Using Up Leftovers and Reducing Waste
One of our biggest bugbears is wasting food, throwing it away because you never got round to making that particular dish, chucking it because you bought too much and it went off before you could eat it all. It’s a real problem nowadays, particularly with all the buy one get one free offers. Our grandparents generation just wouldn’t have been so wasteful with food, so why are we?
First of all use by and best before dates have a lot to answer for. So many people take that little date to mean as soon as it comes round the food is no longer safe which is just not true. Pretty much every food will last longer than the use by date and a best before date only means it is best to eat before the date, not that it becomes dangerous once that date has passed. Use your nose and your eyes to check if food is okay to eat, it won’t be shy of letting you know if it’s off, believe me.
Having said all that, there are times when you end up with random vegetables, fruit or meat that don’t seem to belong to a recipe but that does not mean they should go in the bin. Get creative and find another way to eat it, after all you paid for it and it would literally be the same as throwing money in the bin and that’s just stupid! Check out how Emily from A Mummy Too uses up leftovers.
The first solution to using up old vegetables is to make a soup out of it. Provided they're not rotting, covered in mould and leaking strange coloured juices, they won’t hurt you to eat them. Veg that’s a little shrivelled or even with the start of some mould is still safe, just chop the gross bits off and then boil them up with stock. Blend the mix and add in some cream and you’ll have a surprisingly tasty soup.
You can do the same with a leftover roast chicken. Either make soup or chicken stock by boiling the carcass and straining. Chicken stock can be frozen and then used later in other dishes and chicken broth or chicken soup is a delicious lunchtime meal.
If you regularly have leftover meat and veg, keep a supply of ready roll puff pastry in the fridge. That way, when you have leftovers to use you can chuck it all on top of the pastry, sprinkle on some cheese and you have a really tasty vegetable tart (or ‘puff pastry pizza’ if your kids are fussy).
Chicken pot pie is another favourite to make with leftover chicken. Again the puff pastry can be used as a lid and most of the work is done in the oven, just chuck all the ingredients in.
If you constantly have scarily brown bananas hanging out in your fruit bowl, don’t throw them away, they’re perfect for banana bread. In fact, the browner the better is the rule for banana bread. They’re also really good for making fruit smoothies because they’re much sweeter when they’re over ripe.
What are your favourite ways to use up leftover food?
