food waste Archives - Dominique Rizzo

Tag Archive for: food waste

Make food waste a thing of the past with clever cooking techniques – Chef Dominique Rizzo and Sam Thaiday

Make food waste a thing of the past with clever cooking techniques – Sam Thaiday & Celebrity chef Dominique Rizzo set out on a mission to bust the fact that food waste costs the average household about $2200 to $3800 per year.

At the Brisbane City Council Green Heart Fair, Chef Dominique Rizzo and NRL legend Sam Thaiday shared their tips on how to turn what is already in the fridge into creative meals, how to reduce your food waste and how to save time and money creating delicious dishes at home.

That’s good for your budget and good for the environment.

Living sustainably is all about reducing waste, recycling, reusing and being kind to the planet.

Getting into action on stage at the Green Heart Fair, Dominique and Sam chose the ingredients for the dishes that they were cooking from food leftovers that usually were tossed out in the garbage bin.

Together, they demonstrated how to cook a delicious menu of dishes starting with

Corn Soup with Avocado Salsa,

Vegetable San Choy Bow,

Sweet Potato Pizza,

Bacon and Vegetable Strudel.

There were no sad lonely vegetables in the kitchen after this cook-off.

Watch Brisbane City Council’s video of Dominique in “Make food waste a thing of the past – Chef Dominique Rizzo” on You Tube

If you want to know more about how to cut down on food waste, join the “Love Food Hate Waste Workshops” supported by The Brisbane City Council and presented by Dominique at her cooking school at Putia Pure Food Kitchen.

Griffith University Testimonial

0 Comments/in Testimonials/by Dominique Rizzo

Dear Dominique,

I can’t thank you enough for choosing to work with us on the pilot study. The evaluation survey starts tonight and soon we will have some data to hand to tell us if Waste Not Want Not can deliver change in reducing food waste. Regardless of that outcome I know you can deliver wonderful recipes and I hope we can work together again in future.

I hope you enjoy the comment.

Regards

Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele | Director

Food Waste at Home

0 Comments/in Blog/by Dominique Rizzo

Have you ever thought about food waste and what you might throw out each week?

Well Griffith University are asking us to to do just that with their pilot project Waste Not Want Not. In a Nine News interview with Mia Glover yesterday, Professor Sharyn Rundle-Thiele discussed how much food each week we waste and what we can all do to avoid throwing food away.

As a Chef, I’m always looking at ways to avoid food waste. This campaign has allowed me to develop some simple and tasty recipes for Queenslanders to turn ingredients they may already have on hand or leftover from a previous meal into something great.

If you would like to find out more about the Waste Not Want Not program, how to save money while helping the environment check out my blog from last week here.

Waste not want not – food waste

0 Comments/in Blog/by Dominique Rizzo

As a chef, it is part our job to order each week what the kitchen needs, maintain stock levels and make sure that no ingredient goes to waste. As our lives get busier and busier how do we at home make sure that we are not wasting the excess food from the shopping two days ago that wasn’t completely used in last night’s dinner? The answer, planning. Yes, a little bit of planning can go a long way and save you time and money!

Did you know Australian households dispose of $5.2 billion worth of food annually and this is estimated to grow. Food waste costs the city money and impacts the wider environment through food production, transport, waste-collection and landfills generating methane.

Most of household and commercial food waste is avoidable. One way to bring about change and reduce waste is to start with food wasted in the home.

This week I am involved with The Waste Not Want Not Campaign, a pilot behaviour change project developed by Social Marketing @ Griffith, in collaboration with Redland City Council, Griffith University and supported by Stockland Shopping Centre, Cleveland.
I have developed a range of recipes to support the campaign to help give people at home tasty ideas on how their leftover food can be turned into something new. Yes, no spaghetti bolognese four nights in a row!

Top tips:

Create a menu plan – Know when you are going to be home during the week and plan the meals for those days. You can create the weekly menu plan around some of the pantry items you already have in stock. Are there a few items already in the fridge that can also be turned into creative meals?
Make a Shopping list– Don’t go to the supermarket without one and don’t buy if it is not on your list. Remember you have a plan!
Food Storage – find out how to store your fresh food properly so that it keeps for longer. If you do make too much for one meal, take the rest to work for lunch the next day or freeze for another meal in the future.
Use leftover food for another meal – If the stir-fry recipe you are making requires only 1/2 cup of broccoli but you bought a whole head, make sure you use the rest of the broccoli in a meal or in a salad later in the week.

These top tips can help you reduce food spoilage, save you money by not overspending as well as help your local environment by reducing food waste.
If you would like to find out more come and see me at Stocklands Shopping Centre, Cleveland this week!
Keep an eye out next week for a tasty leftover recipe!!!