Seconds Coming

Americans reportedly waste 40% of our food. The 40 down project
is my personal plan to reduce our household food waste.

There's always those recipes where you know one ingredient is going to sit in the fridge, hidden, until you discover the moldy/rotten/expired package tucked in the back of the crisper. I know, you had every intention of using that. I'm not judging. Let's take those perishable ingredients and use them up in a second round of cooking before they have a chance to go bad (click the links to get the recipes):

Pumpkin bread - pumpkin filling - Pumpkin ravioli
Gourmet grilled cheese - collection of good (expensive) cheeses - Mac & cheese
Citrus salad - basil - Pesto
Crostini - bread - Homemade croutons
Chicken and dumplings - parsley - Chimichurri


This isn't an original thought - here's other ways to use up leftovers:
Thanksgiving feast . Food Network
Roast beef exclusives . Cooks.com
Common ingredients . Whole Living
Rice exclusives . The Guardian
Easter ham . Real Simple
British style . BBC Good Food

40% . The Big Four O

A short while back I read that Americans throw out 40% of their food. Astonishing, right? And then I thought about it a bit more and realized how much we throw out in this household. Granted, the 40%  takes into account more than what you throw out directly from the fridge or pantry, but with food banks being pushed to their limits by demand, I feel ashamed that we throw out as much as we do. Lately I've tried to take measures to personally reduce this and I'm calling this project '40 down'.

• Doling out leftovers
  What we don't eat for dinner is often left for me to eat the next day at lunch...and sometimes the day after. Two lunches and one dinner is the max, if I even do that. Lately I've contacted my mom and sister the night of the meal to see if they want any for their lunch the next day. Recently, I sent lunch to my sister that she thoroughly enjoyed. I received the following e-mail from her:
  
  SUBJECT: Holy crap
  BODY: that was the most amazing lunch i have ever had. What was that!?! Must have the recipe!!
  
  I don't know about you, but my trashcan has never been that grateful to get leftovers.


• Preserving
  The oldest trick in the culinary book and with the modern miracle of refrigeration I don't even have to resort to canning (but would I love to be one of those badass canners.) Sometimes simply getting those ingredients prepped for future use and frozen is all it takes - like freezing cut fruit, herb pastes, or leftover chicken stock. And am I ever smug when I get meals in the freezer for future use.


• Planning
  Our household is horrible -- horrible -- about meal planning. Our meal planning is usually deciding over the phone at 4:55pm which one of us is going to hit up the store and get food for the evening. A long while back Daniel and I had a challenge to see which of us could create a week's worth of meals cheaper (I won, by the way.) By planning the whole week in advance we used ingredients repeatedly until they were used up. Wham, bam - cheaper and less wasteful. We need to work on this again.


• Ugh, eating less?
  Just throwing this out there, but I could always eat less (and plan on eating less.) Less to buy, less to  possibly have go bad.


• Freeganism
  Glad someone is into this.

So, that's the game plan (though I have no plans to dumpster dive just yet.) If you run one of those households that has zero food waste, I'd love to know your secret.