There was time that every good cook would know how to cook every part of the pig except the squeal. When the majority of households had to grow and butcher their own food a frugal homemaker was not about to waste any of it. There would be an endless soup pot boiling on the back of the stove where every food scrap would end up and cook books had recipes that would explain how to use every bit of meat and dairy.
But times and tastes have changed, most women are not home all day to keep an eye on that soup pot. It has become common for people to throw food out. We are
not talking about food that is spoiled or past its due date, we are talking about good quality food. The ends
of bread because we don't like the texture, mashed potatoes from the
night before or the bit of hard-to-reach jam that's left in the jar all gets tossed.
Food is expensive and it makes sense to use every bit of what you paid for. Here are some ideas of how you can do that.
A lot of our food waste comes from left overs. While you think that you will put the left overs from dinner in the fridge and eat it at a later date the reality is that two weeks latter you find the bowl at the back of the fridge and it is no longer recognizable.
Are you consistently making to much food for dinner? What is the food that you generally find that you have leftovers of. It's hard with a family of growing children to gauge how much they will eat at every meal as sometimes there is not enough food in the house to satisfy them and other times they will just pick at what is on their plate. If it is a item like rice, take notes of how much you make with different meals. You might find that you are always making the same amount but for different meals they eat different amounts. When you serve it with curry the rice is all gone, when you serve it with chicken there is always leftovers.
If you find there is no pattern to the left overs then have a back up plan of what to do with the left over rice for the next day and serve it as a second side dish. If the following day you had planned for mash potatoes, then you could make a smaller portion and serve a fried rice as well. If you find that you always have mash potatoes left over find a good recipe using them in potato pancakes.
When you are cooking frozen vegetables use a measuring cup for portion sizes instead of just pouring it from the bag. Think about how much each person generally puts on their plate (not how much you want them to put on their plate). When buying loose vegetables, like green beans, at the grocery store visualize how much a portion size is. If you know that each family member eats about a 3/4 of a cup of cooked green beans but have problems visualizing this in the store then carry a 1 cup plastic measuring cup in your purse so you can visualize it.
Learn how to make a soup from left overs. Soup is incredibly easy to make, start with a broth and just add stuff. Almost any rice, plain pasta or vegetable can be used in a chicken type soup. You would start with a chicken broth, either from scratch, a bouillon or a store bought canned broth add the left overs and heat till everything is steaming. You can also use rice, plain pasta and vegetables in a stir fry. If you have cooked meat left over you can cut it into strips and toss it into the stir fry as well. If you are finding that you only have very small amounts left over from each meal then bag them and put them in the freezer and plan to make a soup from them when you have enough. Experiment, most people when they first start making soup are nervous about mixing up too many ingredients and their soups tend to taste a bit bland. If you are using a beef bullion as a base and want to spice it up a bit, think about throwing in hot sauce, chili powder or Worcestershire sauce. Have fun with it, bring out your inner chef.
If you are finding that you left overs are prepared foods, like lasagnas, meatloaf and spaghetti and meatballs, then you could freeze these items and one or twice a month heat them all up and do a buffet type meal (lunch or dinner) where they are all set out and you can chose what you would like to eat.
Food like bread ends can be dried out and ground up to make bread crumbs. Leave the bread end out uncovered and when they are dry either scrap them against a metal sieve to make fine crumbs or place in a blender. You can also freeze bread ends and when having soup drizzle the bread ends with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle garlic powder on them, cut them into cube and toast them for croutons.
To make sure that you are getting every last possible bit of food from your cans and jars you should have a small sized flexible spatula. If you have kids you know that they won't bother scrapping a jar clean so with food like peanut butter and jam you can scrap out the last remaining bits from one jar and add it to the top of a new jar. (There is always about an inch or so of space on the top of a new jar for you to do this). Don't do this with any food that can contaminate the next jar.
Keep containers such as ketchup and sauces in plastic bottles upside down in the refrigerator when they are reaching their end so you will get every drop.
With odd shaped containers, like squeezable Mayonnaise, you might find that you will actually have to cut the container apart to get at the last of the food and when you do so there will be a lot more than you expected. Cut the container it in a way that you can cover the cut with plastic wrap to keep it fresh.
If you bought a basket full of fruit and are afraid they will go bad before you can eat them fresh then you can always bake them up into deserts. With fruits it is easy to learn how to make small individual crumbles or pies. A crumble is a traditional British desert of sweetened fruit, (usually with sugar but you could use honey or maple syrup) and a flour, sugar, butter topping that is baked. You would cut up your fruit, or mix of fruit and place it in small oven proof bowls and sprinkle on top the flour, sugar, butter mix, then bake it for 30 to 45 minutes in a 350 F oven. When the fruit is bubbly hot and the topping is brown it is done. The combination of fruits you can use is up to your taste and imagination or you can use just a single fruit. If you only have a few fruits divide any recipe you are looking at into smaller portions. Served with ice cream or custard this is heavenly. There are hundreds of recipes on-line for you to get ideas from or you could just experiment.
To make pies follow our instructions for pie crust in Making Pie Crusts Perfect. Add your fruit or mix of fruit and bake it for about 30 to 45 minutes at 400 F (depending on the fruit, check other recipes for baking times and oven temperatures. If you want to have your pie latter put the wrapped uncooked completed pie into the freezer, when you are ready to cook it put it directly from the freezer into a 350 F oven and after 30 minutes check to see if the top is browning too quickly, place a piece of aluminum foil on top and bake for about another 20 to 30 minutes. If you have only a small amount of fruit you could make small pies using smaller sized foil pie plates.
