food waste reduction

I’ve either been too busy to answer the bloganuary post of the day or, quite honestly, weren’t inspired to answer the question of the day. So today I wanted to write what I’m happy about, which is my food waste reduction success as of late:

• We finished the gallon of milk in the refrigerator before it went bad.
• I used up all the mushrooms (that were going to get bad) in a really delicious creamy mushroom pasta from Bon Appetit.
• The bag of spinach that usually gets used a little later than desired (do you see a pattern here?) was actually used beautifully on time with a creamed spinach recipe from Chef John! So delicious.

Now onto my current cooking goals to prevent food waste:

• Make homemade applesauce with the crazy amount of apples we have that are heading out the door if I don’t use them up.
• Bake lemon squares and lemon cookies with the lemons we have (they are still very good but I just want try out some recipes).
• Cook up a few batches of homemade chicken stock using roasted chicken bones, onions that need using, tomatoes that are past their prime, and whatever else I can find.
• Check all the stored/canned/frozen/refrigerator food to see if any of them will expire soon. I definitely know some are expiring in March/April-ish so I’d like to get those used up before then.

Hopefully I can freeze most of this food/desserts for future enjoyment!

It’s been a constant journey to reduce food waste around here and buy what we think we will use. But life happens and things don’t go as expected. So I then learn some new recipes, practice (and enjoy) the art of cooking, and keep trying to buy more intentionally next time. It’s good for the soul and for the wallet!

I hope this post inspired you in some way. I’ll see if I answer the bloganuary post for tomorrow, but if not, hopefully another post on what makes me happy.