Food Holidays and Reuse – April and May

By Jennifer Hancox, on April 5th, 2010

In February 2010, we wrote a post about Food Holidays as possible reuse opportunities. We had great response and wanted to continue posting about these for this month and next.

We mention these holidays, because they are fun (of course!), but also because incorporating these dates into your menu can help to reduce food waste by finding a ‘planned reuse’ opportunity. Plan ahead, freeze/store the overproduced items or trim, then use them on the designated holiday. If you like a particular holiday – celebrate it more often, quarterly or even monthly.

For example:
April

National Bake Week Begins First Monday – Use any leftover items to make creative new products. For example:

Dairy products that are close to their ‘use-by’ date, or even leftover like milk and cream cheese. These can be used to make cheese cake, custard or flan.

Fruit with small blemishes, or unused fruit from today’s smoothie station: use these to make pies, cakes, fillings.

Vegetables – use leftover veggies from the entree station for quick breads such as zucchini, carrot, herb bread.

Bake many items for purchase as ‘whole’ for guests to take home. These can be soldin advance or throughout service. Promote on company intranet or website, or in newsletter as a ‘bake sale’. Selling the new items can help generate revenue.

April 7: Coffee Cake Day – play with your usual recipe for coffee cake. Use granola for topping, add nuts, chocolate chips, sliced fruit. Maybe you can sell a slice of Coffee Cake with cup of coffee – at a special discount price for both?

April 11: National Cheese Fondue Day – This one might require a little effort in the weeks before. Collect and use all the end pieces of cheese – from the deli, grill, catering or other stations. Melt and combine with herbs and a little bit of flour for a classic fondue. For the ‘dippers’ – use day old bread or bagels cut into cubes, bagel chips, pretzel pieces, and vegetable sticks. The fondue and dippers can be sold as one item, separately or by the pound. Sell fondue in ounce cups with lids.

May

National Barbeque Month – This has endless possibilities be creative. Here are just a few:

Used coffee grounds as a rub for pork BBQ – trust me. (see recipe below)

Leftover liquid coffee as part of a sauce or glaze.

Use any unsold BBQ meats to make BBQ chicken pizza, Smoked Pork Tacos or other creative uses for smaller quantities of meat. (The guys in the office just laughed and said “Who has left over BBQ? It always sells out!” – but you never know…)

Use blemished fruit to make sweet and spicy BBQ sauce or even fruit salsa.

Coffee Rub for Barbeque

We found this recipe as well as many other by just searching for “Coffee BBQ” on the internet. NOTE: You will need to adjust the quantity and proportions to fit the usual foodservice volume. This recipe comes from: http://www.ineedcoffee.com/07/coffee-bbq/

1/3 cup of coffee grinds (new or used – either will work)

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

2 Tbsp Kosher Salt

1 Tbsp Fresh Ground Black Pepper

1 Tbsp Chili Powder

1 Tbsp Cumin

1 Tbsp Garlic Powder

Mix all ingredients well and apply generously to most cuts of pork. Pat into meat well before grilling or smoking. We like to use it on baby backs or pork spareribs. This rub also works for pork loin and pork chops on the grill.

Remember the recipe above is a guideline. Don’t be afraid to experiment with other ingredients like rosemary, ginger, cinnamon, or nutmeg. Get Creative!

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