06 Oct
Utilizing Fresh Produce
As I’m sure you know by now, I love the farmer’s market. And I love vegetables. But throwing out moldy unused vegetables sucks, especially when you are paying so much for them!
The best method I’ve found for using them up is to create a list on the side of the fridge that details the contents of the fridge.
Green is used for vegetables
Red is used for fruit.
Black is used for… other things.
The (R) means that it’s cut up and ready to eat.
The (L) means they are leftovers.
When it’s time to make something, I look at the side of my fridge and string ingredients together. We eat pretty simply, and we eat a lot of the same dishes over and over, so it’s really not that hard.
Any other tricks for making the most of what you have in the fridge?
Also:
I'm a farm-raised almost-crunchy stroller-pushing picture-taking lifestyle-blog-writing gastronomy-obsessed divine-seeking thrift-store-combing cheese-inhaling pavement-pounding laughter-sprinkling lover of individuality and taking chances.
This is such a great idea! C is always complaining about how he doesn’t know what’s in the fridge and what’s ours. Totally implementing this when I get back.
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1This is brilliant, especially for people like me that utilize the drawers in the fridge. I just discovered two containers of raspberries that had mold and I was so bummed - I LOVE raspberries and hated to pitch them out.
I can imagine this would be helpful if you (like me!) call from the market to say, “do we have any garlic in the fridge?” and know that your husband just won’t find it, even if it is there.
Great tip!
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2One great piece of advice I once got with vegetables or even herbs:
If you know you aren’t going to end up using them in time, put in a freezer bag to preserve them before they mold. Then when you have enough vegetables or herbs, you can boiler into a vegetable stock for use in soup or cooking rice, etc. Or use with chicken to make a chicken stock/broth. I do this with the stems of herbs like parsely and cilantro when I only use the leaves. And you can save bits of carrots or celery that you might not otherwise eat but can add flavor to a stock.
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3That is such a good idea! I’m seriously getting a white board for that the next time I go to the store! Thanks for the tip!
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4Does that say frosting down near the bottom? Um, YUM! We’d never have any of that leftover in our fridge.
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5You might like to read The Frugal Girl’s blog. She talks a lot about food waste and her family’s tactics for minimizing what they throw away.
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Sophia Reply:
October 6th, 2010 at 10:28 am
I love her blog! I’ve read it every day for a few years now, I love her attitude.
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I’m puzzled as to how there is leftover frosting in there. That just wouldn’t happen in our house. hah.
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7I do something similar to that, only I make a list of the possible meals I can make with what I have on hand that week. Try to brainstorm them all after grocery shopping, sketch out a rough idea for each day, but if something else sounds better, then I make that because I know I have the ingrediants. I like your idea for focusing and remembering what veggies I have. Great idea.
Has anyone ever tried those “green” bags - supposed to store fruit/veggies in them and they are supposed to last longer. Wanted to try, but never have!
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8This is a great post - I’m looking forward to some suggestions because I just threw away an eggplant, green beans and a mushy zucchini LAST night. So frustrating. I like the idea of using a list on the fridge to note what we have, because sometimes things end up in back of the fridge and I forget we have them.
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9I used to do the same thing a few years ago!! But then I got lazy… but it really is a good way to keep track. I’m guilty of letting veggies rot in the back of my fridge, heh heh.
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10I really like this idea, Jenna!
My fiancé and I are joining our local organic co-op and the prices are pretty steep (but worth it, as you know.)
We struggle with incorporating enough fresh veggies into our diets without going over budget and/or wasting perfectly good produce just because we don’t know it’s there or don’t know how to use it.
The whiteboard idea is a fabulous solution!
We’ve been experimenting with creating our meals based on what we have, rather than doing the opposite (looking up a recipe and then buying ingredients to fit.) In this way, we find we’re able to get creative with using up every bit of our groceries, even if it means sometimes eating repeat meals or strange new concoctions. I’m sure little T1 will appreciate your efforts and be much more healthily creative himself when it comes to eating!
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11Fabulous idea! My household is joining our local organic co-op, which is an expensive (but worthy) attempt to get more fresh produce into our lives & bellies!
Like you, we find the thought of dumping perfectly good (and $$$) veggies into the garbage each week wasteful and repulsive. I’m excited to try your solution for that!
