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One of my latest undertakings is to decrease the amount of food I waste. I live alone, so that is definitely a factor - its challenging to cook certain meals for just one person, unless you are someone who can eat the same things for days and days on end.
A good example is the bags of spinach they sell in a grocery store. I can eat a salad maybe three days in row, but not beyond that. I recently wanted some Spinach for a salad, but knew that I could never finish that entire bag. So I made a couple of small salads, but then I chopped up the rest and divided it into ziploc bags which are now in the freezer to be used for soups or other dishes.
That is the type of thing I am trying to do more often.
One of my latest undertakings is to decrease the amount of food I waste. I live alone, so that is definitely a factor - its challenging to cook certain meals for just one person, unless you are someone who can eat the same things for days and days on end.
A good example is the bags of spinach they sell in a grocery store. I can eat a salad maybe three days in row, but not beyond that. I recently wanted some Spinach for a salad, but knew that I could never finish that entire bag. So I made a couple of small salads, but then I chopped up the rest and divided it into ziploc bags which are now in the freezer to be used for soups or other dishes.
That is the type of thing I am trying to do more often.
What are your strategies to avoid wasting food?
Like you, I also live alone. Some of the strategies I use are planning meals to use up certain vegetables before they go bad. For example, last week I wanted to eat spaghetti and when I make my meat sauce I always use celery and onions so I bought celery and a bag of sweet onions. My mom taught me the trick of wrapping leftover celery in foil (shiny side in, dull side out) and it does keep the celery fresher longer.
Because I now have leftover onions and celery, for this week I used some onion in the beef sukiyaki I cooked for dinner and used more onion in a chinese stir fry with some boneless, skinless chicken thighs with half a carrot cut into half discs and some chinese cabbage (which I didn't cook, because I only used 3 leaves for the sukiyaki) to take for my lunch tomorrow.
I'll use more celery, onions and the rest of the carrot with some ground turkey to make my own version of SOS tomorrow evening when I come home from work and eat some of it for dinner and then take the rest of it for lunch sometime this week.
Next week I'll probably make beef stew and use up the remainder of the celery and onions that I have left from this week. Two weeks ago I had a craving for stuffed cabbage and had a lot of leftover uncooked cabbage. I made tsukemono (japanese pickled vegetable) by taking the rest of the leftover cabbage, cutting it into bite size pieces, then I used hawaiian rock salt, sake and one chili pepper and put the whole mixture into a tsukemono maker I have. After it's finished pickling, I will then pack it into sterilized glass jars and it will last for a few months in the refrigerator.
So for me it's all about planning meals to use up the veggies before they go bad. I have even made mirepoix to use up the leftover vegetables before they go bad, then I freeze it for future use.
Last edited by Honolulu21; 02-02-2015 at 01:09 AM..
Storing fruit and veg properly prolongs freshness. It's a bit more time-consuming than just tossing it all in the crisper drawer, but it makes a tremendous difference. Had I known how to do it right from the beginning, I would have saved a lot of food from the bin over the years.
Last edited by randomparent; 02-02-2015 at 08:22 AM..
I really need to label the food I put into the freezer better. I don't freeze anything unless there's enough for a second meal, and it feels great to have a couple of choices to just thaw for dinner, but many times, containers get pushed to the back and eventually thrown out, because I don't remember what they are or how old they are.
I really need to label the food I put into the freezer better. I don't freeze anything unless there's enough for a second meal, and it feels great to have a couple of choices to just thaw for dinner, but many times, containers get pushed to the back and eventually thrown out, because I don't remember what they are or how old they are.
Yes the freezer is very important. I once lived in a very small apartment that had a very small fridge and a tiny freezer. The "freezer" could only hold apprx. 4 frozen dinners (to give you a sense of the size). I ended up buying a small separate upright freezer and putting it in my living room in that apartment. Until that time, I never had realized how much I rely on a freezer in life.
One of my bad habits that I am trying to stop is putting stuff in there and then forgetting about it.
Storing fruit and veg properly prolongs freshness. It's a bit more time-consuming than just tossing it all in the crisper drawer, but it makes a tremendous difference. Had I known how to do it right from the beginning, I would have saved a lot of food from the bin over the years.
One thing I have learned is when I buy lettuce, romaine, etc, is to cut the end off, then rinse the leaves, then layer the leaves between paper napkins, and then put the whole stack back in the plastic bag and tie it shut. As long as the leaves don't touch each other, the lettuce stays good for a really long time.
Its a bit more work, but on the day you want a salad, you just reach in, grab the number of leaves you want, and since they're already washed, you can just chop them up or tear them up for your salad.
Not planning exact meals during the week before shopping. The wife is excellent at doing this and we literally waste nothing now. Before she lived with me, I would just buy what I thought I would eat. A lot got wasted.
One thing I have learned is when I buy lettuce, romaine, etc, is to cut the end off, then rinse the leaves, then layer the leaves between paper napkins, and then put the whole stack back in the plastic bag and tie it shut. As long as the leaves don't touch each other, the lettuce stays good for a really long time.
Its a bit more work, but on the day you want a salad, you just reach in, grab the number of leaves you want, and since they're already washed, you can just chop them up or tear them up for your salad.
I do this too. I buy the "select a size" paper towels and use a rectangular plastic box (from buying a big container of organic baby lettuce at Costco) and layer the washed greens in there. It lasts for a good couple of weeks that way.
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Like you, I also live alone.
