What is a 'Use It Up Food' challenge?
It's about food waste or more specifically not wasting food ...
It's about repurposing our leftovers into another dish,
It's about using every part of fruits and vegetables,
It's about using up the really small amounts of food ...
It's about using up food scraps, peels and stems ...
It's about being mindful of every bit of food that comes in and through our kitchens and finding a use for it ... all of it!
That's our purpose for this series, so, how did we do this week?
I used all the marked down bananas I had in my freezer and needed to restock. The problem is finding them, I don't pay full price for banana's, I just don't. Instead, I look for the overripe, marked down ones. The problem is that they are getting harder and harder to find.
Hubby and I went bargain shopping this week in a nearby local town with marked down bananas at the top of my list. The first store we visited didn't have any, the second store did, but the third store did not.
Here's what we found and what we did with every part ...
until next time,
mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry
She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27
Sharing 44 years' experience of frugal, prudent living and pantry building
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Good Morning, Patsi,
ReplyDeleteI'm smiling because it seems we were on the same wave length this week. As I posted in the last post I got marked down bananas too. I made 3 dozen gluten free banana chocolate chip muffins and the rest have been frozen for use at a later date. The peels are in the freezer waiting until it's closer to our planting date to make the fertilizer. I used up some leftover coconut milk and different grainfree flours and made a batch of GF 3 ingredient naan. We used some to become the wraps for leftover chicken and salad using some sirracha and honey mustard dressing on the naan. They were really good. I baked more 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies.
We had some colcannon in the fridge, but not enough for two so it became potato cakes for a side dish that served the two of us for dinner one night. Have a blessed day. Cookie
Thank you, Patsy. I haven't soaked banana peels before. The lowest price on bananas in our area is 59 cents lb. at Walmart. You got a good price!
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned the other day, since I had leftover steak and veggies in the fridge, I made your stir fry when our son popped in Thursday evening. It was a big hit! I was told to keep the "recipe" on my rotation. :-)
Otherwise it was the same as usual. --Elise
Good morning Patsi, Thank you for this mornings post. I always have extra bananas, so then I have banana peels.
ReplyDeleteBananas at our Aldi are 37 cents a pound so if you are near an Aldi it may be a good place to grab bananas at their regular price. Also Ingles here puts out big totes of bananas for 1.49 and they stuff it full and out the top if you get near that store. It's been awhile since we had banana bread but I am telling myself that the zucchini bread in the freezer must be eaten first.
ReplyDeleteMy theme of the week for food waste was packing things correctly when I got them home. We bought a lot of food that needed immediate attention before storing.
Celery, broccoli , romaine, grapes and cantaloupe were washed and prepped and stored in our produce saver boxes. Once it goes into the fridge it will not get done. More grapefruit was purchased since my plan to put one out in the fruit basket and then replace it when I ate it worked so well and none was wasted.
I saw a sale on Springer Mountain Farms 93/7 ground chicken and with the coupons it was $1.38 a pound. This is not something I ever buy so before purchasing it I went online and found some recipes to use it. We had five coupons so we bought five pounds. I made two pounds into meatloaves right away and packaged them for the freezer and the other three pounds were removed from the package and transferred to freezer bags for better keeping. We bought boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale and they were individually packaged for the freezer. We package small so that we can thaw exactly what is needed.
We made a rare trip to the salvage grocery since I thought we could do better there on a few needed items and I was right. We needed to restock breaded chicken tenders because this is our go to emergency freezer item. Seven pounds at Sam's would have been $30 and we found five pound bags of a better quality product for $16. Restaurant foods are not packaged for long term storage in the thin clear bags they come in so we transferred those to three one gallon freezer bags before they went in the freezer. We were happy to be there when the Pepperidge Farm bread delivery arrived so we got two bags of plain bagels for 1.29 each. These were on my list for Lidl at 1.95 so we were blessed to get them and the date is 3/18. You can only get bagels if you are there when the bread arrives as they are the first to go. Those were over bagged in freezer bags before going into the freezer too and they will keep much longer that way. We found two pound packages of Hillshire Farm turkey breast sandwich meat for 2.99. When we need to open that we will pop it in the microwave for thirty seconds and then separate it into portions and just keep out one and return the rest to the freezer. This method works well for many frozen bulk packs that we buy there. We also bought organic cereal for 50 cents a box. Jimmy Dean crumbles sausage for 50 cents a bag, decaf tea bags for 1.50 and huge restaurant size of meat tenderizer for $1.
Well I am sure I have run on long enough!
I've been eating from the freezer this pas week. Found several vacuum-sealed bags of broccoli, so made a 1/2 batch of cream of broccoli cheese soup on one of our chilly rainy days. That was great for dinner and lunch the next day, and another lunch later in the week. Used a variety of cheses that were languishing in the refrig -- some american, sharp cheddar, shredded Italian blend, and even a little Mexican cheese blend, left over from tacos awhile back. Using up some Italian sausage in marinara sauce for spaghetti tonite (leftovers for lunch tomorrow), and will do chicken in the crock pot on Monday, with chicken salad for Tuesday's dinner (book club luncheon Tuesday, so will want something light for dinner). This morning, I made buttermilk from the half-gallon of milk that was nearing its expiration date. The buttermilk will be used to make Irish soda bread tomorrow, in preparation of our upcoming weekend festivities.
ReplyDeleteI just saw a recipe for banana peel cake. Not sure I would go that far but I guess if things get too bad, nice to know the peels are edible. I have been checking out frugal type books and cookbooks for ideas. This was a cookbook that was using all scraps to make food, no waste. It was interesting. But I picked up a few tricks and pointers I can use. JulieT from Minnesota
ReplyDeleteJulie, hmmm, I don't think banana peel cake is for me either, but never say never. If I were hungry enough for deserts, I'm sure I would be overjoyed at the possibility of have a piece of banana peel cake.
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