1-always use a rubber spatula to scrape out jars. When someone in the family uses the last of a jar of peanut butter, they put the near-empty jar in the fridge. Sometime, when I want peanut butter on bread, I use a spatula to scrape out 2 or 3 jars and get just enough peanut butter for my slice of bread.
2-gladly accept gifted foods and freebies. I volunteer at a luncheon/tea every month. The kind lady in charge gifts us with a bunch of leftovers. I always accept and make use of what is given to us. I also pick up the Friday Freebie, even if it's a product that I would never normally want. I figure a way to use the item in cooking, or offer to a family member.
3-reserve someone's leftovers to serve to them at the next meal. We've done this for years, when one of the kids wouldn't finish their dinner, because they weren't hungry, I would cover the plate or glass and refrigerate it until the next meal. This still happens with glasses of milk. I'll pour too much for one of the family members, they can't finish it. So, I refrigerate it, and serve it to them at the next meal. It's just "normal' for our family. If I don't eat all of my dinner one night, I eat my own leftovers for lunch the next day. I don't know why some people won't eat leftovers. When they eat in a restaurant and don't eat a whole meal, they ask for a box to take home their leftovers. So home-cooked leftovers shouldn't be any different.
4-use someone else's leftovers for myself, with a little "surgery." If one of my kids starts eating a piece of fruit, then decides they don't like it. I'll refrigerate the rest, even if it's been, um, chewed on. Later, I'll trim away the parts where they have eaten, and I'll cut up the rest for myself. It doesn't matter to me that the piece of fruit that I eat is not "virginal."
An example, my daughter began eating a pear of which she didn't like the texture. She thought it was mealy. I refrigerated it, and the next day, I cut away the bite marks, chopped the pear, and made a salad for myself, with this chopped pear, lettuce, chunks of cream cheese, a few pecans, and a dressing of mayo, jam, and water. My salad was delicious, and the piece of fruit was not wasted.
5-serve myself or others only the amount we will eat, such as with bananas -- I can't eat a whole banana, so it's common for me to cut a banana in half, and leave the remaining half on the counter for someone else to snack on later that day. On the rare occurrence that the other half of the banana is not eaten that day, I'll pop it in the fridge or freezer.
If I'm hungry for some bread, but not super hungry, I cut a slice in half and leave the other half in the bag. If I'm serving something saucy and there's too much sauce on my plate, I take a half-slice of bread instead of a whole slice, if that's all I want.
7-rinse out milk jugs with a little water, swish around, then pour into a glass or pot of soup/gravy/sauce. This is like using a rubber spatula to get the last bit. In a jug of milk (or any liquid), there's always about 1 teaspoon of liquid that is still on the sides of the container and would take a while to totally drip out. So, I just rinse with a bit of water and use this thinned down milk. I began doing this years ago, adding to my coffee. Since I can't "do" cow's milk any more, I've found ways for the milk rinsings in cooking, or adding to others' glasses. However, I use this trick with my soy milk, and tea for myself. The containers have to be rinsed out anyways, for the recycling bin, so I'm using the rinsings.
8-rinse tomato paste cans, jam jars, salsa jars, any food jar whose contents are sticky, leaving small amounts on the jar's insides. I rinse with water (as I do with more liquidy things like milk) and the rinsings go into something that we will eat. Jam jar rinsings are often added to my tea. Salsa and tomato paste rinsings will be added to a savory dish. Applesauce jars, rinsed with water, and add the watery applesauce to muffin batter. Similar to peanut butter jars, there is usually about 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of food left inside a jar. Applesauce jars are the worst. All of the interior ridges of the jars trap a lot of applesauce. Rinsing gets all of the contents out, and cleans the container for recycling.
9-rinse similar food item containers, as above, but with vinegar and use in homemade salad dressing. Jam jars rinsed with plain vinegar, and added to oil make a wonderful salad dressing.
10-use cores of lettuce, cabbage, cauliflower, thin sliced and chopped or julienned, in soups, salads, and stir-fries.
11-use cookie crumbs from the cookie jar or package in muffin batter.
12-serve myself just a little bit less than I think I want. I eat my meal, wait 15 minutes to see if I want more. Almost always, I am completely full within 10 minutes.
13-share meals in restaurants. Restaurant portions are huge. It's bad for my health to eat as much as many restaurants serve. If one meal looks like it will be slightly too little, we also order one appetizer, or an extra side dish. My daughters and I occasionally go to a teriyaki place nearby and split one meal 3 ways. It's plenty of food for us, and in the event that we're still a little hungry afterward, we wait until we get home and make some dessert.
14-grind coffee beans extra fine. most of the time I buy the less-expensive cans of coffee (storebrand). When I do buy the grind-it-yourself beans in the grocery store, I grind them to "espresso" fineness. I get more flavor out of the grounds this way, and can use less to make a pot of coffee. I use paper filters, which catch and hold the fine stuff, making a flavorful cup of coffee.
15-with the above, pricier coffee grounds, I mix them half and half with cheap coffee, and still get a satisfactory-to-me cup of Joe.
