After almost 2 months of this, you'd think I'd be getting better. But I don't know what to say this week. It was interesting. We didn't spend too much at the grocery store, but we did buy a lot of our bulk items this week, which included 4 chickens. Those four chickens took up any freezer space I thought I might have, so it's been tricky to try and eat some things from the freezer (so I could take the duct tape off the door) and using up our fresh ingredients.
I actually thought, way back at the beginning of the week, that I was doing fairly well. I used up half an old turnip, some partially wilted celery, some on the verge carrots and some older parsley in the stock. I also used an old baked potato to make some potato cakes for a weekend breakfast and some yellow potatoes for during the week hash browns and a gnocchi dinner. But, despite the saves, we still had some waste.
Here's how we fared:
a bit of salad: didn't look inedible, but had that funky yucky salad smell
a butt of bread: got mold on it before we could finish it, but I would say we did fairly well considering this was the third artisan loaf we made this week on top of 2 loafs of sandwich bread we made.
2 c. chicken stock: after we got the four chickens, i made a bunch of chicken stock. towards the end of cooking, i added a bit more water because usually we end up with something like a jello mold instead of something a little more liquid like. i shouldn't have bothered, because that last two cups wouldn't fit in the freezer and I didn't have recipes calling for stock on the menu.
half a pot pie: this one pains me the most. I couldn't finish the whole thing for dinner so i put some foil around it and was waiting for it to cool (so as not to place a hot thing in the fridge), but silly, tired me went to bed without remembering to actually put it in the fridge and walked in to the kitchen the next morning very sad.
All in all, the bread and stock are very low in terms of cost. The salad, well, not a huge expense. But the pot pie, so sad about that one.
I actually thought, way back at the beginning of the week, that I was doing fairly well. I used up half an old turnip, some partially wilted celery, some on the verge carrots and some older parsley in the stock. I also used an old baked potato to make some potato cakes for a weekend breakfast and some yellow potatoes for during the week hash browns and a gnocchi dinner. But, despite the saves, we still had some waste.
a bit of salad: didn't look inedible, but had that funky yucky salad smell
a butt of bread: got mold on it before we could finish it, but I would say we did fairly well considering this was the third artisan loaf we made this week on top of 2 loafs of sandwich bread we made.
2 c. chicken stock: after we got the four chickens, i made a bunch of chicken stock. towards the end of cooking, i added a bit more water because usually we end up with something like a jello mold instead of something a little more liquid like. i shouldn't have bothered, because that last two cups wouldn't fit in the freezer and I didn't have recipes calling for stock on the menu.
half a pot pie: this one pains me the most. I couldn't finish the whole thing for dinner so i put some foil around it and was waiting for it to cool (so as not to place a hot thing in the fridge), but silly, tired me went to bed without remembering to actually put it in the fridge and walked in to the kitchen the next morning very sad.
All in all, the bread and stock are very low in terms of cost. The salad, well, not a huge expense. But the pot pie, so sad about that one.
You didn't do too bad. Especially since most of the things were low cost. This no waste thing is way harder than I thought it would be.
ReplyDeleteMight you have been able to cut the mold off the bread and then make bread crumbs with the rest? I rarely have left over bread, but when I do, I turn it into bread crumbs and store them in my freezer. I've been right there - forgetting to put something away before bed. Ouch!
ReplyDeleteYou can look at your waste as the glass half empty or half full. It you look at all you saved, I'd definitely say that it's half full.
ReplyDeleteSo healthy. Love your blog!
ReplyDeleteWhen I think fresh bread is getting closer to mold I just throw it in the fridge and use it for garlic bread or something toasted later. You are really doing great - its so hard to not waste!!
ReplyDelete