OOP$ Wa$te not...

Get in the habit of assigning a dollar value to every food item you toss in the garbage. That half a loaf of bread equals $1, that leftover casserole you meant to eat for lunch -$2, that spoiled onion -$0.50. Seeing several dollars worth of wasted food going in the trash on a weekly basis is enough to get you to change your shopping, eating and storage habits. Try this for a week and you'll be amazed and disgusted at how much you actually throw away.

Have you gotten into the pantry and found that your potatoes have started to sprout eyes or an onion has gone soft, threatening the quality of the entire bag of produce? Is the celery going limp, the bananas brown or the pepper less than perky?

DON'T throw out that produce. Instead, "process it" for later use:
Dice or slice potatoes and freeze in a zip lock bag for hash browns or soups and casserole which calls for potatoes
Dice or mince peppers, garlic, celery, etc. and freeze in snack bags (or single recipe size containers) for use in casseroles, soups, quiches and sauces
Remove the skins from bananas and store in a snack bag for use in breads and muffins
Dice (or grate) stale bread and use as bread crumbs
Hard cheeses can be grated and frozen too
Store all these mini containers in a small plastic "shoebox" in your freezer. This box is easy to remove, keeps small containers from straying in the far recesses of your freezer and keeps these items available for use.

I also employ this when I only use half the FRESH VEGETABLE such as a head of cabbage, green pepper or other suitable vegetable.

Waste Not, Want Not!