10 Ways to Stop Wasting Food and the No Waste Food Challenge

I’ve recently started writing a regular monthly column about using up food waste for Vegetarian Living magazine. This has been very exciting as it merges my love of writing, recipe development and researching food. Each month I pick a seasonal vegetable, create a recipe using as much of it as possible and I give tips on how to use up other fruits and vegetables that are in season. I hope you’ll check it out!

I love using up parts of produce that are usually discarded. Edible parts like carrot tops, beet leaves and stems, cauliflower leaves and broccoli stalks are all useful, healthy ingredients. So, I’m very happy to be the guest host for this month’s No Waste Food Challenge by the lovely Elizabeth of Elizabeth’s Kitchen Diary.

Have you blogged any recipes this month using up ingredients that may have gone to waste? Perhaps bananas that were too ripe to eat, a cauliflower that was starting to brown, stale bread, yogurt a few days out of date or carrots that were a bit limp. Maybe you bought some of the ingredients reduced at the supermarket and they might have otherwise been binned.

Here are some of my ways to use up fruit and vegetables as seen in the collage above – clockwise from the top left!

This Apple Pie with Kale and Lemon Pastry makes great use of this season’s apples – of which I seem to have a LOT!
Beet Chocolate Protein Balls use up leftover beetroot – freshly cooked or vacuum sealed (without vinegar).
Beet, Cranberry and Ginger Smoothie is a refreshing way to use up too many winter cranberries
Whole Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Curry uses up the entire cauliflower, including the leaves
Parsnip Maple and Nutmeg Cake with Sweet Potato and Ginger Icing – this flavourful icing is a great way to use up sweet potato
Spinach and Coconut Cake is a great way to use up spinach in a surprising, sweet way
Probably my most ambitious no waste recipe is my Roast Dinner Waste Cake, which is a maple and cinnamon cake with carrot, parsnip and potato peelings.
This Tuscan Ribollita (Bean Stew) can be adapted easily to allow you to use up veggies.
Too much mashed potato at dinner? Turn it into dessert – Chocolate Mashed Potato Cake with Tahini Drizzle.
Sweet Potato and Ginger Protein Balls use up leftover roasted or boiled sweet potatoes that you might have had with dinner.

Join the No Waste Challenge!

Link up here and I’ll be sharing the entries on social media as well as doing a full round up at the end of the month.

I’m very excited to see what you create. They don’t have to follow any particular theme, and they don’t have to be vegetarian. Just recipes created with something that may otherwise have been binned.

Challenge conditions:

1. Please link up the url of your blog post using the linky below.

2. Feel free to republish old posts just make sure you add a link to the current challenge and add the challenge badge, if you fancy (the blue badge at the bottom of this post). Use of the badge is optional.

3. Make sure you link up before the end of the month!

4. Posts will be added to the No Waste Food Challenge Pinterest Board to help spread the food waste prevention love! I will also Stumble and Tweet all entries, as well as including them all in a full round up.

5. Please make sure your post includes a link back to this blog post and the current month’s host, Veggie Desserts!

6. Tweet @TangoRaindrop and the current month’s host, me, @veggie_desserts with the tag #NoWasteFoodChallenge and we will retweet when we  see it!

I’m also hosting Extra Veg for Fuss Free Flavours and Utterly Scrummy this month, so if your recipe contains vegetables then link up to the Extra Veg challenge as well. For more food blogger linkups, take a look at the Food Blog Diary.