The September challenge - the task has been to complete at least 8 of the clauses listed.
3. Inventory all the food in your cupboards. Make at least 3 meals from items which have been at the back of the cupboard for some time. I have inventoried quite a lot of the cupboards - but not quite all of them at the moment. I have listed what items are in the freezers as well (we have a fridge freezer in the kitchen, and an upright freezer in the garage. We have a little kitchen as part of our upstairs lounge (sink, cupboards, under counter fridge, kettle, toaster, microwave) , and the main kitchen is downstairs. Earlier in the year I did clean out the downstairs kitchen of lots of out of date packets, tins and jars - things that clearly could not be used. Three meals - yesterday we had aubergine, tomato and red lentil curry - using tinned tomatoes (which are always in the cupboard), and red split lentils. Earlier this year I bought two BIG bags of red lentils, as they were being sold cheaply in Sainsbury’s - about £3 or £4 for a 5kg bag, so I need to be using more red lentils. The Best Before Date is May 2023, although my research for this badge has shown that dried lentils will last at least 2 or 3 years when stored correctly. The second meal will be chicken, chorizo and bean stew - which will use some tins of beans that have been on the shelf for some time (mixed beans in tomato sauce, chickpeas, black eyed beans or borlotti beans - whatever is on the shelf). The third meal was home cooked fish and chips - using French fries and fish that had been in the freezer for a while.
6. Find out which non food items you can donate to your local food bank. I often buy items and put them in the collection point at our Aldi store. They have a list of things that are also needed on the collection point; Asda have a similar notice, and our local Asda also had a handy bookmark to remind you what they need - and I’ve kept this in my handbag. Other items include toiletries, cleaning products, feminine hygiene items and baby products
7. Learn about online food donation and food waste apps. I was already aware of two apps - Too Good To Go, and Olio, and have now downloaded them. Olio lists free food near you, you can use it to request items, and you can also list excess food on there. Too Good To Go - you can rescue surprise bags - these are bags which cost a specified amount of money, but have food in it with greater value (originally). You don’t get to choose what is in the bag. Also worth looking at Oddbox - unfortunately they don’t deliver to my area yet, but work that looking out for as it is selling odd shaped food that might otherwise be binned.
8. Research the difference between ‘sell by’, ‘best before’ and ‘use by’. Learn how to check if food is still edible. These are things that have been in the news / media quite a bit recently. Shops put sell by dates on items, and it is the date by which things have to be sold. They are usually still good to eat after this time but should not be sold in shops. Some places are starting to remove this from their fresh produce, to reduce food waste. Best before - this is a date that can be found on tins, jars, packets and other items - it applies to fresh products and frozen foods. Items can still be eaten or used after this date, but they might not taste, look or feels as good. Some things may have lost the flavour. The best before date does not indicate if an item is safe to eat or not. Use by - this tells us directly if an items is safe to eat or not - items can be eaten on the ‘use by’ date but should be thrown away the morning after, or you risk food poisoning. If food doesn’t smell right - don’t use it, even if it still has some days left until the use by date. For bread, the little spots of mould go further than what you see on the surface. Eggs are particularly difficult to tell - so do the water test. If you drop an egg in water and it sinks and sits horizontally on the bottom, it is very fresh. If it sits up in a vertical position and floats - don’t use it!
10. Plan three meals which all cross over ingredients to avoid food wastage. Starting with tomatoes, onions, peppers, courgettes; I make tortilla pancake stack, adding in mixed beans, kidney beans, black beans or black eyed beans - or a combination, together with sweetcorn and cheese (and herbs / spices). Add spinach and mixed beans, and poach some eggs in the sauce to create shakshuka. Add in beef mince and mushrooms and beans (kidney beans and others) and cook some rice - and you have a chilli, or leave out the beef mince and you have a vegetarian chilli. The base ingredients are also a good start for a pasta bake (add in cheese, sweetcorn, mixed beans).
