With Earth Day a mere three days away, I’m here to bring you our final food waste challenge highlighted food: CELERY! This one is the big kahuna, with more of you saying you end up throwing out limp stalks than any other food we heard about. Here are a couple of the comments from our guests about the challenge of using up the celery in your fridge:

“I have never used more than a few stalks of celery out of a bunch before it goes bad. I guess I could just do the ants on a log thing.”–Tony

“Definitely celery…I freeze veggie scraps for future broth/soup making, but too often, they appear freezer-burned by the time I am ready to make my soup. “–Emily

“Celery tops are also a challenge. There are many Greek recipes that use lots of celery, including the leaves, but you certainly can’t use so much in stocks because it is a dominant flavor. A celery bunch can be stored in the fridge by putting the root end in a wide-mouthed jar with an inch of water and tent the top with a plastic bag. Celery strips are great
to serve with dips of all kinds. “–Carrie Rose

Before sharing our recipe ideas for celery, I want to let you in on the million dollar trick for buying celery at Bi-Rite: you can buy as many or as few stalks as you need! That’s right, we sell it by the pound, not the bunch, so you’re always welcome to take just as much as your recipe calls for if you’re worried a whole head is too much. And now, for the recipes…

Winter Celery salad

Alli, Grocery
Thinly slice equal parts celery and fennel (I use a mandolin to get them super fine).
Whisk fish sauce, sesame oil and light soy sauce to taste.
Toss together, adding cilantro, mint, or Italian parsley before serving. Delicious with fish!

Celery Leaf Salad with Blue Cheese, Belgian Endive & Citrus

Kirsten, Marketing

2 Belgian endive heads (or other chicory), chopped
1 C celery leaves, chopped
2 oz crumbled blue cheese
¼ C toasted and chopped walnuts
¼ C orange juice
¾ C olive oil
¼ tsp sugar or honey
Salt and pepper

Mix endive and celery leaves, reserving a few celery leaves for garnish.
Shake together orange juice and sugar. Whisk in olive oil and add salt and pepper to taste.
Pour ½ of dressing over celery and endive, reserving the rest for another salad later that week.  Mix well with hands.
Place walnuts, cheese and reserved celery leaves on top. Serve with roasted chicken, farro salad, or a really awesome burger.

Everyday Tips for Celery

• Don’t forget about ants on a log, the all-American snack! Smear peanut butter on a celery stick, top with a line of raisins, and eat those ants before they walk off! (Rosie, 18 Reasons)

• Check out Mark Bittman’s article from this week–16 recipes starring celery!

Continuing on with our spotlight on foods we need to work at not wasting, here are a couple of the comments we heard from our guests about the challenge of using up citrus before it goes bad:

“Most attrition around our house is due to mold and slime. Mold most often in the form of citrus fruits that have sat too long in the damp climate and on cheeses that are a little past their prime.”-Sharyn

“For those who throw out citrus, when I have too much, I press and freeze the juice and defrost when I have a friend coming over for cocktails.” –Laura

OUR STAFF RECIPES FOR CITRUS

Photo courtesy of White on Rice

Preserved Lemons

Rosie, 18 Reasons

Pour ¼ inch layer of kosher salt into a sterilized glass jar.
Layer in quartered lemons, alternating quarters with tablespoons of salt. Really smash the lemons in there.
Add enough fresh squeezed lemon juice to come to top of jar, leaving ½ inch head space. Seal.
Leave out for one week, turning and shaking every 2 days.
Refrigerate and let preserve for two more weeks. They will keep for eons (well, at least 6 months) in the fridge. Awesome in salad dressings, over warm grains, in tagines, etc.

Tommys-Style margarita

Alli, Grocery

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice.
Add 2 oz reposado tequila, 1 oz lime juice (or experiment with any kind of citrus!), and ½ oz agave nectar or sweetener of your choice.
Shake well and strain into rocks glass.

