General Chat

Mmm...... might try cheesy socks for stock, Merlin and Wend!

Still got quite a bit of cheese left from Christmas, so instead of scoffing it with crackers and port - (trying to lose weight) will try and make new dishes such as quiches, gratins and pasta dishes. Blue cheese is terrific in mushroom and broccoli risotto.
I have to do all the food shopping for my Dad, and he wastes stuff if he doesn't feel like eating. His carers won't use anything if it goes even 1 day over the use by date, so I bring it home. You've just got to be sensible, and use your own judgement - most things are fine if they smell and look OK.

I'm surprised to hear that people throw out so much, old veg in particular. No need to bin it, you can use it to make soup.
Cook it, add a stock cube to the water, and then whizz the lot in the blender. Pour it into containers and freeze it. Easy.
If it is veg which has already been cooked and is leftover from dinner, then you can still use it for soup - chuck it in the blender with a stock cube dissolved in water.
Simples.

Too much importance is put on sell-by dates. The human sniff test is best!! As Geordie says, use your own judgement. Take yoghurt for example, they last WELL after their use-by dates. Think about it, yoghurt is gone off milk anyway.
Food doesn't wake up on the morning it is dated to go off and say to itself, 'oh, I'd better go off today because my label says so' :-D

Today's news reported that we waste an awful lot. There's really no need. My toes used to curl at the sight of some of things my granny had in her kitchen cupboards but she didn't die from eating any of it, and I'm still here to tell the tale :-D

Karen x

Must be my Scottish blood, but I don't waste much food.

Veggies go into soup or pasties. Bananas either get made into cakes or thrown in the epiphytes. Suitable fruit gets poached & frozen. If we have scraps of meat (which isn't often) neighbour's dogs get them.

We have two freezers, and I there's no spare space!

Reminds me...... I have a yoghurt in the fridge, I have to eat it before midnight :-D

Scozz :-D :-D you'd better eat it or you'll hear it screaming at 1 minute after!!

Not in the mood for yoghurt right now.

I'm expecting to find it in the morning with a full beard :-D

Got two more today :-) my favourite ! coffee yoghurt :-D

Think you´ll be OK with the sell by date Scozz.
Just found one in the back of my fridge with a sell by date of 30th July 2012.
It must have been past it´s sell by date when I bought it, because honestly, I have cleaned the fridge out several times since then :-0 :-0

If an unopened yoghurt has 'blown' the lid, don't eat it!

It might taste wonderfully 'wine-y' but my goodness, you'll suffer :-0

I don't know why anyone should throw away bread . I always keep mine in the freezer and take out what I need. Must confess I don't eat the crust but when I have some bacon fat left in the pan I defrost the crusts and soak up the fat, then give it to the birds.

Every New Year I check all the tins in the cupboard and leave out the ones from the previous year. I have done that this week and have six tins out of date. I have left them on the work top to remind me to open them and eat the contents before reaching into the cupboard for the nearest tin.

I used to waste food from the chest freezers years ago until we had a small integral freezer . As I am so limited for room now I only buy what I know I really need.

I have been to the supermarket this morning and bought all the essentials in case of snow. Chocolate biscuits, carrot cake, ginger buns, half price jaffa cakes,......... don't think I will be wasting any food if I can't get out of the house.

I'm like you with bread, Janet, and only take out a few slices at a time.Same with cakes, as I only get them for when the grandchildren come for tea.
Yoghurt can taste "fizzy" when it has gone over its time, but don't know whether or not it would harm you.
Tinned food, I find, is fine years after its best before date, in fact had a tin of soup dating from 2008 a couple of days ago. Having said that, a tin of ancient apricots actually exploded in my pantry a while back! :-0

i havent thrown any food away since i decided not to so wateful

so a good start to the year

any stale bread will go into the dog as its his fovorite thing to eat
he would turn his nose up at meat for a crust of bread :-D :-D

I have just sorted out the cheese container in the fridge. There was a piece of cheese in there that I have been paring bits of for cooking and it has been getting harder as time has gone by.

It was finally so hard that I could not remove any more,felt like china,so I have had to throw away a bit about half the sixe of a matchbox. i will probably be in mourning for some days now.

There werealso a couple of things that one of us had saved in plastic bags,and I don't think it was me,that didn't look very savoury so they went as well.

I am very guilty of food waste but I since I started shopping on line, I have cut down drastically on waste and cost
I am no longer tempted with multi buy offers ect.
Just order exactly what I need and nothing else!

Made two banana cakes this afternoon with the horrible black bananas.

I can fit one of them in the freezer (I'll have to eat some ice-cream first) so that means we'll have to eat the other one this week! It's hot & humid here, so I want it eaten before Wednesday, cos that's when it will probably start going mouldy :-(