Food: Zero Waste Challenge

FareShare are running a Zero Waste Challenge during November - a challenge to cut out food waste. This is something that I try to do anyway as I really don't like waste, and food has become so expensive lately. I'm not sure that I am going to go as far as eating banana skins, as they suggest though. Last year I did a Storecupboard challenge where I ate the food I already had in rather than go shopping.

1 November 2023

There was a half portion of Lentil and Tomato salad leftover from the previous day, so I ate that with some ham for lunch (above). This recipe is one that I use regularly if I ever have leftover green or Puy lentils.

Dinner was Best Ever Lamb Casserole made with some yellow-stickered lamb, slow cooked with carrots, onions, and some squash that I had roasted on Sunday. They added a real richness to the stew. We boiled up the last of the home-grown new potatoes to go with it.

Leftovers created: cooked new potatoes and peas

Edible waste: none

2 November 2023

The bread is very stale, so I toasted as much as I could hack off for breakfast, and the rest has been blitzed in the mill to make breadcrumbs which I have now frozen. It's really useful to have a stash of these for the odd crispy topping, to make bread sauce or to coat pieces of chicken. The beauty is that you don't even need to defrost them.

The cooked new potatoes have been sliced up and fried with some sorry looking spring onions and used it up in a spanish-style omelette. A generous sprinkling of smoked paprika was added to make it a tasty lunch.

My husband ate the rest of the leftover potatoes and the peas from yesterday with his pork for dinner.

Leftovers created: none

Edible waste: none

3 November 2023

My son and a friend are back from uni and I love to welcome him home by making one of his favourite dishes: chicken, ham & leek pie (I loosely base mine on this old Jamie Oliver recipe). So ingredients all bought to make this and used up. I served this with carrots and peas and only the carrot tops were cut off. I stopped peeling carrots a long time ago, I just give them a good wash and they're good to go. 

My eldest son had a Beef Bourguignon Pie instead of the chicken, but only managed half, so that is another leftover added to the fridge.

It was great to be able to pull out some cooking apples and foraged blackberries from the freezer to rustle up a crumble. 

Leftovers created: remainder of puff pastry (now frozen), half a cooked pie

Edible waste: a very stale end of bread. I felt I have enough breadcrumbs in the freezer for now.

4 November 2023

Who doesn't love a jacket potato around Bonfire Night? On a side note, I read that they are called jacket potatoes because people used to buy them and be able to pop them in their jacket pockets. They take so long to cook in the oven, that even though it is an expensive ingredient, it does feel rather indulgent. I added one extra potato so that I could reheat through for a lunch later in the week.

As everyone chose their own topping, there wasn't much waste. I did grate a big block of cheese but what was left of that has now been bagged and frozen.

Leftovers created: jacket potato, grated cheese

Edible waste: none

5 November 2023

I used the last piece of bacon to wrap the two sausages that didn't get cooked yesterday, and these have gone into the freezer as pigs in blankets. I wholeheartedly believe that you can never have too many pigs in blankets!

As I had a rare solo night, I did a bit of a blitz of eating things up: the leftover beef pie, the jacket potato, some spinach and parsnips. I'm not pretending it wasn't a weird combination.

Leftovers created: one breaded chicken tender - my eldest is in the habit of cooking the whole pack (I know!)

Edible waste: a punnet of raspberries, which I bought to make Eton mess. Unfortunately there was so much mould, that I couldn't extricate the good ones. Parsnip peelings, because I steamed them rather than roasting (I didn't need to put the oven on).

Summary of week one: there have been some weird food combinations and had I planned a little better, I could have avoided some of the waste. But overall, not too bad a start.

Love Mrs Jones x