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

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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!

If I have leftover shortcrust pastry, I make pasties with frozen blueberries (I don't bother defrosting first), cream cheese and a bit of icing sugar.

Sidestepping slightly any suggestions for things my 14year old boy can make for himself.

Easy cheap quick and filling .

I'm still going out to work, came home yesterday and he'd eaten a pack of chicken fillets and a pack of bacon in two sandwiches. I can't keep up!!!
I do love hom tho obvs. But he's bigger than me!

This thread is my comforting home base in an otherwise crazy time. 😚
We’re having dauphinoise tonight because, it’s using up some out of date double cream that I have in and I have plenty of spuds still. I’ve eked it out but including some chopped celery as well as potatoes into the cream, milk and garlic mix. Will top with some bread crumbs from a very stale loaf from the freezer.

Any ideas for leftover noodles? I’ve got some cooked noodles wanting using from a stir fry earlier in the week.

@cricketmum84 I had a good chuckle at the mice in your keema recipe!

@furble have you got Thai red curry paste, coconut cream, coriander (fresh or frozen)?

Furble - you could try mixing peanut butter, soy sauce and chilli sauce (I like to use a mix of Sriracha and sweet chilli) to make a sauce for the noodles. A bit of lime or lemon juice would be good in it. You can thin it down a bit with water and just warm through.

@Furble my 15yo warms veg stock in a pan and adds chilli, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, coriander and lime, then adds odds and ends of veg so maybe fried sliced mushrooms, onions and peppers or some broccoli and then drops the noodles in at the end. Absolutely gorgeous!

So glad I don't have teenagers after reading a couple of threads... although according to some phycic woman who died 15 yrs ago the C-19 will disappear as quickly as it appeared then come back in ten years..... best start stock piling now for the next outbreak.....
Another oat flat bread idea wack some sauce and left over bits of veg on it then some cheese and stick it in your oven...homemade pizza

Porridge oats suggestions anyone? I found most of a large bag lurking, left over from a stuffing I made at Christmas.
We don't do cakes or puddings (no we're not slimming, just not sweet tooths!)
I'm looking for bulking out savoury dishes ideas please.
Can I use instead of breadcrumbs in anything?
Thanks x

Hmmmm I’m sure you could make a savoury crumble topping for vegetables - I’d just adapt a sweet crumble recipe.

Otherwise I’d just make porridge with it (but I’m suited to lockdown in this respect as I like my porridge made with water, not milk. Sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar with a knob of butter on top!)

You could easily adapt things like dumplings for stews, stuffings, meatloaf. Or make savoury breakfast muffins. Lots of ideas for savoury/dinner porridges too.

Also things like flatbreads, pie crusts maybe? Might work to use for breading on fish or chicken?

Thanks so much!
How do I make flatbreads with oats?
That's sounds very interesting

I was kind of saying that experimentally (thinking out loud)...I would probably adapt an existing recipe maybe half and half with flour? I’d blitz it in a food processor or blender to get a bit of a mill on it, I think. Or use a yoghurt recipe? I don’t bake all that much so I can’t give you a recipe.

Others will be able to give more specific advice I’m sure.

On Tuesday we had salad but I did too many salad potatoes. So last night, we had home made curry but didn't have enough paste and stuff to do Bombay potato, so I cut the baby spuds up into cubes, and put a teaspoon of tandoori masala and some chili flakes on top then some olive oil and put them in the oven. They were lush!

A couple to get you started:

thebigmansworld.com/two-ingredient-flourless-flatbreads/

foodheavenmadeeasy.com/savory-oat-flatbreads/

Oh, having looked at it the second recipe has rather a long list of ingredients, including yeast. But I’m sure there are lots of simple recipes around.

If you've cooked a chicken, add what's left of the meat to a can on condensed mushroom soup, add chopped mushrooms if you have them, leave to cool, then cover with puff pastry to make a delicious and easy pie.

