Freegan Sandwich Remix

Turkey Avocado Bacon Egg Sandwich

Made entirely with my recent freegan finds:

All I had to do was microwave and put in sandwich, this is why I love being a freegan!  I've find that not only have I probably not bought groceries in ages I don't even have to waste time cooking!  And I am not sacrificing nutrition because all my dives happen at super healthy fancy places in NYC.

Greek Style Crab Meat Pasta Salad

The Crab Salad I got from my last Freegan Haul had feta cheese in it already.. so all I had to do is add it too pasta with a little bit of vinegrette dressing and bam delicious Greek Style Crab Pasta Salad.

Lentil Soup with Whole Wheat Pita Bread

Put some of this amazing Lentil Soup I got from a freegan haul from a fancy lunch spot and  toasted a pita bread from another haul and instant healthy vegetarian meal!

Greek Yogurt Freegan Haul

It's been a while since I've found yogurt so getting Greek Yogurt as even better.  I got 8 of the Chobani Flip can you believe the store sold them for $1.99 each.  And the the big tub is Artisan Yogurt lol only in NYC right.  Well I took as much as I could carry because yogurt you can freeze and use to eat or for smoothies.  Retail value on Yogurts alone $35 at least crazy right?  

Actually its sounds weird but the main reason, I went out for this haul was I needed Banana's.  I was really happy to find the yogurt with banana flavors and happy to leave after I got this one super new banana.  I honestly can't believe they threw it out.

There was just so much stuff and we'd only gone through a 1/3 of the bags.  Lots of crab meat salad, grapes, a mango, green beens, and boxed turkey avocado salad along with boxed kale red cabbage. This stuff alone estimate is about $80.

And I got ten of these Crabmeat Salads that sell for about $5 each!

It was a great seafood night for me.  I actually got 2 Cajun boxed Shrimp Salads that sold for over $7 each and had a sell by date of June crazy. Either way food storage wise I cooked those "fresh baby shrimps" immediately when I got home.

In total this one spot had a haul worth $120!!!! That I got for free!

And I went one more spot as well...

I got lots of bread, and 3 sandwiches, along with 2 more wraps, estimate $25 worth of stuff!

The other reason, I went on this haul was my monthly metrocard ran out today, so I wanted to get the most bang for my buck.  After today, I will take a break to eat all this stuff because my fridge is packed!

Free Beer Haul

Isn't Ironic a few days ago, I posted about how hard it was to find liquids and this haul was almost all liquids.

This day was so upsetting because we had to leave behind so many cases of beer and soda still in their moving boxes.  Thats the difference btwn NYC and other places, NO CAR!

I'd say this haul was worth about $60, its Six point beer not cheap stuff and the Illy Coffee is super expensive stuff too.

It was a busy week and these photo's I took way after because I was just busy that week.  But I do remember getting the below from my favorite chain place along with cookies.

Final Haul from My Favorite Food Rescue Spot

So bummed that my favorite spot closed and this was the last seriously EPIC haul.  It was so huge that SERIOUSLY, that I have to do 3 pics separately for the haul.  And one freegan who came out of semi retirement was so psyched that we ended having to take a cab because it was just too much to carry.

I sectioned this pic as random stuff like a whole cantolope and pre made Chicken Breasts, and strings and perfectly good Garbage bags.  To give you and idea of how large this haul was lots of other people were diving too and me and my buddies split all the stuff among the 3 of us.

The was tons of fancy glass drinks still in the cases we had to take out for easier transporting.  I am so excited about the Ginger Beer and Shandy!  I didn't take many of the speciality flavored sodas like Jones or Starfruit sodas, but others did.  So bummed I had to leave the Vegan Cookie dough ice cream and tons other ice cream behind in their orginal shipping packing :( 

Anyways there was so much stuff I'm posting close ups.

This haul was epic for all the perfectly packaged cheese.. Even split among 3 of us, I took home 6 packs of string cheese, 4 packs of sliced Swiss/Mozerella  and one pack of shredded Mozarella cheese. A total of 11 packs of cheese, easily worth $55.

And the chocolate, there was tons of fancy Dark Chocolate bars and Toberones.

And the sweetest finds was all the healthy organic like dry snacks below!

