I don’t like to waste food, especially since it’s been harder to find lately. It’s not that we’re food insecure, but that we could be.
Pandemic-related shortages have been reported in stores nationwide, and meat-processing facility closures have led some producers to slaughter animals rather than wait out the pandemic.
In addition, an expert I interviewed for a recent COVID-19 article noted that there will likely be some food shortages in the coming year. Mostly those would be specialty items, or high-maintenance crops that farmers aren’t sure they will have the manpower to nurture and harvest. (It can’t all be done by machine.)
Too, some farmers are plowing crops under right now because their biggest-ticket buyers – hotels and restaurants – aren’t buying. An analyst quoted by U.S. News & World Report notes this could lead to shortages (and higher prices) in the supermarket.
Not wasting food has always been a goal. But now it seems more important than ever.
Cooking hasn’t been high on my to-do list since arriving in Phoenix. The other day I realized just how much I’ve come to rely on my dearest friend in terms of cooking. He’s very proactive about meal planning, but now I have to do it all.
For the past six weeks I’ve relied mostly on simple foods. A roast chicken that becomes the basis for four or five (or more) meals. A pound of beans cooked with olive oil and spices and eaten with a mix of salsa and sour cream.
Broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and onions roasted with olive oil and kosher salt, and served over rice. Baked potatoes and a side veggie. Scrambled eggs. Tuna or egg salad sandwiches. A teeny bit of takeout. Or, if I really am averse to cooking, oatmeal or cold cereal for dinner.
And soup, of course. Just finished the last serving of my most recent Quarantine Soup, and will make another one tomorrow.
The point of this post is to highlight and reinforce pandemic-related food rules that have been floating around online. Funny how most of them sound like frugal food rules.
Rule 1: Clean out the pantry
The day I arrived I checked out Abby’s freezer, pretty certain I’d left some butter in there. Indeed I had. I’d also left some homemade enchilada sauce, a partial loaf of bread, a small amount of frozen peas and carrots, and a couple of containers of a chicken enchilada casserole that Abby never got around to eating.
Over the new four days I finished the leftover casserole. The flavor wasn’t optimal, but it was okay. More to the point, it was there, so I ate it. This let me not have to worry about cooking right away.
The bread was toasted for breakfast, and eaten along with some oatmeal I’d left in her cupboard. At some point I found another partial bag of bread in the freezer. Ack! More toast, and a couple of sandwiches once I got a can of tuna.
In Abby’s cupboard was a small pile of Parmesan cheese packets — loot from previous pizza deliveries. I’ve been sprinkling cheese on some of the Quarantine Soup bowls for a change of pace. She also has several jars of jam from a relative who sends gift boxes at Christmas. Since she rarely eats jam these days, I’ve been using the stuff on pancakes in lieu of syrup.
The enchilada sauce was good with black beans, along with a touch of sour cream. After the beans were finished I put the sauce back in the freezer because I didn’t want it to go bad. (Not sure enchilada sauce can go bad, but why take the chance?) It’s now back out, and I plan to have some tonight with canned pinto beans, a sliced cucumber and some fruit.
Back at home, DF has been cleaning out the pantry as well. Can’t help lovin’ that man.
Rule 2: Waste nothing
I’ve got a boiling bag going down here in Phoenix. It’s the basis of that Quarantine Soup. The broths have mostly been made from potato peels, carrot tops, apple cores, onion skins, cucumber peels and seeds, strawberry tops, corncobs, chicken bones and half-packets of chicken ramen* seasoning. The resulting soup stock is never the same twice, but is always interesting.
Pan juices from roast chicken get frozen, to be added to those soup stocks. First, however, I skim off the fat that accumulates at the top and save it to sauté onions.
The last few cups of a gallon of milk went sour. I used them in a Lightning Cake and a couple of batches of pancakes. Breakfast for dinner is a thing! In addition to eating them with jam, as noted above, I’ve also used butter and cinnamon sugar.
To keep milk from lingering and spoiling, I’ve taken to making at least one batch of rice pudding (my great-grandmother’s recipe) out of every gallon. Bonus: Having rice pudding around (mostly) keeps me from wanting to buy ice cream. (Stress-eating is a thing, too.)
I’ve made several batches of mashed potatoes since arriving. Each time, I drained the cooking water into the Crock Pot and added the contents of the boiling bag. But that’s not the only liquid that’s getting used:
- After cooking dry beans, I drain off most of the liquid and freeze it until it’s time to make stock.
