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!

@xiaoxiong traditional dhaal recipes cook for a few hours so 30 mins is not going to do anything! If you’re desperate, have a mash with a potato masher, DH does this when he gets fed up with it and it works surprisingly well haha.

I’ve got some overripe bananas looking sad in the fruit bowl so going to try some banana bread. I’m not a baker at all! Anyone think I can chuck some coconut milk in there? I have desiccated coconut in the baking cupboard too. I’m just trying to finish off the coconut milk before it goes off but not sure if banana and coconut match well?

My new potatoes to an eternity to cook yesterday. The recipe said 10 minutes.

Yes we often find pulses of all varieties take much longer to get properly tender than they really should...I guess we likely get the older stock/less than best quality compared to that of the countries in which these are daily staples. I really ought to get a pressure cooker to help things along!

We’re having chicken biryani today; I’ve cut the chicken breast into chunks and it’s marinating for a few hours in oil, tandoori spices and lemon juice.

I’ve also got chilli cooking down now, which should hopefully make 4 meals (not bad for 270g of minced beef!).

Tomorrow we will have sea bass baked with the leftover puttanesca sauce.

Day after that will be leftover lasagne, with stuffed jacket potatoes & garlic bread.

Yes, I also sometimes mash lentils with a masher if they really wont break down. But generally our dahl gets put on to cook in early afternoon so it has hours to cook down. Yum, I want some now!

I made a one-egg spiced carrot cake today. And substituted orange juice instead of milk. The flavour is lovely but the texture is a little odd...I think I’ve learnt that I’d rather have a proper cake, or nothing at all - I’d rather have had that egg for a ham and egg salad sandwich! Ah well, 1 egg down, 3 left.

Dinner last night was lasagne with some aubergine added to bulk it out and to free up space in the freezer. I tried out a creme fraiche cheese sauce (didn’t want to use milk for bechamel) which actually worked quite well but I would have liked to have had double the quantity (was using the last of the tub, and I didn’t want to use too much cheese either). It was definitely a perfectly edible meal. Coleslaw was simple but very good - cabbage, carrot, red onion, with soured cream, Mayo, lemon, grain mustard, parsley and a little bit of sugar, salt and black pepper. Garlic bread was made with a couple of part baked mini crusty rolls.

Photos aren’t great...

“I can't believe they swapped quorn for fruit?? How random!” I think they mixed bags up I got another customers frozen bag and they got my quorn I can’t imagine how disappointed they must be! It’s so hard at the moment as they’re not accepting returns at time of delivery as usual.

“once the fruit defrosts, it doesn’t look that scary in terms of volume. I love the ideas.” I hope you’re right! Feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment

I was hoping for a “day off” as it were and I’m pretty sore today.

@weedsnseeds1 will it be ok if I leave it unopened until tomorrow to use up? It’s in the fridge

When the immediate crisis is over I’m getting:

Blender
New sieve
Weighing scales
Making sure I always have flour, caster sugar and icing sugar in just in case!

And I thought I was reasonably prepped!!

Re cauliflower - if you’ve a good strong cheese in a cauli and cheese soup is lush!

I’ve never tried roasted though, it’s another food dd didn’t like so as it was just the 2 of us when she was growing up it was easier and cheaper to only buy and cook things we both liked. I’m finding it quite an adjustment after over 20 years of having to consider others preferences to be able to buy and eat what I like!

Can’t remember who asked but my lentils are tinned. Never used tinned lentils before only ever used dried for soup (yes I’m a crap veggie! 😂)

Ohhh @Graphista if you like cauliflower and have never had it roasted then you should definitely try it - you’re in for a treat! We use our frozen cauliflower/broccoli florets for roasting and it comes out better (to our taste) even than fresh.

Graphista, yes it's fine for a few days in the fridge.

Nfblues thanks for the potato masher tip!! I may be doing some mashing in a few mins. We're going to have with a cabbage thoran and a chicken curry (from a kit, made using the leftover chicken from last night's roast).

For banana and coconut, I found a few recipes on the web so it seems it's totally a thing - here's one that looks pretty good (I'd leave out the glace cherries though!): allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9152/banana-coconut-loaf-cake.aspx

Or this one, because it only uses 125ml of coconut milk: www.ricardocuisine.com/en/recipes/6085-ultra-moist-banana-bread

Thanks weedsandseeds for the fish-potato recipe! I might try that in the week - tonight it's pork chops from the freezer, (with red cabbage that I cooked for hours on Thursday) and tomorrow will be meatballs and Polenta using the Polenta recipe from upthread!

Will need to get more meat on the shop tomorrow if I can.

I'm really impressed with how inventive you all are. I went rogue last night and after roast beetroot and feta salad with the last of my boxes salad leaves at lunchtime, I agreed to a takeaway pizza for supper (on the grounds that it came from a lovely bistro that has had to switch to deliveroo).

