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

Don't feed chewed-crust pudding to guests though

Fuzzpig you don't need to peel ginger that you are freezing. The skin disappears when you grate from frozen.

Freeze fresh chillies as well then chop into things with scissors when you need.

Left over olives go on pizza (shop bought!), or chopped in pasta puttanesca.

I will confess to throwing out chicken giblets. If I had a freezer I would use them to make stock.

fuzzpig, yes to the lemons & limes. I just cut them in wedges, freeze on a tray, then shovel them into a bag. I like them in gin & tonic though - straight from the freezer, no need for ice cubes!

In the summer when basil is cheap, I make pesto with extra garlic and freeze it in ice-cube trays for handy portions.

I use left-over carrots for soup, depends on what I have around but carrot, lentil & tomato is lovely.

Sour cream/creme fraiche....there are some really nice cake recipes that use sour cream. Just google a few, Americans seem very keen on sour cream in cakes.

YY to freezing lemons.

Pop them straight in your G&T and they double as ice

ha ha total x post!!

Keep spring onions in water on the worktop, like flowers in a vase. They keep growing and stay firm.

I too have the bean sprout problem, you just can't buy them in small quantities.

If it's for sauce, I use full fat Greek yogurt instead of Cyrene fraiche, if I have it. Saves buying a very roughly similar product.

There's probably other dairy substitutes that can be made, to enable buying fewer items, giving more chance for them to be used up.

Cream cheese is nice just spread on crackers or bread, with an absolute crapload of pepper on top.

Gotta have the makings of a good g & t, mawbroon!

I reckon you could freeze the antipasti veg, like olives the texture will deteriorate, but that's ok if you use the In a sauce.

I freeze tinned sweet corn, works out fine too.

( whoever asked you need to take stuff out of tins once you have opened them because once the metal is exposed to the air it will react and taint the food)

I can solve the coleslaw and creme fraiche issues. Make your own coleslaw as needed with sliced cabbage (it keeps a long time in the fridge), grated carrot and some spring onion mixed up with the creme fraiche. It's loads nicer than the ready made stuff.

Fucking autocorrect. Cyrene (wtf) = creme, obviously.

I was imagining the crusts being cut off before serving, not as chewed up remains. Perhaps just give them to the birds if that's the case.

I freeze quartered limes and use instead of ice cubes ( buy em in bulk when on offer at aldi)

I didn't have a freezer for years. It was a bloody revelation when I did get one!

Coleslaw here too, plus tomatoes that have gone mouldy (if they're bland, no one ever fancies them) and the arse end of a bag of salad that's gone limp. Less waste there than 3/4 of a lettuce, mind.

Sometimes I'll get a couple of meals out of a cabbage and then get bored of it or not eat anything else it goes with before it gets nasty.

I tend to buy carrots loose, but it frustrates me when I can't because I find it almost impossible to get through a bag of them before they walk out of the fridge of their own accord.

No one eats celery raw apart from DS1 having the very occasional half a stick, so the middle of a head of it inevitable ends up brown and limp.

Bread
Ham

Nice idea, calamitously. Would also help with the cabbage problem, as I find that one cabbage makes enough meals to feed the five thousand, so otften struggle to use a whole one up.

Lettuce, like a lot of other people.

Apparently it is officially the most thrown out food in the UK, I read a year or so ago.

Agree we need to be able to get bean sprouts in smaller quantities

I have sprouted my own, and they are bloody gorgeous but far too much faff now I have a life

Cucumber. I can only eat so much raita.

I put leftover veg in mince dishes. If you don't want lumps of veg in your bolognese (or whatever), grate it. Carrots and courgettes work particularly well.

Can make bubble and squeak patties with leftover potatoes and any green veg like broccoli or cabbage , mix some cream cheese with , or other soft cheese , and then freeze them with a layer of grease proof between then so they unstick easily . Then I bung a load in the freezer and take them out one or two at a time with a poached egg on top . Lovely .

Freeze loads of left over bread of all kinds , ciabatta , anything can be turned into breadcrumbs . If I have any odd bits of herbs I chuck the whole lot in the processor and whizz the lot into submission , then use for frozen for all sorts of stuff like chicken kievs or schnitzels etc .

ouryve blanche carrotts and cabbage (separately) for three mins in boiling water, plunge into reeeeeally cold water to cool, drain, separate into portions then freeze

I do the bubble and squeal thing plomino

Loving the Dinner of Doom also.

Bagged salad. I think we buy it just to throw it in the bin. Also spinach.

Lemons and limes. Although I will admit to buying them en masse every week to use as decoration.

Decorative citrus? At 30p a pop?