- When I drained some canned black beans for a casserole, I froze that liquid as well. Hey, there’s some nutrition and flavor in there.
- I also save the water from canned green beans, and the leftover liquid from those chicken ramen lunches.
- When Abby used the last of a jar of salsa, I poured in a bit of water, shook it and froze the reddish-spicy result.
Note: I know that canned-veggie liquids are high in sodium. But I figure that means I won’t have to salt the Quarantine Soup.
Rule 3: Eat less meat
Meat is already being rationed at some supermarkets. The Fry’s market Abby favors limits it to two items per shopper; for a few weeks, it was one item per shopper. And if those meat-processing slowdowns continue, then such meat as is available will cost a lot more.
In other words, some people are already eating less meat even though they didn’t set out to become vegetarians or vegans.
I’m eating less meat because I don’t want to deal with cooking it. The weather is super-hot here, after all, and a mixture of homesickness, general anxiety about the world and a whopping case of what I’m calling “coronavirus brain” has made even the simplest cooking seem like a huge chore.
Thus I roast a large chicken and use it in multiple ways: big meal, leftovers of big meal, more leftovers of big meal, chicken curry, chicken salad sandwiches and last bits of chicken saved for soup or chili. Would have made a stir-fry but Abby doesn’t have any soy sauce or rice vinegar and I hate to buy them only to use a few tablespoons’ worth.
Eggs, tofu, tempeh, meat substitutes, textured vegetable protein and other products have protein, too. So do dry beans, which can be simple to cook and satisfying to eat.
Finally, plenty of great recipes out there that use relatively little meat – or no meat at all. Give some of them a try. Not only will you likely save money, you might even wind up healthier.
Rule 4: Substitute (or leave it out)
Supermarket shelves were pretty barren the first few weeks I was here. We pivoted somewhat:
- Not a grain of rice to be found – until we checked the Asian food section, where Abby scored a package of jasmine rice (pricier, but we really wanted rice)
- Ditto mac ’n’ cheese, a shelf-stable comfort-food staple – but we found a box in the organic food section (again, it cost more but I wanted to have a box on hand** just in case)
- Couldn’t find any canned green beans or corn, so we got frozen veggies instead.
- We found dried lentils at The Dollar Tree. (Also snacks. Lots of snacks.) A few weeks later, we spied dry beans and long-grain rice there; yes, I bought both.
If you’re having trouble finding meat – or finding meat you can afford – forget the fresh. Canned chicken or turkey works fine with soup, stew or chili. While canned ham can be pricey, it stretches well if you serve it with potatoes and a couple of sides, or turned into ham and sweet potato hash*** or sliced thinly for sandwiches served with potato salad. (Pro tip: Save out one piece, dice it and use it to flavor a pot of bean soup.)
The first week I wanted to make my not-really-chicken-curry dish. But I felt too lackadaisical to roast the bird, so I froze it and did without. The dish wound up with those old peas and carrots (used ’em up!), diced potatoes, sautéed onions and lentils.
My most recent batch of soup used the dollar-store pasta from Abby’s cupboard; I think I bought it during the time of her divorce. Thus the forthcoming Quarantine Soup may feature one of the last few potatoes in the bag, diced up, or a handful of rice, or half a package of ramen noodles. Anything to give the potage a little additional heft, along with the sautéed onions, frozen peas and carrots, and the last stubborn bits of chicken.
Or maybe I’ll just add smashed-up crackers to each bowl. Today I finished up the last packet of Club crackers from a box atop Abby’s fridge. According to the box, the sell-by date was November 2018. Eaten plain, they tasted a little bland; crushed into soup, they were fine. Abby has a recently bought box of Premium saltines, but I figured I’d use up the old ones first.
Quarantine Soup isn’t for everyone
To be clear: I don’t imagine that everyone wants to eat out-of-date crackers, or save their ramen water, or make sour-milk cake.
But as a culture I think we throw food away too easily. Heck, I’ve heard of people who pour the milk down the drain on the day marked on the carton. They don’t even bother to smell it first.
My mom thought wasting food was a sin. I do, too.
If you really can’t stomach that old bread from the freezer, go ahead and toss it. But maybe we should rethink the ways we use (or don’t use) our groceries.
Put another way: If those mostly-empty supermarket shelves return, you might wish you hadn’t been so hasty in throwing away that two-months-past-sell-by-date applesauce or slightly freezer-burned chicken.
Readers: Have your cooking/shopping habits changed during the lockdown?
*I use only half a package at a time because it’s so darned salty.
