This isn't a blog post to make you feel bad though or to tell you all the wonderful things I do that mean we are not wasting anything, this is quite a new area to me and I'd love to hear your stories and to find out what you do to minimise waste and to ensure you use everything you have and if I'm honest I want to do it without much effort. I'm not a fancy cook and I like things to be simple.
Over the last year or so when I have cooked too much we have generally portioned up meals for one and I have frozen them for a friend to take home. She lives alone and relies on the food bank so my single meals were just perfect for her.
Just before we moved I used up everything in my freezer by creating a pot luck dinner and it was a tad eclectic but the kids enjoyed it! You'll notice that I didn't even bother getting some of it out of the pots it was frozen in. We had savoury mince and vegs, beef stew with veg, chicken stew with veg, some leftover rice, ready mash potato and peas. Al straight from the freezer.
As you can see Miss M fancies a bit of everything and it turned out to be a pretty healthy meal with protein, carbs and vegetables. A yoghurt afterwards and we had all the food groups covered!
On holiday last week with my parents I was flicking through my Dad's Sun paper and I came across an article about Zero Waste Week and this peaked my interest, what a great challenge to try and have no waste at all. This is certainly something for me to aim towards, with the kids going back to school and routine starting again I can menu plan.
Thinking about zero waste got me thinking about using up my leftovers in some creative recipes and Aly pointed me over to a fabulous and inspiring blog a few days back and there are some great budget recipes on there. The zero waste week site also had some good recipes to ensure you can use everything up, I really liked the look of the 'use it all up nut loaf'.
I think one of the best tips for reducing food waste is to ensure that portions served are only adequate ones and not ones that are far too large. How much of a difference would it make to my waistline if I started to control the portion sizes in this house - a great deal I'd imagine!
And I can't write this post without adding in a mention for Karen from the Rubbish Diet, she has been around blogging for as long as me and I've met her a couple of times and she seems a great lady. I've never really investigated the Rubbish Diet but I think it is high time.
At the moment I'm making changes having just moved to this new house, I'm not working and I have some time on my hands so when better than to sort out my families eating habits and our waste management too.
If you have any links to great leftover recipes you use or any tips for me about how to reduce my food waste then please do leave me a comment.
Thanks, Mich x
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