I’ve been following The Frugal Girl‘s blog for several months, my favorite posts are her Food Waste Fridays. Every Friday FG cleans out her fridge and publicly fesses up to what was wasted. You can read her story at the link above, it’s a really great blog and worth a few minutes of your day.
I’ve decided to join in (this week at least, who knows if I’ll remember next week!)
I raided my fridge and freezer and only came up with a few things.
1. half a can of tomato puree leftover from when we made butter chicken about 3 weeks ago. Yes, 3 weeks ago. Yes, I know.
There wasn’t much I could do here so I rinsed out the can and it’s in the recycling bin. Well, it’s waiting to be put in the recycling bin because it’s really cold in my garage right now.
And for the record, yes, I’m screaming on the inside because I didn’t properly store it or put it in the freezer soup bag. BAD MEG!
2. 2 Tbsp of heavy cream. This may have been leftover from the butter chicken as well, or may have been for something else. I rarely buy heavy cream because it’s SOOO expensive, I think my hubby did the shopping this week.
I figured the leftover cream was a sign that I needed another cup of coffee, so I used about 1/2 Tbsp in my coffee and tossed out the rest. If it had been 2 days younger I would have mixed it in with my son’s milk, but why risk it? Yes, I realize the hypocrisy in what I just wrote.
On the bright side, I found two things I forgot we had that I could defiantely use!
I completely forgot that we had some blue cheese stuffed olives (hello breakfast!!!!) and this:
PICKLE JUICE!!!
Don’t look at me like that. I put the empty pickle jar back in the fridge, but there’s a reason! Pickle juice happens to make the most succulent, delicious roast you will ever taste in your life. For real!
I’m not the only crazy person who saves pickle juice, read more ideas here.
Take a look in your fridge, freezer and pantry. How much did you waste this week?
Does the roast taste like pickles? I don't like pickles, but I love a good roast!
Dill or sweet pickles? I'm the only pickle eater in the family and I like dill. Somehow, I can't see my family eating a dill pickle roast!My refrigerator had a half can of crusty refried beans – had to be thrown out. Ewwww. And a serving of stuffing that had mold growing on the top. Once again, thrown out. I have no idea how long either had been in there. I try to tell the kids to put extra stuff into plastic containers – the beans would have still been ok. The stuffing…we haven't had stuffing in at least 3 weeks. We usually don't have any left, so I guess I forgot it was there.
I've made this a lot and it does have a very faint pickle taste but if your pickles had a lot of seasoning in the jar it'll taste more like the seasoning packet you get with corned beef. It's not overwhelming but if you don't like pickles I wouldn't bother with it :)Teri – I use sweet and dill, whatever we have. We're about to finish off a jar of wickles (hot sweet pickles) and I plan on using that too :) and I think we all have those scary corners in our fridge :D
Welcome to Food Waste Friday. Good job on the waste especially for a first post. I have finally gotten the hang of putting leftover tomato products in the freezer. I don't know how many half used cans I have thrown away in the past.
3 weeks ain't so bad… I've had worse. ;) lol!
I have a really weird confession to make : when I was a kid I used to drink dill pickle juice BY ITSELF. In a cup. I loved it! Not so much anymore. ;) Good to know it can be used on roast though, I never would've thought!
Becca, my hubby STILL drinks pickle juice.