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!

It would all have been used in a creative way!!!

True story.

Actually, that's prompted me to ask if anyone has got a creative way of using cooked egg white.

I feel really foolish but it's the one thing I can't eat. It's not something respectable like an allergy: I can eat well-beaten eggs (preferably with the chalazon [sp?] removed) in omelettes etc. Meringues - fine!
But fried/boiled/poached... I can't eat the white.
Not strictly true. Occasionally I eat an egg mayo sandwich to prove I can do it.
And feel sick for hours after. And I swallow the white in lumps without chewing.

DH eats egg white but, understandably, doesn't want to eat mine too.
The cat won't even eat it.

I pride myself on not being fussy (I was a hideously fussy child) but I think I've met my nemesis.

PS Prompted by the fact that we had a beef biryani tonight and DH garnished it with hard-boiled egg.

Oh, and curious weedsnseeds1, are you a Staffs dweller or have you made the oatcakes? They’re delicious, aren’t they? My dh was appalled when I gave some to my dm who lives elsewhere, and she ate them with jam, as you would a crepe. Couldn’t see the problem myself but apparently this is heretical.

graphista, the frozen fruit makes a wonderful low-sugar fridge /compote. Rasp and blueberry mixed would be lovely. Simmer fruit with 1/4 the weight of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice for 5 - 10mins. Keeps very well in the fridge, just in a Tupperware container, for a couple of weeks at least. From the hygiene point of view, if it is past it’s best it will be visibly mouldy.
I routinely only use half the weight of sugar to fruit for jams that will be potted up and stored out of the fridge until opened.
Lovely on yogurt, porridge, to fill a cake, mix with anything creamy or custard for a fruit fool. Not quite the same as Quorn, though.

More amazing pics make me feel inadequate! Another lazy day had a pasty, chips and tinned corn - pasty was on last day, chips and corn could in theory have waited but I needed a change and by eating the chips that frees up some freezer space which can be used for something batch cooked or emergency fruit! 😂

Twitched slightly and added to next delivery weighing scales. Reluctantly admitting I need them.

Also ordered flour and baking sugars. Whether they’ll be delivered or not...

I might even try and make some pastry to make a fruit tart?

I’ve deliveries coming in thick & fast at the moment as I got in a muddle at one point but I’m trying to be calmer and more organised now.

Question:

Once cooked into a crumble/trifle/some sort of cake how long will the finished item with the fruit in last?

I’m going to be so fat!!

I’d keep a crumble for up to about a week in the fridge. Not that it would ever last that long. We’re having apple crumble tomorrow, but sadly no ice cream because I forgot to buy it.

And don’t feel bad, everyone needs a freezer day. We had onion rings, veggie burgers in baps and chips a few days ago when I was knackered. It was bloody delicious. Tomorrow it’s bought pies with mash for lunch. Not every meal needs to be something fancy.

Leftover rice can be stir fried with spices and go in to a burrito wrap with veg. I gave my DH this for lunch the other day.

I'm playing fridge Jenga every day as it is! Goodness knows how I'll fit a crumble in there! No ice cream but creme fraiche And tinned custard in the creme fraiche is ok another week but can be used on crumble - mouth starting to water now!

The fruit now defrosted seems a little less overwhelming in terms of volume. I think once cooked down a crumble of about 4 servings will use it all.

Crumble sounds delicious, graphista - my favourite. You could freeze half with the fruit plus raw crumble topping, then just bake from frozen.
Think of all all the vitamins and antioxidants in the berries, too!

quince2figs no, I'm from Somerset, but in "the before times" ( oh, yes, I have read all the books 😁) my job took me all over the UK and further afield, so those were from my freezer, but they are quite easy to make.
Rotten fruit - PurpleDaisies would have been fermented into wine or whipped up into a crumble!
5-7 days in fridge Graphista for crumble, if you cooked it first. Uncooked and ready to bake, 3 days

laMarshallin everyone is allowed to have things they really don't like.
How do you feel about omelette so the white is hidden, or scrambled eggs?

Just seen, you eat omelette.
Honestly, if you don't like set egg white, just use your eggs in some sort of hidden format until they're freely available again.
None of us chose this situation, food is a pleasure, just eat things that make you happy and you feel inspired to make.
We aren't doing penance, we're making the best of a bad situation and keeping each other company.

