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?
It started with these ...
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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My use it up started with half a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, potatoes, celery and onion left over from a sheet pan chicken dinner, and some cauliflower. It was rather cold here and we were in the mood for some comfort food. One of our favorites is chickdn pot pie soup. Didn't have any left over chickedn but I had left over turkey. Voila. With a few tweaks using all the above, in place of the original recipe we had a delicious meal. I also had some leftover millet flour and oat flour that I had milled for another project and turned that into "no roll crackers." Basically, it was equal amounts of each flour, 3 tbsp of olive oil, some salt and garlic powder and enough water to make a what looks like a thin pancake batter. This is spread on a half sheet cake pan lined with parchment baked for 20 min at 350 removed from the oven and cut into squares, back into the oven and baked for another 35 minutes until firm and crispy. Easy crackers. The remaining soup was frozen and will give us another dinner and we have crackers for a snack. Cookie
ReplyDeleteCookie, that chicken pot pie soup sounds delicious! Thanks for sharing your cracker recipe, I'm going to add it to my cracker recipes.
DeleteThat is some good looking broth. No chicken feet here but I have seen them at Walmart believe it or not.
ReplyDeleteThe first thing we did was catch the mouse that snuck into our house! Thursday night Hubby said something looked odd about the trash can under my end table in the living room. He pulled it out and there was Kleenex pulled out through the holes in the basket weave. At the same time we both said, "We have a mouse!" Thankfully we have found no evidence of food loss.
We bought a rotisserie chicken last weekend at Sam's. Hubby likes to weigh them once we get them home and this one was 4 lb 3 oz. The first day we took off the leg quarters and put them in the oven with potatoes to bake. The dark meat needs more cooking in our opinion. The next day I made a pot of chicken and dumplings using an expired can of Grands biscuits and that fed us two days and used one breast. The next night we sliced the other breast and served it with yellow rice and the last meal was stir fry using up all the rest of the meat. We got our $4.98 worth out of that chicken! No, I did not make broth because I don't like the flavor of it made with those chickens.
We have started digging deep in the freezer to make ourselves use up some long time lurkers in there. A huge 3# pack of little smokies left over from Christmas, ahem, not this year, really had me stumped until we tried throwing them in the air fryer and oh wow they were delicious with a can of doctored up pork and beans on the side. We have a lot of those beans that need to go too. We also used up some breakfast sandwiches that we kept shuffling around and they were pretty good with some added cheese.
We started a new routine of getting food prepped this week by using my time that I could be in the kitchen to get multiple things prepped and cooked and it was a huge help. Most times I could get three or four dishes cooked or prepped and we even put some items in the freezer. It is good to know that I have muffins made to just be thawed for small group on Friday and that we have a freezer bag of biscuits ready to be grabbed and heated. I also did quite a bit of fruit and veggie prep and salad making. It kept us out of the drive thru lane all week.
Lana, I'm glad you caught the mouse!!!
DeleteYou really stretched that chicken, and it all sounds delicious!
During the last couple of months, we have been digging deep into the freezer too, we've had some 'Oh, we forgot about those' discoveries too.
It makes a difference when we can prep our meals ahead, doesn't it? I hope you are feeling better.
Lana, I'm glad you caught the mouse!!!
DeleteYou really stretched that chicken, and it all sounds delicious!
During the last couple of months, we have been digging deep into the freezer too, we've had some 'Oh, we forgot about those' discoveries too.
It makes a difference when we can prep our meals ahead, doesn't it? I hope you are feeling better.
I froze some leftovers for other meals. I did use up as many odd ball things as possible. I used bits and pcs. of cheese in mac n cheese - which was wonderful (all kinds of cheeses). I try to use up as much as physically possible. Today some leftover (in frig) tom. sauce, went into a batch of rice and beans. I just hate waste.
ReplyDeleteCheryl, it's amazing how much mileage we can get out of leftovers, isn't it?
DeleteWhen I have green and red bell peppers that have gotten too wrinkly for salad, I will slice them into strips, drizzle with a bit of oil and season with salt/pepper, then oven-roast them to serve with burritos for some extra veg, or for sausage & peppers. I like roasting them rather than frying because I don't have to mind them as closely while prepping the rest of supper.
ReplyDeleteSue, that's a good idea, I never thought about roasting them verses frying them.
DeleteNot as prolific of a post as last week, but it is what it is ... leftovers for lunch, and cooking from freezer and pantry, so to use up some items that have been in there a little longer than I'd planned.
ReplyDeleteLori, it all adds up and I think we can all understand having "items that have been in there a little longer than I'd planned."
DeleteTerri from Blue House Journal here. I took 6 cups of milk that had soured and made up a batch of ricotta like cheese with it. It was easy enough and I have 1 1/2 cups cheese to use in calzones later this week as well as 2 pints of whey that I'll use in making breads.
ReplyDelete