Preventing Food Waste Ideas

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Carpathius Dec 2016 7:29pm, 13 Dec 2016 10,896 posts	0 Carpathius A thread for tips and ideas on how to save food waste. Whether you're concerned about the environment, just hate waste, frugal or tight-fisted (like me) This website is quite useful; lovefoodhatewaste.com I'll go first. 1. When cooking potatoes for mash, instead of peeling and boiling, bake the potatoes instead and chop in half to spoon out the mash. Save some of the mashed potato. Mix in things like cheese, leftover sandwich meat, chorizo etc. and put it in the skins, then grill or bake. I find the potato and skins last for at least a couple of days in the fridge. 2. When you peel and chop veg, shove the peel and offcuts in a sandwich bag in the freezer then when you have lots, boil it to make vegetable stock. Freeze it in bags or ice cube trays or something.
Gymfreak Dec 2016 8:43pm, 13 Dec 2016 9,068 posts	0 Gymfreak Hi Carp I love that website, used it lots Good thread idea
Red Squirrel Dec 2016 9:22pm, 13 Dec 2016 19,618 posts	0 Red Squirrel Aha! I'm quite frugal generally but since August, v v frugal: ahandfulofbeansblog.wordpress.com I do something similar to above, baking extra potatoes, mixing stuff in and taking the stuffed halves to work for lunch. I save veg boiling water and add it to rice dishes, soups and any dish that needs some moisture. I always save bean juice from cans of beans, with the exception of kidney beans as it's a bit too gloopy. I add the juice from gherkins or pickled chillies to potato salad for a bit of zing. I use the oil from marinated peppers or sundried tomatoes in salad dressings or put it in with couscous when I'm soaking the grains to make salad. Parmesan rinds get saved and put into minestrone. I chop the tough bits of stalk off parsley and coriander and put them into my stock pot at the weekend. I ask the butcher for chicken bones to make stock with. Ditto the fishmonger for fish bones.
Carpathius Dec 2016 9:59pm, 13 Dec 2016 10,900 posts	0 Carpathius Thanks RS, and I like your blog.
Red Squirrel Dec 2016 10:05pm, 13 Dec 2016 19,619 posts	0 Red Squirrel Thank you for reading, Carp. I have more ideas so will post in due course. Great idea for a thread.
Raptors Claws are coming to town Dec 2016 10:44pm, 13 Dec 2016 35,015 posts	0 Raptors Claws are coming to town I can lend you three young adults, with an integral guarantee that any food that comes into your house will be eaten. The need for strategies to use up leftovers isn't a thing for us. In fact, we are a strategy to use up leftovers, because VP and Tink work in restaurants and often bring home odds and ends that would otherwise be thrown out.
Shark the Herald Angel Dec 2016 11:02pm, 13 Dec 2016 10,618 posts	0 Shark the Herald Angel I do several similar things to Red Squirrel, especially re saving vegetable water to cook other things in. I usually have a couple of Sainsbury's Basics tom ketch bottles full of veg water in the fridge ready to use with my 'ready meals'. I do a lot of batch cooking/freezing single portions. I use a LOT of lemons and buy bags of unwaxed ones. Whenever I use lemon juice (every day practically unless it's limes instead) I save the squeezed halves and when there's two or three I grate them for a ready supply of zest which keeps in small pots in the fridge. I use enough for it not to go off and we always have a supply for cooking and baking.
Shark the Herald Angel Dec 2016 11:04pm, 13 Dec 2016 10,619 posts	0 Shark the Herald Angel I often wonder if lime zest would work - what do you think RS?
Raptors Claws are coming to town Dec 2016 11:14pm, 13 Dec 2016 35,016 posts	0 Raptors Claws are coming to town We don't generate vegetable water (unless the wee-raptors are boiling vegetables in gallons of water when I'm not in). If I'm boiling vegetables I use a tiny amount fo water in the pan so that they're more steamed than boiled. Old studenty habit to save electricity and because back in the olden days we were told that it was the best way to keep the nutrients inside the vegetable.
Shark the Herald Angel Dec 2016 11:20pm, 13 Dec 2016 10,620 posts	0 Shark the Herald Angel I went through a phase of steaming vegetables for breakfast but decided if you get your timing right the sort of veg I use is GOOD boiled (and I can steam a piece of fish on top) I don't use loads of water but boiling is very quick and then there's enough instant stock for my evening meal. Any nutrients that leach out into the water will still be consumed by me - usually later the same day.