I have been working for a little bit on wasting less, mostly in terms of food.

Ideas: Using the bits you normally toss, squash seeds, pepper ribs, etc. I’ve been working on this for a while. Small broccoli leaves are yummy, as are the stems. (If they’re really hard, peel ‘em.) etc. I have acquired many “keep, don’t toss” ideas & uses for many things like that.

I need to be much better about deglazing pans and using that resource ; it’s so easy to overlook. My latest effort this way was after we had sausage one weekend, I made gravy from the fat & leavings in the pan and froze it.

DH made biscuits this a.m., and I was thinking sausage would be good, remembered the gravy and had that instead. It took very little time to zap in the microwave. (I was afraid it would burn on the edges before the center thawed. It’d be better to put it in the fridge the night before!) Less fat, cholesterol, etc. than actual sausage would have been and used what we had better. A hit!

Now if I could just repeat that more consistently….

jkd

P.S. There’s a British group about this, here’s a link: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/recipes and there’s an American blog too, http://wastedfood.com/