What’s next for this meal?
Let’s think before we cook! So we can eliminate food waste in our kitchens. Say to yourself – “Whats next for this meal?”
I don’t have trouble because we have pigs and chickens but in other houses the people get to eat all the food!
Here is Wai!
Do you remember when he first came to the Farmy?
Here is a funny story about him. We don’t want to go back too much further for Wai. That story is so sad. But he survived! And is the resident curmudgeon.
We were all ready for the cold but this week it is back up in the 50’s. Nice and warm.
Here is a Ukrainian Poppy Seed loaf. This is not a sweet cake. From The Moosewood Cookbook.
We cleaned the windows in the glasshouse to let more light in. The water collected while the shower warms up is all carted into the glasshouse for watering the plants. Also water in buckets makes a kind of heat sink – helping the area to stay warm. But, like I say, it has not got cold yet!
Today I will start some Thanksgiving Loaves of bread. My contribution is also the Baked Acorn Squash. I cannot get enough of this!
No work for the rest of the week which is unnerving. A fluctuating income is not a comfort. But I continue to work and write and move slowly towards my Sustainable Spaces coaching site.
When I make a meal I am always looking to what is next with the meal. Freezing lunch sized portions or making stock and freezing that.
A fry-up!
When creating your Thanksgiving feast remember to think the food through to its next iteration.
☹️Dumping food into a bin is obscene.
So cook in a way that enables you to eat the leftovers. Fry-ups are my favourite. Above is macaroni cheese fried in salted butter! The cheese in the cheese sauce caramelized and the breadcrumbs added crunch. This was delicious.
If you can’t eat those left overs immediately – pop them into containers and into the freezer and don’t forget the note on the fridge telling you what is in the freezer. No meal likes to sit in the deep freeze for too long.
That Turkey carcass will make a great stock! I freeze stock into small two cup containers. Use up all those plastic containers that cottage cheese or sour cream come in. ( oh how I miss my milking days!)
PS Dogs love mashed potatoes and green bean casserole! And stuffed acorn squash for that matter!
PSS Note the dog blankets on the couch! 😳🦋 The dogs are old now. Gone soft!!
Have a great day!
And in the comments tell me your fav way to save leftovers. It is old fashioned! We love old fashioned!
Cecilia
27 Comments on “What’s next for this meal?”
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I alway wish I had pigs when I’m peeling potatoes and preparing vegetables. Wai looks so happy and he’s got someone he trusts. He was in such a sorry state when you got him! I hope he forgets the past as he gets older.
I think he had forgotten. He growled at me for almost a year.!
When I am in California (and NZ) I long for a pig. I am thinking of getting one of those barrel compost thingies. ( if I can find one second hand) Just so I can try it out to see if it would work for a person with only a porch or tiny yard.
Good idea! Camden council gave me a largeish recycled plastic compost bin once, it sits upright on the earth. It’s no good for a porch, but good in a small yard. It’s currently in a friend’s back garden in Kings Cross and still looks new, about 18 years later. It makes great compost with veggie waste, leaves, paper, etc.
Do you have an area “Buy Nothing (name of you town) through Facebook? I am part of a three town group (our towns are small) and today I have gifted, the term for giving away, three old double hung windows. I have also gifted in the past puzzles, old Christmas decorations, clothes, dishes, etc. which I haven’t used in years. When my young grandsons came to visit, I was able to get a stroller, baby seat, large Legos. When they left, I regifted the items they would be too big for on their next visit. People also post “wish” or In Search Of (item). On several occasions, I have been able to fulfill their wish.
This philosophy seems that it would meet your concern for living sustainably as my junk becomes someone’s treasure. Less going into landfills.
Perhaps you could ask locally if someone has a composting bin they are looking to dispose of.
This is a fantastic thought Sandy. I have friends who do this in the city. I am seldom on FB but I bet there is a local site like that. Thank you so much!
You may be a bit rural for Freecycle on the Farmy, but it’s worth trying. I’ve had some amazing things over the last couple of years and found homes for my own cast offs!
Yes, it’s important to use all the bits and pieces and try not to be tossing food away. As a single I usually find myself adapting recipes to smaller portions that can be used up in 1 or 2 meals. When I choose meals for the week I also try to pick those that have the same ingredients. I’m much more assured that things won’t go to waste and only buy what I need. I could eat a piece of that poppy seed loaf with my coffee this morning. Yummy!
