Knowing how to organise yourself so as not to throw anything away
To fight against food waste, the first solution is to throw less away! A few recipe ideas and small (and large!) tricks to cook more sustainably and cheaper.
Batch cooking, special time saver and relaxing
Batch cooking is about spending two to three hours in the kitchen over the weekend to anticipate the week’s meals that will just need to be reheated or put together. It’s practical, cheap and does not waste but beware: it’s not about cooking a giant pot of meat stew, another sauce-based dish and a soup and eating the leftovers for five days! We start by planning the menus to set up a shopping list then we start preparing: wash the salad, cook the vegetables and grains, boil the eggs, steam-cook the potatoes, mash, crunchy vegetables kept like pickles in vinegar, crush nuts… We then stock them in airtight containers to optimise their shelf-life and store them in the fridge or the freezer! There is endless inspiration for recipes online (many video tutorials) or even in specialised books to vary the recipes while saving time and decreasing your mental load!
Recycling peelings
Skin, tops, cores, pits, stems, barks, pods, bones, fish heads…: peelings are not just peelings but all that we do not eat from the foods we prepare. Yet, ancestral wisdom has tons of homemade recipes to avoid wasting any of it - in other word a “zero waste” strategy. You can use vegetable peelings in many recipes: radish tops soup, pea pods cream of soup, carrot tops tart.Think also of melon or watermelon skin which are delicious in a jam or pickled; chicken bones to make a delicious and cheap bone broth with some water and a few herbs; ripe bananas or banana peels (indeed!) for a banana bread; or even stale bread for breadcrumbs, croutons, salads, bruschettas, French toasts...
Storing techniques
Another method to avoid food waste: storage. Many foods are kept easily without any particular method. For instance, meat and fish can be frozen in airtights boxes or bags - so can many fruits and vegetables. However, some vegetables don’t do well when frozen, others require being pre-cooked or transformed beforehand. Same for some fruits. Online, you will find many tutorials. There are many foods we don’t always think of which can also go in the freezer such as dairy products (milk, butter, hard cheeses, full fat cream) or eggs whites (hello meringue and macaroons!). Don’t forget sterilised containers or even fermentation - very fashionable right now with a lot of content on the matter.