Growing up in a large, low income family, I have a really hard time throwing away food.

I had some things hanging out in my fridge that were on the cusp of needing to be used or thrown out, so I decided to sauté up these things to throw into pasta sauce or use as the base of chili. It ended up yielding just under 4 cups, so I divided it in half into quart freezer bags and freezing it flat so that I doesn’t take up a ton of room in my freezer. It’ll be there when I’m ready to use it.

What’s in there, you ask?

½ lb of ground beef

1 large green bell pepper

1 medium onion

1 clove of garlic

½ small container of white mushrooms

As I stated  before, I’ll put this into pasta sauce to bulk it up or use it as the base of a small batch of chili. The important thing is that it won’t go to waste.

• Tip: your freezer can be a great tool, but you have to use it properly! Don’t just toss stuff in there and forget it! Make sure everything is labeled with a date and check through it once a week to see what you can use that week.