Life: Food Waste Challenge Week 4

NOTE: This post has been in drafts since Spring, around the time of lockdown. But I feel like food waste is still a challenge that we should be tackling so I thought I would round off by posting this now.

Sunday

Lunch

Cold leftover roast chicken and couscous from last night’s dinner party- delicious!

Dinner

The leftover carrots from the crudités have been cooked to accompany tonight’s roast beef.

I made a rhubarb crumble, but far too much crumble mix, so that has been bagged and frozen.

Actual food waste: potato peel

Monday

Lunch

The same leftovers of roast chicken and couscous as the previous day but with added salad.

Dinner

One of my favourite Swedish meatball recipes using up most of the pack of slightly out of date meatballs (this may seem a bit risky but the packaging looked fine - no swelling, and the meat smelled fine too). This also used up the last of the cream which had also passed its use by date. Served with shop bought mash (don’t shoot me) and frozen peas.

The remaining meatballs have now been frozen.

Dessert was leftover roulade that our friends made and brought over on Saturday.

Actual food waste: none

Tuesday

Dinner

Not all my meals are culinary delights. Eating cold roast beef from Sunday with chips, salad and a dollop of horseradish isn’t exactly gourmet, but quite tasty!

Actual food waste: a small amount of overcooked chips.

Wednesday

No food waste used or generated.

Thursday

Dinner

My husband cooked up some Richmond sausages that had been lingering in the freezer a little too long, whilst my son and I had beef stroganoff (shop bought). It's great that he cooked the sausages and ate some for his dinner, but I am now left with a quantity of cooked cold sausages (that I am not that keen on).

Actual food waste: none

Friday

Lunch

Pasta with cold sausages is not a dish I would want to repeat often, but it's one way to eat those leftovers!

Actual food waste: none

Things I learned from the challenge

• Use your freezer for all sorts of small bits: over the challenge I have frozen things as diverse as breadcrumbs to beetroot. 
• Keep an inventory of your freezer, and your cupboards: knowing what you have can prevent you creating too much food waste, and using something with a shorter shelf life is better than throwing it.
• Meal plan before you shop but not in such a restrictive way that you can't be creative. Factor in at least one day a week of using up leftovers in some way.
• Use your judgement when it comes to best before dates (these are for optimum quality not safety), although for your safety you should adhere to use by dates.
• Think before you throw: could I use this in another meal, could I blanch it (brief boil) before freezing, could I cook it and reheat another day?
• Most importantly, don't beat yourself up for throwing the odd thing away - it's about trying to reduce food waste through small changes not becoming an eco super hero!

Love Mrs Jones x