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!

Ok about to attempt the ratatouille but the recipes all seem quite long winded on method side.

Anyone got a good one pot wonder type recipe for it? Or do I really need to cook each veg separately and then add together at the end?

@Graphista I often use this recipe for ratatouille. It’s not for purists but I think it’s tasty and very uncomplicated.
www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easy-ratatouille-poached-eggs

I don’t bother to do it the long winded way. I follow Jamie’s recipe but just pretty much bung it all in - not exactly, but I just use the recipe as a guide IYKWIM. I cut the courgette on the bigger side and the aubergine a bit smaller, so that everything cooks down at about the same time.

Although I cook most thing from scratch, the one thing I tend to cheat on is stir fry veg. Normally just buy a ready chopped pack. Not today! I made my own taking the veg peeler to some leaks and carrots, added some chopped mushrooms, onions, peppers and broccoli. Half a can of sweetcorn, water chestnuts and pineapple. It was epic!

@Furble thanks think I'll do that minus the eggs as saving them

@Ninkanink yes I'm thinking same

I'm having to adjust anyway as I've shallots not onions, white vinegar not wine and normal sugar and dried basil but I'm thinking the flavours won't be HUGELY different/bad I'm not a master chef judge!

Today's unidentified frozen object turned out to be spicy beans with bacon. Working away from home and grabbed a couple of random tubs from the freezer!

@Furble my absolute favourite thing to do with polenta is this: www.food.com/recipe/barefoot-contessas-rosemary-polenta-203360

It's a very forgiving recipe - use more milk instead of cream, thyme instead of rosemary (or leave it out altogether), etc. You can either do the whole recipe with the chilling and cutting into triangles, which gives you a wonderful crunchy crust and creamy inside, or you can stop after you stir in the parmesan and eat it on the side next to some beef or bean stew. It's got a nice kick to it from the chili flakes, which you can leave out if you prefer.

I also like making polenta olive oil cakes, and polenta muffins with tinned sweetcorn and diced chorizo which are lovely to eat with tomato soup.

I had the end of a jar of Pataks masala paste and half a pack of mint to use up and I've had a random lamb stock cube knocking about for ages.

I made Lamb Masala meatball curry. It was delicious

Recipe here https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/masala-meatball-curry

I'd add slightly less stock next time but it was very hard not to gobble it all up but we managed to resist so left overs for the freezer

Thank you for this thread, I've been lurking for a while

I don’t think I’ve cooked with polenta since I lived in Italy which was 20+ years ago! I keep meaning to give it a go again and that recipe looks like just the right one to start off with! I love Ina’s simple but luxurious recipes...

I really like cheesy soft polenta, and fried polenta.

All the dishes look fantastic!

I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s dinner: aubergine cassoulet. Don’t know what we’ll have for lunch yet!

Remains of takeaway here for me, mince and onions for DH. There were leftover dumplings but he appears to have eaten them 🤦🏻‍♀️ I’ll make more tomorrow, but it’s too late tonight, he can have bread!

SO my meat box has a lot of meat - Ill be asking for ideas later in the week. But tonight we had the sausages poached in a tomato sauce with pasta. I cut them up like meatballs - saved a third and have some bacon and plenty of eggs so I am thinking we might have a brunch later in the week. Feeling a bit less stressed now the boxes are here and there is nothing too outre in them.

One of the best tips I've had, and sorry if it's already been suggested, is a 'stock scraps bag'. Whenever you have anything that would be good in a stock- leftover ends of vegetables, onion skins, chicken bones, extra herbs etc, keep it all in a freezer bag in the freezer and just add to it whenever you have something. Then when it's full you can make a lovely stock

Love this thread! Very comforting, somehow.

I have a question: does anyone have a good use for dried coriander leaves? DP bought them because the dried ground seeds weren't available. Initial research has not left me optimistic that they can impart much flavour.

I think I'm a little bit in love with you @Ninkanink bloody amazing! You should start a blog/Instagram account.

I made an incredible meal last night with Polenta - a recipe I pulled out of the London Evening Standard about 30 years ago (when they had a recipe per day) It's GF.
It was called Cheese and Bacon Cornbread, used fine-milled Cornmeal and lots of cheese and 4 eggs and bacon. All cooked like a souffle and was totally delicious (although I forgot to add 10fl oz milk, which I thought would make it stodgy but it still rose beautifully. )
Used up my last eggs bar 2, so I've got to go out to find more now

It was called Cheese and Bacon Cornbread

I love cornbread - sometimes make a sweetcorn and maple syrup one to go with chilli.
Cheese and bacon sounds delicious.

You should start a blog/Instagram account.

Oh dear. Don't want to hold you back in your internet career Ninkanink, but I don't do IG and quite like the chatty vibe of this thread, with lots of contributions from lots of people.

There was a tip up thread about saving broccoli stalks, carrot ends and freezing for soup. I’m starting that.

I saved potato skins, carrot skins, and broccoli stem yesterday. In freezer. Can I make a soup with these? Add onion and..?

There was a tip up thread about saving broccoli stalks, carrot ends and freezing for soup.

There’d be a mutiny from the guinea pigs here!

There are never any broccoli stalks in this household - it is my favourite part of the broccoli!

We slice broccoli stalks into sticks after man I used work with at junk food cafe said he was raised calling it poor man's asparagus.we roast the sticks and toss in risotto.if no cheese spoonful nut butter works beautifully

@ptumbi - could you post the recipe please? I have a pack of polenta in my cupboard which has been languishing there forever & that recipe sounds really good!

I used to save the scraps from fish - the heads, bones etc that got chopped off before cooking, also I used to ask at the fish counter for the heads etc to be included in the bag if I got a fillet. I'd freeze them all in a bag together & make stock every month or two, strain it & add any bits of veg that needed using up, plus a dab of miso or curry paste. Very nearly free soup. Sadly I can't justify doing it any more as we have a much smaller freezer now, & we just don't have the room for a bag of fish scraps.

1/4 of a bottle of a really quite nasty rhubarb and ginger gin which we can’t stand to drink any more of but can’t bear to throw out.

Would it double as hand sanitiser?