Also, simmering the bones, fat of the chicken with onion, bay leaves ( and other veg like celery, carrots ) will make a great stock for soups, stews etc. Pour portions into Ziploc bags and freeze flat.

joesev your flat bread idea is great, I'll give it a go.

Meanwhile, DS has done food tech as one of his GCSEs and came up with a cheap pork goulash, where we had dumplings instead of potatoes. So this led to us making dumplings with a couple of other meals. I did get a couple of bits of shopping today, as I had to go to my boss's house to collect some equipment, as I had been on leave when they decided to close our building down for now.

I was glad to see that my local Aldi wasn't busy, and there was plenty of stuff on the shelves, although there were a few gaps.

MulticolourMophead goulash sounds good. DS is doing food tech too, he's keen to learn and soooooo hungry!! All The Time!!! I fear he may eat us out of house and home by the end of this. Sorry if I sound grumpy but I think my shopping bill is likely to increase over the next few weeks

We made Frittata last night with all the leftover roast dinner and added bacon.. cause bacon fixes everything

Fried off the bacon until crispy, out it to the side then fry leftover cooked potatoes in the bacon fat.

Meanwhile whisk 6 eggs with 150ml of milk, add salt and pepper and mix in the bacon, potatoes and bacon fat, leftover cooked brocolli, and loads grated cheese. Tip the whole lot into a lined baking tin and bake for 30 mins. It was amazing. Had it with tiger bread, and salad. (Although salad consisted of cucumber and pepper only as that's all that was left.)

It served 2 adults and a toddler for tea, then 2 adults again for lunch.

Tonight’s leek and celery gratin. I only put a little bit of cheddar in for the flavour, some more of the creme fraiche dated 6/3 which has been open for a while but is still perfectly fine, and the breadcrumbs made from one end of a loaf which had been drying out for about a week.

We had half a steak each which is still plenty of protein, dated 19/3 bit again, absolutely fine to eat. I cooked up a bunch of baby potatoes that were sprouting a little too vigorously for my liking. I sautéed half of them and the other half will be used for dinner in a few days time. There is still a handful left in the bag which I will use sometime soon, probably for a soup.

Didn’t get around to making the curry today so that’s being bumped to tomorrow.

I think I’ll make a carrot cake when the banana loaf is done.

Oops forgot photo!

That looks lovely.

I just made a funny little pickle to go with a Thai curry, in order to use up the last of the radishes:
radishes - sliced finely
red onion - fine half moons
red chilli - chopped
lime juice
salt
a tiny pinch of sugar
It was lovely - really zingy and lifted a biog standard curry using jarred paste into something really nice.

#Raera oat flat bread, blitz your oats down to make flour, an ordinary hand blender will do. Mix with milk or milk and water and a pinch of salt or garlic or whatever you want, ladle out in to a large round and dry fry for a couple of mins each side. You can use oat flour as a normal flour in most things just remember you will need a bit more liquid than normal... you can always make oat milk if you run out of normal milk.... soak and squeeze the contents in a linen cloth- liquid is oat milk use the left overs as thickener in soup or stews etc

@Furble, for future use, if you'd had eggs to go with your:
Sliced ham
Double cream
Soft goat cheese
Loaf ends

You could also have made a kind of savoury bread and butter pudding. It's a really filling and tasty dish, and pretty cheap too.

4 eggs
148ml milk or cream
½tsp dijon mustard
½tsp thyme
¼tsp garlic granules
2sl. bread
Salt and pepper
~100g ham
~50g cheese

All amounts are approximate, I vary things, including herbs, etc, depending on what I've got in and what I fancy, or what needs using up. Sometimes I might add a few chopped cherry toms that need using up, or mushrooms, etc.

Whisk eggs, milk, salt, pepper, thyme, mustard and garlic together.

Grease casserole dish and place bread on the bottom, sprinkle ham and cheese over and then pour egg mixture over.

Bake in oven at 170°C for around 35-45 mins until golden brown. Serve with salad.