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

Here's mine, just had a haircut for lunch today. I think it's "nice and spicy"

A tip on bagged salads - the french brand "florette" lasts best. I never buy supermarket own, they go to pulp almost as soon as you get them through the till

Asda's jamie oliver salad with pea shoots is good as well, as is mache/lambs lettuce

Celery: whizz up in food processor and add to anything where you'd use an onion. Fry in oil plus a tiny bit of butter very slowly til it's sort of see through, then it will be sweet and not sharp like it is raw. Vg for bulking out soup, stew, shepherds' pie etc

DoJo - you're obviously a better housekeeper than me...I've just had a look at the bottom of my fridge and that would be one manky soup!

when people are saying they have grapes left over I just can't relate. Surely grapes are yummy and you can eat half a bunch as a snack if needs be?

The main waste in this house is bread as it varies whether we need sandwiches and toast or not.

Bread and bags of salad items such as watercress. Why the supermarkets sell it in such huge quantities beats me. There's only so many times I can have watercress in my sandwich.

Precious I do the same with my bread. I also save the crusts until I have enough to make an old fashioned bread pudding.

Very interesting thread. I regularly let avocados go from unripe to mushy to into the bin before I get round to eating them.

My tip on salads etc is a Jamie Oliver one. I make massive pots of tomato/veg sauce for pasta. It's loads of onions and garlic, and whatever veg I have in the fridge (usually carrots, butternut squash, odds and ends of cabbage) and then I throw in the wilted half pack of salad and virtually everything else (not avocado though...) and simmer it with a couple of tins of tomatoes and some chilli for 40 mins. Then blitz it with my liquidiser and freeze it in small boxes. It makes a surprisingly delicious tomato sauce for pasta - loads nicer than you can buy and I also use it for pizzas, perking up meatballs etc.

When I buy a bag of watercress, I make a cheese sandwich with big artisan style bread lots of butter and some salad cream, and then put the whole bag of watercress in! My dh hates the stuff, and ds won't eat it, so I figure it's the only way to go. Suddenly craving said sandwich (we need a Homer Simpson style drooling emoticon really for threads like this).

Veggies don't go to waste in our house because I mush them up and freeze them in ice cube trays. Easier to defrost and you can portion control more easily.

Freezer is my friend. 90% of my food is in there - everything from apples to bacon to milk to zuccini.

Creme fraiche - Goes surprisingly well with chocolate cake and can also be stirred into yoghurts, used as a garnish for soup of served with jam in ramekins as a surreal emergency dessert.

Sweetcorn - throw it in any stew, pasta sauce, or pie mix.

Coleslaw - chop up your apples, and mix the remaining cole slaw with your leftover olives and grapes. Little cubes of ham and edam cheese, and you have quite a nice lunch there, a kind of chef's salad.

Olives - put it in your Martini.

Grapes - soak in brandy and serve as an after dinner 18th century indulgence.

Apples - Turn into a crumble, bake them and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche and a drizzle of honey, or juice them with carrots and a big of ginger. Or cook up with mixed dried fruit and use as a lumpy compote for breakfast with natural yoghurt. Or yes, your creme fraiche.

Potatoes - Mash and freeze.

My trick with bags of salad and rocket is to dampen a sheet of kitchen towel and put it in the open pack as soon as I get it in the house. It lasts a good five days. Also works well with coriander and other leafy herbs.

Bought coleslaw is horrible, can't believe so many of you buy it. It's so easy to make and tastes great. I use half and half mayonnaise and Greek yoghurt. DD devours it.

I like to mince left over carrots, celery, onion and freeze for the next bolognese sauce.

idem spring onions and grated or sliced ginger - use them for stir fries.

also some herbs (not parsley) .

i mostly throw out frozen and defrosted stuff: think I will use it and once it is defrosted cannot be bothered to use it.

and coconut milk. by the time I have cooked a curry I am too tired to scoop it out of the can and into the freezer...

Don't bother with tinned coconut milk, is the answer to that. Buy powdered - it lasts ages, you can use only what you need, and you can add it as powder if you like, rather than making it up with water as per instructions, which reduces need for simmering to reduce the sauce.

Carrots keep for much longer in the fridge if they are wrapped in newspaper.

Potatoes annoy me. We eat them about once a fortnight so any bags are too large. I wish they'd do smaller quantities.

Soft cheese. We have it once a week or so with pasta (easy sauce the DC love). But other than that only DD eats it. And at 8mo there's only so much she can eat.

Agree with cabbage. But we have it less often now.

DH has taken to buying a single chilli every week which he then doesn't use.

We've just got a food waste bin so i shall be keeping a better eye now on what we throw away.

Leftover potatoes and cabbage? Sounds like you need bubble and squeak

We use creme fraiche instead of custard/cream with puddings, so I can make a sweet summer pudding and the sugariness is cut by having creme fraiche with it.

Potatoes which are sprouting can be planted. Make sure they're well watered and you will only ever have to dig up as many as you need for the rest of the year.

Soft cheese can be made into a quick sauce for pasta.

We keep herbs in the freezer and shatter as much as we need at a time (Masterchef gave me the idea of Shattered Herbs in a bit of piss take, but it works for cooking. I haven't tried my other idea of smearing chocolate and calling it Skidmarks of Chocolate.)

Lots of things are improved by maple syrup, imo.

The leftover I have a problem with is pork.

Potatoes but a potato keeper bag from poundland.
Freeze the opened sweetcorn.

You're not supposed to plant sprouted shop-bought potatoes because it can cause disease (blight?). That's what I heard, anyway.

CorusKate - powdered coconut milk? never seen or heard of it. Must search for it.

This thread made me bung a handful of basil leaves into a cottage pie which then made me bung in a tin of tomatoes. Was quite exotic

I haven't seen powdered coconut milk but you can get blocks of creamed coconut that can be mixed with hot water to make either coconut milk or coconut cream with less water. Keeps in the fridge for months, costs less than a pound a block and is the equivalent of four tins of coconut milk, but you can use just the amount you need.