If your mother was always after you to clear your plate, you probably still feel the guilty reverberations of it all these years later. Yet it’s likely that despite your best intentions, you probably do wind up throwing out a lot of food during the week: the wilting greens, the stale slices of bread, the leaky box of leftover Pad Thai. But while rotten food might be best disposed of (composted when possible, of course), there are a few ways to salvage edibility out of your neglected odds and ends, if you take a few extra moments in the kitchen each week.

Lettuce: Lettuce can be partially “revived” in a bath of icewater which will perk up all but the very most wilted bits. It can also be used as a delicate green in Asian-style stir-fries and soups, or pureed in a blender and added to salad dressing for newer, hopefully un-wilted lettuce.

Stale bread: The first immediately obvious use for it is pulverizing it into large chunks for croutons, or smaller ones for breadcrumbs. But there are plenty of more creative ways to use the last of your loaf. Bread pudding is a perennial favorite (for a vegan option, try soaking bread in coconut milk, maple syrup, and plenty of fruit before baking), or try a Brown Betty — layering sliced apples with bread crumbs, cinnamon, sugar, melted butter, and optional raisins, then baking covered for about one hour.

Vegetable scraps: Fresh or refrigerated vegetable peelings (especially potato and carrot), broccoli stems, chard veins, turnip greens, tomato butts, onion tops, etc. can all be boiled and strained into delicious stock which can then be frozen indefinitely and used when needed. Use as a base for disposing of other leftovers — rice soup anybody? — or as a catalyst for any number of tasty entrees.

Breaking the rote disposal habit can be hard at first, but re using your food scraps creatively not only pads your pantry but salves your conscience and stretches your food budget in the bargain.

Photo courtesy of How can I recycle this?