Food waste Friday

Filed in Blog by on January 22, 2010 8 Comments
FavoriteLoadingAdd article to favourites
Food waste Friday - slimy cucumber

Food waste Friday - slimy cucumber

It’s green, it’s slimy and a tad stinky. Yes, this week I have a little food waste. Fortunately I have just the way to deal with it too.

At the top of the ‘fridge I found the end of a cucumber, bottom facing up and cut surface against a plastic container. It was soft, squidy, slimy and the kind of thing you have to pick up tentatively with the end of your nails, whilst holding your nose with the other hand.

I removed it to a rapturous encore of “Ewwwwwww” uttered from both Mr and Little Miss Green’s curled lips as they watched the grand unveiling. But I did get 10 out of 10 for bravery.

As I said, I do have a way to deal with our slimy cucumber food waste.

Don’t worry, it’s not raita or soup. Even I wouldn’t be that cruel to the two people I love most in the world.

Our compost bin, like many people’s this time of year is a little slow. She’s filling up fast and getting a bit buxom right now as cold weather has stopped play. I forgot to take preventative measures (more on that soon when we’ll be revealing exactly how to keep your compost warm and happy during a cold snap) so we’ve had to call in help.

Needless to say, our slimy cucumber will be put to great use, eaten up by a very willing recipient, who is less fussy than us and we’ll be getting a great return on our waste.

Tune in next week to find out my latest trick on dealing with food waste.

I also had the last two slices of a home made loaf that were starting to smell a bit yeasty – that was blitzed with some seeds and dried fruit and given to the birds this morning who thanked me with a lovely bird song.

What about you – any vagabonds in the veg box, frauds in the ‘fridge or fiends in the fruit bowl that ended up as food waste?

Don’t forget to have a gawp at Kristen’s friends over on Frugal Girl, who will be unveiling their food waste for all to see….

Tags:

About the Author ()

I am a long time supporter of the Green and Sustainable lifestyle. After being caught in the Boscastle floods in 2004, our family begun a journey to respect and promote the importance of Earth's fragile ecosystem, that focussed on reducing waste. Inspired by the beauty and resourcefulness of this wonderful planet, I have published numerous magazine articles on green issues and the author of four books.

Comments (8)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. That’s great going again Mrs G and I can’t wait to find out what you’ve got in store. Don’t tell me you’re getting an anaerobic digester at the bottom of your garden. Whatever it is, I hope you have a great weekend 🙂

  2. Jane says:

    In or out of plastic cucumbers still need watching very closely!

    A friend keeps saying that their garden is too small for a compost heap – they really have no idea (and their garden is enormous compared to mine and has plenty of room for more than one). I keep telling them you can keep a wormery on a balcony!

  3. Alea says:

    I had to add some spinach and grapes to our compost bin this week. Our compost bin is moving slower in the winter months, but I can speed it up with the addition of a little horse manure. Looking forward to hearing how you speed your bin up!

  4. Poppy says:

    We sadly had a batch of potatoes from our Veg Box that were in a not very good way and although I went through them and saved what I could, quite a few had to take the fast track route to the compost bin.

    As for cucumbers, we nearly always have problems with them as Mr P doesn’t eat them and me and the young master can only manage so much. It’s okay if we get small ones or halves, but a full grown specimen is doomed 🙁

  5. Karen says:

    Last week I had half a packet of salad leaves ,the one with shredded beetroot .I used it to make a soup with carrot, onion , sweet potato, parsnip ,a bit of ginger and creamed coconut. Liquidised and Wow what a gorgeous soup.
    Had a bit of stale home made bread. Grated and mixed with cheese made a a nice topping when grilled on macaroni cheese. The extra crumbs went out for the birds.

  6. Jane says:

    @Karen: Spinach, rocket and watercress salad also works really well added to soup. Great when the weather is cold and you suddenly don’t feel like eating salad.

  7. Karen says:

    @Jane: Thanks Jane that is a good idea. I don’t normally use the packs as they are much more expensive but they sometimes are reduced on the shelf. Will give your suggestion a try.

  8. Mrs Green says:

    @Almost Mrs Average: Now that would be a very cool idea, Mrs A. I’ve heard they start at around £29 😀

    @Jane: Cucumbers do tend to have a life (or death) of their own, don’t they. Maybe your friends will consider a wormery in time.

    @Alea: Good idea about the horse manure; I didn’t know it speeded things up. The activators I know of are male pee, nettles and comfrey.

    @Poppy: what a shame about the potatoes, poppy. Potatoes that are rotting smell especially bad don’t they? I wonder if they will sprout!

    @Karen: brilliant reuse ideas, Karen – thanks for sharing! I’ve used salad in soup before and it was good; I didn’t think it would be, but it worked 🙂

Leave a Reply