Frugal Foodies, thread 2! Favourite leftover dishes, avoiding waste, menu ideas.

[Ninkanink]

Hey everyone!

1st thread is here

Hope that link worked! I’ve never done it that way before...

💐 and 🍰 and ☕️ to all!

Oh, I do love creative use of leftovers!

I made minestrone yesterday with some sorry Looking carrots and a hunk of cabbage. I now have half a tin of butter beans to Use up. I’m thinking of a pate?

Main meal will be finishing off a butternut squash in joe wicks cheesy pasta dish.

We have a new veg box coming tomorrow so tonight is risotto with some of the chicken left over from yesterday's lunch plus random veg left in the fridge - probably broccoli and green beans.

One of the big catering suppliers near us has been opening its warehouse to the public so DH went along for a nose around and bought a huge hunk of Parmesan, french and somerset Camembert to compare and contrast, some goats cheese, salami and 5 litres of olive oil. Not sure it was any cheaper than the supermarket but at least it kept him out of mischief.

We had mashed potato last night so I kept the peelings and used a recipe I found on Twitter to make crisps. Have just hoovered them up with a glass of wine. Absolutely delicious! Will be doing this regularly now. Just dried them and tossed them in oil, garlic powder and some paprika and baked for 10 minutes at 200 degrees before putting the bread in the oven.

@Tolstoyatemyhamster I’ve always wanted to try potato skin crisps.

Used up the last of some pudding rice (god knows how old) in a paella as I had no risotto or paella rice.

Do it! We don’t peel potatoes often - usually I make wedges or bake them. But I think we will be from now on, if only to make the crisps.

How do I add the post so I can save it?

First upcycled roast chicken dinner. Toddler fried rice! Leftover roast chicken, egg, cold leftover rice, small cup peas and corn from freezer, grated tired carrot, bit of spring onion and garlic, top of one of the peppers. Gobbled down by all! Loosely based on this recipe www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/chicken-sweetcorn-egg-fried-rice

Have also made my stock which smells fantastic and dried out some very tasty chicken skin bits. Nice day pottering in the kitchen!

Potato skin chips are genius!! And am def going to try Paul Hollywood’s baguettes - my DC are liking my adventures in bagel making! We milll our own flour so it’s fairly bran heavy and I always need more liquid than recipes call for.

Also thanks for idea of parsley pesto, I have a big bunch to use up and we’re planning home made ravioli tomorrow so I can put it on that. Thinking I can do the same with some coriander about to squidgy?

I do love this thread! My roast beef yesterday was sadly a bit of a disappointment - nothing I did wrong but just one of those times where you get a joint that’s a bit flavourless unfortunately. My roast potatoes were amazing though, probably the best ones I’ve done in a while.
Used some of the leftover beef to make a wrap, obviously it didn’t add much flavour wise but helped to bulk it out. I’m currently obsessed with Nando’s perinaise as a salad dressing.
Made a turkey mince curry which was lovely and will have the rest tomorrow for lunch. Got some food being delivered tomorrow so going to try making my own burgers, I know how to do it just never bothered before.

Fried some leftover roast lamb with baharat and caramelised onions and served with leftover couscous with harissa, tired aubergine and chickpeas. Very pleased with creative use of leftovers!

Think there will still be too much lamb left after tomorrow's curry. Do you think I could put some in freezer or not once made into curry. That would be cooking once, reheating in curry sauce and then reheating again after freezing. Or could just freeze some and not curry it I suppose.

No photo-wolfed down dinner but homemade parsley and walnut pesto with pasta and roast Mediterranean veg was a huge hit. I’ve got some pesto left to eat with houmous and toast for lunch tomorrow.

Hey everyone! 👋👋

Tonight I made tandoori chicken breast, butternut squash and kaffir lime dahl, aloo gobi saag, and rice pakoras (with leftover rice from yesterday).

I took a photo but it just looks a big muddle of orange stuff! 😄 it looked better IRL!

All in all it was all very nice, and my DH gave his seal of approval, but I’ve decided once and for all that I don’t particularly like butternut squash in soups/stews/curries - it’s just too sweet for me; I think I’ll stick to having it roasted from now on. And, I’m reminded again that tandoori works best on chicken legs, but we had the breasts that needed using, and the yoghurt too. I forgot all about the parathas while finishing up the pakoras so they were quite well done...

