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!

And today’s lunch - leftover sag aloo (had at room temp. as it had already been reheated), Punjabi curried chickpeas from a packet, leftover yoghurt sauce & poppadoms, spicy naan. As well as leftover roasted aubergine because it had been in the fridge for a couple of days.

Dinner tonight is pizza, chicken poppers and bbq chicken wings, courtesy of Papa John’s. 🍕🍗 🍺 👍 Got to run as it’s here now! Will read back through the thread later.

So just occurred to me I have NO idea how old my aubergines are do they look ok to use?

No particularly bad smell to them, skin smooth and stalks still looked green healthy & non mouldy

Oh yes those are absolutely fine to use! Still look very good.

Excellent thanks for the quick response

They're at least a week old very possibly as much as 2!

They look in perfect condition Graphista
Ninkanink your curries look amazing

Getting my sourdough starter going again, had put it to err bed in the fridge for a few weeks as

My grandmother baked 4 mahoosive rye-sourdough loaves every 10 -14 days until she was in her 80s and she never kept a fresh sourdough going. After she formed the loaves she let the bits of the dough that stuck to the walls of the tub dry out and then scraped them off, put them into a cotton bag and hung them in an airy place in the larder. The day before she needed sourdough starter she put the dry crumbs in water with some flour and revived it for the next batch. It keeps like that for weeks, possibly months. Well worth having as a backup in case a starter goes bad.

That's really interesting Igneococcus. I knew you could dry sourdough, but that's a particularly thrifty way of doing it!

I think it's how all the bread baking women at home did it. It's less work and having to remember to look after it.

I'll have to give it a try!

Leftover cold pork, potato salad with wild garlic and kalamata olives, mixed salad

Sultana of Swing is now in a nice clean jar with flour to munch on. The house isn’t particularly warm at the moment so he might take a while to get going.

I forgot to take pictures of dinner but it was ready made spring rolls followed by quorn, veg and black bean stir fry. Used up some radishes which were surprisingly good in with the more normal selection of veg. Tried a new concentrated paste that was really nice.

Instead of cooking, I went out for a walk this evening which was just lovely. Birds everywhere. Think it will be sausage and mash instead of lentil pie tomorrow.

Forgot to say, some delicious looking meals posted today.

Loads of veg to use up here too! We get a new box tomorrow, plenty will need to be used up first. The fruit I will probably use up in muffins which DP can take to work during the week in his packed lunches.

Managed to get some fresh yeast today too. No idea what to use it for yet but was just very pleased to get it!

What have you got ruby? We had to cancel our veg box because the local shop wouldn’t do once a fortnight and we just couldn’t keep up with all the potatoes we were getting.

You'll be surprised how quickly it gets going PurpleDaisies. My house is cold, but from adding flour it only took about 24 hours to be useae!

Useable

@Graphista we love aubergine so we usually have several knocking around at any one time, and once in a while a couple will lurk at the back of the fridge for a couple of weeks (or more!) if I don’t keep track as well as I should, but I still happily use them - even when they’re starting to get floppy and have a brown bit here and there, I just cut the spoiled bits away and the rest of it is fine to cook down in casseroles or pasta sauces.

@weeds they were pretty tasty! Your dinner looks fab too. We’re out of fresh salad veg now. 😭

Thread 3 is here

Aubergines smelled lovely while they were sautéing so they are fine I think.

It only occurred to me while making it that it's vegan (at the moment I may add yogurt or creme fraiche to serve)

I've made up my own recipe it's really just a mish mash of odds n sods

2 aubergine
1 courgette
1 green pepper
6 mushrooms

Diced/sliced to approx same sizes

Sautéed (had to do in stages as couldn't get it all in frying pan. Did the aubergine first, then courgette, then pepper & mushrooms together)

When I was doing the mushrooms and peppers I added the spices - remember I like mild

1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Let them cook off a bit then added those veggies done in the spices to a casserole dish

Generous sprinkle of coriander leaf

1 tbsp (approx) tomato purée added at this point finishing off a tube that was languishing

'Made up 2 stock cubes with some boiled water and added that then made up the dish with a little more boiled water

Might add a splash of Henderson's relish later for some depth?

It's cooking now and smells good. There's a LOT! Maybe 4-5 meals worth.

Think I'll serve with cous cous and I remembered I've some mini popadoms in too.

Will wash down with nice cold lager or two

That sounds really lovely @Graphista. I quite often stir fry/roast a job lot of veg and eat over a few days.

Mmmm yummy!

@Graphista - my washing up bowl needed replacing and I found a new one on either Amazon or EBay last week. Can’t remember which...

Are you able to get a replacement that way...? Just check the dimensions of your old one before ordering your new one.