Food waste

WhatsCookingMama

WhatsCookingMama

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What are your thoughts on food waste? The last 5 years or so I made the effort to get creative using up leftovers. In addition to using ingredients in creative ways. These past 3 years I have gotten very serious about using the whole ingredient. For example, we love to eat apples and make applesauce. I wash the apples well, so not to peel. I save the cores to make apple cider vinegar. With cherries I save the pit to flavor whip creams or to make syrups. I save the expressed liquid from making ketchup or mustard to marinate meats. It's now become such an adventure... What I can do with this? Does anyone else do this? What do you do?
 
I'm also very high up on the no food waste side if life. Very little actually makes its way to the compost heap.

We've taken to eating broccoli stems, cauliflower leaves and stems and so on. I didn't know previously that they were edible

As for food leftovers, there rarely are any because wer actually don't eat that way. Wer only cook what we'll eat that meal in the way of veg. For main items, say veg lasagne, I've always done it so that there are x many portions. Got instance the lasagne dish hold 6 portions. The other dishes hold 2 generous or 3 average sized portions. So we'll eat veg lasagne for 2 days in a row, served with different side items, and the 3rd pair of portions are frozen (on day 1 once cold) and cut into single portion size. That is your portion, end of story. Soup is usually cooked in the morning, so is divided up by evening (cooked in am because that's when my back is away it's best for standing). I just get out the containers I know the size of, 1 portion or 2 and divide the soup up. It can be made to make a set many portions and if there's a touch over, hubby just gets a little more on day 1. So there's never food left over or going to waste. My chickens see none if it (though they do love cauliflower leaves). Even pumpkin and squashes in general are eaten with the skin on. I never peel anything if it says to. So potatoes are always with skins on, even with mash. My chickens do get banana skins which they adore.

Any vegetable or fruit waste does make its way to the compost tumbler. One advantage of being in Australia is that it stays warm in there so it decomposes quickly. But I still cut things up. Celery leaves are currently my biggest waste item. Celery comes with its leaves on here and we get 2 a week. My chooks won't eat them, so it's too the compost heap for them.
 
WhatsCookingMama said:
What are your thoughts on food waste? The last 5 years or so I made the effort to get creative using up leftovers. In addition to using ingredients in creative ways. These past 3 years I have gotten very serious about using the whole ingredient. For example, we love to eat apples and make applesauce. I wash the apples well, so not to peel. I save the cores to make apple cider vinegar. With cherries I save the pit to flavor whip creams or to make syrups. I save the expressed liquid from making ketchup or mustard to marinate meats. It's now become such an adventure... What I can do with this? Does anyone else do this? What do you do?
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There is a lot of publicity in the UK about this issue - I do my best to use as much as I can but nothing like the things you describe @WhatsCookingMama. You are exemplary!
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Celery leaves are currently my biggest waste item.
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Celery leaves are delicious! I purposely buy celery with the leaves attached if possible. Good in salads and stews - they are great in soups too and for vegetable stock. Or I scatter them over other dishes as a garnish with attitude.

For soup - try cooking a big handful of celery leaves, chopped onion, garlic in oil until the onion softens - add a chopped potato and water. Maybe add plant milk (I use cream or milk). Whizz up using blender (I use stick blender). Really delicious!
 
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morning glory said:
Celery leaves are delicious! I purposely buy celery with the leaves attached if possible. Good in salads and stews - they are great in soups too and for vegetable stock. Or I scatter them over other dishes as a garnish with attitude.

For soup - try cooking a big handful of celery leaves, chopped onion, garlic in oil until the onion softens - add a chopped potato and water. Maybe add plant milk (I use cream or milk). Whizz up using blender (I use stick blender). Really delicious!
Click to expand...
I have never tried celery leaves, I hadn't thought about eating them. That's going to change.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
I'm also very high up on the no food waste side if life. Very little actually makes its way to the compost heap.

We've taken to eating broccoli stems, cauliflower leaves and stems and so on. I didn't know previously that they were edible

As for food leftovers, there rarely are any because wer actually don't eat that way. Wer only cook what we'll eat that meal in the way of veg. For main items, say veg lasagne, I've always done it so that there are x many portions. Got instance the lasagne dish hold 6 portions. The other dishes hold 2 generous or 3 average sized portions. So we'll eat veg lasagne for 2 days in a row, served with different side items, and the 3rd pair of portions are frozen (on day 1 once cold) and cut into single portion size. That is your portion, end of story. Soup is usually cooked in the morning, so is divided up by evening (cooked in am because that's when my back is away it's best for standing). I just get out the containers I know the size of, 1 portion or 2 and divide the soup up. It can be made to make a set many portions and if there's a touch over, hubby just gets a little more on day 1. So there's never food left over or going to waste. My chickens see none if it (though they do love cauliflower leaves). Even pumpkin and squashes in general are eaten with the skin on. I never peel anything if it says to. So potatoes are always with skins on, even with mash. My chickens do get banana skins which they adore.