And I was super psyched about the churros and italian pasteries, (just like the ones you can get in ITALY).

And lets not forget for VEGANS, the best treasure was a shipping box full of still frozen Tofutti Cream Cheese Substitute!  I took like 5 because the expiration was so far ahead.

Tofurky Recipe So Amazing

One of the best things about being Freegan in NYC is the amazin high end foods you find that allow you to try new foods.  So I found a brand new package of Tofurky Roast , I threw out the box to make space in my bag but it was perfectly frozen even when I got home.  

So Tofurky its a Vegetarian Turkey made of tofu and other amazing all organic ingredients.

This is what it looks like not exciting but boy is it worth it.

This recipe is so easy too.

I didn't have potato's so I just chopped 3 celerie sticks, 2 handfuls of baby carrots, 1/2 onion and put at the bottom of your casserole dish.

Then I put the Tofurky on top. Created a baste of 3 TBS oil, 1 TBS soy sauce, a dash of garlic powder and pepper.  Pour half of mixture on Tofurky.  Cover dish and bake for 1 1/4 Hour at 400 Degrees.

At an hour past, cover and pour rest of baste on.

Return back to oven till cooking time is over.

Then cook gravy on stove top.

Review: this Tofurky is amazing, it tastes not exactly like Turkey but to me its even better!

Freegan Lunch Tuna Sandwich and Split Pea Soup

Every thing in this meal was from my Freegan Hauls.  The country bread, arugula, tuna salad and split pea soup.

I read a post recently on this guy experimenting with Freeganism and he seemed challenged on what to eat but hopefully this post shows how healthy and balanced your meals can be on a Freegan Diet.

Cantoloupe Freegan Find

I see posts often on Freegan Hauls but not enough on what people actually do with them.

So I wanted to do one on this whole Cantaloupe I got.  Half I cubed to eat directly.  The other half I used to make Smoothies.  I just crushed 4 ice cubes.  Added the Cantaloupe, 2 TBS of yogurt, half cup of organic milk and 3 TSP of sugar and blended.  Everything was a Freegan find which made this awesome!

Churro's

OMG on Churro's I've seen mexican ladies at the train station selling these but I never knew what all the fuss was about till I had these.  I can't believe my spot had huge like again almost a box full and only took a few.  I wished I had taken a ton more these are amazing, mines were already semi fried so all I had to do was pop them in the oven.

Again, super fancy NYC supermarkets surprise me .. these was not a regular CHURRO it had a creamy cinnamon like filling in side ! So amazing!

Cranberry Smoothie

So I rescued like 3 bags of Frozen Ocean Spray Cranberries Thursday and someone suggested putting them in smoothies and boy did it turn out delicious!

I used some of the Organic Ave Truthful Tumeric and Purity Orange Mango juices as the liquid base for the smoothies.  Everything even the berry yogurt was from my freegan finds so healthy and seriously yummi!

Recipe

1/3 Frozen Banana

4 TBS Organic Ave Tumeric Juice

4 TBS Orange Mango Juice

1 TBS Berry Yogurt

Handful of Cranberries

5 Ice Cubes

Directions

Crush Ice.  Then mix all ingredients.

Egg Bagel Sandwich

I was exhausted this week but I feel super grateful I made a buge batch of these bagel sandwiches for the work week.  Every thing but the eggs were Freegan Finds.  This seriously is the most amazin sandwich , I just fried an egg, put it on a bagel, put some blue cheese and arugula to top it off.  

Crazy week of Food Rescues

So this was the haul that started it all ..Wednesday I just was walking by my favorite spot which closed down this week and it was crazy like huge dumpsters of Juices and Frozen Foods still in packages and even shipping boxes.  I felt so bad about leaving all this stuff behind but I literally could not carry anymore.  I took the all these Organic Purity Juices and there was tons of other low calorie ones left.  I mean tons like 4 huge moving boxes full at least.  I also grabbed some beers and I regret not taking of the Glass Imported beers.  But glass is super heavy.  I also got huge bottle of Ranch Dressing and a couple boxes of Graham Cracker baking crumbs.  

