At Alvarado Independent School District in Texas, Chartwells K12 celebrated Stop Food Waste Day with a Discovery Kitchen chef cooking demonstration featuring a recipe for Broccoli Slaw and teaching students how to cook using the whole broccoli, as well as Waste Warrior Trivia with seed packet prizes, classroom lessons and additional activities and nutrition education for students in the elementary, middle and high schools.

Recipe here

In the café at a large financial company in New York City, the Restaurant Associates team put on a Game of Not Thrown event in which chefs competed in a Waste Warrior showdown to see who can make the best dish with the least amount of waste. The goal was to use the most of each ingredient by being resourceful and being able to improvise. This recipe using the whole beet plant was one of the creations.

Recipe here

Another Restaurant Associates creation from the Game of Not Thrown competition was this dish, which uses broccoli, a humble vegetable that can be elevated to be the star of a dish while using all of it. Fish skins, left over from another dish, are used for their nutritional benefits and to add texture and interest to the dish, which has many elements that all work together to celebrate broccoli and the spring season:

Recipe here

The Weinstein Region Morrison Healthcare team created a meal that features sustainably harvested fish and locally grown produce and utilizes ingredients that were once looked at as scraps—root to stem and beyond. 

Recipe here

This bread and butter pudding from Chef Tom Matterface of Eurest Cafe 2400 was a staple dessert in Matterface’s house growing up in England. “My nan made the best bread and butter pudding (don’t tell my mum though!) and I loved making it with her,” he says. “It’s like the ultimate food waste dessert because you are meant to use stale bread and you can flavor it with anything that you want or need to use up.” Café 2400 uses leftover brioche from the grill and bananas that are starting to brown.

Recipe here

Though this chutney from Eurest is plant-based, it would be quite nice accompanying a charcuterie board, ribeye steak, grilled fish, or in a sandwich pressed between crusty artisan bread. It capitalizes on zero waste utilizing vegetable trim like scallion trim, fennel bulb trim, ribs of kale, ends of squash and cores of cauliflower, and the use of unfiltered and raw apple cider vinegar acts as a probiotic and promotes digestion and gut health.

“Cooking and consuming a fermented or pickled vegetable is dear to my heart,” says Eurest Chef Ryan McDonald, who created this dish. “After fighting cancer in 2019 and undergoing two major surgeries on my neck and tongue, I chose a fasting and plant-forward lifestyle 80% of the week. Since choosing to pursue this lifestyle as well as incorporating preserved vegetables, I have been able to reduce inflammation and pain considerably.”

Recipe here

These snacks from Chartwells Higher Education are a perfect pre- or post-workout snack, or a quick healthy bite when a sweet craving hits. It comes together in under 20 minutes and uses those coffee grounds from your morning coffee by tossing them in a blender or food processor along with the other ingredients. Here’s the simple recipe…

INGREDIENTS

1 cup dry whole grain oatmeal

4 tbsps. used coffee grounds

1/2 cup creamy almond butter or any nut butter

1/4 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup dried cranberries

DIRECTIONS:

Blend oatmeal and used coffee grinds together until thoroughly mixed, and then add choice of butter. Once well-combined, fold in chocolate chips and cranberries and stir well.  Let chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. Once chilled, roll into balls or bites.