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Cooking New Life into Old Food.

This may sound like an odd concept – old food isn’t exactly something people want to do much with, other than throw away, of course. But just because something is old, bruised, partially bad, leftover or a little stale, doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderfully (and often surprisingly) useful! The goal of this blog is exactly as its title states – to cook new life into old food – that is, to take food items that may be past their prime, ugly, in surplus, or seemingly worthless, and turn them into something valuable and/or delicious. 

I realized the potential of imperfect food when I got a job in a market about a year ago. We had a small produce section – it was always overstocked and under-bought. Each day, it was my job to go through the section and get the ‘ugly’ produce off the shelves. This would be a potato with too many eyes growing on it, an apple that had a bruise on one side or a bunch of green onions that the tops were getting slimy. You know, the produce that no person – in a grocery store – would want to pay full price for (which, by the way I TOTALLY understand). The first day, I did what the owners had always done – tossed it all in the garbage. The second day, I asked if I could take some of it home. The answer was “Sure.” as it was already loss in the stores eye. 

I’ve since moved away from that market, and moved right into another. This one is a farm stand, with an organic, farmers market flare. Organic, farm fresh flare means short shelf life, which means I have a fridge full of old, imperfect produce again. YAY!

The last thing, that brought me to this point in my life, is that I usually cook just for me. I have a husband, but he rarely eats at home because of his job, and we don’t have any kids. This means, when I buy a head of kale – I have to be 100% committed to kale for the week, or it starts to go bad because I just can’t finish it. So, I’ve had to get creative. I’ve had to find a way to work around the parts of things that have gone bad or have had to find a way to preserve the items BEFORE they go or find a way to use them in a way that won’t TASTE like them. It’s turned into a bit of a challenge. A challenge that I’ve embraced and now want to pass onto others: Don’t throw it away! Figure out what you can do with it!

Note: This is not a dumpster diving, trash to table blog. I won’t give any advice or recipe that could be harmful or cause illness. Take these posts as points of reference, not gospel. Do only what you are comfortable doing. However, remember, I wrote the blog the next day most likely, and I was still alive and well enough to write about it! I want to do my part change the crazy wasteful mindset us here in the USA tend to have. If I can save just one spotted apple or brown banana from going in the trash, well then, I’ve done my job.