I defrosted more pita bread than my kids wound up eating, and the leftovers were getting stale. Sound familiar?
āSpread them on a sheet pan and toast them until they’re crispy ā¦ and grind them up in your food processor into crumbs,ā says Seattle food journalist Jill Lightner.
An inch of leftover salad dressing lingering in the fridge?
āIf it’s like an Italian vinaigrette, it’s an amazing marinade for any vegetable.ā Brush it on chicken thighs or burgers before grilling. Add it to soup.
Lightner should know. In her book “Scraps, Peels and Stems” (Skipstone Press) she offers good advice and recipes for how to waste less food, especially going into the holiday season. We need those skills; the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that as much as 40 percent of Americaās food,
Why bother fighting waste, when life is busy enough and Seattle offers curbside composting? In the small picture as well as the big one, cutting food waste saves money. It helps the environment. Ultimately, it helps battle hunger.
āIt doesnāt mean you have to eat foods that you dislike, and it doesnāt mean you have to staple your kidsā butts to the kitchen chair and say āYou can’t get up until you finish your plate,āā she says.
Jill Lightnerās top tips:
- Foods arenāt necessarily spoiled just because theyāve passed a āsell byā date. Smells and visual cues are more useful (Is the milk curdled? Are the vegetables slimy?)
- Buy smaller containers of milk (or shelf-stable boxes) so you donāt wind up pouring out the last pint in the gallon.
- Instead of fresh seafood ā our most-wasted food category ā consider canned (itās cheaper, too!) or frozen.
- Frozen unseasoned vegetables are nutritious and last much longer than fresh.
- Use up pantry odds and ends with flexible recipes like granola or muffins.
- Instead of lettuce, which often rots before itās eaten, make lettuce-free salads or use hardy greens like kale, where you can toss a sliced handful into your pasta or inside a quesadilla.
- Make realistic meal plans. Better to order pizza on purpose one night than do it at the last minute and waste the ingredients for the dinner youād planned.
- Help kids track what theyāre not eating in their lunches, and change packing habits accordingly.
- Buy a smaller Thanksgiving turkey: Grocery stores tell you to plan on at least a pound per person, but half of that will give you a feast ā and youāll still have leftovers.
Here’s Lightner’s recipe for Use-It-Up Granola.
Seattle parent Rebekah Denn can confirm that the liquid in cans of beans makes a surprisingly good egg substitute in waffles.
This article was first published in November 2018.
More in Feeding the Family:
Cooking disasters now help kids prepare for a lifetime of making healthy food