One of our culinary resolutions for this year was simple: "Don't let food go to waste."
Like many people, we were buying too much food, letting it languish in the fridge and then throwing it out once it had gone bad.
This was especially true when it came to vegetables. Between a weekly trip to the farmers market and weekly deliveries from our CSA six months of the year, we're often faced with an embarrassment of riches when it comes to veggies.
But our biggest problem was that things would go into our fridge and we'd totally forget about them. Rooting through our fridge presented a constant set of surprises. "OMG. Did you know there's a kohlrabi in here?"
So we needed a solution. Hence, The Vegetable Board.
The concept of the board is simple. When something goes in the fridge, it goes on the list. When it gets eaten, it comes off.
There are two very simple ways this list has helped us:
First, we always know exactly what veggies we have in the fridge, which can be a good reminder on the way to the market to not buy any more arugula, please!
Second, it serves as great inspiration for dinner. When we would always forget what was in our fridge, some veggies would just go MIA in the bowels of our crisper. By seeing it all laid out, we often use a veggie in cooking that we otherwise wouldn't have. For instance, two nights ago, we were making sautéed zucchini and because of the list we also threw some eggplant into the pan.
For our Vegetable Board, we bought a Peel & Stick Chalkboard to go on the side of the fridge. We bought ours in a store, but they're available on Amazon for $14.95. They come in four panels. We're using two on the side of our fridge and giving the other two to Zach's mom, who wants to use them on her deep freeze. We figure the money we spent on the boards more than pays for itself if we're not having to compost some of our produce.
The Vegetable Board hasn't completely solved our wasting food, but it's gone a long way toward making sure we know and are using what's in our fridge.
Do you have a strategy to make sure you're not wasting food? We'd love to hear about it.