**We haven’t eaten it yet, but soon I will have Elementary-School Cafeteria Night and serve the stuff with green beans.
***This recipe calls for Black Forest ham and fresh thyme, but we make it with non-specialized ham and dried thyme and it’s still delicious.
Related reading:
Jacque Pepin makes something he calls refrigerator soup. Same idea. Took old produce from the frig, cut off bad spots and threw it in the pot.
OMG!!! I saw that video and made the soup. It was really quite good. He has such an ease about his cooking. It was nothing fancy, but ate gourmet. And the chicken skin…..who knew! I just started a bag of for veggie scraps again.
Ever since an awful bout of food poisoning as a young woman I’m most cautious about what I eat. For the past few months I’ve been cleaning out my cupboards and freezers then sharing food I’m no longer interested in eating with a neighbor. She has chickens and gives me fresh eggs. I’ve been cooking a lot and haven’t been wasting food. I also think it’s a sin to waste food
I had food poisoning from bad hamburger meat myself when I was about 12 or 13, and I’ve been super-cautious about food ever since. So far, sogood.
In theory I’d like to raise chickens for fresh eggs. In practice, I don’t want to be responsible for living creatures. But if someone offered me eggs I’d be way too polite to refuse the gift. 😉
We call it refrigerator garbage soup. In the summer, we call it garden garbage soup, because it contains whatever is ripe at the moment. (We harvested about 50 pounds of carrots last year and I dehydrated most of them. We are on our last jar! I am getting nervous so planted carrots yesterday.) It was 80(?!) in Fairbanks today, and 106 in my greenhouse even with the doors at both ends open. It may have been cooler where you are!
Nope, it was 100 degrees in the shade. No greenhouse at my daughter’s place.
We’ve still got some jars of carrots from last year. They’re very sweet. Hoping this year’s crop is bountiful, especially if other canned/frozen veggies are expensive or hard to obtain. Or both.
And yep: Every time we open a jar of carrots, the leftover liquid goes into a container in the freezer marked “vegetable cooking water.” Waste not, want not — and this liquid has no sodium at all, since we can carrots without salt.
Stay frosty.
I had procured a post holiday turkey and a post holiday ham after Thanksgiving and Christmas. Each have been baked and used for multiple meals. The turkey carcass has been boiled with an onion and some herbs and frozen for future me to use as stock. In the midst of all the looming anxiety, finding recipes to use up leftovers has been a nice distraction.
Sometimes DF and I will pressure-can chicken or turkey we find at irresistible prices. It’s great to have shelf-stable protein, and it leaves room in the freezer for other cuts of on-sale meat and also garden produce.
And yes, I agree: Getting creative about what’s on hand can be very satisfying.
My nana who went through the Great Depression taught me to make bread pudding with older stale bread. I’ve been cooking up everything in my pantry and freezer and trying to remember old recipes I was taught by her and older family member who didn’t believe in food waist either. I never thought the day would come where the lessons they taught me would be emphasized. I really have stepped back to realize I don’t “need” as much as I used to think I did.
Found a recipe for coconut bread pudding in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook. It tastes like coconut custard pie, without the hassle of rolling out a crust. Some of those old-school recipes will, I think, become more important if the food supply (or the supply chain) undergoes any hiccups in the next year.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
Fanny Farmer rules! I have made some exceptionally good meatloaf using her recipe, which stretches the ground beef with two cups of bread crumbs, an egg and milk. I can squeeze dinner for three adults and lunch of meatloaf sandwiches out of a pound of beef.
Ooh, I would LOVE to have that recipe…
The coconut bread pudding recipe? Here goes:
Heat 1 quart milk with 4 tablespoons butter or margarine until melted.
Mix 2 slightly beaten eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add 1/2 cup shredded coconut and the heated milk.
Stir in 1.5 cups cubed bread and pour into buttered baking dish.
Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees.
It IS a sin to waste food. In the county I live in there are many low income families. When school was canceled because of Covid the school bus made rounds to EVERY bus stop at noon. I had a grand daughter staying the week. We were out walking and the bus stopped and handed us 2 lunches. I explained that we were not in need but the bus driver insisted. My grand daughter enjoyed it so much we met the bus every day that week. There was 2 milks, 1 juice, cereal, vegetables and fruit, cheese, a protein and a dessert Really enough for 2 meals. She didn’t eat the celery and carrots because of her braces and didn’t care for the cherry tomatoes and ranch dressing. So I made macaroni and added the veggies and ranch and some mayo and had a HUGE amount of macaroni salad that lasted my husband and me a week Nothing wasted and much appreciated since even though we are fortunate we also aren’t going in stores to shop yet. And truly a blessing to others who don’t have other options
Just yesterday I baked a chicken and made a pot of black beans and froze half of them. No meat shortages here in Barbados but the price is a bit higher so I make a little go a long way. I started a bag in the freezer a few years ago on your advice Donna. I grow as much food as I can. Thanks for all the tips.
