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

Green peppers used to be a problem in our house then we got guinea pigs - result (not helpful, I know).

I have stopped buying small pots of yoghurt as some always get thrown away - big pots of plain gk yoghurt are much more versatile and can have jam/honey stirred in for pudding, also used for breakfast etc.

Hummus, even when slightly on the turn, goes very nicely into soup, as do most leftover cooked things. Liquidised, no-one can tell what's in it. I recommend putting any meat in after liquidising though but that's a personal preference- I don't like mashed meat. Bung in a tin of beans and some miniature pasta, spot of smoked paprika (Pimenton) and you have a very good minestrone.

Twelveleggedwalk

May I ask how long your big tub philadelphia is open before you throw it away?

One of my top tips to reduce food waste is to ignore all the instructions that say 'once opened use within 3 days' or similar, and use your own judgement.

I will keep opened philadelphia until I can see the first mould spots growing in it, which takes at least 2/3 weeks in my experience, and even then, I will probably remove the mould and use the rest up straight away. Neither DP or I have ever noticed bad tasting food, or had food poisoning by doing this.

Many 'food safety' instructions are to account for people whose fridges are too warm, or don't put their chilled stuff in the fridge straight away or use the knife that is covered in buttery toast crumbs to get their jam or philadelphia out of the container. If you are more careful, food will be safe to eat for much longer.

My jam for example (Aldi 50/50 fruit/sugar conserve, very nice and about a third of the price of Bonne Maman or similar) has been fine in the fridge for months, but says 'once opened, use within 4 weeks'. It's jam FFS, the whole point of having it is to preserve fruit.

Some cheeses have a use by date that passes before the cheese even ripens, so dates on them can also be ignored.

To all those struggling with green peppers, I do the following side dish and it tastes better with green than the others!
Cut into 1/2 inch slices, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, cook in a little oil until going brown, chuck on a little feta when finished cooking so feta is a little oozy.

wow.

stop buying bagged salad, the price and the waste involved is eyewatering. If you don't eat the stuff, don't buy it. Wrong time of year for lettuce anyway. Eat seasonal - and if you have a bit of space to grow lettuce, do that. You'll never eat the supermarket cack again.

spuds don't go in the fridge. They go in one of those dark bags in a cool place (porch? room with no heating?) That way they really do last a long time.

most use-by dates can safely be ignored. If it isn't green and smelly, eat it. If it is stilton cheese eat it even if it IS green and smelly.

olives in a glass jar last ages.

most fruit and veg can be bought loose. Buy what you will use.

I often make Elderly Veg Stew, which is a hit with DS. One day, one day, I shall make the stew when the veg is fresh. If the things like leeks and courgettes are very elderly, I take the manky bits off and chop it all small, and make a kind of soffrito before adding the rest of the stew ingredients in.

We also have a dinner called Snack Plate, which is all the odds and ends which need eating up as a kind of meze - a few olives, slices of apple, bits of cheese, crackers, hummous, etc.

I've got a solution for hummus (shop bought or homemade).

when it starts to go a bit yucky, I mix it with flour and shape it into burgers. Just shallow fry them and the children love them.

my solution with hummus is to add flour and shape into veggie burgers. Just shallow fry them and the kids love them

I have one of those season ticket delivery deals with Tesco now, so have food delivered every four to five days. Meal plan to within an inch of my life and have four perpetually hungry kids/teens, so the fridge is pretty bare on delivery day; hardly anything gets thrown away.

Except for potatoes. I keep them in a dark cupboard that is opened at most twice a day but they always, always sprout. My Mum used to have a sack in the pantry for months. How do you all store your potatoes?

I always have wraps or wheat tortillas in the freezer.
Leftovers - any cheeses, sweet corn, ham, mashed potato, creme fraiche, anything really - go in, fry in a pan with sons oil, put filling, fold, flip,
Cut in wedges on a board, watch put for melted cheese.

DOn't worry IlkleyMoor, I'm very much of the keep-it-until-it-turns-furry mentality!
But Philly seems to go black and spotty or overly slimy quite quickly despite using a clean knife, and soft cheese + small children + listeria risk is about the only thing ( bar Chicken/salmonella risk) that I'm very fussy about.

I have noticed that some of the supermarket own brand soft cheeses don't taste as nice but do last longer.

Yoghurt. My kids like the Rachel's big pots but you can't seem to get it on small one serving pots? So they'll have a small bit in a cup and then it's been open 4/5 days and half the pot is going bad!! I was thinking maybe whizz up with strawberries and milk and vanilla extract to make smoothies??? Also we can never finish those round tins of Brioche. I stopped the kids having it for brekkie as its basically iced cake and now they only fancy it once in a blue moon. Maybe I'll buy those Pitch individual ones??

wouldn't 'fizzy' hummus give you a bad bottom? or are we not talking that far gone?