And what do you do if you have some left over pie dough? Take half of your left over pie dough and spread some jam on it and cover it with pie dough scraps. Put it on a cookie sheet and bake it for 12 minutes in a 400 F oven. When they are cooled cut into squares and sprinkle with a bit of icing sugar.
When you know what to do with them you will find that even the scraps from your kitchen can taste delicious.
Photography and Content
Copyright Ingrid Talpak 2010
Morestylethancash
Are you consistently making to much food for dinner? What is the food that you generally find that you have leftovers of. It's hard with a family of growing children to gauge how much they will eat at every meal as sometimes there is not enough food in the house to satisfy them and other times they will just pick at what is on their plate. If it is a item like rice, take notes of how much you make with different meals. You might find that you are always making the same amount but for different meals they eat different amounts. When you serve it with curry the rice is all gone, when you serve it with chicken there is always leftovers.
If you find there is no pattern to the left overs then have a back up plan of what to do with the left over rice for the next day and serve it as a second side dish. If the following day you had planned for mash potatoes, then you could make a smaller portion and serve a fried rice as well. If you find that you always have mash potatoes left over find a good recipe using them in potato pancakes.
When you are cooking frozen vegetables use a measuring cup for portion sizes instead of just pouring it from the bag. Think about how much each person generally puts on their plate (not how much you want them to put on their plate). When buying loose vegetables, like green beans, at the grocery store visualize how much a portion size is. If you know that each family member eats about a 3/4 of a cup of cooked green beans but have problems visualizing this in the store then carry a 1 cup plastic measuring cup in your purse so you can visualize it.
Learn how to make a soup from left overs. Soup is incredibly easy to make, start with a broth and just add stuff. Almost any rice, plain pasta or vegetable can be used in a chicken type soup. You would start with a chicken broth, either from scratch, a bouillon or a store bought canned broth add the left overs and heat till everything is steaming. You can also use rice, plain pasta and vegetables in a stir fry. If you have cooked meat left over you can cut it into strips and toss it into the stir fry as well. If you are finding that you only have very small amounts left over from each meal then bag them and put them in the freezer and plan to make a soup from them when you have enough. Experiment, most people when they first start making soup are nervous about mixing up too many ingredients and their soups tend to taste a bit bland. If you are using a beef bullion as a base and want to spice it up a bit, think about throwing in hot sauce, chili powder or Worcestershire sauce. Have fun with it, bring out your inner chef. If you are finding that you left overs are prepared foods, like lasagnas, meatloaf and spaghetti and meatballs, then you could freeze these items and one or twice a month heat them all up and do a buffet type meal (lunch or dinner) where they are all set out and you can chose what you would like to eat.
Food like bread ends can be dried out and ground up to make bread crumbs. Leave the bread end out uncovered and when they are dry either scrap them against a metal sieve to make fine crumbs or place in a blender. You can also freeze bread ends and when having soup drizzle the bread ends with a bit of olive oil, sprinkle garlic powder on them, cut them into cube and toast them for croutons.
To make sure that you are getting every last possible bit of food from your cans and jars you should have a small sized flexible spatula. If you have kids you know that they won't bother scrapping a jar clean so with food like peanut butter and jam you can scrap out the last remaining bits from one jar and add it to the top of a new jar. (There is always about an inch or so of space on the top of a new jar for you to do this). Don't do this with any food that can contaminate the next jar.
Keep containers such as ketchup and sauces in plastic bottles upside down in the refrigerator when they are reaching their end so you will get every drop.
With odd shaped containers, like squeezable Mayonnaise, you might find that you will actually have to cut the container apart to get at the last of the food and when you do so there will be a lot more than you expected. Cut the container it in a way that you can cover the cut with plastic wrap to keep it fresh.
If you bought a basket full of fruit and are afraid they will go bad before you can eat them fresh then you can always bake them up into deserts. With fruits it is easy to learn how to make small individual crumbles or pies. A crumble is a traditional British desert of sweetened fruit, (usually with sugar but you could use honey or maple syrup) and a flour, sugar, butter topping that is baked. You would cut up your fruit, or mix of fruit and place it in small oven proof bowls and sprinkle on top the flour, sugar, butter mix, then bake it for 30 to 45 minutes in a 350 F oven. When the fruit is bubbly hot and the topping is brown it is done. The combination of fruits you can use is up to your taste and imagination or you can use just a single fruit. If you only have a few fruits divide any recipe you are looking at into smaller portions. Served with ice cream or custard this is heavenly. There are hundreds of recipes on-line for you to get ideas from or you could just experiment.
To make pies follow our instructions for pie crust in Making Pie Crusts Perfect. Add your fruit or mix of fruit and bake it for about 30 to 45 minutes at 400 F (depending on the fruit, check other recipes for baking times and oven temperatures. If you want to have your pie latter put the wrapped uncooked completed pie into the freezer, when you are ready to cook it put it directly from the freezer into a 350 F oven and after 30 minutes check to see if the top is browning too quickly, place a piece of aluminum foil on top and bake for about another 20 to 30 minutes. If you have only a small amount of fruit you could make small pies using smaller sized foil pie plates.And what do you do if you have some left over pie dough? Take half of your left over pie dough and spread some jam on it and cover it with pie dough scraps. Put it on a cookie sheet and bake it for 12 minutes in a 400 F oven. When they are cooled cut into squares and sprinkle with a bit of icing sugar.
When you know what to do with them you will find that even the scraps from your kitchen can taste delicious.
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Photography and Content
Copyright Ingrid Talpak 2010
Morestylethancash
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