Frugal Foodies, thread 3! Favourite leftover dishes, avoiding waste, menu ideas. Plus pets, and other chat.

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Hey everyone! 🌺🌼🌸

1st thread is here

2nd thread is here

Looking forward to another lovely thread! ☺️ Eat, drink and be merry!

going to take some time to repair the damage of not leaving the street for three months, and god knows how she's going to cope with interacting with other people when that's allowed again

spam it will take time to readjust, but kids are resilient, more than grown ups a lot of the time! DS2 was apprehensive yesterday going to school with those first day of school nerves, and nearly jumped out of his skin when a motorbike zoomed past as we walked to school but still bounced out happy as larry to see his friends again. Nervous again today but I was expecting it. Think about how long we expect kids to take to settle at nursery, or into a new school year - weeks or even months sometimes - so it's natural that they'll take some time to adjust to coming out of lockdown. It's not forever xx

Food-wise, I'm mixing up another batch of 6 sourdough baguettes today to bake tomorrow, Friday and Saturday - 2 fresh baguettes daily now that I've realised they sit very happily raw in the fridge for days. I forgot to do the levain last night, so I've mixed it this morning and stuck it in the oven with the light on and a roasting tin of boiled water to make a proving box. No hardship to have the oven on today, that's for sure - I'm just praying for some proper rain as the garden and all the fields around are brown and crispy, even with regular watering.

Thanks @Xiaoxiong Very sensible! It's been difficult to get her to do anything for the last month or so so think I was pinning a bit too much on being able to go out again, so it got to me a bit more than it should have (but doesn't everything during lockdown). Probably didn't help that we went somewhere new but all our usual spots don't have any on road parking and car parks are still closed. Going to see my parents this weekend though so she should enjoy that :)

Last nights Roasting Tin meal was reasonably successful. Did the Filipino pork - cooked it a bit longer than suggested but didn't check on it at all so it may have been fine in the advised time. We already have a very similar meal in our repertoire that we do in the slow cooker so I don't think I'd bother with this one again but might incorporate some features into our existing meal.

Tonight's tea is ready to go, since the baby will inconveniently need to nap at half 4.

Ooh also made brownies yesterday! Haven't made them for years and this recipe was quite different (nigelllas every day brownies) - uses cocoa powder rather than chocolate.

How did the brownies turn out @Spam88? I love a brownie!!

Made scones today and a crispy Greek pie for DP's dinner and leftovers for lunch. It's a bit slim pickings here until the shopping delivery and food box arrive on Friday

Last night was a Moroccan lamb thing (never used frozen lamb mince before) with hummus, salad and some homemade flatbreads from the King Arthur website.

The brownies were a little cakey when still warm, but more brownie-like once cooled. They're good, id male them again. It's just a shame I have to hide from my 3 year old to eat them 😂

Hey everyone 👋👋

Haven’t been around much, bit of a dip, then getting used to new meds, and have had to avoid this thread because I’m low carbing and there are too many tasty things!!

Hope you’re all well. 🌻

Goose eggs florentine. Forgot to take a photo after cooking, but they were delicious. Very rich though.

Wow those are huge! Are they very rich? My sister recently had some duck eggs and she loved them but I find chicken eggs a bit on the rich side so not sure I could cope with anything else!

A very successful dinner last night to celebrate my parents moving in with us (combining households!) - a green salad with feta, cucumber, avocado and tarragon, a whole side of pollock fillet with a cheddar-dill-breadcrumb crust, and a dish of 1kg carrots, roasted until soft with garlic, cumin and coriander and then crushed, and then topped with some lightly pickled red onions, a few dollops of yoghurt with lime juice and pistachio-coriander pesto. I got it off one of the Ottolenghi test kitchen chef's Instagram and it was brilliant (and a good way to eat a lot of carrots!)

Tonight - a good way to eat a lot of kale, making my sausage-kale skillet with more fresh-baked sourdough baguettes.

Tomorrow - spag bol with courgetti for me and my parents, spaghetti for everyone else.

Sunday - Turkish eggs with yoghurt and dill for grown ups, sourdough discard blueberry pancakes for the kids. And then roast chicken for dinner.

Sorry I missed your line about them being rich hahaha, I am so bad for missing lines!

