Leftovers & Food Waste

My refrigerator.  The bottom shelf is used to store leftovers and flour. 

Notice we've used up all our leftovers.  Time to get cooking!

In spite of the astronomical amount of food in my home I have a relatively empty refrigerator most of the time.  If I can see space on the shelves, that is a good thing.  If my refrigerator is cluttered and the shelves are full it means one of two things.  It is Thanksgiving Day or I'm not doing something right.

Leftovers are an integral part of my meal planning process.  I not only embrace them but I depend on them.  Leftovers are great!  I use them for additional meals and to pack school and work lunches.  I also freeze them for future meals.  I love to cook in big batches, but because we can't possibly eat it all at one time I like to freeze a portion in containers and serve them the following week or month.

This not only saves me a lot of money on groceries but also a lot of time spent in the kitchen preparing meals.  Saving time on meal preparation, especially during the week is very important to me.  I have a lot to do and not much time in which to get it all done.

The Leftover Shelf

I also find I waste a whole lot less food using up leftovers.  One of the best things I did was to designate a shelf in my refrigerator as the shelf for storing leftovers.  It really helps me keep things from getting lost in there as well as lets me know at a glance that if the shelf is getting full we need to have a "leftover buffet" for supper that night or I need to put some things in the freezer.  If the shelf is relatively empty then I know I am doing things right and utilizing our food properly.

Keeping your refrigerator organized and routinely going through it to take an inventory helps a lot too.  I try to go through it once a month, remove everything, clean the shelves and crisper drawers and then put everything back where it belongs before I do my monthly grocery shopping.  I also organize the pantry that day too.  This way I have it fresh in my mind what I already have on hand.  Then I update my grocery list one final time and off to the store I go.

Fortunately our food waste is relatively nil and now that we have the chickens they help us too so that stale bread and limp veggies have a more useful purpose than the compost bin.  After all, one can only use so much bread crumbs.  Most of our compost is yard debris, coffee grounds, dryer lint and vegetable scraps the chickens don't really care for.   I'm pretty proud of the lack of food waste at our house.

Do you have a useful tip you would like to share?

 

You might enjoy revisiting Food Storage Containers.