Use Your Leftovers

Lots of us have ways of dealing with leftover food. There is a website run by WRAP called Love Food Hate Waste which also has some good ideas.

Here are some of our delicious favourite recipes and thoughts.

1. From Clare who tried to put down the ways she makes sure food doesn't go to waste:

Freeze any significant amounts of left over things which will freeze and use them in the normal way later, taking care to reheat any of the usual suspects thoroughly just in case (Frozen hard cheese is perfectly OK for cooking as long as it is not left in the freezer too long.)

Meat will keep in the fridge anyway for several days. Fish for rather less. So we eat anything I can’t reheat first. Then turn other things into spaghetti sauce, or fried rice or some kind of pie and reheat thoroughly

If there is only a little meat or fish I add cheese or egg in some way before serving to provide a reasonable meal.

Or have them for lunch with plenty of bread and salad! Lunch is good for eating up left over starters too.

Left over veg. get added to newly made veg soup, but added at the end so as to avoid cooking it twice and spoiling the taste. Herbs and/or some frozen peas pep up slightly boring soup, as do milk, cream or cheese.

Desserts are treated in the same way – frozen where possible, eaten quickly if not with the most perishable ones eaten first, and eked out if need be with suitable additional fruit depending on what they are.

I’m afraid that is it – it just never occurs to me to throw food away unless it really is unsafe or has become really unpalatable. When going away I put milk, fruit juice etc into the freezer and use it when we come home. I do try to only use up a few things at each meal and not to create a jumble so that we don’t get tired of eating similar left-overs.

Sell by /Use by dates are a major cause of thrown away food - we need to re-educate ourselves to recognise when things are not right by using our senses of sight and smell. The dates are always really conservative because shops do not want to be prosecuted.

leftover cooked meat is great in rissoles / simple meat loaves / with rice and vegetables in a rissotto

leftover potato can be turned into potato cakes (a northern English lunch/teatime favourite). Hot mashed potato works easiest but you can use cold potato. Add plain flour (you can use soya flour for a gluten free alternative) to your mashed potato and work it into a dough you can roll out. Add more flour as necessary but don't make the dough too stiff or the cakes with be tough. Roll out on a floured board to about 1cm thick (just under 1/2 inch) and cut into shapes - traditionally you can make a large round which you then cut into triangles but any shape will do. Fry cakes gently in some butter/oil turning over when browned nicely. Eat hot with more butter! You can vary this by adding chives, other herbs or onion etc with the flour but they are more-ish on their own.

old bread or crusts cut off bread for other reasons can be made into your own croutons (cut into squares) or breadcrumbs (cut into narrow fingers) and put in a very low oven (preferably when it is cooling down after using it) to dry out. To make the breadcrumbs, I put the dried fingers between greaseproof paper or in a clean plastic bag and roll it with a rolling pin to crush to crumbs. Store either in a screwtop jar and they will keep for months.

Left over vegetables can be added to fresh ones to make a pasta bake or put in a cheese sauce to pour over a jacket potato.

Also, can be used to make a frittata or Spanish omelette- this is particularly good with left-over potatoes- just add garlic.

Left-over mashed potato can be made into bubble and squeak with left-over cabbage or sprouts or made into potato cakes.

Stale bread makes an excellent bread and butter pudding- stale cake the basis of a trifle.

Fruit can be sliced and put onto a plain yoghurt- a spoonful of honey adds to flavour.

Juice left over lemon halves, freeze in ice cube trays and use from frozen in whatever. Grated lemon and orange peel also freezes well for use in cakes etc.

Cheese of all types, including soft ones, will freeze reasonably well but any scraps can be used in sauces, savoury toppings etc. Ignore

sell by dates on completely, most soft cheese isn't even ripe to eat until after that date.

On the topic of sell by, a food manufacturer once told me that if a food was ok for 2 weeks then the sell by was one week, ok for 2 years then the sell by was 1 year etc etc

Stocks: most leftover meat or fish (e.g. left over from roasts, or remains of prepared fish minus the gills) can be made in to great stocks for gravies, soups, risottos, and numerous other thing. You can always freeze the leftovers in a bag or container and add to until you have enough. Also great for using up older veg (carrots, leaks, celery, onions).
Fruit: At harvest time we always have too much fruit in one go. Most fruit can be stewed and frozen, or made in to preserves, jams, chutneys and pickles, or even wine :)
Bubble-and-squeak: Seems to be a little old-fashioned these days but is making a come-back in some restaurants so is becoming trendy again. After a roast, any left-over potatoes can be mashed and added to various cooked veg and browned-off in a frying pan. Add some leftover meat and you have a hash. (Great with cold meat and pickles!)
Eggs: There are plenty of recipes that require just yolks or whites - if you make something that uses one, you can always make something to use up the other, e.g. if you are making a fondant with yolks, why not make some meringues the next day. Alternatively, you can always add a surplus white or yolk to scrambled eggs or an omelette - it won't be quite as balanced as usual, but should still work fine (adding extra yolks to scrambled eggs gives a nice result :)