One thing we’ve learned is that it makes a lot more sense to tailor menus based on what we already have in the fridge/pantry versus the other way around (i.e. looking up a recipe and then going to the store/market to buy ingredients.) We find that we’re more inclined to use up all of our groceries this way and get more veggies into the mix as well. Bonus: we’re getting way more “creative” with how we use our ingredients, even if it sometimes means repeat meals or strange concoctions! I’m sure little T1 will certainly appreciate your healthily creative food choices as he gets older, too:)
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12You know, this is such a simple idea, but I’ve never thought to do this! Having that visual would be really helpful, I think!
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13love this idea. I will have to implement this ~ as life has gotten busier, I’ve gotten much worse about using up our produce before it goes bad - to the point where I just started buying less produce in general. But that’s not the best option for healthy eating!
I do occasionally think to put things into the freezer if I don’t think I’ll use them in time. I love putting frozen berries into smoothies.
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14Love the idea for the veggie stock! Wonderful idea!
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15We have tried the whiteboard method, but I think our markets are bad as lame as that sounds. We have a pet bunny and she eats most fresh produce. We don’t give her anything bad, but maybe stuff that is slightly past what we might eat or berries that are tart (I am picky). She is our furry disposal.
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16Such a great idea! We’re horrible about forgetting what produce we have because it just hides out in that drawer and I feel so dirty wasting it! Maybe if we implement this it’ll help!
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17That is THE MOST AWESOME idea I’ve seen here yet!
My husband has “man vision”… which means if something isn’t front and center at his eye level in the fridge, it doesn’t exist. I could make a special color for him so he’d know what was there!
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18I LOVE this idea Jenna! I’ve thrown out many a vegetable in the past few years, and it’s getting annoying! I’m definitely going to utilize this idea! Thanks!!
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19This is such a great idea. I need to do this or something like it because I’m constantly forgetting to use everything.
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20fantastic idea! if i implement this i wonder if my husband will stand at the open refrigerator asking if we have xyz.
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21I love this!!! And we will be implementing it ASAP. Thanks for the suggestion.
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22We really should do something like that as every few weeks I find something we didn’t quite get around to eating and have to throw it out. I know some of my friends are huge tupperware fans and use them to help prolong the life of their fruits and veggies but I would rather by smaller quantities of things and get them more frequently. (I guess it also helps that I live across the street from the grocery store. haha)
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23DUDE. Simple idea but brilliant. I definitely see the need for this after the hubs the other night discovered a bowl of shrunken, er, kinda hairy meatballs in the back of our fridge… yikes.
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24I live by meal planning and have for the last 5 years or so. Every week I try to select some meals to eat (in no particular order) for the next week and then make a grocery list. I try to think about what’s available at the farmer’s market, on sale at the store, or what we have left over. I love using cookbooks or Everyday Food to get ideas, and we’ve been eating much, much better and rarely need to throw out ANY old food. I also swear by learning about how to properly store food. For example, if you take mushrooms out of the plastic container and store in a paper bag with a lightly dampened paper towel, they will seriously last forever!
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25Genuis idea! I’m always throwing away food because I forget whats in the fridge.
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26We create two week food calendars. It helps because we buy two weeks worth of food at the markets and then I can prepare for upcoming meals if they need extensive prep time.
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27I do this with meals. If I have all the ingredients to make something, it goes on the list, and then is marked as leftovers once it’s been made, or it’s erased (if there’s none left). This helps us get through everything in the fridge too.
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28This is brilliant! I am so horrible at letting things just waste away inside the refrigerator!! I love this idea! I’m definitely going to figure out a way to implement it in our home! Thank you!
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29I hope you’re not keeping your beautiful heirloom tomatoes in the fridge! For shame! Never refrigerate tomatoes - especially the really good ones. It gives them that mealy texture and kills the flavor.
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30We have the problem of buying produce and then letting it go to waste. :/ It pains my soul to throw it away! I hate wasting food. I need to implement a list like this.
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31I like the idea of the board mainly for leftovers, because that’s what gets wasted the most in our house.
We’re doing pretty good with produce since I started making menus and only buying what I need to cook that week.
I look at our pantry, think about what’s in season and look in my favorite cook books to find inspiration.
I hate food wasting in the fridge. I think that’s why I started an herb garden because recipes always call for just a tiny amount of fresh herbs and in the stores you always have to buy a bunch and it’s expensive.
Now with parsley, sage, rosemary and more right in front of our yard I only clip what I need and there is no dead stinky herbs in our fridge. Oh and you can do small window herb garden in your house (as long as T1 doesn’t get into the dirt as he starts moving around).
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32Genius idea! I’m so guilty of letting farmers market produce go bad—I’ll have to try this! Thanks for sharing.
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