We are leaving town for a few days for the holiday later this week, so I'm trying to draw down the refrigerator inventory to avoid waste and so we don't come home to rotten produce. So here are some things I've already done and have yet to do related to that:
Yesterday I needed to make a big pot of spaghetti sauce to serve 10 people. I put in all my traditional ingredients (tomato paste, diced tomatoes, cheap red wine, onion, garlic, and spices) but then I added in some stuff to stretch it further - and it was stuff that would have been tossed in another couple of days. Half a bell pepper, about 4 oz of mushrooms, and about 2/3 cup of leftover pumpkin puree. My son saw me scraping the pumpkin into the pot and questioned it, but I assured him he'd never notice it. And he didn't. The sauce was delicious, and there was enough leftover for the three of us for dinner tonight, too!
Then said son tried to take some of the spaghetti & sauce for lunch today, which was very mustachian of him. But then there wouldn't have been 3 servings left for dinner, and I didn't want to figure out how to stretch that any further! So we dug around in the fridge & found a package of tofu he opened on Friday - again, something that might go unused before we leave for our holiday - so he took a package of ramen with a container of diced tofu & a baggy of spinach.
Husband wanted Swiss cheese with his lunch today, but the package was unopened, so I convinced him to use the open package of cheddar instead. (cheese lasts a while, but once it's open it develops mold spots much faster)
Later today I'll go through the fridge & start tossing stuff in the freezer unless I know we'll eat it tomorrow!