Try as I might, I can’t help but waste food. Every week there’s something that I should have used up earlier, something that ripened… and beyond… when I wasn’t looking.
Maybe it’s my somewhat erratic schedule — I’ve given up planning more than a couple of days in advance — or maybe I’m just not a great strategist.
I do like making “kitchen sink” vegetable soups and stews to use up what I have in the fridge, but I think I need other ways of dealing with aging produce.
First, I guess I need to know what I have on hand so I don’t buy the wrong things, or too much of a good thing!
Second, when I have too much I should try to freeze a portion to use in a recipe later. Can you freeze mushrooms though?
Third, I should try to be more inventive in using up food. Let’s see, omelettes, novel pasta sauces, roasted veggie surprise…
Do you have strategies for reducing food waste?
While mixing up ingredients for Homemakers magazine’s Fresh Tomato Lasagna (mmm, ripe tomatoes and fresh basil, my favourite combination!) last week, I opened my drawer of too-rarely-used baking dishes and mixing bowls to pick a dish for the wet ingredients. If the recipe isn’t too large in volume, I pick my mom’s mom’s glass Pyrex mixing bowls (stamped “Made in Canada” on the bottom), bowls she used to make many many dishes, bowls with some light scoring from all the baking whipped to form within, bowls that are thick and heavy and hard to break.
Sure, I could get a set of matching plastic or ceramic bowls for a surprisingly small sum at any home store. They would be lovely. They would get used. They would chip, crack and eventually be tossed out. But grandma’s bowls stood up to everything she could dish out, so they’ll have no problem with my occasional baking whims. If anything, I’ll be hunting around antique shows (including the Odessa Antique Show, on west of Kingston this weekend) for a larger bowl to go with grandma’s set.
Do you have a favourite kitchen item, at home or at the cottage, that has stood the test of time?
