10 ways to Use Up Perishables Before Traveling

Here's what I need to use up this week...

You're getting ready to leave town and the fridge is full of perishables that you need to consume before you leave town! There isn't enough room in the freezer to just freeze the stuff, and the raw vegetables don't freeze well anyway. Here are some tips to use up your perishables before you head out of town for summer vacation!

Using up Milk:

1. Make pancakes. Our pancake recipes uses up 2 full cups of milk and makes 16 pancakes. Enjoy these as Breakfast for Dinner, or make them in advance and eat them the morning you are planning to leave town. Freeze them if you have space--pancakes seem to take up less space that milk in the freezer.

2. Make pudding. If you have freezer space, freeze the pudding as popsicles.

Using up Bread:
3. Make Grilled Cheese: just 4 Grilled Cheese Sandwiches use 8 slices of bread! I haven't figured out a better way to use up a loaf of bread.

Using up Cheese:
4. Make Grilled Cheese (see above!): my family can't resist buttery bread with nice big slabs of cheese melted in between them. I think we would eat just as many sandwiches as I could make--which is why I only make 5 at most, one per person with one extra to split between the really hungry folks.

5. Make quesadillas and freeze them. This is also how I use up my tortillas.

Using up vegetables:
6. Make a frittata. Squash, zuchini, onion, potatoes, green beans, bell peppers, and spinach/greens all go well in a frittata. Slice your tomatoes and place them on top. Eat it for breakfast on the day you are planning to leave for a healthy, protien-rich start to your traveling day.

7. Make soup: Minestrone is designed to absorb leftovers.

8. Make vegetable sandwich wraps: If you have lettuce, carrots, cucumbers and other vegetables that are better consumed raw, wrap them in tortillas with some hummus or cream cheese, and bring them with you in a cooler on your road trip. You can do this with your bread too (see above!), but I find you can stuff more lettuce in a wrap than what you can smoosh in a sandwich.

Using up Eggs:
9. Make a frittata (see above! use your veggies--you might as well throw some cheese in there too if you need to get rid of it!): when I make a frittata, I use a 10 inch pan and throw 12 eggs in there. It sounds like a lot of eggs, but when you slice the frittata into 8 equal servings, there is only 1 and 1/2 eggs in each serving.

10. Make Deviled Eggs: If you don't have enough eggs for a frittata, hard boil your eggs, slice them in half lengthwise, remove the yolks and mix them with some mayonnaise and sweet relish to taste, and use two spoons to plop a blob of the yolk mixture in each white half. Serve these up with vegetable sandwich wraps (see #8 above) for dinner, and your family will scarf them down. Again, even if each person eats 3 deviled egg halves, they're still eating fewer than 2 eggs.

Empty your fridge, and enjoy you vacation! Visit OhAmanda to read and share Top 10 lists about many entertaining subjects.