The holidays are approaching, and soon the sensational smells of holiday dishes will start filling our homes along with family and friends. Special meals are exciting, but what comes after? The reality is that Americans throw away 20% of the food they buy, which is wasteful, harmful to the environment, and costly in this time of rising food costs.
Waste Wise Lane County believes the leftovers can be just as magical as the original meal! We ask you to put your creative minds to work to share your favorite leftover recipes for a chance to win one of many great prizes and bragging rights.
Click to enter now!
Prizes include:
· A goody bag of sustainable products from Main Street Market in Springfield.
· A gift certificate for enrollment in two (2) Oregon State University (OSU) Extension Master Food Preserver workshops in 2024 + OSU Extension handouts on dehydrating and making flavored vinegars.
· A $100 gift card to Lion & Owl in Eugene.
· A BRING $30 gift certificate + a BRINGmade item.
Why Leftovers?
Planning at least one meal from leftovers each week is a great way to ensure you utilize all the food you buy. Using recipes to build your meal plans helps you avoid pitfalls such as needing completely different ingredients for every recipe. For example, plan to eat broccoli as a side one night and in a casserole the next. Recipes can provide both inspiration and “how-to” instructions.
Now it’s your turn!
We’d love to see your favorite recipes for leftovers! Share those dishes that spring forth from the items in your fridge, freezer, or pantry before they spoil, shrivel, freezer-burn, or become otherwise inedible. It can be as simple as a short narrative of your list of leftovers and other ingredients you combine into a surprisingly delicious meal OR a more traditional-style recipe listing the ingredients and the step-by-step for your unique creation.
Here are a few examples and ideas:
· “Turkey Sundaes” made with mashed potatoes as a base, topped with layers of stuffing, turkey, cranberry sauce, and a generous helping of gravy! Sometimes, it is really about the presentation as much as the meal!
HINT: We’re not looking for recipes from your favorite celebrity chef or America’s Test Kitchen! We prefer YOUR home-tested recipes that are:
(1) Relatively simple
(2) Don’t involve much prep time or specialized appliances.
(3) DO involve using up leftover food items.
So, whether your approach to meal preparation is formal or freestyle, we’re interested in what you come up with. Kid-friendly recipes are encouraged!
Qualified recipe submissions will be entered into a random drawing to win one of three prize packages.
Here is how to qualify:
Recipes submitted must be appropriately attributed, either solely to you or to its creator (family member, etc.) If your recipe came from a cookbook or website but you've made it your own, please tell us where it originated, as we cannot re-publish copyrighted material.
1. What’s the name of your dish? Is it for vegans, vegetarians, or omnivores? Is it kid-friendly?
2. What was the inspiration for your dish?
3. Identify the leftovers or Eat First! food items you used from your fridge, freezer, or pantry as the primary ingredients in your recipe. Use as many as you can!
4. Estimate how much $$ you saved by not wasting those leftover items.
5. Include 1-2 photos of what you made (and a selfie if you like).
Please complete our Waste Wise Lane County: Simplify the Holidays Leftover Recipe Contest Entry Form and submit it by Sunday, Dec. 31, 2023. Limit one submission per person. Participants must be residents of Lane County.
We will randomly draw four winners and announce them by Jan. 3, 2024, on the eastsmartwasteless.tips blog! We’ll also highlight some of our favorite recipe entries, so stay tuned! Make sure to follow Waste Wise Lane County on Facebook and Instagram for contest updates.