Any vegetable or fruit waste does make its way to the compost tumbler. One advantage of being in Australia is that it stays warm in there so it decomposes quickly. But I still cut things up. Celery leaves are currently my biggest waste item. Celery comes with its leaves on here and we get 2 a week. My chooks won't eat them, so it's too the compost heap for them.
Click to expand...
I wish I had a compost pile currently. We move every few years because of my husband's job. We don't always buy the house.

Celery comes with small leaves here. I hadn't thought about eating them. We too eat the stems on broccoli and such.
 
morning glory said:
Celery leaves are delicious
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I find them odd. The inside ones are fine. But the darker green ones are really strong tasting and I'm having a hard enough time eating some of the tops of the stalks (above the first set of leaves) especially the really stringy ones. I'll show you the celery we get here. It's much darker green than I'm used to from the UK and much bigger. It sticks out of the trolley when you stand it up in the bottles/veg area of the trolley. It's huge. I'll be cutting some up tomorrow to stand in water. They don't seem to deprive celery of light the same way they do in the UK.
 
WhatsCookingMama said:
. I save the cores
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My husband's family actual eat everything off an apple except the stalk and the pips. When I met him, he used to swallow the pips whole but stopped after I pointed out the cyanide issues. But that said, i eat elder berries raw off the bush, just swallowing those whole if i can spit them out.
WhatsCookingMama said:
I wish I had a compost pile currently
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That's why the tumblers are good. 6-8 weeks if you get it right. 2-3 months if you don't. (We have moved around quite a bit over the years)
 
Oh, well, I'm on the other end of the spectrum, or at least closer to it.

We don't like leftovers much, especially MrsTasty. I've yet to find a prepared dish that freezes and then comes out of the freezer as good as it was when it went in. Something happens in there that degrades things a bit (I think I read once that home freezers don't freeze quickly enough, and that's the issue - things do much better when flash frozen).

We do eat the broccoli stalks. Once they're peeled, I think they're better than the crowns. Also, I'm a huge fan of celery, I think it's a real unsung kitchen hero, and I also specifically look for a good bit of leaves and cut those off as soon as I get home and keep them in a little water or in a damp towel. They're especially good as a garnish to eggs, and they're great in soups and salads, or even on a sandwich.

We tried composting once, but it didn't work very well and required a lot of effort, and at the time, we were growing four tomato plants and four pepper plants, so it wasn't like we had a huge garden for the compost to end up on anyway.

Another thing is portions - two people and some things we buy, we just can't use fast enough. Homemade bread molds before we can use it all unless I'm able to catch it in time and throw it in the freezer. Freezer bread bits end up as bread crumbs, sonif the quality is a little down, it doesn't matter so much.

Yogurt - we usually buy plain whole milk yogurt, and I use it for cooking more than eating, and the grocery doesn't sell it in small containers - it comes in a whopping 32oz container, and there's no way I can get through that before it starts to mold.
 
morning glory said:
Oh, that's interesting. I've bought green celery here but generally, the leaves aren't dark green. Have you tried cooking the leaves? That might temper the strong flavour.
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I cook with the internal leaves. That's a lot of those to be had as well. They go into soups and sometimes stews or casseroles but tbe external leaves no I haven't tried cooking them. I've no real use for them. They have no home in the meals I make. Celery is in a lot of my dishes plus we both munch on celery during them day and evening. If hubby gets hungry after or evening meal he'll eat celery sticks. There is always a jug of celery sticks in the kitchen waiting to be eaten.

One problem I have is that there are just so many celery leaves. I have a soup that is cream of celery soup but we've yet to try it tbh. It uses the leaves. To give you an idea, just how many we're talking about. Take a colander. Each time I prepare a head of celery, I'll fill the colander with leaves and their stems. I'll photo it later.
But suffice to say that the celery only just fits into the salad drawer it's that long.
 
TastyReuben said:
We do eat the broccoli stalks. Once they're peeled,
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Why do you peel them? We don't. I rarely peel anything even if the recipe says so.

I did once meet someone who peel mushrooms with a knife. I showed her how to peel them by hand, but I still didn't understand why she peeled them.

I also pretty much use all of a leek as well right down to the dark green outer leaves. I've never understood recipes that say use white parts only.
 
SatNavSaysStraightOn said:
Why do you peel them? We don't. I rarely peel anything even if the recipe says so.
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The outside peel is really fibrous and tough, at least to me, anyway.

To peel or not to peel, it just depends on personal preference. When we were kids, we loved to eat apple peels and potato peels, that was a treat! :)

But you can take a peeler and run it down the back of a stalk of celery, and it'll remove most of those strings, and it takes on a whole new texture, like it's a different food almost. Same with bell peppers, so sometimes, if I'm in the mood, I'll peel those, though most times, I don't.

Potatoes can go either way. I made steak fries today (kind of sort of like chunky chips), and I just wedged them and fried them peel and all, no biggie.

Some folks like peels (or at least aren't bothered by them), and some folks don't.
 
We are growing celery ATM, the leaves are used in curries. As for food waste, I'm slowly getting better at recycling. Wife bought a compost bin last year so scraps go in a small container on bench then into compost. When it's ready it goes on the garden.

Russ
 
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