Turning Food Waste Into Cupcakes (Tastes Better Than It Sounds)

It's Food Waste Friday (see The Frugal Girl for my inspiration), which means that it's time to post all of the food that I am tossing for the week, in an effort to document and hold myself accountable for the food that I have wasted (while attempting to save money and do something better for the environment).

This week: 1) a small box of animal crackers that I found in the back of the cabinet (which is why they didn't get eaten; they were lost in there). I don't know how long they were there, but they were so soft that they fell apart when touched, so I'm guessing quite awhile; and 2) a half of a container of deli-style sliced chicken that I found in the back of the cheese drawer, which is why it didn't get eaten. And how I didn't notice before it became this moldy is kind of surprising since I have been clearing out my fridge weekly. I guess chicken doesn't last as long as I thought.

As for the impending frosting disaster? Crisis averted. I tried, as suggested, to use up the large amount of leftover frosting by spreading it on graham crackers for dessert. It was yummy, but we don't really have dessert that often, so we kind of forgot about it after eating it once. So, instead I decided to use Frugal Girl's chocolate cake recipe, once again, but made them into cupcakes this time (and a few mini-cupcakes, too). My thought was that we would save some for Father's Day, and Chris could bring the rest to work so that they would get eaten. However, I decided to make them without cupcake liners because a) we didn't have any, and b) I figured it was better for the environment, anyhow instead of wasting the (what I thought would be) unneccessary paper. So I greased up the muffin tins, baked them at a slightly lower temperature for a much shorter cooking time, and then let them sit in the pan after removing from the oven. But, the cupcakes still stuck to the bottom of the tin. So I pried as much of them as I could out of the muffin tins, and realized that the bottoms were so crumbly that they would fall apart if decorated as regular cupcakes. Instead, I turned them upside down and put the frosting on the bottom of each cupcake. And sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top. Not a pretty sight, but still very yummy.

I actually don't think the picture does the cupcakes justice for just how unattractive they are. You'll just have to trust me on this, I guess. Enough so that I would have been embarrassed to send them to work with Chris, so instead we will have to eat them all ourselves. Oh, the sacrafices which must be made to avoid food waste. I should note, however, that the mini-cupcakes all came out of their nonstick mini muffin pan pretty easily, and were especially cute when frosted and chocolate chipped. However, I don't have a picture of those because we already ate them all up.