Food Waste Friday

The Frugal Girl runs a weekly show+tell of the food she has which has gone bad over the last seven days. I first came across her blog a couple of months ago, just as I was doing remarkably well again at using everything I bought and not throwing anything out. But I've had a bad week or two of it so I decided it was time to join in.

I haven't even looked properly in the fridge but as I've only been back from holidays for two and a half weeks I don't think anything has gotten lost in the back just yet. No photo because I might just use some of this stuff up yet but if I don't write this post now, I never will.

I cleared some of it out by finishing the strawberry and apple crumble (that I made last Sunday) for dinner. :-) Okay, okay. Sometimes clearing stuff out can be fun. I still haven't really adjusted to the heat of summer, which is now well underway and this week I have really been having trouble with having the energy to cook or prepare anything in the evenings. I've barely had the energy to eat some evenings.

Which is why there is still a full head of lettuce still in the fridge. It is in my Tupperware salad spinner with a small amount of water in the bottom so it might just be okay (or some of it anyway) but I won't actually check it until tomorrow. There are also six strawberries left, which were supposed to be for a smoothie but as I haven't been sleeping too well this week, I also haven't been doing too well on getting up early enough to do things like make a smoothie in the morning.

Which is also the reason I have five bananas just about to fall apart as well. I printed a recipe for banana bread off the internet today and as soon as I have finished this post I am heading into the kitchen and if they are at all edible still, I will make that.

I also have three beets in the fridge, a few scallions and a couple of radishes. I don't think they need to be actually thrown out quite yet but I definitely need to do something with them this weekend. I also ended up using almost no milk this week so I have half a litre that will need to be dumped. I hate, hate, hate not finishing the milk but part of the reason for that is that a friend stayed the night last Friday and I ended up buying a litre of milk in the supermarket on Friday evening so she could have some for her tea and her breakfast cereal the next morning so that I had more than I usually would have and making an effort to finish it off on Saturday and Sunday meant I had no desire left for more milk. So the fresh litre I got at the market on Saturday didn't get finished.

And the one thing I am really ashamed off is a portion of pasta and courgettes with tomato sauce. I was so excited to see courgettes at the market last Saturday I actually squealed (but very quietly and I don't think anyone was close enough to hear). I bought four small ones and used two on Monday evening to cook a really delicious sauce for some pasta. And then I planned to use the leftovers for lunch on Tuesday but forgot to bring them with me to work. On Tuesday evening I ate the leftover salad from the weekend and although it wasn't much I had no room left for anything else. I did bring the pasta to work on Wednesday but forgot that I was meeting people for lunch so didn't actually get to eat it then. Could have had it for dinner that evening but a colleague had a celebration in work and after drinking three glasses of sekt (not to mention handfuls of peanuts and salty sticks) and walking part of the way home in the hottest day this year, I wasn't able for any eating at all. And I should have eaten it for lunch yesterday but knowing it had been sitting in my bag for 24 hours (which would normally bother me far less than it would bother most people) just put me off. So it's gone into the bin. I wish I could at least compost but sometimes I think I used to use my compost pile as a bit of a cop-out. Must try to do better next week.

So, off to make a cake to bring to the garden tomorrow, possibly some banana bread and then another batch of pastry for the same cake, as I'm going to a gathering tomorrow evening and have to bring something for the meal afterwards. I was going to bring a chickpea salad but that feels like too much work now. Maybe I'll put some chickpeas on to soak anyway and if I'm feeling up to it tomorrow afternoon I can always make that as well.

Edited to add: and there's a half a tub of cream cheese that will need to go out as well - I want to use a very rude word now, in fact I just did but I'll try and not let my blog descend into the level of bad language I frequently employ at home. I had deliberately not used this lovely wild garlic cream cheese up because I wanted to use it to make a sauce for the courgette and potato gratin I was going to make with the other two courgettes I bought last week. They are still fine. The potatoes are presumably still fine. But the cream cheese will have to go. Aaaahhh.

Edited to add photo:

The radishes had to go but the strawberries were still edible so I had them while baking. I also had to get rid of a glass of wine left in the bottle I had opened when my friend was here last Friday. I really tried to finish it but just wasn't in the mood for drinking more than I glass any evening and drinking two or three evenings in a row (even just that much) is all I can do. There are times when I could easily finish an entire bottle by myself in one evening but really, I'm not a big drinker, which is why I would rarely bother opening a bottle unless there is someone else around to share it.

The bananas were even worse than I thought but three were still usable so I made banana bread using a recipe from Smitten Kitchen - except I left out the bourbon because putting alcohol in food isn't something I really like to do, it rarely seems to improve the taste (exceptions are amaretto in tiramisu and a drizzle of martini on lemon sorbet). And for whatever strange reason I don't have either nutmeg or cinnamon at the moment so I used ginger, allspice and then at the last minute found some mixed spice, which does have cinnamon in it and threw it a bit of that as well. And I also realised I don't actually have a loaf tin anymore so I cooked it in my tupperware (the one which I was convinced was called Princess but which the internet tells me is just called Flower).

But apart from all that it turned out perfectly. Really delicious, just the right amount of spice, just exactly right moistness. Will definitely be making this again.