Cooking Challenge
Turn Leftovers into Masterpieces!
Turn Leftovers into Masterpieces!
Show off your cooking skills while helping reduce wasted food. Join the challenge and create a sustainable dish using commonly wasted ingredients!
The 2026 Challenge will be open for entries between Sept. 1 and Oct. 6. Check back for details!
Entries will be scored based on
Versatility (ability to use random ingredients, etc.)
Using parts of the food that are often wasted (peels, stems)
Creativity
Appeal
Power to inspire others to reduce their waste
All entries will be entered into a raffle.
Alison Mountford is a consumer food waste reduction expert, content creator, and public/corporate speaker. In 2017 she founded Ends+Stems – a recipe website that helps busy people meal plan with less waste. What’s in Your Fridge? With Chef Alison is a recurring segment on WPRI’s The Rhode Show, demonstrating sustainable cooking habits on morning television. Alison has worked with Target, Airtable, Deloitte, Stanford, USCF, the Smithsonian and the EPA. She began in 2005 as a personal chef and had a catering company in San Francisco for 16 years. Alison is the Director of Marketing for Hope & Main, Rhode Island’s Premier Culinary Incubator and the Culinary Content Director for Drexel University’s CHEF-WPM project.
Rachael is a food journalist and the founding editor of EatOrToss.com, which uses images and fun, science-based articles to help home cooks assess “questionable-looking” food. Rachael also promotes low-waste cooking and speaks on consumer food waste reduction to audiences ranging from Girl Scouts to government agencies. She has written about food waste for publications including The Washington Post and NationalGeographic.com and serves on the board of the DC Food Recovery Working Group. She’s excited to read about your food-waste-fighting adventures!
Power to inspire others to reduce their waste
Your recipe may be based on an already published recipe, but you should explain how you tweaked it to work with what you had.
You do not need to write out a formal recipe with specific ingredients or instructions – but if you want to, we won’t stop you!
Recipes and dishes, even those that don’t win the top prizes, may be featured on the websites and social media accounts of Food Waste Prevention Week website, Ends & Stems and EatOrToss. We’re most likely to feature recipes with photos so, include those if you can!