Reducing Food Waste Recipe Sharing/Tips & Kitchen Scrap Tips

Agion3

I don't juice because I would be making a sugar bomb and throwing away the fibers that act as a buffer against it.

penguinmama87

I love reading this thread!

I reuse pickling brine for refrigerator pickles. They don't last as long - not that we need them to because pickles disappear very quickly in our house, but they're great and very easy.

This might be questionable for some for nutrition reasons, but I also render my own lard and tallow from animal fat (we order meat in bulk) and use it for cooking (and leaf lard for pastry crust). It's actually very easy to do - cut it up in 1-inch chunks and cook in a slow cooker overnight with a quarter cup of water to prevent scorching as it gets up to heat. Once it's all melted, strain it to get the cracklings out into jars. I keep one in the fridge and the rest go into the freezer for later.

The cracklings are super addictive so watch out, but they can be used as a garnish or salad topping, or in some recipes in place of bacon (the type of thing where you'd be using crumbles.)

After making stock I will grind up the bones to make bone meal, which can be put in the compost or in the garden directly - I use it for roses.

acpgee

@penguinmama87
How do you grind down bones? Curious because I heard breaking up bones results in a stronger bouillon but wouldn't know how to do it without power tools.

I also render down beef tallow. I put the beef fat through the food processor before popping it into the rice cooker without water for a few hours. I also save all the fat from roasting duck and goose.

penguinmama87

acpgee wrote: »

@penguinmama87
How do you grind down bones? Curious because I heard breaking up bones results in a stronger bouillon but wouldn't know how to do it without power tools.

I also render down beef tallow. I put the beef fat through the food processor before popping it into the rice cooker without water for a few hours. I also save all the fat from roasting duck and goose.

My method is to boil them clean after making broth, then dry them out in the oven. I break them up outside in a bag or even an old pillowcase with a rubber mallet into small pieces. Then I grind them up in my blender with a blade I use just for that purpose. I usually do a whole bunch at once because it is time consuming. But beating them up with the mallet is really, really fun.

I've heard amazing things about duck fat in particular, but I've never been brave enough to try roasting duck (or goose) yet, though one of the stores I shop at does carry them around the holidays.

acpgee

@penguinmama87
Roast goose and duck are great. Just pierce the skin and fat (not the meat) all over with a metal skwer all over by threading parallel to meat through skin and fat, salt and pop into the oven. Google the internal temperature for whatever level of doneness you like and use a meat thermometer. We normally roast a goose at Xmas and that gives more than a half litre of fat we use for a half year for roasting potatoes. If you roast fatty birds use a deep tray.

If you don't want to roast goose or duck, in the UK you can buy jars of goose and duck fat, mostly around Xmas.

Agion3

I just make bone broth by roasting the bones, letting them cool, then soaking then in apple cider vinegar and water for an hour, then simmering for at least 4 hours.

acpgee

Making a selection of Korean namul is a good way of using up little bits of leftover raw veg lurking at the bottom of the fridge. I used leftover bits of watercress, cucumber and mung bean sprouts. Most of the recipes I googled were pretty similar. Blanche each veg separately by putting in a strainer and pouring some boiling water over them. When cool enough to handle, squeeze out excess water. Dress in some selection of the following: sesame oil, neutral vegetable oil, soy, vinegar, salt, sugar, grated or pressed garlic, finely chopped green onion, red pepper flakes or toasted sesame seeds. Choose maybe 3 dressing ingredients per vegetable so that the flavour of each varies.

NVintage

https://youtu.be/ZBtVNGBKgy4

Not all table scraps are good for pets. Chocolate, raisins and chicken bones are just a few things that should stay out of the doggie bag. But lean meats, vegetables and grains are fine. Here’s a link from the ASPCA about the dos and don’ts of feeding your pet from the table.

-https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/27/doggie-bags-for-portion-control/

I try to meal plan and just buy what I need, most the time just rotating 4 or 5 dinner ideas and then eating at a restaurant a few times per week for variety. Between meal planning & a dog who will eat just about anything, we hardly have any food waste!:D

MikePfirrman

Agion3 wrote: »

I don't juice because I would be making a sugar bomb and throwing away the fibers that act as a buffer against it.

That's a very general statement. A nutritionist once told me this about my green juices. Add the sugar from 1/4 of a cabbage, a cucumber, broccoli stems (or broccoli), ginger, celery, lemon, beet greens and cilantro. It's negligible. Once the nutritionist saw this (I showed her my food diary which adds the sugars up), she didn't have an issue with juicing. It's because most people assume you're loading up a juice with fruit. The only fruit we ever put in it was berries going to waste (again, minimal sugar) or pineapple cores -- great for enzymes. Kale is one thing that has (surprisingly) a bit more sugar than spinach. I used kale but more sparingly.

It's a heck of a lot better than diet soda or the crud people put in their coffee. Green juices make drinking these things tolerable. Plus, I get 50g of fiber eating mostly a plant based diet on top of this. It's when folks replace eating vegetables with juicing. Our entire refrigerator is fresh produce.

acpgee

If anyone else makes sweet pickled watermelon rind, I discovered a neat trick. Put in a little citrus peel, pith and all for a day or two in the brine. The little undercurrent of bitterness and citrus scent makes the pickles much more compex.

ByteLily

I learned to can you fruits when on sale. I also will cook an entire chicken at once in a pot of water with aromatics and vegetables. The cooled chicken is then used for various dishes...after I remove the skin I pick it clean and freeze much of it. The water it cooked in is now a delicious and nutritious stock as well. Leave it in the fridge overnight and skin off any fat.

gentlygently

I use a lot of the ideas above - and when my lettuce/cauliflower/broccoli arrive I often cut a mm off the stems and keep them in containers of water in the fridge (changing water from time to time). Just deep enough so they can drink away. Keeps them fresher for much longer - and you can also revive limp carrots etc this way.

