What random stuff are you doing to avoid wasting food?

[MangosteenSoda]

Today I am braising a lettuce. An out of date romaine lettuce.

Make me feel better about this!

@MayTheGodsBeEverInYourFavour so if I blend tinned peaches (drained of syrup?) And condensed milk and then freeze in a lolly mould? Will this make nice peach lollies?? I have run out of lollies but have tinned peaches & condensed milk. Please can you explain/confirm?

Slightly off topic but I've realised over the last few days just how little we as a family actually eat. It's me, dp and dd (aged 5) and a cat. I'd struggle to fill up an online shopping basket with 80 items!

I have been occasionally watering down the milk in dd's cereal. She gets through a lot of milk and that's probably the thing we buy most often.

I froze bananas individually in cling film. I like the frozen grape idea. And l made carrot cake.

Here's a plain gram flour fried thing without onions www.fifteenspatulas.com/chickpea-fritter-puffs/

Ive discovered that yoghurts up to 6 days past their best by date, are fine! Delicious stirred into porridge made with water and frozen berries from last year!

Oh l also made a fake caesar salad with kale leaves and chickpeas as croutons, no dressing but a little cheese on top.

I have some gram flour to use too, also bought for bhajis and only used a couple of tablespoons of it. I might try those fritter things, they look nice!

I've been eating out of date food for weeks. I'm grating all sad looking carrots into our bolognese/chilli sauces and cottage pies to stretch the mince again. I've also started baking using stuff that is slightly out of date, and I never bake! My latest thing was freezing eggs. I didn't think it would work but it did!

Oven-dried olives, to go with cheese & wine! And crispy roasted cabbage ’steaks’.

Made creamy mushroom stuffed crepes to use up leftover pancakes.

Eating lentils and random dried pulses for (what feels like) every meal. Lentil soup for lunch and dhal for dinner anyone?

I've always made our own bread. You can out about 20% by weight non flour in and it still makes a nice loaf. I'm now padding out my loaves to make the bread flour go further with all the odd bits from my cupboard left over from pre picky kid days, like bulgur wheat and pearl barley (cook them first before mixing in).

Tomorrow's dinner plan is mince plus veg, I'm aiming to pad it out with some of the random leftovers of dried beans we have.

I'm not yet at the point of eating my 8 month olds soggy food discards though.

Definitely making Spanish omelette tomorrow with my aging new potatoes... having made crisps with the peel for my son!

Just made a massive quiche, and gave the cooked pastry trimmings to my new hens, to thank them for the eggs. Seemed fair, I'll get them back tomorrow as eggs anyway : )

I've just taken delivery of a 5kg bag of spuds. I reckon we'll have to eat them every day to get through them before they sprout. I'm actually really enjoying the logistics of food management at the moment, I'd always been quite lazy about it all, knowing that we could go shopping or get a takeaway, and I wasted an awful lot. I feel satisfyingly like my grandmother now. She rocked.

Loving this thread 😊

My DC are tube fed blended food. I usually just blend up as we go but to make absolutely sure nothing spoils and they are getting everything they need from their diet I have taken to making, blending portioning and freezing 3 big meals a week. I then just stick 4 pots in the fridge the night before. Definitely going to keep it up after this and add in more variety of meals. Also froze lots of fresh fruit and veg into snack bags to be chucked in the blender as we are lucky enough to have a friend shop for us once a week.

I also actually made mashed potato for the first time in forever tonight for cottage pie! We do cook a lot from fresh but always use frozen mash. I have kept the peelings to try and make crisps 😊

I've just taken delivery of a 5kg bag of spuds. I reckon we'll have to eat them every day to get through them before they sprout.

Does anyone have any tips for how to store potatoes to make them last longer? I've been given a huge sack of them but supermarket spuds only seem to last a few days before sprouting for me and I'm worried a lot will go to waste.

I usually store them in a wicker basket in a cupboard in our (bloody cold) utility room.

Potatoes should be stored in the dark, I think.

A thick cotton pillowcase, or laundry bag, are good bags to store them in - breathable, but dark.

Ooh Spanish omelette is a good idea. If I manage to get hold of eggs I'm going to make one soon.

Yesterday I made a great spaghetti dish I saw on Pinterest which uses the whole broccoli, not just the leafy bits. You can spiralise broccoli stalks; there's a recipe in the Inspiralized cookbook that uses the florets and stalk.
You can use polenta to make gnocchi.

I had to use up some out of date plain yogurt, so I grated up a quarter of the cucumber that also needs using, a bit of garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and it made the tastiest tzatziki. It's so nice on the side with a lot of things. I think it's meant to have mint in there though.

My mint plant is dying so I am trying to rescue it by finding the last stalk that doesn't look completely dead, and have put it in some water to try root it. Anyone know what the chances are of me being able to revive it. I think only I can kill off a mint plant.

I made potato scones to use up potatoes that were sprouting. Found the recipe in an old cook book but it's basically mash with flour added to make a dough, rolled out and baked for 10 minutes. We then had them fried with breakfast. I made so much that I froze some of the dougn, be interesting to see if it works when I defrost it.

Tomorrow we would normally be having pancakes. As we have no plain or SR flour I shall be repurposing the coconut flour to make pancakes instead, with banana and peanut butter to bind it together. The recipe is vegan but as we have milk (milkman still delivering) we’ll use that instead.

My aim is to end lockdown with all the random ingredients in the cupboard that have been there forever used up and either replaced or put on the “never buy again” list.

@MangosteenSoda Braised lettuce and peas is one of my favourite simple dinner dishes, usually with chicken.

Haven’t RTFT but everyone is welcome to join this frugal foodie thread, whether you’re not used to making use of every bit of food, or you have lots of money and food-saving tips and menu ideas.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3857078-Food-thread-Favourite-leftover-dishes-avoiding-waste-menu-ideas

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/3857078-Food-thread-Favourite-leftover-dishes-avoiding-waste-menu-ideas

Sharing teabags and freezing bananas