My DH and I have been a lot more diligent in using up our leftovers and not wasting food. Our local store’s meat counter is pretty light on selection but so far no limits on buying. Thank you for all the additional food tips and tricks. We will definitely be trying a few if not all of them.
If you ever decide to get some chickens, they are excellent leftover/garden waste eaters. When I have some produce that’s getting old and I can’t or won’t eat it, the chickens get a treat. You do have to keep them out of the garden or they’ll help themselves though.
Another great article! I call my soups freezer soups; if it is a tablespoon or more of veggies or meat or broth/gravy or tomato sauce/soup/ketchup or bits of tomato, it goes into the freezer container or bag until I have enough for soup. I don’t usually include pasta or beans in the soup mix. I no longer save the peelings for broth, after two batches that tasted horrible. Our Dollar Tree stores (in PA and MD) have lots of food items: 1 1/2 lb box of macaroni, 16-24 oz bags of dried beans, lentils, pasta, canned items, some freezer or fresh items, and some stores have fresh bread and rolls. Our local Dollar General was closing for remodeling and had a major clearance sale several days before; I got those 1 lb canned hams for 75 cents each. Several went to my house and the rest went to the food bank. I plan to cut up each can as needed to add to lima bean soup, with celery, carrots, onions, tomatoes and Italian seasoning. If it does not have enough zip, I have 1/2 bottle of smoke flavoring in the fridge.
I am jealous of that ham price. What a score!
They loved me at the food bank that next day, 16 lbs of canned meats: the hams, turkey, and chicken.
A little ham added to potato soup really elevates it. If you sprinkle on grated cheese and a few slices of green onions on top, the soup looks quite fancy.
Ruby, that sounds wonderful! And I have some potatoes that need to be used up soon.
I like to think of myself as “queen of leftovers” ..(but you for sure take the crown from me Donna!)….I will take leftover ANYTHING and turn it into something! My friend even gives me leftover bits from she and her Husbands plate when we get takeout (and i am not ashamed to take it :)) – as she knows I will eat it, or freeze it for later! I’ve even saved TOAST from going out to breakfast….it “toasts” right back up again, imagine that! 🙂
Now that I am not going out much, to eat or for groceries, I scrounged the freezer and took full inventory! I’ve been eating for 3 weeks off of leftover chili, an italian chicken dish (leftover from some restaurant outing pre-Covid), a few slices of pizza (foil wrap them, then ziploc bag…for reheating, just take out of ziploc and open up the foil wrap to place on cookie sheet in preheated oven!), leftover honey baked ham from office Christmas luncheon that I gleaned for FREE..made nice sandwiches, quiche filler and bean filler! I even found a few stray pillsbury cinnamon rolls in there that were delicious heated back up in the oven!!
Blackberries from last years farm pick? – still delicious in yogurt, smoothies and oatmeal!
Frozen bread? That’s a staple in Florida – as bread will go moldy if left out, I’m still working a loaf that has been in there for a year 🙂
Canned chicken is something I always have on hand – great for sandwiches, salads, and i make enchiladas with it.
Another place to find and get good deals on “grocery” items are drugstores – mine regularly has white tuna on sale $1/can, and eggs 99 cents. Think outside the grocery store, your drugstore sells more than shampoo, pain killers, and vitamins 🙂
So far, no major changes to the way we’re shopping or cooking.
Last week a friend asked our son to pass along word that grocery stores were going to start rationing meat. MrH’s response was that our store had been doing that already. It hadn’t really affected our buying habits—I guess we don’t use that much meat?
That said, beef has gone way up and the price of pork has nearly doubled. Poultry seems to be holding steady so far. We’re definitely eating more eggs, cheese and beans, though eggs aren’t always easy to get, either.
I don’t want to overdo it and contribute to shortages or panic buying, but I did suggest MrH pick up an extra pound of beans now and then while he’s shopping. Since hurricane season is coming up, I also want to stock up on some canned soup, macaroni and cheese, and a few other shelf-stable items that are quick to prepare if the power goes out.
