Food Waste Friday: Pantry Edition

A while back I noticed that one blogger participating in Food Waste Friday, liveandlearn, went through her pantry on Food Waste Friday, which I thought was a great idea! Kristen at The Frugal Girl also recently cleaned out all of her kitchen cabinets. So for this Food Waste Friday I'm posting some of our pantry waste.

I did waste some canned spinach, but I don't have a photo. It was a pretty small amount (there is never much spinach left after you squeeze out all of the water!) I've actually never eaten spinach from a can before, but I honestly thought it was awful. I attempted to make some spinach and artichoke hummus (I've made hummus twice quite recently), but I think the canned spinach ruined the taste. This might just be because I'm used to using frozen spinach in dips and other recipes. I'm also not a huge fan of vegetables from a can as it is, and the spinach rudely reminded me of this.

But on to the waste with pictures. . .

First I have cereal gone bad. The corn biscuits were bad when we got them--they expired in 2010. The Crispy Rice was opened quite awhile ago and had a funky taste, so I composted both of them.

This one made me really sad. I wanted to use some of this flour, but the "Best By Date" was July 2009.  It looks fine, and was stored inside another container, but I'd be scared to cook with it.

I know flour has a lot of uses aside from baking--I'd use it to make PlayDoh if I knew any little kids that'd want it, but I really don't. I've yet to compost it because I'd like to find some use for it. Do you have any ideas? I'd love to hear any suggestions you might have!

Food Waste Friday: Storage Issues

With all the craziness of the holiday weekend, I made few blunders when it comes to food waste. Before I went to Virginia, I got a couple of bagels and kept them in my room for when I got back (I got back Saturday evening but the Dining Center didn't open until Sunday evening). Though it is hard to tell in this picture, the bagels actually molded between Wednesday and Saturday. I have no idea why--normally bagels keep at room temperature, but maybe I should have refrigerated them. Or maybe I should have kept them in plastic containers rather than plastic bags. I'm not really sure.

I also attempted to freeze these bananas in my mini fridge, but they never quite froze, and eventually they just turned bad. It has worked before, but for some reason it didn't work this time. I think my best bet is just to do this at home in a regular freezer.

Most of my problems this week were misjudgments relating to storage. Do you have any suggestions for me? Any similar stories about food waste? Comment in the box below!

Food Waste Friday: Mushrooms and Positive Change

Happy Friday!

It's been a hectic week for me as I've been catching up on work that I didn't have time to do last weekend on the HCF retreat. It was totally worth it, but it did require exercising my time management skills!

This week I had very little food waste--just a few mushrooms from my pasta sauce last night at dinner. The mushroom pasta sauce looked better than the plain sauce; however, it was really silly for me to get the mushroom sauce, because I don't like mushrooms. I think the sauce just reminded me of my mom's wonderful sausage spaghetti, because mushrooms appear deceptively like meat sometimes. Nevertheless, they didn't taste like meat, and they tasted absolutely nothing like sausage. Oh well.

On the bright side, In about one month I'll get to go home and eat my mom's food. Yay!

On a related note, our Dining Center is creating a new Dining Center Development Committee. Six students will get to be on this committee, and hopefully they will bring some positive change to the food and waste management. Students waste a lot of food at the DC (Dining Center) and it all ends up in the trash. It's a very sad thing to witness, but I have a lot of ideas to rectify some of these waste issues. So I applied to be on the committee. Whether or not I get the position, hopefully I can still present all of my ideas to the committee!

I hope everyone has a wonderful day--I'll be back later today or tomorrow with other news!

Food Waste Friday: Common Room Waste

Hey everyone!

This week I did pretty well with my food waste, aside from some oatmeal overflowing in the microwave. But I could still eat most of that. My hall has had a bit of waste this week (we often have shared baked goods and snacks), but I don't think this counts as my personal waste. However, I certainly would have eaten it before the mold started growing:

One of my hall mates made this really good pumpkin nut bread and brought it back with her on fall break. It was so good in fact, that it fooled me into asking her for the recipe when it actually came from a mix. This just got forgotten about.

Also, remember my post last week about wasting money by locking myself out? Well, the sign I made has prevented me from forgetting my key! Every time I see the sign, I check my pocket to make sure I have it. And I smile every time, because I saved myself another ten dollars. My mom also sent me a small clip I can use to clip my key to my belt loop, so hopefully that will help too!

On a completely random note, tomorrow I'm going to Mishkan Shalom, a progressive Jewish Synagogue to observe a service for a group project. I'm not Jewish, so I have never been to a synagogue before! I'll let you know how it goes.

How much food waste did you have this week?

Food Waste Friday and an Unexpected Expense

Hey Everyone!

It's Food Waste Friday, and I'm happy to report I have wasted no food this week!

However, I found out today that I've been wasting a lot of money indirectly. At Haverford, we have a student account that we prepay with $600 at the beginning of the year. We can spend this money at the bookstore, but it is also used for fines and other charges.

As many of you know, I can be kind of scatter-brained sometimes. Ok, a lot of the time. In high school, I always left my lights on, locked my keys in my car, and just plain lost my keys. I don't have my car anymore, but I have a new set of challenges. Namely, I will often lock my room with my key inside.

Now, if I had a roommate like the majority of other college students, this wouldn't be as much of a problem. I might have to wait until my roommate came back to get in my room, but that would be the extent of it. Since I have my own room, I have to call Safety and Security and have them unlock my door. This costs money. I just didn't realize how much.

I have locked myself out six times this semester. The first time is free, the second time is $5. Not so bad. But everytime after that? 10 bucks a pop! I've spent $45 dollars here just because I'm forgetful. That's more than I spent on my textbooks!

