No Waste Tastes Great - 26th Aug

Yes I know it's been a while but a combination of being unwell and being away kind of threw things a bit - anyway, should be back to normal now!!

Top shelf - spread
Middle shelf - ham, cheese, home grown tomatoes
Bottom shelf - mayo, beetroot
Drawers - condiments, empty

Door - water, coke x2, salad dressing, juice, soya milk, lucozade, punch

The ham and cheese appeared on the day I came home courtesy of Mum and the tomatoes were picked from the plants on my balcony!  All three will last a few days so will get eaten. Everything else is fine!

No Waste Tastes Great - 29th June

I did throw out a small portion of stewed rhubarb this week as it had started growing a fur coat!

Top shelf - babybel, spread, cheese, half a jar of sweet and sour sauce

Middle shelf - portion of fruit salad

Bottom shelf - beetroot, soupy/stew thing

Drawers - condiments, carrots, peppers, chilli

Door - water, 7up, coke, french dressing, mayo, hazelnut soya milk, punch

The only thing that needs eating up is the sweet and sour sauce and that well be dinner tonight - sorted!!

No Waste Tastes Great - 22nd June

OK so there are waste confessions - I had to ditch the mascarpone and the quark on Monday evening as they were both green!!!  Oh, and three bananas and a portion of fruit salad today!

Top shelf - babybel, cheese, spread, half a jar of sweet and sour sauce, yoghurt

Middle shelf - stewed rhubarb, ham

Bottom shelf - beetroot, cooked swede and celeriac

Drawers - condiment, lettuce, chillies, kale, cucumber, pepper

Door - water, french dressing, soya milk, mayo, cider, almond milk, punch

So although the fridge is looking good now there was waste during the week.  Everything that is in the fridge at the moment is OK for now although the few salad bits are starting to look a little sorry for themselves. It's that really awkward bit when you have some salad stuff but don't want to buy the rest to make a full salad! Not sure there's a lot else you can do with lettuce!

I've cheated this week and done an online shop which will be delivered Sunday morning.  As I don't drive it's worth the delivery charge every so often to buy the heavy stuff in larger quantities.  I also made sure I decided what I was going to make this week and stuck (mostly) to what was needed to make those things!

Facebook culling...

Or as my friend G suggested 'Total Recull'!

Every so often I do a cull on facebook. I will announce it and people have a set time frame to interact with me. No interaction and you get deleted.  In the past I have left a few people on because I know they have busy lives or don't go on facebook much but this time I stuck to the rule and went from 73 friends to 40.

However I've been thinking about it since the last cull and think I'm doing it wrong. I've deleted people that I do consider 'real life' friends. I have other ways of keeping in touch with them but facebook is a convenient way to see what they are up to, how their children are growing up etc. On the flip side I've kept people on there that I really don't know. When the notification came up that they'd commented I actually groaned as it meant I had to keep them as I was sticking to my rule. (And yes, if you are reading this from the facebook link then I might just be talking about you!)

I need to strike a better balance (or ditch facebook!)

No Waste Tastes Great - 15th June

Top shelf - cheese, babybel, french dressing, spread, half a tin of bins, mascarpone, quark, half a pot of yoghurt

Middle shelf - bananas, coke, 7Up, ham

Bottom shelf - beetroot, lettuce, raspberries, cooked rhubarb, fruit salad

Drawer - condiments, a leek, two peppers, small bit of celery, chili's, small bit of cucumber

Door - water, three different types of soya milk, mayo, cider, punch

So, the eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that the mascarpone and the quark are still hiding in the corner! My plans to use them up didn't work. I did do a recipe search last weekend but most of the recepies that came up were all cheesecake and similar. I'm going to see if they are still edible (the quark isn't opened yet and use by's tend to be conservative) and try a cheese sauce approach with some ham, sweetcorn and pasta!!

Everything else is OK for a couple of days. I'm going to attempt some proper meal planning this week to try and sort out my diet and random spending!

No Waste Tastes Great - 10th June

 Yup - it's late, but I forgot on Friday and I was out all day yesterday so it's a Sunday fridge this week - and quite full it is too.

Top shelf - Alpro yoghurt (that should have gone in the bin ages ago!), babaybel, cheese, frech dressing, spread, mascarpone, quark, alpro yoghurt

Middle shelf - rhubarb, bananas, big tupperware of home made soup

Bottom shelf - beetroot, portion of cottage pie, 2 carrots, 1 leek, one and a half bundles of asparagus, cherries and strawberries

Drawer - celery, cucumber, spring onion, lettuce, peppers, swede, celeriac, tomatoes

Door - butter, water, 2 x 7up, vanilla soya milk, plain soya milk, mayo, cider, hazelnut soya milk, punch

Everything on the top shelf apart from the single yoghurt is in date but the mascarpone and quark will need eating this week (I feel a recipe hunt coming on!)

The rhubarb will need to be cooked today as it's not going to last much longer!

Although it may not look like it the beetroot is going down as there have been quite a few salads this week.

I'll have soup for lunch today and may portion up the rest and freeze it.

The cottage pie will be for dinner with some of the veggies. The full bundle is asparagus is for Mum.

I've just had most of the strawberries with my breakfast and will finish them off along with some of the cherries during the day.

So as it stands at the moment the only waste is the single yoghurt. I think this week will be a use it up week so hopefully it'll be a virtually empty fridge on Friday.

Do it as you go...

My Mum always told me that it was easier to do things as I went. Put things away when you'd finished with them, not chuck them all in one pile until later.  Deal with the post when you open it, don't chuck it in a pile to look at later. File those important bits of paper, don't put it in a pile for later. Put the clothes you've taken off away or in the washing, not in a pile on the floor. I guess by now you're getting the idea. My room spent a lot of time looking like a bomb site. I spent a lot of time putting of dealing with all those piles of stuff.  Then I went to Uni and shared a room, we were both messy, clothes, books, papers everywhere. Then my next move was a shared house and I still didn't learn. Then a studio flat but no the lesson didn't stick. The next move was a one bed flat, nope still a mess. What amazes me though is I liked the places I lived when they were nice and tidy. When I finally got stick into the sorting, clearing, hoovering it wasn't actually that bad. Yet still the message didn't sink in. Still I wouldn't do anything until I had to pick my way across the floor and move stuff before I could put thinngs down!

Now I am in the position where I HAVE to tidy as I go. My one bed flat is on the market and the Estate Agents have a key so they can do viewings while I'm at work. That means I have to leave the place looking it's best every day before heading out the door. So I have my dinner and wash up straight away. I dry up and put it away rather than leaving it on the draining board til I want to use it again! I open the post and deal with it, pay the bill, chuck the junk, reply to the letter there and then. My clothes either get hung back up or go straight in the wash bin.  It's finally sunk in. It really DOES make life easier to do it as you go!!