually appeals to me! Why have we become such slaves to celebrity cook books? I’m going to try following your lead and see what I can conjure up from the depths of my fridge.
Wow! What a great idea. I’m sure I have enough food in my cupboards and freezer to last a week.
I think I might get the children involved in doing our own zero-food-waste week, what a challenge! (especially for somebody who seriously dislikes cooking!)
You are doing a fantastic job! I am working over time trying to get the last of the tomatoes turned into something edible and canned (bottled) for the winter. Today, I am turning my last basket of pears into pear sauce (preparing it just like apple sauce) and canning it.
If I don’t think we can eat our onions before they go, I dice and freeze them in 1/2 cup portions. Then they are recipe ready. Sometimes I will lightly saute onions, bell peppers, garlic, celery, and any other veggies that need to be used up in a little olive oil. Then I freeze them in 1 cup portions, providing me with a nice start to minestrone soup on a busy day.
Both of your soups sound delicious. Do you blend them or leave them ‘bitty’?
This is an area I need to tackle. Because we have a green cone and a compost system I don’t tend to think of food waste in the same way as I do landfill at the moment. It isn’t hidden waste, I’m not just shutting my eyes and ears to it but it is something I’m actively dealing with.
But in truth I need to reduce what we throw away because, after all, it is still money that has been spent and not used properly.
@Jorrit Jorritsma: Hi Jorrit, thanks for your comment and welcome! I think simple food mixed in creative ways can present us with something amazing that we would never find in a book. Glad you like the suggestion – have you made anything new this week?
@Becky Graceson: Hi Becky, Did you have a go at doing a challenge? Even just taking a look at a couple of ingredients with your kids and asking them ‘what could we make with this’ is a start. Good luck, if you don’t enjoy cooking then you have a new set of challenges to overcome. I hope you get into it and enjoy it!
@Alea: Pear sauce sounds lovely. I had never thought of doing that. What a brilliant idea. I think I’ll go to our local orchard this morning and buy some pears just to try it! Your ideas of preparing veggies and freezing them is brilliant too. SOmething else I had not thought of. Maisie suggests blanching and freezing veggies, so between you, if I take your advise I should never have food waste again!
@Just Gai: Blended soups at Chez Green, Just Gai; we like the comfort ‘baby food’ thick stuff 😉
@LJayne: Great thoughts, Lesley. I agree with you, composting and using the green cone is great to help landfill, but you are still wasting resources that could have fed you. Have you thought any more on what you could do?