Any Citrus Curd

Alli, Grocery

Yield: 3 cups

3 lemons or limes or 1 grapefruit (for zest)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/4 pound unsalted butter, room temperature
4 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup citrus juice (lemon/lime/grapefruit)
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Carefully remove peel from citrus, avoiding bitter white pith. Put zest in food processor, add sugar + pulse to finely mince zest.
Cream butter + beat in sugar-citrus mixture. Add eggs, 1 at a time. Add citrus juice + salt. Mix until combined.
Pour into 2-quart saucepan + cook over low heat until thickened (~10 min), stirring constantly. Curd will thicken just below simmer, so don’t let boil. Remove from the heat + cool or refrigerate.
Serve on toast, dollop on yogurt, or pour into pre-baked shortbread crust for a pretty tart.

Everyday Tips for Citrus

• Remember, citrus is an acid. Replace vinegar with a squeeze of lemon juice on cooked greens, stick an orange in your next chicken before roasting, brighten your curry with a squeeze of lime.

• Next December, make your own candied citrus peel and give it as a gift!

Happy first day of Food Waste Challenge, everyone!! To give you a recap, we reached out to our online community and asked what you end up throwing out most often. You can check out all of the awesome feedback and waste-quenching ideas that were shared here. We then sifted through all of the responses and chose the food items that we heard most frequently–the ones so many of you are unhappy to say you throw away often. Then our staff got to work, coming up with recipes that use these foods as a key ingredient.

This week, when you walk around the floor of the Market, you’ll see the special “food waste challenge” items highlighted alongside recipe cards with tips from our staff. Please take one! And don’t hesitate to buy these foods, because we’re donating 10% of the proceeds from sales of the highlighted foods this week (up to $1,000) to Three Squares.

Each day this week I’ll choose one of the “food waste challenge” items and share our staff’s ideas for using them on our blog. So today for the big kickoff, we give you.…

HERBS!

Here are the few of the comments we heard about the challenge of using up herbs before they go bad:

“Whole bunches of herbs are a challenge. Except for basil, when making pesto or parsley, I end up drying the rest when I’d really rather have fresh herbs.”- Carrie

“I certainly have troubles with herbs as well! They seem to go to waste as I can never finish using them all. “- Kelly

“Herbs is a tough one & thx for the “any herb pesto” suggestion — great idea!…For carrot tops, herbs, veggie skins, and so forth, keep a plastic bag in the freezer for your “scraps” and make your own veggie stock. All great ways to get the most out of your veggies!”-P.K.

“Slime usually affects cilantro that I do not use fast enough — the stems will slime over whether I keep it in water or in plastic.”-Sharyn

OUR STAFF RECIPES FOR HERBS

Quick chicks with herbs

Mira, Deli

“My recipe calls for rosemary, but I’d substitute just about any herb I’ve got around that needs usin’ [cilantro, sage, parsley etc]. I like it with lemon zest, or you can just give the chickpeas a squeeze of lemon juice when they’re done.”

1 can chickpeas

3 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary

1 Tbsp chopped garlic

1/3 of lemon zested

3/4 tsp kosher salt

Pepper

Drain + rinse chickpeas, then pat dry.

Heat olive oil over med-high + cook chickpeas for 5 — 7 minutes, until they get a little darker, shrink a little + form a crust.

Toss in rosemary, garlic, lemon zest, salt + pepper. Heat till garlic turns translucent.

Catch-all Cilantro Sauce

Alli, Grocery

Combine the following in a blender or food processor + puree until smooth: 1 cup cilantro, 2 cloves garlic, 1 jalapeno, ½ cup walnuts, 1/3 cup lemon juice, ¼ tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp kosher salt, ½ tsp black pepper.

Add up to ¼ cup water to thin to desired consistency.

Serve on chicken, fish, Indian food, as a veggie dip, etc.

Everyday tips for herbs

• Throw whatever herbs you have laying around into a bunch of eggs with cream or cheese of some sort (chevre goes especially well with lots of herbs) and you have the makings of an herb frittata. (Ben, produce)

• To save herbs for later use, freeze them in ice cubes, or dry them by hanging them up against a sunny window sill or putting them on a sheet in a low-temp oven. (Ben, produce)

• Throw herbs on the brink of going bad into a container in the freezer along with chicken bones, cheese rinds, and other stock-ready ingredients.