Eggy bread with brioche is lovely.

Also if you boil the potatoes and keep them boiled in the fridge then chances they will get used.
Fried with garlic and thT leftover mozzarella. On a frittata.
Salad, lots of other things

gingee brioche makes really lovely rich bread pudding. If you don't want to make it straight away, just slice the brioche and bung it in the freezer. Actually, if it is sliced, and frozen, you can take individual slices out for toast or eggy bread, as well as the bread pudding.

Also, I really like frozen yoghurt. If you have any ice lolly moulds just bung the leftover yoghurt in them.

I get the Lidl kg bucket of greek yogurt. Always use a clean sppon to serve it into a bowl and it lasts for a couple of weeks before going mouldy or about 6 days before I've eaten the lot

I make my own hummus in large batches and freeze in early weaning pots (about a tablespoon) so each pot can be eaten in 2-3 days.

Small tins of sweetcorn, slightly more expensive per 100g but cheaper if you otherwise through half of it away.

I peel leaves off cabbage and lettuce rather than chop slices off, it lasts much longer that way.

In this morning's fridge clean-out though I did the unthinkable, I had to throw away bacon (it was furry).

olives - i buy massive jars from lidl, drain them then dry them off in a tea towel overnight, then layer them back into the jar with sliced garlic, sliced chillis and a top up with evoo mixed with a couple of teaspoons of chipotle paste. Everyone, even folks who hate olives, seem to like these and because they are always covered in oil they don't go off. Not that that is ever really a problem!

green peppers - again I would stick blend and chuck in with bolognaise or any other pasta sauce or stew, although once they're roasted with the other peppers and garlic evoo I don't think they're really that noticable, and i second the suggestion of mixing them in a curry, I think they lend themself to curry.

yes, yes, yes to freezing lemon, limes and oranges that are a bit tired, for use in gin and tonic to stop the ice from watering it down!

Bananas, even pretty brown ones, get bunged in freezer in skins until i have time to make a banana cake/muffins with them, or my ds favourite use is in a berry smoothie. buy frozen berrys, bung in a frozen banana dash of orange juice and some yoghurt, yum!

Also cook and freeze potatoes mashed and sometimes mix with leeks sauteed in butter. Also bulk buy leeks when on offer in Aldi, slice and saute in butter then freeze. You can just hack some off the block and use in quiches, sauces, soups, anything really.

However, we do have chickens so plate scrapings and the occasional scientific discovery at the back of the fridge always get used up.

I am struggling with the concept of food not being used. What is quite depressing is that it is fruit and veg mainly......yoghurts, if they are nearing the end of their life why not encourage them to be eaten ? Or eat it yourself ?.

Er, because life's not like that and things occasionally get overlooked Still.

Things occasionally get overlooked, I do get that. But people here are talking about regularly throwing out salad, vegetables and yoghurt. I don't go shopping again till the fridge is near enough empty so there is no choice but to eat up slightly older food. I also have an idea what's there and what needs using for example last night I used floppy carrots and celery to make minestrone eaten with goats cheese left over from pizza at the weekend. I opened a melon this am so I know that the dcs need to take that to school tommorow.

Oh, just remembered, I also stick chicken carcasses into bags and freeze; when I've got a couple and can be arsed I bung them in the stockpot with leftover carrots, onions and celery and make stock for soup.

Which can also be frozen in handy bags for use when the mood takes you, ie when you have yet more elderly veg to deal with

This is a great thread, and I am stupidly excited to hear that you can freeze hummus and olives. I am also one of the freezing lemons and limes for G & T brigade

Creme fraiche - I do a great and easy Mary Berry recipe for pasta - creme fraiche, parma ham, mushrooms and parsley. It is delicious and all the family like it. Also great on top of chillis and baked potatoes.

I tend to do omelettes once a week as we all like them, and I use whatever we have in the fridge up in them.

I have a load of over ripe pears, this thread has inspired me to go and make a pudding with them. Normally they would have grown fur and then been chucked.

Boggles at the thought of overlooked bacon .

I would have thought that to be an even rarer concept than leftover wine.

I do sometimes have leftover wine, as only I drink it, so I store it in the freezer in little plastic tubs (you can get a mixed pack from ikea for not very much ) as it comes in handy when you need a glass of wine for spaghetti bolognese, or a stew or whatever.

Well, no all of us have spreadsheets on our fridge doors and this thread is giving people ideas about how to use stuff up.

Are you honestly telling us that you are so organised that you never throw stuff away, ever, Still.