It's Friday

Happy Friday. I haven't done a Food Waste Friday post for a couple of weeks now, because last Friday was New Year's Day and the week before that was Christmas Day. We did have some food waste during those two weeks, although I can't recall what it was. Mostly stuff that was composted, I think. A little bit of turkey, which I put in the freezer, and might end up as future food waste because I waited a little too long to freeze it. My plan is to at least use it for broth.

I'm going to continue to document our food waste on Fridays, a la Kristen at The Frugal Girl, because I think it's important and taking a photo and writing about it on my blog seems to help us to waste less. But I'm also going to mix it up on Fridays and sometimes bring you Friday Freebies, and other times Friday Favorites, which will be my favorite blog post I've read that week. I'll try to do those in addition to documenting our food waste, and sometimes I'll have all three.

So first, as far as food waste goes, we don't seem to have any this week. But there are a few things that are going to be waste very soon if I don't think of something to do with them. The first is a bunch of small jars of rosemary jelly that didn't set. This was the only homemade gift I tried this year that wasn't successful. I'd never made jelly, and the pectin didn't seem to work. So it tastes delicious, but it's too runny. My husband and I can keep a couple of jars, but I don't know what to do with the rest of it. Here's a challenge for you: does anyone have any ideas for what to do with runny rosemary jelly? The other thing is two large daikon, which I've never used before. I'll probably look on a recipe site, but I always prefer recipes that people have actually tried and had success with to something I find at random.

Next, here's a great Freebie: free breakfast at Mimi's Cafe for joining their E-Club. I wasn't aware of this place, but I plugged in our zip code and there are tons of them all over. The breakfast includes bacon, eggs, and blueberry-stuffed French toast. All you have to do is fill out a form that takes less than 1 minute. Click here to sign up.

And finally, my favorite blog post of the week: this post by Danielle at Less is More Balanced about heirloom design, which is stuff that's designed to last long enough to pass on to the next generation, versus planned obsolescence, which is what we're loaded down with now-- cheaply made junk with parts that can't easily be replaced. Reading it really kicked my desire for a cast iron skillet into overdrive. Supposedly you can get one that will last a lifetime for about twenty bucks. I've got to look into it.

Have a great weekend, everyone! And please share your questions and tips to reduce food waste, and ideas for runny jelly and daikon, in the Comments section.