My tips about reducing food waste

Hej hej !

As I promised in previous post, I will share some of my tips  about how to eliminate food waste in your household.

I had an opportunity to work for a company which arranged events and served first class refreshment for its clients and always as the event ended up, plenty of untouched food went directly to rubbish bins (and I am not talking about the leftovers on the plates and serving plates). And since then, I really hate wasting food. When you are so close to wasting unspoilt food (such as salmon, roast beef, sushi, all kinds of cheese and ham, cheesecake, panna cotta, crème brulle, chocolate mousse and so on), it makes you think about it. The main reason why I hate it is that by this unconscious behaviour, you have spent your money for nothing and you could have used your time on better things than shopping the food which is later thrown away.

I really try to check what I have in the fridge regularly and adjust my cooking plans accordingly. If I notice that something is not fully fresh, I try to turn it to yummy food again. Here are my tip for different categories of food which you try to make use of.

Old bread, toast and other pastries

• Crutons – this is probably most used one in my case. When I have few days old bread, I cut it into pieces and either fry it or bake it (both possible without oil) and you can use it to soups, salads or (which often happens to me) eat it as it is 😀
• French toast – another favourite. Just mix milk with an egg in bowl, dip a toast or bread and then fry it on a pan. Serve it with some fruits, yogurt or maple syrup and fancy breakfast is on the table! (you can find plenty of recipes on the internet)
• Žemlovka – I suppose, you do not know this one as it is Czech thing. Usually, you dip toasts in milk, put in into baking dish and then add apples mixed with cinnamon and continues with other layers. I have not eaten this for so long, but it reminds me of my childhood as I used to eat it quite often 😀 (if you are interested in making this one, you can google some recipe)

Fruit and vegetable

• Smoothie – the easiest way how to use older fruit and vegetable is to mix it altogether as smoothie
• Banana bread, apple pie – too many bananas or apples? Bake something.
• Vegetable soup – here it depends on which vegetable you have surplus of but basicaly you can use (almost) everything – carrot, tomato, celery, potato, onion and so on

Cheese, ham, vegetable

• Pizza – you can prepare your dough or buy one and then put whatever you want to
• Savory pie – similarly to pizza, you can bake for example cous cous or polenta with something you need to consume

Rice

• Rice porridge – if you cooked too much rice, never mind! You can prepare rice porridge if you cook rice in milk for a while. Then add some chocolate, cinnamon, fruit or whatever. This always please me 🙂
• Fried rice – if you prefer salty version, you can prepare fried rice with some vegetable and nice lunch is ready

Pasta

• Baked pasta with cheese – does it need any comments?
• Fry it with eggs – super fast, super easy, cheap and yummy. Fry pasta in a pan and then add some eggs (like scrambled eggs but with pasta :D)

I suppose these are the most usual leftovers which could end up in the rubbish and I hope that it helped you somehow realise that sometimes it is so easy to use even older food and moreover, prepare nice meals.

If you feel that some ingredient is missing in this list, leave a comment and I will think about how to nicely use it in order to prevent its wasting.

So step into a new week with bearing this in your minds and help to reduce food waste.

Byee, Denisa