I’m starting to recognise patterns with the food waste this week and have also started to lose track of the specific wastage.  So I haven’t really kept a proper food waste diary for these days (and day 7 isn’t quite over yet).

Most days we have  left over breakfast, sandwiches and a little left over dinner.  Almost all of the food waste belongs to younger son, as he isn’t finishing his meals, or eating some of them at all.  I think the problem is he has gone off his breakfast and sandwiches and wants to eat something else.  I have been cutting down on his breakfast, but I think he actually just would be happy with a banana at the moment.  Plus I think he would prefer crackers and salads for lunch like I have, so I will try and give that a go next week.

I have been preventing food waste by making melba toast out of day old bread and banana tea bread muffins out of over-ripe bananas (I did the same mixture as for banana tea bread, but just cooked them for 20-25 mins).  I even used up some sugar and white flour that had been sitting around in my cupboard since I gave both of them up.  I didn’t eat any – the rest of my family tucked in though!

I did mention in a previous blog post that I am going to do a meal plan for next week using the out of date (or nearly out of date) stuff in my cupboard.  Next week is a bit of an unusual week as I won’t be in charge of the food on Friday and Saturday night, so I only need to do a plan for Mon to Thurs and Sun.

So here is it is my National Zero Waste Week meal plan:

Monday: Barley, lentils (approaching their sell by date) and veg for me  / Chicken and noodles for the rest of the family

Tuesday: Tuna lasagna using out of date dried lasagna sheets, freezer tomato sauce and homemade white sauce

Wednesday: Homemade pizza using up some gluten free flour I bought by accident and have never used…

Thursday:   Fish fingers,  latkes (from an out of date dried packet) and brussel sprouts from the freezer, which have been there since last Christmas…

Friday and Saturday we will not be taking part.

Sunday:  I would like to try making lentil burgers with some frozen pitta bread that has been in the freezer a while – any recipe recommendations??  If not I will do rice spaghetti and lentils with freezer tomato sauce for me and omelettes for the rest of my family!

I will still have a bit of work to do to use up my out of date food, so will have to keep doing out of date meal plans until I have used it all up!

I’m not making any promises about blogging our meals / waste next week as it is Jewish New Year towards the end of the week and I will be offline for a bit… I will be doing my best to use up what we have and avoid waste all week though!  If you are taking part then I hope you have a great week and if not already then why not join in!

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