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Friday, August 6, 2021

Can We Talk About Food Saves? Gelatin and Fruit Salad Using Flat Orange Soda


I've been slowly cleaning out odds and ends in the fridges. It appears that I have a daughter that loves soda, but never manages to finish a two-liter bottle. This orange soda has been sitting in the fridge for a few months. I finally got around to using it up in a jello salad.

I punched up the flavor with lime juice and sugar, mixed with softened and melted unflavored gelatin, and folded in some fresh fruit. The gelatin salad was delicious and we managed to use up a banana that was too ripe for anyone to want, a pear that had fallen off the tree, some blueberries, and that last 2 cups of orange soda. All in all, a win for saving food!

In the comments, please share your best food save from recent weeks.

20 comments:

  1. My favorite motto is "I'll get you to eat it one way or another!" and that means anything less than desirable gets remade into something more desirable. My family all know this motto and never have a problem consuming the "new" creation!

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    1. Alice, that is hilarious! Made my day and I will remember to use that going forward.

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    2. Hi Alice,
      I love it! My motto has always been "eat it to save it."

      Delete
  2. Wow, now that’s impressive! I got nothin lol. I’m always proud of myself when I am able to use leftovers and not have them end up going to the chickens, the compost bin, or my DD’s dogs lol. I don’t throw much food away really, but a lot of it doesn’t get eaten by humans lol.

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    1. Hi Diane,
      We have another 4 partial 2-liters of various flavors soda that I am contemplating making into jello salads.
      Keeping the food from being wasted any which way is a good thing. I didn't know you kept chickens. I'm giving this serious consideration. What info would you give to help someone make this decision whether or not to keep hens?

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    2. I love chickens and I think everyone should have them! What do you want to know? I have had them for over 20 years now so I do know a thing or two about them lol. They are very easy to keep as a backyard flock. They are my pets really. My oldest dd had 3 of them for a couple years and her yard is seriously the size of a postage stamp. She just didn’t enjoy them so they came to live here. They are very quiet. Her neighbors didn’t even know she had them and their coop was about 8 feet from their window. The only downside to chickens is all the eggs-I’m not an egg eater lol. Ask me anything and I will try to give you an unbiased answer lol.

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    3. Oh, you can also make cakes with pop. I have never done it myself, but my sister has made several.

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    4. Hi Diane,
      With regards to keeping chickens, have you ever had a problem with predators? We have coyotes, raccoons, and hawks in our area and I worry about keeping hens safe. 3 seems to be the limit for most of our local cities and towns. Can you get a fair number of eggs from 3 hens? Also, I don't know if you live in a part of the country with cold winters, but do you have to do anything special to keep them warm in winter? A heater in the coop?
      Thank you!

      I've heard of cakes made with soda pop. I wonder if it works with flat pop as well?

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    5. We have lots of predators here. I used to free range them but for a time we had a lot of foxes so now they have a coop with an attached enclosed pen. I let them out for at least an hour a day though so they can eat grass and just be a chicken. My winters can get very cold. If its -10 or colder I put a heat lamp in the coop. You would not need heat where you are. I didnt use any for years and they survived, but now I do add a bit of heat on the coldest of nites. As for number of hens. I always figure roughly 5 eggs per week per chicken. I have some chickens that are 8 years old. They don't lay that many anymore, but my younger ones do. I always recommend people get one more than they think they want so if I were you I'd sneak a fourth bird in. If one dies you are down to just 2. Im going to add some to my flock next year and I think I will do 5. I have 8 but 2 are very old, 3 of them are 2. And the other 3 are about 5 I think.i hate adding new ones so if I'm going to do it I'm making it worth the trouble lol.

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  3. I suspect that food saves are second nature to many of your readers. I'm struggling with coming up with something to write. I did make a southwest riced cauliflower side dish a few weeks ago. We didn't finish it so I added it to leftover rice and I think my kids enjoyed that more than the original dish--the cauliflower blended in to the rice so that it almost "disappeared" and just seemed like a traditional rice dish.

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    1. Hi Kris,
      that cauliflower and rice dish sounds delicious and I can understand how your family would really enjoy it.

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  4. You're so inspiring! I used up a ripe papaya and made a side dish. It's a bit of a work to cook it but I can't just throw something away just because I don't feel like using it. I created a motto for myself "Saving the Earth shouldn't depend on your mood". :)

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    1. Hi Farhana,
      I love your motto! I feel the same. I just can't throw something away because I'm tired or feeling uninspired. Thanks for your comment!

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  5. That's an impressive save. I'm not sure what I've saved, but I am trying to keep up with the tomatoes and so far I've been successful. :)

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    1. Hi Live and Learn,
      Good luck keeping up with the tomatoes. It's too bad there isn't a switch you can flip that will halt ripening for a week while you catch up. I guess that's where canning and freezing come in to play.

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  6. Omelets are my secret weapon to food waste. I made them yesterday morning. I had some leftover stings beans with garlic and a little cheese. My son had some asparagus with mushrooms and onions. Hubby had some ham and peppers. They get rid of the little bits that are leftover that aren't enough for a meal. I put everything out and ask who wants what.

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    1. Hi Marybeth,
      Oh, that's a good one. I think there are a lot of leftovers that would be tasty in an omelet. Thanks for sharing. I'll keep that one in mind.

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  7. Hmm, can't say that I've had many saves over the past week. However, I did roast a chicken one night. We buy from someone who raises them locally, and, knowing we still have 4 kids at home, they sold us the biggest ones, some at almost 8 lbs. My food thermometer showed it was done, but as we picked it off the bones, it clearly was not. I already had dinner mostly made, so ended up opening some canned chicken to add to the gravy, which we then put over the dressing to eat. And I used the meat from the roasted chicken in a casserole the next night as well as enchiladas on Saturday.

    If we do miss something, it either goes to the ducks that we keep for eggs, or to the compost if possible.

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    1. Hi Cat,
      That sounds like a great save! I've had that happen a few times, where I was pretty sure the chicken was done, only to discover it wasn't, right as we're about to sit down to dinner.

      I think you've said that you used to keep hens. What do you find better about keeping ducks for eggs compared to chickens?

      I wish I knew someone locally who raised chickens to sell. I'd much rather buy whole chickens that I knew were raised in a healthy way than from the supermarket.

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    2. Well, I was diagnosed with a chicken egg allergy about 1.5 years ago, so we started consuming duck eggs at home. It's not a severe allergy, but worth avoiding them to lessen inflammation in my body (several autoimmune issues). We were buying duck eggs from the local folks we get pork and whole chickens from, but they were down to two older ducks who quit laying over last winter. And then the closest place to buy them, Whole Foods in OKC, 90+ miles from me, quit carrying them as well. So, we decided to buy ducks and keep them in the enclosure we previously used for our chickens. The eggs are similar, just larger, and maybe a bit richer? They are actually a more efficient egg layer when you compare the amount of feed they consume to the size of their eggs, relative to chickens. Ducks are messier, though, and while they don't NEED to swim, just a bucket to dunk their heads (cleans their sinuses), they are much happy being able to. So we keep a 50 gallon stock tank for them. When we drain it, we use that to water our fruit trees, rotating each week. We use our water catchment from the roof to fill their tank, aside from super hot weather such as now (the untreated water develops algae very quickly).

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