Tonight I'm making a sort of cow pie using a tin of baked beans and the remains of a sausage casserole (I chopped up the sausages so their quite small) in lieu of corned beef and I've gone back to my Celtic roots to put the last tired end of a cabbage into the mash.

Beer bread was a success

Meant to say that the last of the meat box was a boned lamb shoulder so I am roasting in the oven tonight to finish off with a tomato and stock sauce tomorrow. I've also taken all the sad bits from the remains of the veg box and am roasting them too. Whatever doesn't get eaten tonight can get whizzed up with passata to make a tomato and veg sauce like the one Jamie Oliver made on his programme on Thursday night.

Feeling quite pleased that I've been able to cook from boxes this week as I'm more of a planner than someone who will use whatever arrives. SO grateful for all of your support though.

Beer bread looks fantastic!

Here are my leek tarts from earlier. Not bad for three very sorry looking leeks and some questionable defrosted double cream (that I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to use normally).

Cow pie sounds delicious! I’ve never had a veg or meat box but am very tempted to give it a try.

Look amazing furble, I have spent a happy few hours this afternoon looking up alternative bread making methods.
I think people on this thread will be such confident cooks by the end of this.
Hopefully we won't slip back in a rut once we are back at work

Oh I’m back on this thread now...was talking to @weeds in an alternate universe!

I made a chicken biryani today, with cauliflower and peas. I had to make quite a few substitutions and omissions as we’re low on fresh herbs and so on but it turned out quite good anyway (at least that’s what DH said - he’s the curry expert in this household having lived in India for quite a few wears). Served with poppadoms, some improvised sauces/salads, a mango chutney and a green chilli pickle with lime.

I’m pleasantly full now and chilling out on the sofa. Have a good night everyone!

Looks fit for a king Ninka!

Delicious

More lovely looking dishes. We had stir fry with the leftover tofu and a load of veg. I nearly binned the mushrooms but after peeling them the were fine.

londonmumy66 go with the flow. There is something very satisfying about just Making it up as you go along!

@Xiaoxiong thank you for the suggestions!

@Xiaoxiong thanks for the suggestions! I ended up using a normal recipe and then throwing the coconut milk in. Also found a rouge bar of dark chocolate in the back of the snack cupboard so chopped that up too. There’s something so therapeutic about using up bits and bobs that normally live in cupboards for years!

Everyone’s pictures look so lovely, loads of good ideas. My dinner wasn’t particularly photo-worthy - just freezer fish, chips, veg and a salad. Tomorrow on the other hand going to try a fakeaway donner kebab as I’ve got some meat and pitta breads. Hopefully will turn out edible!

ninkanink that biriyani looks mouthwatering - is it ad hoc or a particular recipe?

weedsnseeds1 did you link to a beer bread recipe?

graphista, I love cauliflower but only tried it roasted for the first time a few weeks ago. Just sliced (as you would a loaf of bread but prob 2cm thickness), drizzle of olive oil and lemon juice, salt, pepper, paprika. Hot oven and cooked faster than I expected in 20-30 mins. So delicious that I ate a whole cauliflower in one go!

I am still working my way throughout the freezer of random things, mostly from garden or yellow-stickered. Small gammon joint roasted with whole grain mustard and a small spoonful of honey, wrapped in foil. Eaten with oven chips and eggs, yum. Ham juices fridged to add to pasta and frozen peas with a Parmesan and cream sauce. Ham rind to a very happy dog.

Healthy green soup to use up veg odds and ends: sautéed chopped leek and a baking potato for 15 mins. Add broccoli stalk, spring greens, and some frozen soya beans, flat leaf parsley and a Parmesan rind with veg stock, simmer for 5 mins. Add frozen spinach cubes and fresh mint, simmer 2 mins to defrost only and keep bright greeen colour. Whizz till smooth with stick blender. I forgot to take out the rind before I whizzed, but actually it went smooth enough, and can only add extra flavour and calcium, right? Eaten with sprinkle of feta cheese, olive oil and chilli sauce. For me only as far too green for dcs and dh 😄

Pic of the brownies I posted about earlier

Quince2figs, no, I winged it, based on camping damper bread. I posted a "method" in the baking thread.
Funny enough, I had a sort of idea for pork with dried wild figs and homemade quince mostarda in mind for tomorrow. Unless it's BBQ weather.
I love this thread - so much imagination, advice, helpfulness and none of the nasty one-upmanship that seems to be on some of the other threads "AIBU to have my neighbour put in the sticks for having two walks, as long as we pelt them with rotten fruit from 2m away?"

Stocks - cheers autocorrect!

As if anyone on this thread would have rotten fruit to throw weeds. It would all have been used in a creative way!!!