You're right, Weeds, I know.
Really should make my peace with it.
Thing is, I love egg yolk but - even in normal times - I feel guilty about throwing away the white from, for example, a fried egg with breakfast.

The one time it was a real problem was when I went to stay with the family of my first serious boyfriend from university.
His mother actually asked - via him - if there was anything I didn't like, so I explained about egg white. Emphasised that it wasn't an allergy, I can eat omelettes etc...

She served kedgeree for my first meal there. With the hard boiled egg chopped up fine and mixed all through it.
There was only wine to drink (I was only 19 and, stupidly, too shy to ask for water) and I had to wash each mouthful down with liquid...

I was so drunk by the end of the meal

With hindsight, I can only think it was some sort of test to see if I was worthy of her DS or something .

@LaMarschallin - you may just have an intolerance to egg whites. I know some people do.

Am loving the pics of food! I do like the way this situation is making me think quite hard on putting food together. Then I run out of steam and promote DS as main cook.

Dried Up citrus fruit update: I’ve squeezed the juice out of all of them, and will procure a small batch of orange/lemon/lime curd. I’ve no unsalted butter, but hey ho.

I found a jar of malt extract in the back of the cupboard, a bag of ‘just in case’ dried fruit soaked in brandy, so am going to make a couple of malt loaves. I poured in some of my morning tea into the mix, so it’s soaking while I’ve returned to bed!

I think BBQ later in the garden. Luckily no Immediate neighbours.

ByeByeMissAmericanPie

@LaMarschallin - you may just have an intolerance to egg whites. I know some people do.
You're really kind, but I'm not intolerant (at least, not to egg white... ). I can eat it mixed in with other things.
It's just a faddy thing.

Curd is an excellent idea! And I've always used salted butter to make it - same with brandy butter. Tastes better to me.

Bon appetit for the BBQ

If it makes you feel any better @LaMarschallin all the nutritional value from an egg is in the yolk. The white is pointless. And doesn't taste very nice! I always throw away my whites.

I remember the very first time my now DH made a cooked breakfast for me. He served up all the whites then explained he had thrown away all the yolks because I only like the whites!! 😂 he didn't make that mistake again!

Found a small mackerel fillet in the freezer from when I used to eat fish. Nobody else in the house likes mackerel and it feels so wrong to throw it away (this might sound a bit soft but I hate the thought of an animal dying for its meat and then that meat being wasted). So I'm going to cook it and make a pate with creme fraiche, lemon and horseradish.

cricketmum84

If it makes you feel any better @LaMarschallin all the nutritional value from an egg is in the yolk. The white is pointless. And doesn't taste very nice! I always throw away my whites.

Actually, it does make me feel better.
Thank you!

I remember the very first time my now DH made a cooked breakfast for me. He served up all the whites then explained he had thrown away all the yolks because I only like the whites!! 😂 he didn't make that mistake again!

That reminds me of a couple who stayed with us with their PFB. She (PFB) didn't like anything I provided for her to eat. Her particular speciality was taking each biscuit off a plate, nibbling and licking it, then throwing it on the floor saying it was yucky.
Eventually, her mother suggested egg sandwiches "but just the white, mashed up".
Well! I was thrilled! The thought of all those leftover egg yolks, just for me...

So, I set to. Boiled the eggs, shelled them, mashed up the white, created lovely little crust-less triangles...
PFB: "YUCKY!"

Whereupon her proud mama said "Oh yes! I forgot - it's the yolks she likes..."

Which is when I began to suspect that I was being messed about.

Ps
So I'm going to cook it and make a pate with creme fraiche, lemon and horseradish.

Yum!

Maybe you could get all masterchef and do sous vide egg yolks, then meringues with the whites!?

It's a thought!

@Londonmummy66
Another time, if you have boned lamb, 7 hour lamb is brilliant. It's on the BBC Good Food website. They say leg of lamb, but I use boneless, as it fits in my casserole better. You literally brown the meat, fry the vegetables, and add stock. After cooking you can cut it with a spoon!

French toast with wild figs and maple syrup.
No visible egg white recipe

Swoon...!
Looks gorgeous.