Waste Not, Want Not

Many of us grew up being told to eat what was on our plate because there are others starving.  In other words, appreciate the food in front of you.  I guess I carry that attitute to other areas of life, I hate waste.  Even though I plan to recycle something I think twice before taking it because recycling still envolves energy and I don't want to waste paper (for instance) or the energy it takes to recycle and ship that paper. 

Food waste has become a huge issue, according to Next Generation Food

• Food waste is the third largest waste stream after paper and yard waste 
• In the U.S., food waste has increased 50 percent since 1974
• 40 percent of all food produced in the U.S. is thrown out

 

Even though I compost I still don't want to see food go to waste, food is expensive and waste is, well...a waste, so we eat our left-overs. I also don't want to see my hard work in the garden go to waste.  So when I saw that my efforts to continue the life of the spinach by picking off the seeds was no longer working, I pulled up all the spinach and brought it in the house.

I then washed the spinach leaves throughly removing any blemished areas or tough stems, blanched them in boiling water for approximately 2 minutes, shaking the pot or giving them a stir to keep the leaves separated, shocked them in ice cold water, and placed the spinach on a cloth to dry.  I then placed 1 cup of spinach in each freezer container and I now have one of the ingredients I need to make Spinach Ricotta Stuffed Shells.

 

According to Putting Food By, steam-blanching causes leaf vegetables to mat, and thus prevents correct blanching.  So although I normally steam vegetables we plan to eat right away, I blanched the spinach briefly in boiling water.

In a continued effort to waste nothing I made sure I put the roots and discarded stems and blemished pieces in the compost bin to produce fertilizer for our garden.

It takes extra effort to not waste food.  We need to keep track of any left-overs in the refrigerator and make sure they are eaten within a couple days.  Often that piece of fish, chicken or beef needs to be incorporated into another dish, giving us a chance to be creative as well.