I always enjoy your new hints and tested solutions for wise resource use. Gleaning blackberries from back road fence lines has been my evening distraction the last couple of weeks. I now have a couple of gallons of the delicious gems in the freezer. Incidentally, I read in last week’s newspaper (yep – real paper) that deep freezers are almost impossible to find in stores right now. Perhaps people are putting more thought and planning into their meals.
I clicked on an online article of Quarantine recipes and found that the soup I fondly remember my Grandmother serving has a name: Hoover Stew. Your soup variations also sound yummy. I raise my soup spoon to you, Donna!
Our Lowes store has signs on every freezer: “out of stock and we are not selling the floor models”.
With COVID we switched from shopping in person Costco/grocery stores to curbside from the grocery store. For awhile substitutions or no availability were common – this is getting better. But the hardest part to deal with I had to schedule my pickups a week to 10 days out, with the ability to add only 4 items after the initial order! I don’t know what I need a week out. Fortunately this has also gotten better – can order a few days out. But for a time trying to cook with partial orders and what I thought I would need a week ago was challenging. Especially since I’m finding cooking to be therapeutic during these times so I’m cooking a LOT.
I’m nowhere as good as you at stretching foods so creatively but we have been really good at monitoring and managing how we eat up our food so that the only food waste we’re composting are skin and bones and tops and skins that the dogs cannot eat. It’s the one bright spot of us both being stuck at home – there are two brains working on this problem and it keeps us from feeling overloaded.
Powdered ramen seasoning is also a tasty topper for homemade popcorn. Gives those humble popped kernels more of a junk-food edginess.
My shopping habits haven’t changed too much the last few months, although quality and available selection have been issues. Today I slow-cooked a nine-pound pork butt, which turned out to have far more gristle and fat in it than usual. I skimmed off the fat (almost two cups worth!) and tucked it into the fridge. We’ll found out how it tastes for the occasional saute of onions or mushrooms.
This weekend I foraged for stinging nettle tops. DH let me borrow his welding gloves for protection. The nettle soup I made was excellent, but two family members declined to taste it and the third didn’t care for it. More for me!
I’m going to try the ramen seasoning! Great idea thanks!
No stinging nettles to be found in northern Michigan. I envy you! Do you make nettle „spinach“ too?
I, too, do not enjoy going out to eat as much as I used to. Somehow the food either doesn’t taste good, or I feel almost ill after I have finished. How nice of some fast food places not to charge for the extra grease.
Consequently, I keep go to meals in my pantry and freezer. At the drop of a hat I can fix chili dogs, loose meats, chicken casseroles, dumplings, bread (I use a breadmaker), pizza with homemade dough, spaghetti, etc. Some friends dropped by this week for lunch, and I had chili dogs, fruit salad made with canned fruit (1/2 cup mayo, 1/2 cool whip with walnuts on the top), and a cherry pie which I had bought on the day-old sale. They raved!
I also invested in a good cookbook, one that teaches how to cook from scratch. That has saved me, since I really had never done that much cooking.
The main thing I think is portion control. If the recipe says 4 servings, then divide it into 4 servings and freeze the rest.
Donna, these types of columns are my favorite. Tonight we are having beef, mushroom and barley soup. The beef was leftover flank steak I found in the freezer, the mushrooms in the fridge were just a little soft, and the barley was a 1/2 package that had been languishing in the pantry. So far, it smells good! We have not eaten out during the COVID disaster. I have a lot of food restrictions, so that makes it hard on a normal basis. Fortunately, my husband will eat just about anything (except red beets). I have learned a lot from you about how to use up food. I have a freezer bag that has made great veggie stock on more than one occasion. Thanks for writing!
Thank you for the excellent article…we too feel food waste is a sin and worry about food prices spiking…Doubled the size of the garden JUST in case. As for milk…we have begun freezing milk in ice cube trays…then storing them in a zip lock bag…one of these is perfect in oatmeal in the micro…Your mileage may vary…Haven’t wasted a drop of milk in quite some time….Hope all is well!-JJ
I’ve frozen milk myself; it looks gnarly but it works fine for stuff like oatmeal or cake.
Wish I were helping DF with our garden right about now. I hope you have good luck with yours. At the very least, your neighbors will luck out with the surplus if you get tired of preserving the stuff.
I hate to waste food also. I was brought up with the saying “waste not want not”! We very seldom will throw food out in the garbage. If it is forgotten in the back of the refrigerator and not looking to tasty…we throw it out to the animals to nibble on. Old bread is great for stuffing or like you toasting bread!
These are crazy times and we need to be careful with our resources now more than ever!