How Much Do You Waste?

Happy Thursday!

I don't know about you, but I'm so glad that tomorrow is Friday! (and it's "jeans day" at work ... hooray!)

Here is what's in the oven right now at this very moment while I type and what also just so happens to be dinner ... I don't know what you'd call it ... Lemon Pepper Chicken with Coconut, perhaps? Basically, it's just some frozen chicken breasts with pepper, a the juice of a lemon, and some sprinkled unsweetened shredded organic coconut on top. I then put a lemon slice on each breast and added some veggies. I'll have to show a finished product tomorrow.

I read this is our most recent Mother Earth News magazine:

"A recent study from the University of Arizona shows that most people underestimate how much food they waste. For example, you might think you are tossing only about 1% of the food that goes through your kitchen, but the real number is probably closer to 15%. Some things get lost in the refrigerator no matter what you do but you can save money day after day by minimizing waste."

While Erik and I don't typically have problems with food going to waste -- (see our fridge the day before grocery shopping) -- I thought these were good ideas and we already do a few of them.

Tips on how to avoid wasting food:

- Use leftovers by combining them in mysteriously delicious wraps, omelets or soups.

-Make smoothies from fruit (or veggies!) that will soon be overripe. Ripe unpeeled bananas will turn black if you freeze the, but they will still be fine for smoothies. Turn overripe apples into spicy applesauce.

-Make your own stocks and broths from meat and vegetable trimmings. You can freeze stock in glass jars as long as you leave 2 inches of head space to allow for expansion.

-Freeze temporary overstocks of bread, including hard crusts or stale bread. Use them to make French toast, bread pudding, seasoned bread crumbs, or savory stratas.

-Clean our your refrigerator once every week. Eat, cook, or freeze anything that's worth saving.

-Declare periodic "food rest days" during which the head cook gets the day off, thus encouraging active refrigerator foraging by other household members.

Hope everyone has a very happy, very blessed, very lovely Friday! : )