Grocery prices continue to rise. Each trip to the grocery store seems to be more and more expensive. One of the most important things to do when grocery prices are high is to make sure you don’t have any food that goes to waste. Buying the 3-pack of bell peppers is cheaper than buying them individually but not if you lose one of them to the trash can. Buying chicken in large packages on sale and freezing some for later is great but not if you keep the package in the freezer so long it has lost its quality to freezer burn. To guard against loss of food, assess what you have frequently.
Before you make your plan for the week or go grocery shopping. Shop first in your refrigerator, freezer, and pantry. Build your meals around what you are going to lose first. Usually this is produce. Use the items that need to be eaten raw as soon as possible. Cook what you can if you think you will not get to it in a dish raw. For example, if you have a bell peppers, onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, or spinach, cook them all together and use them for omelets or fried rice. You can freeze the cooked vegetable mixture if it is not going to be used in a few days. Recently, I had an entire large box of cherry tomatoes that I was not going to be able to use raw before they went bad. I coated them with olive oil and roasted them until they were slightly brown. I used the tomatoes in the next week in pasta.
Go through your freezer and make a list of all of the food you have. You will be surprised how much you forget that gets pushed to the rear of the freezer. Make a couple of meals a week using what you have on hand. Do the same for your pantry. I did this recently and was amazed to discover that I had five different kinds of tomatoes left over from various recipes. I combined them all and made pasta sauce with a few other pantry ingredients and froze in meal size containers. You may also discover items that are close to or past their best-by date. Incorporate these into your meals for the week.
These simple steps will help you use all of the food on which you spent your hard-earned money. It will also help decrease food waste.
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