In the midst of renovating my kitchen (before, demo, after) my work life took me into the direction of looking at and talking about food waste. It turns out we waste a lot of food. Like, 40% of everything that is produced here in the U.S. That winds up costing each family $1500 a year in food that we buy and don’t eat. That’s kinda crazy. I know I could use an extra $1500 a year…

As my colleagues and I discuss big ways to try to reach the EPA goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030 (read more about that goal here), I can’t help but take some of this work home and make little changes in my own kitchen. One tip I have learned is about dairy that is past its expiration date. Growing up on a dairy farm, our milk didn’t come with an expiration date. We just smelled it to see if it was still fresh. And if it wasn’t, we made pancakes.

Somewhere in the last 15 years since I lived at the farm, I managed to forget some of these tricks. I needed a little reminding, but now I’m bringing back a few of these strategies. Hence today’s recipe! The husband and I lost track of a box of tube yogurt for our son in the back of the fridge and bought an extra box. Then we went out of town. Come back, and the yogurt has expired. Armed with some refreshed knowledge, I decide to bake with the yogurt to save us from throwing it out. Given my love of scones, they seemed like a logical starting point.

Read this to ease your mind about expired yogurt. And keep in mind, before we had expiration dates, we used our noses and common sense and the species still survived. And look at those cute faces on these yogurt tubes!

Expired Yogurt Scones

Riffed off Annika’s Kitchen

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour (I used 1 cup white and 2 cups wheat because that’s all I had)
• 2 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 stick/8 tbsp butter
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup expired yogurt* (mine happened to be 5 tubes of toddler cherry flavored yogurt)
• 1 egg
• Splash of milk

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix together all of the dry ingredients, then cut the butter into the dry mix until it resembles crumbs. I like to cut it up with knives and then get my hands in there for the final pass.
3. Mix together the vanilla, expired yogurt, and egg. Add this to the flour mixture and stir to combine. The dough will be a little dry and crumbly. Knead it a little in the bowl and then turn it out onto a floured surface.
4. Press the dough into a rough circle and cut into desired shape. I just cut them up into square-ish shapes. You can also do triangles or circles.
5. Place scones 1-2 inches apart on a baking sheet. With the spash of milk, you can brush the tops of the scones and then even sprinkle with a little extra sugar. Bake the scones until golden brown–mine took about 14 minutes.

This particular scone was enjoyed early in the morning with a cup of coffee. I managed to get up before the husband and the toddler and eat and sip in peace for a whole five minutes! Sometimes, it’s the little things.

*If your yogurt has mold on it, toss it! I recommend only using yogurt that is within about 2 weeks of its expiration date. If the thought of using expired yogurt is beyond you at the moment, feel free to sub in fresh, un-expired yogurt.