So moving on was the Frozen Food section they unloaded, when I got the stuff it was still frozen!!!!  I got jars of Fancy Gelato, and one pint of Ben and Jerry's.  I literally left all the fruit bars and tons more behind.  Fortunately, I called a friend and she got even more stuff like this was truly the most epic haul.  I got Frozen Grab Cakes , 2 Frozen Pizza's and 2 packs of Veggie Patch vegan chicken.  And the infamous Tofurky Roast set.  I had literally no space left so I took them out of the boxes.  

But seriously it was epic, the Veggie Patch was a huge box load still in its shipping box all perfectly frozen.

My estimate for the haul $100 at least.

Cilantro Rice : What to do with extra Cilantro

So I got inspired by this from eating chipotle early this week.  And its so yummi and easy!  Basically I just cooked white rice in a rice cooker.  And when it was done I added chopped cilantro and some salt for seasoning!!!  I'm so glad I got to use all that extra cilantro I rescued at my last dive.

What to do with extra cucumbers Asian Cucumber Salad

I had some extra cucumbers I didn't want to goto waste from a recent Freegan Haul.  So I thought of a making a quick Cucumber Salad.

Its so easy just put some vinegar, salt, sugar and sesame oil, shake and let marinate and bam easy yummi snack.

Freegan Finds

It just keeps getting better and better.. the group had raved about these cookies and I'm shocked to say they were right.  These have to be one of the best chocolate walnut cookies I've ever had.

I arrived late to the produce dive but either way I got Crab Salad, Gourmet Tuna Salad, 3 packs of whole wheat Pita Breads, bagels, Arugula, Tomotoes and english cucumbers. 

And lets get the most awesome find at the supermarket that starts with an A**, I was with a group of people but they had a whole bag separated just with the breads and their ready to eat trays of food.  One bag had stacks of meat dishes still warm.  Which is why I took it along with others.

As you can see its one of those huge trays, mines was completely full.  For dinner I just steamed some to eat with rice.

And the reason I was late to the group dive was I just happened to stop by my fav spot super early and their was actually stuff!  So I got breads, Gourmet Apricot Almond Panko, regular panko and the gold mine was the 4 packs of Feta Cheese, the use by date actually is today.. but I freeze cheese all the time.

And the best part of this haul was finding DRINKS it happens but is rare.  I literally could not carry anymore.  The below, I found literally just out on the side walk still in cases because some had gotten broken, the delivery truck just decided to leave it there shattered glass and all.  I wish I had more room to take more as they were super clean and literally I saw the delivery guys drive away.  You can probably guess which expensive these came from.

And the best party of the night, a super high end Juice store.. literally I got 10 bottles worth $90!!!!!! thats how expensive organic drinks are.  Any ways I had like half a bottle today and damn if I didn't actually feel better today.

Estimate of my haul about $200!!!!!

Epic Freegan Haul

This was an amazing produce haul.  I got so many apples, peaches, organic sqaush, cucumber, lemon, artichoke, fancy beat and another fancy veggie that someone told me was super expensive, lots of broccoli, green string beans, avocado, 2 huge bunches of super great bananas, 3 fancy kinds of Hummus, Tofu Salad, pre cooked corn and broccoli, 2 huge sandwiches, and the best part was the super fresh deluxe Salads.  Easily well worth other a $100 worth of stuff.  

Not to mention 2 large bags of Thyme and Cilantro.

Honestly, my fridge was packed!  And to demonstrate how much waste there is going on... there were like 5 other people on my dive !!!  And I actually left early because I couldn't carry any more stuff.

These Salads were so deluxe.. came with dressing, peppers, walnuts, cranberries, feta cheese, chicken it was just crazy!

I literally had close to two weeks of work lunches from this haul.  Because I'm every so frugal.. because I wanted to keep things as fresh as possible.. I took out the perishables like cheese and chicken from the salad boxes and separated them for the freezer and fridge to keep them fresher longer and also to stretch my salads out.  Usually when I have salads its pretty plain so alil pizazz is nice to have on hand.

One of the biggest challenges I'd say is the over abundance of stuff you get.. you don't want to leave it but you have to because I literally couldn't eat all this. And the whole point is for the food not to go to waste.

So froze and cut up as much as I could.  Seriously, I have never eaten so good and had such a packed fridge in my life! And it was all free!