Figuring our how much food to buy for big events is a big pain. You don't know how many people are going to come, you don't know how much they're going to eat, and you don't know which foods they are going to pass by and which foods they're going to scramble to get. I'm the Young Women's President at my church, which means my counselors and I plan all the lessons and activities for the teenage girls. We host a fundraiser every year for a week-long summer camp, and this year, our fundraiser was a taco bar. We also did an auction. Members of our congregation brought items and services for people to bid on. But you're more interested in food, so back to the tacos... Other anti-food waste advocates will tell you to only serve as much food as you think people will eat, but, come on. No one is going to do that. We're all going to buy way too much, and then we're going to fret that it still might not be enough and buy more. There's no point in fighting against human nature. Instead, my philosophy is to plan ahead of time what you're going to do with the inevitable leftovers. (I should point out that the attendees did throw out food that was on their plates. Rule #6 of Living Food Waste-Free is guests can throw out their own leftovers. All the food that remains in my jurisdiction, however, is my responsibility -- or, in this case, it was our responsibility.) When I throw birthday parties, I only serve food my family is willing and able to finish by ourselves. On my daughter's 5th birthday we had chips and nacho cheese, and probably only two people ate some. I had invited twenty-five kids, and even though we were satisfied with the seven that came, I still felt like I had to buy enough for twenty-five kids and their parents and a possible sibling tag-along...just in case. That meant one of those huge cans of nacho cheese from Sam's Club and two of their big bags of chips. You can toast stale tortilla chips and I think you can freeze nacho cheese, but I had purposefully served food my family loves and we ate all the chips and all the cheese before kitchen hacks were necessary. It was delicious and I have no regrets. Fundraising events are a little trickier than birthday parties. You can't just take home food that was bought with church money. I had to come up with a meal I could serve that people would like and have a plan for the leftovers without putting church money in my own pocket. For the fundraiser, we expected about seventy people. I ended up buying seventeen pounds of ground beef, two pounds of black beans, two pounds of rice, among many other things. Around forty-five people showed up. So, we had a lot of leftovers. By the way, I want to brag that all the food for the fundraiser fit in my refrigerator. Step 2 of my Waste-Free Kitchen Program is not to buy too much food. If your fridge is so crammed with stuff that you can't see the back, you can't possibly eat it all before it goes bad. My small fridge was sparse enough to easily slide in enough food to feed seventy people! What I did: I gave away taco soup. We donated portions of it to church members who we thought needed a free meal for one reason or another. Another scrap saved! Actually, a LOT of scraps saved! Taco soup was perfect because we didn't know how much of each food we'd have left, and you don't need exact measurements to make it. All I did was get two big pans and dump in all the taco meat, black beans, tomatoes, salsa, corn, and black beans and add water until it was soupy. We separated the remaining cheese, sour cream, and corn tortillas into Ziplocs and small containers and put the soup into reused plastic containers. I love keeping old plastic containers because they're perfect for giving away food like this. I only use CLEAR containers for my own leftovers -- that is a firm rule in my house! I hate opening up a cool whip container only to find rotten potatoes and chorizo inside that I had forgotten about. I keep the non-clear containers so I can give away food without stressing about the loss of my precious Tupperware. I am really proud of what we did that day, not just because we raised money for camp and then donated food, but because I was able to be a good example to the young women. They did all the cooking for this event, so they earned the money themselves. I had them put all the compost in a bowl for me to take home and the recyclables in a pile. Making the soup taught them to be responsible with food, and donating it taught them to think of other people and their needs. It was a really good day.
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I will never waste food againI've been tired of throwing out food for years - not to mention tired of our huge grocery bill! I decided to make a change and vowed never to waste food again. In this blog, I'll show you how I do it. RECIPESArchives
January 2020
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