Archive for Use it Up

Use It Up.

“Use it Up. Wear it out. Make it do, or do without.” — Mantra of the WWII generation. 

There will be many posts about this topic of wasting nothing. Everything about the home front during WWII involved making sure everything received its full use.

In my kitchen I’m having trouble parting with some things that I have no idea how I’m going to use — twist ties from fruit bags, fruit bags, empty jars (non-canning), frying pan grease (stay tuned for that post soon!). Every piece of paper, foil, cardboard is getting used twice and then composted or recycled.

With all this being said, it’s no surprise that every scrap of food must be used up. The EPA reported in 2012 that the US throws out 35 million tons of food each year. Estimates during WWII are around 4 million tons. How sad!

Of course, people living on the home front during the war were constantly reminded to not waste food. It was a matter of being a good patriot.

While the sentiment about being Food is a weaponmindful of those without enough to eat is still around, a big factor in food waste comes down to convenience – there’s no need to worry about using a ham bone to make broth since you can buy a can of it from any grocery store for very little money. Does anyone now have any idea how to take the giblet bag of a turkey/chicken and make it into a pan of gravy? Again, no…a can or a powder and some water will do the trick.

So, back to my kitchen. You know when you make a pie and there always seems to be more crust than pie plate? What can you do with the scraps?

The problem left me with an idea to make individual pies for lunches. There are a variety of ways to accomplish this. You can make “hand pies” by simply folding the filling into the crust and baking or frying (kind of like those Hostess Fruit Pies — warning…do NOT look at the calorie intake on those packages — well, actually – go ahead. Take a look at how many calories you are eating in those things! Spoiler Alert: I’m going to tell you now. 480 Calories per pie! 480!!)

I much preferred the idea of making a mini pie that could be contained in a lunch box. I simply pressed the leftover dough into a small mason jar, filled it with blueberries or apples and put them in the oven until they looked and smelled done.

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Mission Accomplished: No Waste Today!

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