What is The Use it Project?

We throw away a ton of food.

Americans do, in general. But our family does, too.

I don't just mean the stuff I dump down the sink after dinner. My kids are picky eaters, and I refuse to cater to picky eaters. So I make Indian curries, exotic meals for my other blog,  Thai food, vegetable dishes, stuff that's good for you and stuff that tastes good ... to grownups. My kids don't like most of it and it goes down the drain.

But there's other stuff, too. That bag of apples I bought last week when my kids were on an apple kick that they've since abandoned. All that stuff I bought for Saturday's meal, just before my husband decided he was going to invite his buddies over for a barbecue instead. All that stuff I was going to use for one of those Indian curries, but then I ended up being too tired to cook and just boiled some  ravioli instead. Or maybe it's a bag of spinach that I only used half of. A lot of the time, that stuff just gets forgotten, and then it gets thrown out.

That's the kind of waste I'm going to try to avoid this year. That's why I started this blog. No, it's not because I really need another blog. It's because I need to challenge myself to stop throwing stuff away and to make use of what I already have in my fridge--before it starts growing little blue sweaters.