16-keep a "dessert tin." When we have leftover odds and ends of commercial desserty things, like graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate pieces from s'more-making, or a few savoiardi biscuits, or a couple circus peanut candies, I put them in the "dessert tin." Some night after dinner, I pull out the tin and circulate it around the table. Everyone chooses something from the tin for their dessert.
17-trim small amounts of mold off of hard cheese and use the rest in cooking. According to the Mayo Clinic, it is "safe" to trim mold from hard cheese and still eat the rest. here's the article which explains which cheese you can trim and eat, and which you should discard if it becomes moldy. We've become so mold-fearful that we forget some molds are not harmful, such as the ones which are used in cheese-making.
18-use milk and eggnog that is one, two or three days past sell-by date, in pancakes or baked goods. If milk is at sell-by date and we won't drink it all, I pour some of it off into containers to freeze, then use in baking, later.
19-keep the fridge on the more-empty side, rather than the more-full. This helps me stay on top of our supplies and use them all up. The above photo shows what my fridge looks like for a couple of weeks every month. It looks like there is nothing to eat in there, but I can scrounge quite a bit, even in this fridge. It's much more likely that I will have to throw away food when I am keeping the fridge very full.
20-keep our fridge at 39 or 40 degrees F and our freezer at 0 degrees F. These are the FDA recommended max temperatures to prevent spoilage.
21-when placing just-purchased groceries in my freezers or fridge I spread them out, so they chill faster, and again, prevent spoilage.
22-save leftover coffee or tea in the fridge. If I don't drink all of a cup or pot of coffee/tea, I save it until the next day, even if it's just an inch or two in the cup.
23-when I still feel tired, after my 2 cups of coffee in the AM, instead of more coffee, or some sugar, I drink a glass of water, step outside for some deep breaths of fresh air, and wash my face. All of these are good-for-me activities, but they save money on groceries, as a bonus. With the glass of water, I usually take this as an opportunity to take my C and B vitamins. I need to take those anyway, and both may help with energy levels. I may still want a cup of tea or coffee later, but for the most part, I drink less tea and coffee when I remind myself to have water and get fresh air to invigorate myself.
24-use small bits of leftover bread in savory or sweet bread pudding. If the amount is very small, I may only make a 2-serving dish of bread pudding. I had 2 scones, a half slice of white bread, and 1 small slice of French bread the other day. Because the scones were sweet, I made a sweet bread pudding. There was just enough for dessert for the small group eating at home that night.
25-I assess the amounts of ingredients that I have on hand before making my menu for the evening. If I anticipate the full family for dinner (5 or 6) I make my menu out of the ingredients of which I have a lot. If I anticipate just 2 or 3 of us eating that night, I seize that as an opportunity to use the small amounts of leftovers to feed a small group. The above mentioned small dish of bread pudding was made for a night when only 3 of us would be eating at home, or eating dessert (one family member is avoiding sweets for the time being). This worked perfectly. The previous night, we had the whole crowd for dinner. I had found a full pint of lemon sorbet in the freezer, and saved that for a night when everyone would be there. A pint of sorbet, plus a savoiardi biscuit made a light dessert and was enough for all of us.
26-I play "musical chairs" with the milk in my fridge and freezer. This may be difficult to explain in type, but here goes. I have 3 jugs of milk, all with near expiry dates. Jug A has enough milk for 1 day, is in the fridge, and has a use-by life of about 2 days. Jug B has enough milk for 4 days, is in the fridge, and has a use-by life of 2 days. Jug C has enough milk for 3 days, is in the freezer, and has a use-by life of about 3 days once thawed. How do I manage to have enough milk for every day, without waste or spoilage? I pour 1 days milk out of Jug B into Jug A, then pop Jug B in the freezer. This will give us enough milk in Jug A to get through 2 days.
But with Jugs B and C in the freezer, they will take 2-3 days each to thaw in the fridge, so we will be out of milk while we wait for them to thaw. If I keep Jug B in the fridge, now, it will go off before we drink it all, so it is best kept frozen until needed.
So, I take the frozen jug, Jug C out of the freezer, and place in the fridge to thaw, while we use Jug A. In 2 days, Jug C will be partially thawed and I can swish it enough to get frosty milk out of it, to use at meals on day 1 of its use, and will be totally thawed on day 2 of its 3-day use. When we finish Jug A, I then take Jug B out of the freezer and begin thawing in the fridge. It will take 2-3 days to thaw. About the time that Jug C is empty, Jug B will be ready to use, and will keep for 2-3 days.
Did anyone follow that? I hope someone got it. -ha ha- It's my system for using milk that's soon to go off, while maintaining a steady supply of milk for drinking and cooking.
27-if I accidentally take more butter than I really want for a piece of toast, I put the little bit that I don't want back on the butter dish. In the above photo, there's a tiny dab of butter on top of the stick. That would be mine from the other day. I used this butter, along with the half slice of bread from #5 to make myself some cinnamon toast for dessert after lunch on Friday.
28-the end of bags of chips (tortilla and potato) or packages of crackers get dumped into whatever casserole I make next.
I'm sure we can keep this list going and hit 100 things that we do to stretch our groceries. What's on your list?
