Things learnt thus far:
Leftover lamb tagine type thing is very nice especially with lots of mushrooms to make up for lack of lamb. If you make it hot enough everyone eats the leftover plain yoghurt with it. This also used up the half onion and coriander.
Camembert of toast is very good for lunch.
Failures:
Crumpets which have already gone mouldy are no fun to eat (so I didn’t).
Still have cream, crème fraiche and brandy butter which no one wants to eat because everyone is already too fat after Christmas.
Someone has composted the black banana.
On the positive side the kids have not totally rejected my challenge and even the Ref, after the initial reaction,
‘Oh God, not another bloody fad!’
has capitulated and resigned himself to the cause. Currently we are having an important philosphical debate over whether or not giving the bread crusts to the chickens counts as wasting food or feeding livestock.
My feelings are that they get enough to eat already and while I’m happy for them to have any scraps that would otherwise go in the bin, I don’t think we should be giving them stuff that we could eat. The Ref’s view is that I should get a life.
On the subject of chickens:
”As part of a drive to cut food waste, the Food Standards Agency has revised its advice on using eggs after their ‘best before’ date. The advice now is that, providing the eggs are cooked thoroughly, they can be eaten a day or two after their ‘best before’ date.”
http://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/2011/dec/eggs
Err, sorry?
” – because as eggs can sometimes contain salmonella bacteria. If salmonella is present in eggs, it could multiply to high levels and cause food poisoning.’’
Well then, shouldn’t that be a ‘Use by’ date? I mean if we’re at risk of salmonella a few days later, why not change the date to three days hence and save us from impending doom?
No wonder people are confused. Personally I’d rather know when the flipping thing was laid – then I could make my own mind up how fresh it was.
It’s all rubbish of course, you can keep eggs, well…till the hens come home. They are quite happy to hang around for weeks – and they don’t need to go in the fridge either…but I’m starting to rant now.
On the subject of eggs:
Little E wanted scrambled egg on toast for breakfast. The she spent so long faffing about that they went a bit cold and she didn’t want to eat them – but I reminded her of the blog and the challenge and she perked up and ate the lot. Take note -the fear of public failure – a useful new addition to the parenting armoury.
So tonight they had chilli tacos – with rice for the one who doesn’t like tacos and some extra rice for the ones who like tacos but it’s not fair if they can’t have rice too. With cheese and salad and really good homemade salsa and yoghurt. And they ate the lot. And then had ice-cream.
The only thing left is half a bowl of salsa, which I will mix up with a bit more salad and have for my lunch tomorrow. So nothing wasted there.
But there is still the brandy butter to be dealt with – I think I’m going to try it in a cake in place of butter and sugar…
Progress report soon.
All Consuming Passion 
We threw out our brandy butter, for shame! Never thought of a cake. You could’ve made a brandy banana cake with the black banana. I feel better now that we share the shame of the brandy banana bread that never was.
Loving this blog, please keep giving me more ideas! The egg thing is bonkers. you know about the water test to see how fresh they are, right? Even so I’d still feel weird about using them after the best before date.
We found a pile of eggs in our old coal bunker the other week. Apparently one hen had decided she wanted her own space! They all sank so we ate them. The black banana guilt is still with me though…