So I am taking some action. This afternoon, since I'm not too busy, I made myself a sign:

Yes, I'm in college and sometimes I'm just waiting for an excuse to color. But I'm really hoping this will help me save me my money.

Do you have any forgetful and costly habits?

Food Waste Friday: A Good Week and Rescued Bananas!

Hey everyone!

This week has been fall break for Haverford Students, so most of my classmates are gone. This means that the dining center is closed and I've had to fend for myself this week--I really don't mind, but it is a bit hard to eat well when you have no access to a kitchen.

Thank goodness for microwaves and mini fridges! We have a microwave on our hall and an anonymous person from back home donated two lovely mini fridges to Lacey and I. Though they were a bit dirty when we got them, the fridge has been a life saver this week.

This is all of the fridge food I have left from grocery shopping this week. I've been fortunate that I've let none of it go to waste. I was slightly concerned that I had way more overripe bananas than I could eat, but I solved that problem with a tip I learned from The Frugal Girl blog. She slices and freezes her overripe bananas for smoothies or banana ice cream, but they also taste great by themselves. I eat frozen bananas like candy, so I'm grateful they are much more nutritious!

TIP: Don't freeze your bananas with the peel still on them. You will spend precious time struggling to peel a frozen peel, and your banana will probably suffer in the process. I learned the hard way! You can leave them whole--just make sure you peel them!

I actually love frozen banana ice cream (essentially frozen bananas with milk in a blender), and it doesn't have to be anything fancy. But play around with it--I found that just bananas and skim milk has a slight after taste, so I add peanut butter and it's awesome. You can add a lot of other ingredients too and generally it will still be much cheaper and healthier than any ice cream you can buy at the store. If you want to try it, there is a great one at a website called Pennies on a Platter. I actually don't remember whether someone posted this recipe on The Frugal Girl Blog or if I found it on Google. But if someone did suggest it to me, I'm very grateful!

Let me know if you try any experiments with frozen bananas!

Food Waste Friday and a Treat!

Hey everyone!

So I've been extremely busy with midterms, and I am very disappointed that my only posts in 3 weeks have been Food Waste Friday posts. I'm going to try to post more next week, because next week is Fall Break! I'm sad I don't get to come home, but I think relaxing on campus will be pretty fun too!

Anyway, this is what I wasted:

The reason I had to waste these is because they were just bad to begin with. The carrots were dry and they tasted bad and so did the apple. This is probably because the Dining Center was trying to get rid of their last produce before break, so it was borderline-bad anyway. It looks extra disgusting here because I waited until the next morning to take a picture.

But on the bright side, I got a lovely package today! This was extremely exciting for me because I wasn't expecting it. Also, this homemade granola shaped leaf is just super impressive:

I also got a tiny pumpkin, gum, and mini post its. If any of you readers out there know any college students, I think I can safely say that they would love to get a surprise package from you, even if it isn't as fancy as a homemade granola leaf. It's the thought that counts!

Have a lovely weekend!

Food Waste Friday: A Messy Week

Sadly, I have no rotten tomato pictures today. However, I do have a few interesting stories!

The first major thing I wasted this week was a banana. Actually, it was more like second hand waste, because someone else was going to throw it out. Anyway, remember when I visited Logan Square with my friend Tami? Well I visited again on Sunday for my project. They were having a huge benefit race for cancer, and the Four Season's hotel provided mass amounts of breakfast food for both runners and spectators. I didn't have any of their food, but I was given a leftover banana. I put it in my backpack for later, and it fell to the bottom. It got squished so bad it turned to banana liquid! My backpack was disgusting.

Too bad I didn't photograph that.

I also had several spills this week. Half my brownie fell on the floor in the dining center, and I spilled cereal in my room. I freaked out about the cereal incident because I had seen a huge bug in my room that morning. I ran to get the vacuum down the hall, and my door slammed behind me. Unfortunately, the door was locked, and my key was in my room. I waited half an hour to get back in, and then the vacuum didn't even work. But then my friend Matt lent me his super handy hand broom and dustpan, and it worked surprisingly well. In short, it took me an hour to clean a small mess.

Finally, I wasted a bit of asparagus at lunch today. It seems this week that the asparagus was the only food waste that wasn't out to get me.

How did you do on your food waste this week?


(By the way, I'm not sure that I linked to The Frugal Girl's blog last week. Just wanted to make sure I did. She started Food Waste Friday. Definitely check it out!)

First Food Waste Friday!

Hey everyone!

You probably haven't heard of Food Waste Friday, because it's a concept I discovered on another blog, The Frugal Girl. Every friday, her posts tell readers the food she wasted that week and usually she includes a picture (not to gross you out, but because photography is a hobby of hers). These weekly posts serve as a way to be more accountable for her food waste. She has asked others with blogs to join her in practicing Food Waste Friday, and I think it's a great idea!

I think it will help me waste less because I will be more aware of my waste; it's also embarrassing to publicly admit to waste on a blog, which will also help me waste less.

So here is what I wasted this week:

This is the remnant of a once beautiful tomato. I feel awful about wasting it, especially since I got it from the Haverford Garden Club's garden. I just forgot about it.

In addition, I wasted a small portion of vegan baked beans. The Dining Centers at Haverford and Bryn Mawr always have vegan food, and I like to try it sometimes, but these beans just tasted really strange.

Join me in keeping track of your food waste! If you are a college student eating in the dining center on campus, try writing down your waste right after you have your meal. If you are at home, clean out your fridge every friday and see what went bad. I think this will definitely be a helpful practice for me!