Love Food Friday Tip #9: Get Serious!

Love Food Friday!

Love Food Friday Food Waste Elimination Tip #9: Get Serious — Document — and Save!

Chef Chris Giegel

For anyone serious about reducing food waste, it helps to know what is often wasted. Designate one week where you keep a journal or record all the food that gets wasted in your household. This will help you make informed and wiser buying decisions. If you buy less you waste less.

This could be as simple as freezing half a loaf of bread because you don’t eat an entire loaf before it goes bad, or realizing that your family doesn’t like something and avoiding purchasing it in the future. Buy a smaller gallon of milk if that regularly spoils before you can drink it all.

It’s easier to form a plan to reduce your food waste if you know what’s wasted. It’s well worth the time and will likely save you some money too!

Grecian Beef Strip Steaks & Mushroom Kabobs…

A great way to celebrate May as Beef Month and Memorial Day Weekend

Wishing you a fun filled holiday weekend, from our family to yours 🙂

Love Food Friday Tip #6: Buy “Ugly Ducking” Produce…

Love Food Friday

Food Waste Elimination Tip #6: Buy “Ugly Ducking” Produce!

Chef Christopher Giegel

There is beauty in an “ugly duckling”…

We often have this idea in our heads that all produce needs to look perfect—uniform, shiny, without a single blemish. The reality is that produce comes in all shapes and sizes, just like people and cattle. Just because a tomato isn’t perfectly round or a pear has a minor blemish doesn’t mean that it’s any less healthful or tasty.

In America we waste tons, literally tons, of produce a year because it doesn’t meet the consumer’s expectation of perfection. In commercial food service, chefs can actually choose to buy cases of produce labeled “packer” that aren’t perfectly shaped, but are completely healthy and delicious. We often can save some money doing this, and it helps to prevent food waste.

I choose to do this from time to time for things that the shape of the whole vegetable or fruit is unimportant. Anything that’s going to be chopped up small or added to soup where the shape of the whole doesn’t matter. This is an opportunity to affect change and reduce food waste on a larger scale than simply not wasting what you purchase.

Champagne Steak Salad with Blue Cheese Recipe!

Next time you’re at the grocery store consider the “ugly duckling” produce and that it might actually be something quite beautiful!

Love Food Friday Tip #4: The Freezer Is Your Friend!

Love Food Friday

Food Waste Elimination Tip #4: The Freezer Is Your Friend!

Chef Christopher Gigiel

Don’t Waste it, Freeze it!

I like soup, chili, stew, and casseroles. I’m also single and making any one of those meals means that there are a lot of leftovers because I haven’t mastered the art of cooking smaller amounts in my personal life after cooking for large groups of people in my professional life. But, I don’t waste it, I freezer leftovers in single-serving size containers so that I can pop them out of the freezer and reheat them for a quick dinner, or pack it for a homemade lunch.

I use inexpensive “disposable” type plastic storage containers that you can find at the grocery store so that it’s not a large expenditure to have a plethora of them on hand when things need to be stored. I also label and date leftovers on the front edge so that I can easily find what I’m looking for in the freezer and know how long it’s been in there. This lets me use up the things that have been there for a while.

This is a great tip if you’ve made a large amount of something and you don’t want to eat it all week. Portion it and freezer it. It also gives you choices for quick meal options or lunch on the go. Additionally, you can freezer an excess of produce before it spoils. Particularly good for fruit for smoothies. If it’s more than you can eat before it spoils, chop it and freeze it and you’ll have delicious fruit on hand for that morning smoothie. Also works great for veggies from the garden or farmers market – freeze them and pop them out and into that stir fry.

Love Food Friday Recipe Share #4: Albondigas In Spicy Tomato Sauce

Click Here For The Recipe!

Love Food Friday Tip #2: Organize Your Kitchen!

Love Food Friday

 Food Waste Elimination Tip #2: Organize Your Kitchen!

Chef Christopher Gigiel

Organize your fridge and pantry.  An organized kitchen is a happy kitchen, and also an efficient and less wasteful kitchen.

If you can easily see what’s in your refrigerator and pantry you’re much less likely to waste things.

• I keep perishable things at the forefront of my fridge so that they don’t get shoved to the back and become a fuzzy science experiment-gone-wrong.
• I regularly take mental inventory of what I have and make sure that I store newer groceries behind older ones so the older ones get used first.

In the restaurant business we call this FIFO – First in, First out, it ensures I use things in a timely manner and they don’t go to waste. I go so far as to physically do inventory and check things off the grocery list that I made before I go shopping so I know that I’m not buying in excess.

Celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day by organizing your kitchen and enjoying Chef Chris’s: Slow-Cooked Corned Beef in Beer with Red Currant-Mustard Sauce