Good morning!

Ahhh, what a way to start the new non-31 days, no? Late.

About that food waste! I did really, really well for the 31 days, all things considered. I made sure to clean out the fridge anyway, and lost: 1/2 can of tomatoes and peppers, last scrapings of a tub of sour cream (we had 3 at one point, it wasn’t good), a package of goat cheese, a terrifying carrot that looked on the verge of explosion, and that’s it. 4 things over 4 weeks! I was thrilled! It’s a little full in there right now, but i did save some lettuce! We had a container that reached it’s sell-by date at the same time my husband wanted a dinner salad. Fated, I tell you – we devoured all of it instead of trying to fit it in as a side salads until it went bad.

On the list for this week to eat: buffalo potato casserole, enchiladas, turkey burgers, teriyaki chicken thighs (this one is our crock-pot meal…I have to start that tonight!) garlic yogurt macaroni, paninis, chicken alfredo a la olive garden.

In other news, my son has been singing while I write this post: “Bless the Lord, oh my soul, clap clap for letter C! Come fount of this is birdie!” So I’m going to go join him. And hope I can keep a straight face!

It’s that time again! This week, 1 carrot that got lost behind the milk, and a serving of fried rice. I tried on the fried rice, I really did. It was just not that good.

However, I have some cottage cheese that HAS to go, and a small thing of rice leftover from when I made orange chicken. Might have rice pudding. I also was going to write about this jar of applesauce, but after I found it the toddler sat down with the jar and a spoon. Okay, it was slightly more civilized than that (I did get him a bowl!), but not much.

And now to figure out what to eat this week!

Happy Labor Day!

I hope you all had an enjoyable Labor Day! It was positively gorgeous here, light breeze, nice temps, plenty of sun, so we went on two walks today. And yet the toddler is still up, despite being allowed to run like a maniac as he pleased.

Harumph.

Well, to give this post a level of point, guess what I made today? Peach crisp, which is officially the Easiest Dessert Ever.

In a food processor, mix

3/4c brown sugar

1/2 c flour

1/2 c oats

spices, up to 2 tsp total (for peach, I left it out because I was out of ginger. Had I ginger, I would have used 1/2 tsp of that)

1/3 c butter

Whizz about until pea-sized.

Into 9×9, put 2 c peeled, chopped fruit. Top with crumble, bake 30 minutes at 375.

You’re welcome. At one point in my life, I kept crumble topping in a bowl in the fridge. You can have mini-crumbles made in the microwave in 45-90 seconds. It’s great.

Happy Labor Day, and I hope you have a happy fall!

First Food Waste Friday!

One of the things that gets me is the amount of food waste that our country is responsible for. Look up the statistics sometime. It’s sad. But, I know when I look at my own fridge I am definitely a contributor to the problem.

So I am taking the Food Waste Friday pledge – one of my favorite blogs ever, the Frugal Girl, has been doing food waste Friday for years.  You simply pledge to picture or talk about your food waste every Friday as an accountability for it. Not to guilt you – like I said, FG has been doing this for years and she’s in Super Advanced mode, but she still regularly has a couple things she has to post. But, knowing you’ll have to post about them if you throw them away is a good motivation to eat that handful of berries.

SO! My food waste for the week is as follows: 2 c chicken noodle soup (oops), 1 tortilla (this makes me mad – the package was partway open and I missed it. Hard as a rock), leftover barbecue pork that didn’t turn out well, and curry. All very preventable, ugh!

I did have at least one success! We get chips sometimes to dip in hummus or farmer’s market dips,  but a lot of times the dip runs out way before the chips do, and they get stale. This is how I deal with that:

Spanish Chicken

2 c shredded chicken, or so.

4T butter

4T flour

2C chicken stock

1 can diced chilis and tomatoes

2 small onions, diced

1 bell pepper, diced.

6 oz cheese, shredded.

Taco seasoning to taste (we make our own here – so easy)

Corn chips that are going stale or are crumbles – I like plain tortilla chips, but Doritos or Fritos are good too if you have that sort of thing.

In a 9×13 pan, crush the chips and spread them out.

Melt butter over medium heat, add onions and peppers, if using. Cook until translucent. Add flour. Cook for 3 minutes, stirring to prevent burning. Add chicken stock while whisking and cook until thickened. Add can of chilis and tomatoes, chicken, taco seasoning and 4 oz cheese. Stir until cheese is melted. Pour over chips, top with remaining cheese.

Bake at 450* until you can’t stand the deliciousness, about 20 minutes. Serve with sour cream.