Wow @Xiaoxiong your celebratory dinner sounds wonderful.

Hey all, sorry I've not been posting I've not been doing much in the way of cooking falling back on old favourites. Still feeling quite run down but skin gradually healing.

Very impressed with all your work you put me to shame.

I need to do a meal plan for the week my food waste this week has been more than it has been for a while and I'm very annoyed with myself so want to avoid that happening this week.

I have needing used up:

Eggs - inc 4 large which I'm hoping to find a good use for

Milk
Mushrooms
Peppers
Natural yogurt
Creme fraiche
Cherry tomatoes
Brie
Courgettes
Aubergine

Have the usual staples in plus I got some ready made puff pastry with the plan to do some kind of vegetable tart if anyone's got tips/good recipes for this that'd be good.

I'm also hoping to get some baking done, fancy some cake/s but running low on SR flour but I have plain and baking powder so again guidance on that would be good, maybe I'll finally get around to making some scones.

This dropped off my active! Have been eating a lot of stuff from the freezer because it’s been so full. Planning on a curry tonight with black eye beans and a Jamaican type spice mix.

Off to catch up!!!

I forgot that the slow cooker curry needed to go in the slow cooker so it was a change of plan at 6pm! Tonight’s dinner ended up being a Wagamama recipe Katsu curry with a huge cheat...using vegetarian chicken nuggets instead of the panko breadcrumbed aubergine. I have lots of sauce leftover for another meal and it was bloody good. Instead of sieving it, I stuck it in the blender not to waste the onions. Dh wanted peas and the runner beans were nearly bin worthy.

Recipe here...
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/wagamama-katsu-curry-recipe-how-to-make-cooking-chef-tutorial-video-a9489466.html%3famp

It's freezing here, so crusty rolls and soup!

Graphista This is a good recipe (with a video too) - and I would just sub in your brie for the goat's cheese, and it would use up some (or all) of your cherry toms, courgettes, aubergine and peppers. You could even throw mushrooms on there too!

www.myrecipes.com/recipe/ratatouille-tart

But on second thought, keep the mushrooms back and make pasta with the creme fraiche. Then you have two meals. And eat the yoghurt with honey for breakfast or a snack!

Can I ask a cheeky one - left over roast pork recipe that is saucey and will freeze.

A lot of them seem to be dry (stir fry etc) and it's for my mummy who likes some sauce with her food. She's a post war baby - she'll eat anything........

Sweet and sour pork (the sort where the pork isn't battered)
Pork stroganoff
Pulled pork
Pork supreme ( use a chicken recipe)
Pork in cider

Thank you - I did a kind of pork in cider thing. Dh said tasted ok (veggie here so no tasting).

Happy Monday everyone! I mentioned before that my parents have moved in with us and my mother is the QUEEN of leftovers. She is better at leftovers than she is at regular cooking (I am the opposite!). She used up some random veg, ends of cheese and some random yoghurt in a quiche yesterday for lunch which was great. She says you can put anything at all in a quiche as long as it's not too wet so I'm going to try and do more of them.

Meal plan this week:

Today: gazpacho and fried chorizo for lunch. Tomato, goat's cheese and olive clafoutis for dinner with some flat beans stewed in tomato sauce.

Tomorrow: smoked mackerel pate, sourdough discard crackers and crudite for lunch. Chicken thighs with cauliflower, prunes and rose harissa for dinner.

Weds: spanish tortilla and salad with tuna for lunch. Some kind of fish for dinner (lobsters?) - depends what I can get from Pesky Fish tomorrow!

I love mackerel pate (I always make that when I have leftover mackerel). Today’s dinner was leftover roast chicken with homegrown salad, and new potatoes.

Dh and I both fell asleep during prime dinner making time. Woke up starving so it was hard to resist the take away. Did a super quick pasta with fresh pesto (made with yellowing parsley), chargrilled veg, olives, capers and pine nuts. I feel very virtuous!

@PurpleDaisies that pasta looks amazing!

I made a courgette cake to use up some of the veg box, fruit crumble with some peaches which were going mouldy, carbonara with leftover bacon and pasta bake with chorizo which came as an online shopping substitution... it's been a busy day. Tomorrow is 'tidy out the fridge' day, I may discover plenty more leftovers to use up