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!

I have found my people! Can some please tell me how they bulk out a lasagne using lentils? Would like to make two lasagne using 500g mince and usually put in extra mirepoix and that bulk it out a bit too. (Dried ones- I have Chana dhal and red lentils)

And also what is your favourite white sauce. I had a nice one topped with creme fraiche but can't remember the exact procedure.

You can bulk out any minced beef dish, bolognese sauce, etc. with red lentils.

I usually add a really good handful to say 500g mince, at the simmering stage. They disintegrate completely after about 35-40 minutes, so anyone at all likely to object won’t even know they’re there.

A trick I learned from Tasty Vegetarian is to save up all peelings, eg onion skins, veg peelings, the tops and tails of veg, all the veg bits that go into the food waste bin, freeze until you have enough (to stop them going mouldy) then bring to the boil and simmer for 30 mins or less to produce a stock. Use this for soups, in risottos etc. Bin the peelings.

Not a left over but as I am avoiding shops due to a near nervous breakdown on Saturday with a touchy, touchy child winding me up threatening to put his fingers in his mouth after touching rails etc and not finding either normal(my son so more important) or GF bread (me) in three shops.
I blitzed oats into flour added milk and made flat bread almost like a thickish egg free pancake, I added butter and honey to the end product before eating but pretty sure it would work for dunking in soup etc luckily I have a couple of bags of oats in that I bought about six months ago when planning to start the day with a healthy breakfast instead of coffee....it lasted a out 3 days 😁

Great thread really enjoying it. I like this recipe which I make using all the stalks from broccoli. It actually tastes really creamy even though it has no dairy or potato in it. (I leave out the butter and just use a stock cube and water.)
www.eatingwell.com/recipe/249991/pureed-broccoli-soup/

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER thank you I will just chuck some dried red lentils in! Usually simmer it for hours anyway. Maybe optimistic doubling it but will go further.

Thank you again @Ninkanink! Would you be so kind as to share your celery gratin recipe...?!

I've made soup, curry (two lots of), a potato layer bake and a pasta bake (with leftover pasta dinosaurs!) today. Going to try making chapatis to go with the curry - which will be a first for me! - and a dhal to bulk out the meal a bit. I'm vegetarian but DP isn't, however as he can't be bothered to cook he'll eat what he's given I did have some paneer cheese to add to the curry but it smelt a bit dodgy, despite not being past the use by date, so I thought better not to risk using it at the moment!

In the end I was tired, so DH made an odds and ends vegetable curry. It was really nice, especially with the onion bhajis I bought. I’m thinking of trying to make them next time if anyone has a reliable recipe.

Throw over ripe bananas in the freezer. You can put them in smoothies or milkshakes from frozen. Or defrost and use for banana bread, passion cake, or pancakes. You dont need to peel them before you freeze but they look dreadful when you defrost. Like big slugs! But they're sooo sweet - perfect for cakes.

RubySlippers77 carrots and celery are a staple for our hidden veg sauce . Onions, garlic,carrots and celery roughly chopped in a couple of inches of water add a couple of peppers, mushrooms, leeks or whatever you want couple of tins of tomatoes couple of pints of water some vegi stock cubes, simmer until veg is cooked. Blitz down til smooth and portion up and freeze. We use it for practically every sauce based dish or on its own with pasta and sprinkle of cheese and even as soup

Thank you so much @OJZJ, I'll give that a go tomorrow!!

Also going to make carrot & lentil soup and some carrot cake (yes, we have that many carrots!). Yet to work out what to do with all the celery, though; I think DP bought it saying he'd eat it as a snack

OohRubySlippers77 carrot and lentil soup.... might make some if I have spare carrots.... i think you can freeze chopped up celery for soup further down the line

@RubySlippers77 we kind of make it up as we go along, adding or substituting depending on what needs using up. But it’s very similar to this one (in fact this might be the recipe we first got the idea from, although I can’t remember for sure). We just use whatever cheese we’ve got to hand, creme fraiche/cream/double cream depending on what we have, and sometimes we don’t bother with the breadcrumbs.

realfood.tesco.com/recipes/leek-celery-and-gruyre-gratin.html

Tonight we had lamb shish with a few bits of veg - a little piece of courgette, a handful of cherry tomatoes, onion and half a pepper which, unusually, had some mould growing on a small area. I think it’s because our fridge is quite full at the moment so it’s not working all that efficiently...Anyway I trimmed away the mould with a big margin just to be safe. Brushed with olive oil and ras el hanout, and grilled. I saved the meat juices from the pan to use for the next lamb meal we have, to add some extra flavour to the couscous. We had some flatbreads that were 6 days over the bb date, which is why I made this meal today. They were still perfectly fine. I also made some houmous with a small tin of chickpeas. The tahini sauce I used for it is months past the suggested expiry date but we store it in the fridge and it’s absolutely fine to use.

Houmous, and the two remaining flatbreads cut up for dipping.

Oh @PurpleDaisies shame you couldn’t try the dahl! Maybe next time.

I’m planning tomorrow’s cooking. Need to cook up a lamb curry which we will have in a few days’ time.

Goodnight everyone. 🌜

I have been saving all the leftover bits of veg and freezing them to make a stir fry next week. I'm so conscious of waste recently

Save any leftover veg to stir fry with rice to bulk it up. Use pasatta or tinned tomatoes for a pasta bake. Just add whatever spices you have. You can also use tomato soup as a base for pasta sauce or a curry. Utilise potatoes! Mash, home made chips. Roast potatoes. If you have cheese use it to jazz up anything you have available! Use stale bread as a crunchy topping to veg or make to make your own chicken nuggets. If you have eggs make omelettes. My kids love omelettes and they are fool proof. Worst case scenes freezer roulette.

Any suggestions for using up beef mince other than the usual bolognese, chilli, cottage pie..? We do have rice and pasta, though not in massive amounts. Also have potatoes, couscous, pastry, quinoa and bread.

Burgers or meatloaf?

Roll it up into meatballs and have with pasta and a sauce?

You can make burgers, though obviously it doesn’t ‘stretch’ it.

I just mix well with some finely chopped onion, S and P, shape with fingers on a well floured plate (thin outer coating of flour helps it to stick together), leave in fridge a few hours to firm up.

Keema curry was a favourite here.

Mini meatloaves! Or one big one... potatoes and veg on the side.

Or, if you’ve got the ingredients (or reasonable substitutes), something like this:

therecipecritic.com/korean-ground-beef-rice-bowls/