11. Make a meal with leftovers, or with parts of food which you would normally throw away. This is quite an easy one really. Start with a base meal such as spaghetti Bolognese. If you’ve made a big pot of it, you will most likely have leftovers, and this can then create other meals: jacket potato with Bolognese, lasagne or cannelloni, pizza dough pasties (calzone) with Bolognese filling, or quesadilla or tortilla pancake stack. The same can be done with chilli. One recipe I really like for leftover ingredients (such as cooking bacon, parts of peppers, cheese, cooked mixed vegetables of peas, carrots, sweetcorn and beans, cold boiled potatoes) is frittata - put the ingredients in a roasting dish, mix well, beat about 5 or 6 eggs - together with single cream or some milk, and pour over the ingredients in the dish and cook in the oven for about 50 minutes.
13. Find out about other parallel schemes in your area - for example baby essentials banks, period poverty schemes and school uniform funds. Our local tertiary college - Petroc - supplies reusable period products free of charge to students needing them - such as period pants and menstrual cups. They also have a supply of sanitary products in the toilets, and students are encouraged to take what they need so they have it when they need it. Here is a link to the information: https://wakelet.com/wake/ZLqV5vP3R1dwODwL2RwiK. There are also groups on Facebook particularly for helping people out; Don’t Bin It North Devon, and the Bideford Community groups both advertise school uniform that is available.
14. Research ways you can preserve food for longer in your kitchen. Try one! You can freeze milk, and cheese - and bread…in fact lots of items can be frozen. If freezing cheese it should be hard cheese, and once defrosted it is best used in cooking, as it will be rather crumbly. Another idea is to divide items into smaller sized portions and freeze them. I also read that you can freeze apples, if you cut them first.
16. Donate a basket of food to your local food bank, community fridge or local supermarket drop off point.
9. Tally up your local food shop. Investigate other supermarkets, brands and other options (such as imperfect vegetables) to see how much you could save. This has not been one of the clauses I did, as I already shop at Aldi - which is one of the cheapest places to shop. The other shop I use is Asda, which is much cheaper than Sainsburys, and often cheaper than Morrisons. I’m using more frozen vegetables - such as frozen spinach, and starting to use frozen broccoli and mixed peppers, as this is cheaper than buying them fresh. I have noticed that the cost of frozen sweetcorn has increased quite a lot recently. I’ve started a spreadsheet of items from till receipts - I scan each grocery item I buy each week as part of a consumer panel and have to submit pictures of till receipts - so I’ve kept them! I’ve noticed how much milk and cheese have increased in price in the past 6 months. One item we are switching to is the Essentials range of mature cheddar, rather than buying extra mature. The extra mature is about 400g, whereas the Essentials / Basics range is 900g, and the price per 100g is much better. When camping we needed some coffee and didn’t want to go into lots of different shops to get our preferred brand, so used the Lidl brand of coffee, which was acceptable. We already use the Basics / Essentials or own brand range for many food items, and also for non-food items too - like shampoo, shower gel, washing powder, fabric softener.
Having done the food bank challenge, I am now trying to use up what is in our cupboards and freezer , rather than buying more each week. This alone is saving us money, and making me become a bit more ambitious / adventurous with cooking - the aubergine, lentil and tomato curry last night was a mixture of a Hairy Bikers recipe (tomato and aubergine curry) and a Weight Watchers recipe (aubergine and lentil curry). The inventory of the kitchen cupboards needs a bit more work - and I will continue with it - but I feel I have done enough to earn the badge. Interestingly, in my efforts I have discovered somewhere fairly local to buy Asian foods - such as ribbon rice noodles, Thai fish sauce, tamarind paste, Massaman curry paste; the sizes of packs may be bigger (certainly the fish sauce is), but it is better value for money, as a 150ml bottle of Blue Dragon fish sauce in Asda costs £1.75, whereas you can get a bottle in the Asian food store for about £3 - a 150ml bottle doesn’t go very far when making pad Thai!
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