Using the same ingredients in a different way through the week is an excellent tip Deb! Thank you!
We just don’t use the word ‘leftovers’. It’s just ingredients for the next meal. I make stock (meat or vegetable) every week for the Husband’s work soup (he takes a thermos of home made soup to work every day), so nothing goes to waste there. I can get three or four meals for two out of one chook. Ma was a very, very frugal woman, and taught me well 😊. Oh, and potato peelings? If you cook them, the chickens will gobble them up. I have two buckets on the benchtop. One is chook scraps, the other is compost scraps, the stuff I can’t give the chooks or the dog (fish bones, citrus, etc). I recently gave the chooks the remains of a hand of sugar bananas I couldn’t process in time (it’s too hot right now for them to keep). They demolished the lot. We’ll get the return in the form of eggs. I render meat fat for cooking with, I have a jar of beautiful white tallow and another of beautiful white dripping, waiting for frying and roasting. None of this stuff is hard, you just have to be bothered to do it, and get into a routine of doing it regularly, and it becomes second nature.
You are such an inspiration- I can always depend on you to share your great tips. Though I read that too fast and thought I read that you gave the remains OF A HAND to the chooks!!
I laughed !!
Oh, as IF! That would have gone to the dog! 😂
I still use my old Moosewood Cookbook too! Some good recipes there.
Yes! Mine is literally falling apart!
Awesome post- we eat up all our leftovers! no wasting here! Cheers and Happy Thanksgiving!
Have a lovely day!!
I’ve gotten pretty good over the years, at repurposing food, either heating it up or making it into something new –
We really can’t afford to be throwing food out now.
Here in Portland, our compost is picked up with garbage and recycling, so all food scraps go into the compost bin. Even with that, I don’t peel carrots or other veggies, just scrub them really well. I read an article a while ago about how food waste is a huge part of our garbage problem and that you don’t really need to peel. I hate doing it, so now I don’t. And I love leftovers. I cook in anticipation of having good lunches for my husband and I.
As long as your root vegetables are organic – no need to peel.
The more I hear about Portland the more I love it.
Since we have just celebrated Thanksgiving and have a ton of turkey I thought I would share several of my favorites. Usually the first one I make is the broth from the carcass to be turned into soup with veggies. The first one to eat is fried rice with turkey and a grand mix of veggies so it does not seem like a rerun of turkey. I then dice several containers for the freezer to make Turkey Tetrazzini and a Turkey Shepherds Pie based on a recipe of Rachel Ray’s. If there is any turkey left it goes into lunches for the week. Hope you all had a great holiday.
That shepherds pie would be great!
The secret is in the dicing into containers – that is an excellent tip’
We’re travelling in our caravan for a few weeks and we’re employing our leftovers and bits’n’ pieces similarly to what we do at home. If we go to the pub for a meal which we can never finish, the remain go into plastic tubs which I take with me and into our tiny fridge-freezer… we really look forward to eating them fried up with an egg. We shop and cook with the aim of leftovers but on a smaller scale than at home.
Before we left I packed as much from the garden as was ready to pick, emptied what was left into the house fridge into the van along with more than enough pantry basics.
Along the way we’ve enjoyed shopping for fresh food locally from small country town shops. No-waste becomes a mindset.
I love how you travel so much!!
I am a bit envious actually – remind me where you are in Aussie again?
We moved from Sydney at the end of 2016 to live 500 km further north on the Coffs/Mid North Coast/Nambucca Valley… since our around Australia road trip in 2016 when we had lunch with you in Melbourne we haven’t done as much travelling as we’d like due to circumstance and Covid… but right now we’re camping alongside a dam, a few days from the end of a 3 week road trip around country NSW. We’ve really enjoyed remembering how to do it!
Ah! I knew you were traveling when we had our rendezvous but could not remember where about your home was. Camping is a safe way to travel I think?
In the early days of Covid the restrictions on movement as well as the risk of infection meant travel wasn’t doable. Before that the G.O. had several rounds of osteo surgery that kept us at home. Now fuel prices and accommodation-of-all-kinds prices have sky-rocketed! So camping in our own state is our most viable option, and safest given the current wave of Covid that seems to occur annually to herald the festive season. Plus it is lovely to explore small towns and waterways.
Yes it is! Getting to know the spots close to home is wonderful and so much more doable. Plus easy to be able to return to a favorite spot.