We’ve had a “clever idea” email from Jos, telling us about their personal battle against food waste at work:

This sounds so cheap but I regularly “steal” the last of the sandwiches after meetings at work because they’d go in the bin if I didn’t take them. I eat some fresh, freeze others to eat later and grill the cheese ones. I rarely make my own sarnies these days!

Ah yes, free lunches. I used to organise academic conferences & courses as part of my job and the scavenger in me loved the leftover buffet. The best I managed was a very fancy meeting which included both sushi & steak (in too-big-to-be-easy-finger-food pieces, so very little was eaten). Later on in my buffet foraging career though, the catering people started getting more aggressive about health & safety and we weren’t allowed to take anything unless we could promise it would be eaten immediately — and that is something to consider when taking sandwiches or whatever: they’ve already been out of a fridge for several hours so some fillings may already be getting a bit past it. Consume at your own risk.

Assuming they’re still good though, I like Jos’ idea of grilling some of them and certain flavours may lend themselves to being made into an interesting bread and butter pudding (perhaps not egg mayo but we used to get wacky fillings like cream cheese & strawberry, which would be quirky but not insane in a pudding).

Anyone else a buffet womble? Do you eat them fresh or revamp them?

We’ve had an email from Sally:

I always snip buttons from old clothes before using them for rags but after a few years of my three’s school shirts, I’ve got more plain white buttons than I know what to do with. If they were pretty I’d keep them for crafts but they’re boring! Any ideas?

They could be revamped/upcycled to make them a bit more exciting: I saw a tutorial for spray painting plain buttons a few weeks ago – I’m not a fan of spray paints in general but if you had some ends of cans leftover from other projects, that certainly is one option. An alternative would be to use them to make fabric covered buttons, using up tiny bits of reclaimed material.

Aside from that, they could be used as they are in lieu of beads or the like in a homemade percussion instrument (not one for small kids).

Any other ideas on how they can be reused?

We’ve had an email from Jeroen:

We designed a lid for the Bonne Maman crême brulée cup that we usually through away.

Here you can see a short movie about it:

While I’ll admit the lid is very cute and well made, it didn’t occur to me that it needed one before reusing — my boyfriend John’s mum used to buy us frozen crême brulées from a door-to-door dessert salesman (…really) and the ceramic dishes have been part of our kitchenware ever since – one is currently employed as tea-bag dish and the others are in regular circulation as dipping sauce or olive stone bowls. We’ve also had similar glass ramekins from Gu desserts in the past: they’re my go-to bowl for making small amounts of marinade or spice mixes, or cornflour paste. And from a REDUCE point of view, which is the most important of the 3Rs, they’re great for refilling with homemade mousse or what-have-you.

Do you reuse glass or ceramic shop-bought dessert cups for anything special?

We’ve had an email from Joanna:

I found some part-used bags of frozen peas, sweetcorn and broccoli at the bottom of my chest freezer – expiry date 2009! My hubs is happy to ignore expiry dates but we tried some of the peas and they were tough and tasted washed out, not good! Any other options than just giving them to my worms?

I know what you mean with “washed out” – even stuff in date sometimes ends up tasting like freezer ice in our freezer.

If I was sure it was just a texture/taste issue, I’d probably give the veggies to our chickens and let them turn them into more palatable-for-us eggs. Wild birds would probably nom them up too.

Depending on quite how “freezer” they taste, they might still be fine for turning into soup or for use in long-cooked casseroles. Any washed-out flavour disguising recipe suggestions?

If you’ve got the freezer space to spare, it might be worth keeping the peas or sweetcorn as an emergency cold-pack for injuries – they could then be given to birds/added to a wormery afterwards.

Any other ideas?

Tina has asked a very timely question:

what can I use sweetcorn plants for?

I like to eat or use as much of my plants as possible, before composting the rest. There must be a million uses for corn plants, but can I find any? help!

We’ve already covered the empty cobs, after the lovely juicy kernels have been nibbled away. (Some suggestions: dip them in peanut butters or some solid-at-room-temperature oil and cover with seeds to make quick bird feeders. Dry them for use as kindling when starting fires. Give them to guinea pigs or chickens to nibble/play with.)

But what about the rest of the plants? Can the strong, tall stems be used for anything? The paper-y wrapping that protects the head? Any reuse options other than just composting it?

Would love to hear your ideas for this! :)