The pakoras were super yummy though, and that’s a portion of rice from last night that hasn’t gone to waste. 👍

These are the recipes I used, again with the usual omissions/substitutions I’m having to make these days:

www.vegrecipesofindia.com/rice-pakora-recipe-chawal-ke-pakore/

www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/tandoori_chicken/

nadialim.com/recipe/butternut-kaffir-lime-dahl/

nadialim.com/recipe/aloo-gobi/ - just added some greens at the very end.

Looks lovely! I do like butternut in things like curries but you can’t beat it roasted, wish i had some now!

Yesterday’s dinner:

Tarragon and orange chicken with carrot and parsnip, with rice and greens.

Pegase as long as you re-cook i. e. Until it is piping hot for 10 mins, rather than simply reheat, then Co as quickly as possible, you ca refreeze the curry.
I haven't forgotten the food safety info thing Ninkanink but probably better done from my laptop as my typing is terrible on a phone!
We had lamb broth with stellini and veg for lunch and a mushroom, spinach and boursin sauce on novelty Halloween pasta tonight, followed by cheesecake!

Lardy cake alert!

Does anyone have a recipe for this? Just seen it mentioned and would love to make them! Thanks!

novelty Halloween pasta
Everyone’s meals look and sound delicious as always!

Paul Hollywood has a lardy cake recipe on BBC good food website - I've not used it but his recipes usually work well if you follow them to the letter

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/lardy_cake_80839

Forgot to say; @Ninkanink, thank you so much for the recipe links!!

I made vegetarian cottage pie earlier to use up some (not very tasty) vege mince we got in our Morrisons food box. It was a Mary Berry lentil cottage pie recipe with the mince added to bulk it out; it made several portions, will last us all tomorrow too!

I've been trying to find filo pastry but to no avail have lots of spinach and feta to use up and would love to make the crispy Greek pie, but none of the shops I've visited have any filo pastry. I'm a bit stuck as I can't take the DC to the supermarket - they're still too little to understand social distancing - and then the ones round us have been really busy over Easter. I might try one evening once DP is home from work.

Finally getting my sense of smell back (lost it about three weeks ago when I had a very snotty nose) but still can't taste much. I love spicy food but it's wasted on me at the moment!

@RubySlippers77 can you get puff pastry at all?

We do a pizza alternative with puff pastry base and add our own toppings. DC stick with boring cheese and tomato but I love spinach, feta, mushrooms and pesto. It makes a lovely lighter change to normal pizza base.

Made a lovely odds and ends tomato soup yesterday with some wilted bendy celery, carrots, tinned tomatoes, onions and a courgette.

We had Jamie Oliver's Beef Rendang last night using leftover beef from Sunday roast: cookbookamonth.wordpress.com/2013/10/30/beef-rendang-from-save-with-jamie/

It was delicious! No limes but made do without. Leftovers for lunch today. Yum.

Forgot to slash my boule shaped loaf and it's expanded top and bottom! Great crumb structure, but it's a sort of crusty flying saucer shape!

I've got a butternut squash to use up too - I bought it ages ago and while I know they last ages, I think I'll use it before it starts to go over! I'm thinking of a green lentil and squash type curry effect - I once did a lentil/squash/chestnut 'cake' creation for a vegan dinner parry, this will be based on that.

I've also got some leftover tinned bean mix with bacon from yesterday so that'll go in too, with maybe some green beans or peas for contrast.

I need to get some more fresh chilis, limes and ginger for a similar thai-inspired dish, @cricketmum84!

Ok I'm just showing off here but these really were easy - I had just shy of 150g mince left from making spag bol that felt pointless to freeze and wouldn't feed the 4 of us by itself, so I made them into dumplings. Mixed the meat with chopped onion, garlic, coriander and warm spices. Then made a dough of 120ml water and 200ml flour, rolled out into 10cm circles then pinched up the tops, boiled 8 mins, drizzle with melted butter and black pepper. Yum! Next time I will steam-fry like gyoza so they get a crispy bottom as well. I got 13 dumplings out of 150g mince and we each ate 3 (and DH ate 4!) so it stretched.

Got half a loaf of sad looking wholemeal bread that needs using. Any delicious recipes or ideas apart from breadcrumbs?