Food Waste Friday

I can't find our camera so until I do "Food Waste Friday" will be without photos. This week we threw out:

1. 3 containers of Pumpkin Spice Spread that were left over from a wedding I helped to cater at Thanksgiving.
2. 2 bricks of cream cheese - again, leftover from the wedding.
3. 1/2 quart of heavy cream - wedding.
4. 1/2 quart of half-and-half. - wedding.
5. Chicken Milano without the pasta.
6. 1/4 gallon of orange juice that had been shoved to the back of the fridge.
7. Leftover salad with chicken - from eating out last week.
8. Some shredded cheese.
9. Part of a 2-liter of Diet Coke (a friend came over and that's all he drinks but we don't drink it)
10. A bottle of organic milk that was bad when I opened it.
11. A container of organic yogurt that was bad when I opened it. (The milk and the yogurt came from 2 different places)
12. Some lunch meat.
13. A whole sliced ham given to me by my company for Christmas.

This week we didn't throw away any produce, which is unusual for us. This seems like a lot of food, and it is, but  the wedding stuff just was not going to be used and I couldn't find anyone in the last 3 months to give it to; no one seemed to want pumpkin cream cheese or cream cheese.

I'm really irked about the bad milk and yogurt though. I put them back in the fridge to take them back to the stores and get a refund or get them replaced, but DH didn't know that and threw them out. The dates were still good on both of them and had been purchased recently so I don't know why they were bad.

I wish DH hadn't thrown out the Diet Coke. It was only a week old and our friend would have drank it when he came over again next week.

The ham. Well, there's really no excuse for that. We were going to cook it but I didn't realize that DH had gotten it out of the deep freeze and put it in the produce drawer to thaw (it sure would be nice to have a larger fridge with see-through shelves). After it had been there for over a week I found it and by that point it was too late, not to mention it had leaked quite a bit. Too bad. That was free food. On the other hand, I really don't like pork; it's probably the Jew in my trying desperately to come out.

DH was just trying to get the fridge and freezer cleaned out to get ready for my Once A Month Mom Cook Off. I know I said on Monday that I was going to be participating but my partner is not going to be able to do it. Her son is in soccer and they just got their schedules on Wednesday. There is a game, in the middle of the day (well, 10a-12p) and her husband is the coach.

I may go it alone but I still haven't gone to the store. Also, I would be trapped in the house alone with all three kids for most of the weekend as DH has a lot of work to do at the office this weekend (he normally doesn't go in on the weekends but the company has a product release today so there's a lot to be done).

I'll make my decision to either go to the store tonight and attempt it by myself or to skip this month and do it next month.

Once A Month Mom Cook-off

I'm so excited for the February Once A Month Mom Cook-off! I have finally found a friend to do it with me. The way it is set up is for 2 people (representing their respective household) to spend 1 whole day, 8-12 hours, cooking. We're going to be at my house, as my kitchen is just a little bigger and adjacent to a large dining table that we can spread stuff out on as well. The downside is between the 2 of us there are 5 kids, ages 2-5. My husband would normally be home but this weekend he will likely have to work. I'm not sure how we're going to handle it but I'm determined to make this happen; we'll figure something out, surely.

I'll do the shopping this week. I'm going to go home tonight and figure out what I already have in my pantry so that I don't buy extra. I have a pretty well-stocked spice cabinet so I should have all of those with the exception to 1 or 2.

Since I am Celiac (don't know if I've mentioned this before) we will substitute some things but not all. There are nights that I am not home and other nights I just don't eat. Therefore, I don't see that the few meals that do have gluten products will be that big of a deal. If I am home those night and do eat dinner (sometimes I'm just not up for it or have eaten a really late lunch/snack) I have plenty of veggies to make for myself, which I am used to doing now anyway (on mac and cheese or sandwich nights).

I'll take some pictures of our fun (a.k.a. "the mess") and report on it next week.

Food Waste Friday

In honor of Kristen, I'm going to do my best to participate in "Food Waste Friday" but will make no promises that it will get done on Fridays. I normally clean out the fridge on Sundays when I get home from the store and am trying desperately to fit everything into the fridge and the produce bowl on the counter.

In the past few days we have thrown out:
1. 3# bag of size A red potatoes
2. 1/2 of a 5# bag of new potatoes
3. 4# of clementines
4. 1/4 loaf of bread
5. A package of Thyme
6. 3 Roma tomatoes
7. Some leftovers from eating out last week.

When I say "throw out" I mean compost. We bought a composter 2 weeks ago. Last night we officially dumped stuff into it. While we were waiting to get it we had a tub in the garage that was our holding area. I'm excited about the composter but I think that we will need at least one or two more. We have the composter sitting right next to the vegetable garden so that we won't have to go very far when we do get around to having usable compost.

Gail blogged this morning about impressing people and although my post has nothing to do with that there was 1 part of her blog that did have something to do with one thing that really bothers me: "While North America has 8% of the world’s population, we manage to consume 33% of the world’s resources, and we produce 50% of the world’s non-organic garbage."

In the U.S. few people recycle, at least from what I can tell. Why don't more people recycle? Are we just too lazy? Do we not care? Is it a lack of knowledge of how garbage affects the world?

Here are a few facts:


Statistically the United States recycles just about 28% of its waste today, which is doubled from what it was a decade ago.

In Europe, Austria heads the EU in its recycling efforts with approximately 60% of its waste being recycled.

Greece falls short with only 10% of its waste being recycled and the remaining 90% going to the landfills.

Unfortunately many countries in the European Union as well as the United States efforts in recycling are more similar to Greece than they are to Austria.

The UK is estimated to recycle about 17.7%, and Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Luxembourg being not too far behind.

Even the most conscious minded person who fills their recycle bins each week may not realize the amount of recyclable material that is commonly thrown away in small ways.
Courtesy of Environment-Green.com

Do you compost or recycle? If so, why?