Can we have a chat about what food/s you most frequently throw out from your fridge and how they could actually be used up?

[Mintyy]

I'll start:

Creme fraiche - I buy this to go in a chicken paprika casserole thing I do, but then can't think of another way to use the other half pot within a week.

Sweetcorn - the dc like tuna sweetcorn (ick!!) in wraps and sandwiches but again I only need half a tin. So the other half festers in the back of the fridge until it grows blue mould someone realises and chucks it.

Coleslaw - never eat the whole tub

Olives - ditto

Grapes - similar

Apples - quite often the apples end up going wrinkly

Potatoes - omg, I have thrown away so many potatoes and now we have full blown potato plants growing out of our compost bin

Hummus. Why does it have such a short 'use by' date when it's veggie . And it does smell odd soon after that because I always give it the sniff test. Home made hummus was worse because I had to make a bigger batch.

Turn apples into apple sauce and make tons on mash with the potatoes and freeze them in portions you can bung in the microwave. I do this with potatoes all the time. Its ace.

I always buy cabbage in a range of exciting colours and then run out of things to do with it that isn't just... well.. really cabbagey.

Lettuce. I am the only one who eats it but even 2 of the little gems make more meals than I want to eat with salad in a week.

CAn you do tuna sweetcorn in pasta to use the rest up? Or freeze it?

Actually have stopped all waste as used to be terrible.

If something like potatoes are in huge supply and I know they won't be used, I cook, mash and freeze them

Stuff like coleslaw that I don't eat often I either don't buy or get from the salad counter where I can buy a few tablespoons

I often have lots of apples and pears and will make a crumble.

Recently I had half an extra large jar of red cabbage left over and I chucked it into the bolognese sauce I was cooking. I use whatever is lurking around

I love grapes so they don't last long but an old weight watcher tip is to freeze and have as boiled sweets.. Even more face!!

Mintyy - creme fraiche is really nice cooked into boiled potatoes and other veg.

Oh yes lettuce - I now grow my own and pick off a few leaves and I grate and freeze cheese

Yoghurts!

Coleslaw - it goes off too quickly.

You could get frozen sweetcorn.

For me, it tends to be leftovers that were intended to be made into soup, or the soup itself. It's supposed to be portioned out and put in the freezer. Not that I like soup, but I can't think of a way to tell DP (again) that I don't, so he keeps making it.

The occasional vegetable - courgette, carrot.

Sometimes tubs of flour and other baking ingredients (especially then more unusual ones like potato or teff) that are leftover from one of DP's bread enthusiasm phases.

Never fruit or dairy products.

I can usually keep it down to a third of a tub of houmous plus a few grapes. DH has a bee in his bonnet about it so I try very hard even though he is a bit of a hypocrite about it

I have some lettuces growing. One day I may get enough off them for a single serving!

You can freeze houmous.

Brilliant thread!

Morzerella cheese. I buy it to go on pizza, but don't get around to making it...

Lettuce,so I don't buy it often.

I have dodgy carrots lying around, but we generally eat them all...

With the corn, could you buy frozen instead, it's what I do... No sugar or salt in frozen corn either.

Mintyy buy frozen sweetcorn then you can just use what you need & avoid chucking the other half of the tin (I buy a bag of value sweetcorn for less than a quid - lasts ages).

Any suggestions for the over-ripe kiwi fruits or ignored mandarin oranges currently residing in my fruit bowl? (I think they're mandarins).

Olives can be frozen and bunged, still frozen into a tomato based pasta sauce.

I usually have a bag of nice Olives stashed in the freezer door to chuck into a sauce.

Agree with mash/ apple sauce thing.

I usually have some packets of crumble topping in the cupboard so I can use up fruit like apples and apricots in a quick crumble. Yum.

Grapes, can you have them with cereal? Or buy blueberries instead, then you can freeze surplus and chuck still frozen into yoghurt as a breakfast or pudding.

Can't think why you wouldn't just eat the mandarins and kiwis. Why not make a fruit salad? Everything tastes better with cream.

Imip defo grow your own. Is so easy and green fingered I am not! It takes ages for th les DS to really fill the window box but they are lovely and fresh

We have picky dinner (random cold leftovers) to use up bits and pieces like coleslaw, salad, leftover meat, olives etc

Cream fraiche and sweetcorn - tacos/ fajitas
Frozen grapes are lovely
Potatoes - why are they in your fridge we grow potatoes and the autumn harvest is still being eaten and are fine. Keep them somewhere cool and dark and they keep much longer ( same for all root veg) - take them put of any plastic bags they come in even if you decide to cont keeping them in the fridge and they will last much longer.
Milk freezes fine - I put half the container in the freezer when I open it (keep an old one).
Apples stewed and frozen and added to yogurt for breakfast, or baked in the oven with some raisins and sugar for a dessert.

Mix creme fraiche with cheese and mustard to make a cheats cheese sauce for cauliflower or leeks. Or chicken/pork in cider with apples and creme fraiche.

Sweet corn is lovely on pizza too, or blitz with some chilli and serve with Mexican foods (could use the creme fraiche too in place of sour cream).

We never get through potatoes either, it seems impossible to buy them in bags of less than 2.5kg and we rarely eat potatoes.

Peppers. Because all the packs seem to have poxy green peppers that no one actually likes.

And salad stuff in general - shocked at how quickly it seems to go off.

Great idea for a thread.

Grapes
Coleslaw
Brussels pate (use this every day but can never get through it in time)
Onions
Cream

Spring onions, every week it seems, though I don't even buy them that often!

Make apple tart with old apples. Even proper shrivelled ones. Just puff pastry with some apple sauce and then sliced apples caramelised on top with a bit of cinnamon.

Creme fraiche can be stirred into pasta or added to most sauces requiring milk.

Sweetcorn - use frozen.

Maybe buy smaller quantities.

You can get tiny tins sweetcorn.

Apples.....crumble.
Potatoes.....cook more than you need, mash em and fry with eggs for breakfast.

We always eat olives so wouldnt know what to do with leftovers.

With creme fraiche I would serve it with the crumble or

2 chicken breasts
Punnet cherry tomatoes
Oil
Bake this in oven for 40 mins.
Remove chicken, stir in creme fraiche, replace chicken and serve with mash and veg. The juices of tomatoes are lovely in the creamy sauce.