Someone mentioned roasting potato peelings. Really ? Presumably in a hot oven with a bit of oil to make something a bit like crisps? ?

Agion3

I use the cores of cauliflower heads for a potato replacement in recipes, for soups and a pseudo bechamel sauce.

acpgee

Lately I have been making fruit waste sorbet to use up odds and ends. My last one was a tin of peaches, a couple of overripe bananas, an overripe pear that had gone grainy, and some underwhelming fresh nectarines from the supermarket. Peel fruit and blitz together in the food processor. Sweeten to taste with sugar, keeping in mind that once frozen it will taste less sweet. It is ingredients like sugar, alcohol and egg white that prevent the mixture from freezing too solid. Freeze, mashing the edges of the mixture with a fork every 40 minutes or so to prevent large ice crystals from developing. If it is too hard or grainy once frozen, taste to check if it needs more sugar and run through the food processor with some vodka or liqueur and an egg white and freeze again.

acpgee

If you have leftover corn or flour tortillas you can use the microwave to turn them into tostadas or chips.
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6544-microwave-tostadas
I used some leftover flour tortillas to make nachos for transporting ceviche and pico de gallo.

corinasue1143

I don’t buy canned fruit much, but our lunchroom ladies used to use the sweetened juice with kool aid and unflavored gelatin to make some seriously good jelly!

perryc05

I freeze all my meat bones from meals (beef, chicken. lamb, pork); as well as any veggie peelings and offcuts (carrots, onions, celery, garlic, tomoto, swede, turnup, kohlrabi, asparagus stems etc). When I have a large bag of this in the freezer I simmer it for several hours, strain it and use it for stock to make soups, sauces and other dishes with. I have been doing this for several years. Afterwards I bury the solids in my garden.

acpgee

I had to warm up stale corn tortillas that would have broken if you tried to fold them. Wrap up a stack of tortillas in a wet paper towel, put them in a fabric tortilla wamer (or oven mit) and microwave 20 seconds flip, and then blitz another 20 seconds.

EpilepsyWarrior

I use scraps from veggies and the bones from meat to make healthy broths and stocks.

MsCzar

Last year was the first year I canned my own liquid pectin using crab apples. Now, not only do I save my apple peels in the freezer, but I also save citrus pith for the same purpose. Supposedly the pectin content of citrus pith is very high and will be better when making things like dandelion jam where you don't want an apple flavour to overwhelm.

acpgee

Crisped up stale corn tortillas in the microwave to make oil free tostadas for dipping into store bought guacaamole.

tinkerbellang83

gentlygently wrote: »

I use a lot of the ideas above - and when my lettuce/cauliflower/broccoli arrive I often cut a mm off the stems and keep them in containers of water in the fridge (changing water from time to time). Just deep enough so they can drink away. Keeps them fresher for much longer - and you can also revive limp carrots etc this way.

Someone mentioned roasting potato peelings. Really ? Presumably in a hot oven with a bit of oil to make something a bit like crisps? ?

Yes that was me I think. Spray oil and a little salt normally does the trick, I am keen to try it in my air fryer also.

acpgee

Taco dinners are a great way of using up small quantities of assorted leftovers. I made guacamole and grilled pineapple and onion salsa fresh. The other little dishes are all leftovers. Shredded confit duck, lentils, butter beans, tomato and courgette salad, some pickles I normally have in the fridge. The hubby does complain about the massive amount of dirty dishes this meal creates, though.

acpgee

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/mar/07/how-to-stop-wasting-food-and-save-money

acpgee

Growing veg from scraps.
https://about.spud.com/blog-regrowing-vegetables-from-scrap/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&wpisrc=nl_ecokitchen_w7&utm_campaign=wp_nl_ecokitchen_week_7

acpgee

I have been recently making spring rolls and gyoza's from small quantities of leftover meat to store in the freezer. They make a good starter on a night you have only made salad for dinner.

Dice up the meat fine, stretch with some minced re-hydrated dried shitake mushrooms, grated or finely shredded veg to make a filling.

You can buy gyoza or wonton wrappers in the deep freeze section of an asian supermarket. Making your own is fairly easy if you have a food processor for kneading the dough and a tortilla press for rolling thin rounds. For spring rolls you can either buy the frozen wrappers in the asian supermarket or use dehydrated Vietnamese rice papers (for summer rolls) that you soak individually before wrapping. I find the rice papers easier as you just take out what you need and return the rest to the pantry. Google for videos on how to wrap and roll.

Freeze in a single layer on a tray before tossing into freezer bags to prevent them from sticking together. I like to coat the tray for spring rolls in oil, and rolling them around a bit before freezing. For gyozas I dust the tray with flour before freezing.

I warm up spring rolls in the air fryer at 200C for 10 minutes from frozen. For gyozas I will use a scant amount of oil in a non stick pan, and toss in a glass of water and cover once the bottoms have browned. Cover with a lid to steam until the water has cooked off.

Some different wrapping styles for dumplings and spring rolls made with both Vietnamese rice paper and Chinese wheat based spring roll wrappers.

vivelavidanow6

I'm not sure if in your country they have the Too Good To Go app, but it is another way to reduce food waste. Restaurants, supermarkets, take out places etc. will post surprise bags or products at a discounted price. These are products that they are expiring soon or extra food from the day that would otherwise be discarded. Great way to save on meals, and reduce our footprint. I've tried it a few times. An example for $4.99 CDN received 18 artisanal bagels. Great for freezing and toasting later.