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

[Ninkanink]

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!

Aubergine could be used to make a baba ganoush to have for lunch?

Someone mentioned bread and butter pudding (graphista?). I don't think creme fraiche would work, but if you don't actually like bread and butter pudding what about just bread pudding if you've got bread that needs using? There's a recipe on that 1940s experiment website someone posted.

I love baba ganoush! If you have ingredients for flatbreads you’ve got yourself a fantastic meal right there!

I'm going to make a beef stew today. My dads pub restaurant has closed so he basically opened the walk in fridge door and let me at it! I'm shielding so can't really go out
I have about 5kg of potatoes, loads of carrots and red onions too so I'm planning

JO beef stew with mash (carrots and onions in it along with some need to use up mushrooms)
Cottage pie - or possibly mince and mash if I CBA! Tin of peas to add to it and carrots again
Gnocchi bake with passata and cheese and possibly some pancetta as I have some lurking in the fridge
Going to get my mini chopper out so I can bulk meat out with the veg

I have a chicken to roast today, hoorah!

Tomorrow will be leftover chicken, undecided yet how to serve it. With peas in a risotto is my usual but I’d like to save risotto to later in the week as I have some long dated chorizo.

I have some out of date jus rol shortcrust pastry (a couple of weeks I think). How long would you think that would be ok for? I’d love to make a leftover chicken pie if anyone has a recommended recipe? No mushrooms and I don’t have any cream type products.

If its frozen jusrol, no problem
If chilled, might have started fermenting a bit. Check it doesn't smell sour, if not, it's OK. Nothing particularly nasty likely to grow on it, only yeasts, moulds and lactic acid bacteria

Make sauce with roux and milk or stock
Chicken and leek
Chicken and root veg
Add curry powder / spices and sultanas - coronation chicken pie

Or do you have a packet of stuffing? I sometimes make sausage meat and stuffing pie - you layer the filling. Bet that would be good with chicken with a bit of sauce of some sort for moisture

@Chewbecca I’ve posted a list of our go-to chicken leftover meals further up in the thread in case you haven’t seen it - might be something on there that catches your fancy. One of my favourites is braised peas and lettuce, also linked to further up in the thread. Can be had over rice, or with potatoes.

Ohhhhh I’m going to make a chicken pie with stuffing ‘dumplings’ as a lid...when I can get some chicken and some stuffing, heh.

@managedmis thank you. Feeling a little brighter today not least because I'm finally getting a Sainsburys delivery and while there's a good few subs I'm getting...hand wash! 

Not my usual one but hand wash all the same. With the ocd I get through loads and I've been ordering cheap shower gel to decant into pumps recently. Stupidly happy about that.

@Alakazam8 What else you got could go with the aubergine? I'm thinking baba Ganoush or ratatouille? (Can baba ganoush without tahini work? I've none in)

@Mominatrix excellent use of this time, I've posted many a time on the subject of 18 year olds who can't cope at uni (I've twice been a mature student and especially the 2nd time it was shocking how ill prepared they were)

Do you have to batch cook?

Batch cooking is probably over stating what I was planning but with my energy and pain issues feels a lot of effort to me.

Was planning on

A creamy "chicken" casserole - to use up quorn sliced fillets, prepped carrots (I can't manage loads of peeling and slicing these days so I cheat - question do I need to boil the carrots first or will they soften ok in the casserole?) and creme fraiche that's close to date. But I would be making enough for at least 2 portions, 1 to freeze 1 to eat.

Ratatouille - to use the aubergine, courgettes, peppers and tomatoes I have - I particularly have an excess of peppers and tomatoes as I seem to keep getting them as subs for other things! And I don't send them back coz I get flustered! Plan being to freeze flattish in bags to use as sauce for pasta, base for other dishes. Recipe serves 4 Supposedly

@Spam88 would milk work in bread and butter pudding. I shall peruse the bread pudding recipe if I can find it.

Found this recipe which I have most ingredients for only problem is no scales for measuring.

Really want a stick blender and scales are Argos still delivering I wonder

@Graphista I don’t mind my carrots a little on the al dente side so I wouldn’t pre-cook. But my DH likes his softer so he does give them a quick boil beforehand.

Would love baba ganoush for lunch tomorrow but don’t have tahini and also have cherry toms to use up so ratatouille it will be - might freeze it. What to serve with it?

I think Asda would still deliver. So does amazon. A stick blender would be an excellent investment, in fact you can get them where they also have a small processor attachment with a container and a blade, which I think would be useful for you for chopping/slicing/etc if you haven’t already got a food processor.

@Graphista had an Argos delivery on Fri evening so think they are

My favourite ratatouille recipe:

www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/vegetables-recipes/classic-ratatouille/

We have it as a side to any number of meals, mixed into pasta with extra virgin olive oil, use it for baked egg breakfasts (add some chilli!), and also just to dip into along with houmous/etc with toasted flatbread slices and halloumi as a lunch or light dinner.

graphista could you try using a spoon instead of scales? So long as you keep proportions the same (by using one spoon), it should be fine. My Nan only ever measured using a spoon. I reckon a heaped dessertspoon is about 20g.

Gah forgot to post link!

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/bread-pudding-0

Argos only doing non contact deliveries now which with my ocd doesn't work for me. ASDA limiting online deliveries to 80 items I believe so would rather reserve for other essentials. Soon as there's any easing of all these restrictions I am getting:

Stick blender
Scales
Flour
More pans/oven dishes I clearly don't have enough!

Bread pudding is really forgiving Graphista you can do it by eye. Standard large loaf is 800g, chuck in as much fruit as looks good to you ( you can use any dried fruit), you can replace the butter with oil or lard ( I know you are veggie, but might help somebody else)
Add your milk ( and egg if you like, but will work without) until the batter is the texture of runny porridge / mushed up weetabix.
You can use jam, syrup etc instead of sugar if you don't want to waste your sugar.
I sometimes use marmalade and choc chips for a chocolate orange version.

And it freezes brilliantly.

It's one of my go to recipes. I have an old, cold house and bread never goes mouldy, just hard and dry, so odds and ends go in the "bread bowl" to use for pudding, breadcrumbs etc.

Or do you have a packet of stuffing? I sometimes make sausage meat and stuffing pie - you layer the filling. Bet that would be good with chicken with a bit of sauce of some sort for moisture
I saw a recipe once for sausage-meat pie, with halved hard-boiled eggs layered into it.

@Graphista depending on what it is that bothers you about non-contact deliveries, we’ve found amazon deliveries have done things very well (with slight differences between companies) - parcels are laid on the floor right outside door, they knock and move right back to observe us taking the parcel in. We have alcohol in an aerosol can ready with paper towels to wipe down all surfaces of the box, then wash our hands straightaway. We just leave parcels to sit in the hallway for 24-48 hours and then unpack.

Lunch today:

Liver pâté on grain bread. Used the last of the streaky bacon which has been waiting for about a week since opening, so I’m happy - another cleared and means I don’t need to stress over it. I think I’ll save the bacon fat in the pan to use for the venison pie I’m making later.