Gathering My Fragments: Week of June 29-July 3

Since I've been watching YouTube vlogs, I was introduced by Karla to two moms with large families.  One, Amy Maryon does a Friday vlog titled "Gathering Fragments" in which she scours her pantry, freezer and fridges to find items that aren't being eaten or used.  And then she plans what she will do with each item.  It's an excellent way to prevent food waste and those items that just seem to linger on and on that we've bought and never used or saved and failed to plan into meals.   I'm very guilty of the last.  Tossing my old bread end pieces or apple cores and peels into the freezer and putting off turning them into edible items.

So this morning, I went through my fridge.  Now I am fully aware that I also need to deal with my freezers but I had quite a turn out from my fridge and felt I had enough to plan into meals.  I'll share what I pulled out and what I plan to do or have done with each item.

Proteins:  A portion of grilled turkey tenderloin, a Bbq'd chicken breast, and a plentiful serving of fried chicken tenders, 2 containers blue cheese, 1 of feta.

Vegetables: four ears of corn, coleslaw, squash casserole, the tail end of a red cabbage, celery that I haven't touched all month long, mashed potatoes, the last portion of an English cucumber, a big jar of applesauce that we've eaten from once, a partial jar of pickled beets, half a can of refried beans.

Other:  Half a jar of pesto, half a jar Salsa Verde, chicken gravy.

I also washed the last Romaine heart and pulled out a couple of carrots to wash and shred.

 Immediately after seeing what I had on hand, I started planning what to do with it all.

John doesn't care much for pesto on pasta.  I do like using dollops in tomato soup or spaghetti sauce so I went ahead and put dollops on waxed paper lined plate and set that in the freezer.  I knew I could use one container of blue cheese but not two.  So I planned to put one of those in the freezer since it is nearing expiration date.   John doesn't eat squash casserole but there's only one serving left.  I'll have that with one of my meals one evening.   I ended up putting the chicken gravy in the freezer as well because I didn't use it as anticipated.

I then planned menus using only what I had in the fridge.

Meal 1:  Shredded Bbq Chicken Sandwiches, Slaw

I reheated the breast, shredded the meat and then used the last of the bottle of Bbq sauce to make it saucy enough for sandwiches.  By the way that bbq sauce was a fragment in progress of being used up too.  I'd combined the last of a bottle of mustard and another of catsup with the remaining Bbq sauce and ended up with about a half bottleof sauce total which we used a lot over the last week.   

There was not quite enough slaw for two servings but I added a little shredded carrot and finely minced red cabbage to that and stretched it a little further.

This ended being our late lunch today.   Had I been serving as a supper I would have added chips and homemade pickles but we typically don't eat a big meal midday these days.

Meal 2:  Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas, Rice, Salad

I watched Jessica O'Donohue make buffalo quesadillas on her vlog one night and I have had that recipe in my mind ever since.  I might turn this into a salad and skip the rice if we've had a heavy carb day, but since John isn't fond of spicy foods I thought doing a quesadilla with blue cheese dressing and rice might tone things down a bit.

Note:  We had the buffalo Chicken Salad for our supper which John declared was very good  and said he'd like that again.  

Meal 3:  Turkey Burritos, Corn (cut off the cob), Salad

 I chopped the turkey tenderloin, mixed it and the salsa verde with the refried beans and filled tortillas for burritos.  I added cheese before rolling up.  I'll reheat the corn in a frying pan with butter and maybe a tiny bit of cumin and make a green salad to go with these.

Meal 4:  Big Salad, Tomato Soup

I made a big bag of cut green lettuce, then put the rest of the red cabbage, shredded carrot in separate containers.  I'll hardboil eggs, dice the pickled beets and toss all these ingredients with the feta cheese and homemade croutons.  

You'll note that I haven't yet done a thing with the mashed potatoes or the applesauce.  My plan is to make potato doughnuts but I'll bake instead of frying them.  Since this makes quite a few doughnuts I'll be freezing portions for future days.

 I also want to make applesauce muffins for breakfast but this will barely touch that big jar.  I thought I might add some shredded carrots and raisins to the muffin batter. This will be an off the cuff recipe, not one I have anywhere.

I have gingersnaps and graham crackers open in the cupboard and think both are delicious with a cool bowl of applesauce as a simple dessert.  I'll probably do that once or twice as well.  If there's still applesauce, I'll freeze what's left.

I ran out of energy today for finishing up my 'fragment gathering' but I'll get it done in the morning for sure.  

I prefer to do this on Monday usually rather than at the end of the week since I try to plan leftovers into weekend meals if there's enough.   Let us know if you have gathered your fragments.  Want to share what you did with what you gathered?  Which day of the week works best for you?