Food thread! Favourite leftover dishes, avoiding waste, menu ideas.

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Thought I’d start a thread for everyone to post their tips and ideas on how best to use foodstuffs. Hoping it could be an easy guide as well for those who maybe aren’t so used to home cooking or using leftover foods, or understanding how best to utilise everything you have, expiry dates etc.

We have always been very conscious of food waste so we plan very carefully to use every scrap of food, it’s not hard, it’s just a skill one develops.

I’ll post some of my favourite leftover/using up bits meals and menus here and if anyone else wants to as well, please do!

RubySlippers77 Sometimes some nice bread, butter, cold meats and cheese, and a bit of onion chutney goes down really well.

Graphista I like reading your posts, they show you really think about things.

Aww thank you guys I've not had best couple of days.

It all got to me.

Had a cry to mum yesterday and today fell asleep around 3pm just exhausted, I've not been sleeping well but it's meant I've not done the batch cooking I planned to which is annoying me.

Also because I know now I'll have trouble sleeping later tonight..:and look at the time already!

I've had awful insomnia for years and just before all this started I was finally cracking it and getting to sleep while it was still dark and not being asleep all day. This is totally messing me up!

Apples were on super special today ( 10lb bag for 6$) so I'll do a ton of apple sauce tomorrow for the freezer. I use hardly any water to soften the apples, and the food mill makes them super thick and almost creamy.

Graphista: I LOVE long posts!

Hope you feel better soon

I’m doing a roast this afternoon but have 1 aubergine that needs using. How could I include that- just roast it is the obvious answer but doesn’t seem to go. Could I do something else quickly whilst I’m in the kitchen that uses that plus other basics to make for during the week?

I'm walking DS through making beef chilli today which a quarter will be put aside for nachos tomorrow.

I am taking this time at home to teach DS some life skills before he leaves for uni in a couple years - that means laundry, cooking, how to properly clean things and how often. My other DS is being taught how to knit and is also helping with the cooking. They both are keen to learn, which is encouraging, and I hope to make them self sufficient men at the end of this.

@Alakazam8 aubergine can be curried, or you could just halve it, roast it and add the flesh to your next pasta dish. You can make dip with it to go with Middle Eastern dishes, or you could cook it down in a tagine with lamb or chicken. You could slice it, dust with flour and fry, and serve as a side dish. Or you could slice it and incorporate into lasagne, or make a layered dish with tomatoes, peppers, courgette and cheese.

Aubergine caponata is one of my favourite things to eat. Capers basically keep forever in the fridge and I don’t think there leaping off the shelves!

Sweet corn fritters to make an egg go further

Lovely with sweet chilli sauce.

I could do with some interesting ideas for coconut flour - preferably savoury.

Got it a while ago to make a gluten-free cake for a fete, and it's been sitting, sullen and unloved, in the pantry since.

Guess I could use it instead of (or as well as) ground almonds in, say, a korma but would love other ideas

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/cauliflower-curry

Made this lovely curry last night. It uses the whole cauliflower so no waste at all. I also added an unpeeled cubed potato and a couple of handfuls of red lentils to bulk it out further. Used the whole can of coconut milk as the lentils needed the moisture. It was absolutely delicious and made at least five portions with those additions.

Today is tidying up, laundry, baking (hopefully) and another savoury dish prepped to take the heat off the weekday evenings.

@FredaFrogspawn Sweet corn pancakes look delicious do you have a recipe!

The Thai curry upthread also looked stunning. Please do share the recipe if you have it to hand, I’ve got broccoli and new potatoes to focus on next!

And someone mentioned having lots of oats.

Staffordshire oat cakes are really nice - I love them with bacon, cheese and tomatoes, but they work well with loads of things.

Recipe below. If you don't have milk, use all water, if you don't have wholemeal flour, use ordinary.
In fact, as part of her "Perfect" recipe series, Felicity Cloake reckons a mixture of half-and-half wholemeal and ordinary plain makes for better ones.

allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/6771/staffordshire-oatcakes.aspx

Coconut flour would be great in a curry.
Have a look for Goan recipes, they use lots of coconut.
Or savoury muffins to go with soup?

Not sure if it has been mentioned but the bbc have a free app now called good foods and it has a search bar so you can search by ingredients. I had an old avocado so found a nice salad on there using a tin of sweetcorn and some tomatoes.

This recipe could be adapted quite easily to make use of what’s available:

www.justonecookbook.com/korean-pancake/

I’m going to try this recipe soon - I find that many pizza dough recipes make too big quantities for just the two of us.

www.itinerantchef.com/recipe/pizza-dough-small-batch/

Also really want to make these when I have some chicken wings to hand:

www.recipetineats.com/crispy-oven-baked-chicken-wings-honey-garlic-sauce/

Today is using up leeks day. I have loads of pasta as MIL kept buying us a bag every time she went shopping in the run up to lockdown and I have some easy bisto
Cheese sauce so am thinking a leek and cheese pasta bake with some broccoli that's also looking a bit sad. That will do for at least 2 meals I think.

This is the curry recipe I used the other day - useful for using up yoghurt - ours was well past its expiry and had been open for a couple of weeks.

www.currytrail.in/yogurt-lamb-curry/

You could make this with chicken, beef or lamb. It doesn’t have that lovely rich red colour unless you have the Kashmiri dried chillies, but you can compensate with some paprika and turmeric for a better colour.

Today we’re making a batch of bechamel sauce as our milk is getting to its last legs for fresh use and we don’t want any to go to waste. We’ll use the sauce for a lasagne, a tuna pasta bake, and a smoked haddock and potato bake, in the style of a haddock mornay.

I’m also going to make the filling for a venison pie, which I will use to make pies or a Lancashire hotpot-esque dish, not sure which yet.

We had stuffed mushrooms last night as I had 4 large field mushrooms that needed using up.

I used up leftovers to stuff them, so we ended up with soft cheese, a little bit of diced Port Salut cheese, the mushroom stalks, etc, a few sun dried tomatoes that I chopped up, a few stuffed mini peppers chopped up (pepperdew), seasoning, and some breadcrumbs I made quickly from the crust of our bread. Mixed all together and added 1 tsp pesto that was lurking in the fridge. Topped with a little grated cheese and baked at 180°C for about 25 mins until golden. They went down really well. Served it with a pack of vegetable couscous that we had in the cupboard.

@Graphista

Do you have to batch cook? Or is there a way that you could just cook things in a specific order instead to make use of them before they go off? Might be better not to put that pressure on yourself to be über-productive, if you’re not well enough to actually do it right now.

You could save your peppers for now by just chopping or slicing and freezing for now, if you have the room.

You can’t go wrong with a tray-bake! I love them for ease, convenience and their just-throw-everything-in nature, which lends itself so well to using up bits and bobs:

www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/family/easy-traybake-recipes/

The sweet corn fritters are a basic pancake mixture with lots of pepper, a pinch of salt, a handful of chopped parsley (frozen would do fine) and a handful of frozen sweet corn. Sweet chilli sauce was from a bottle, not home made. Tasty! I wish I’d added a teaspoon of baking powder as fluffier American style would have been nice.