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 An out of date romaine lettuce.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!

I was just rearranging the bottles in my cupboard to try and fit them in better and found a 250g bag of conchigliette hidden away at the back so cooked it up and turned it into a quick pasta salad with a can of sweetcorn, a can of tuna and some mayo. I'll likely be the only one to eat it so that's the next few days' lunches sorted for me.

Oops, this isn't the thread I meant to post this on. Ah well, it's not too out of place I guess.

made a delicious chicken soup from scratch, boiled up the carcass and used lots of vegetables that needed using up.

Nothing different

@Iduna thank you for the potato peel tip.
We rinsed ours first, then tossed them in oil with a bit of salt and black pepper. I suppose we turned them 3 times in the oven over about 10-15 mins.

Our parsnip peelings would have been better a bit wider (added paprika to those).

We made a risotto for tea with frozen peas and broad beans and a little Parmesan. It was lovely. Then we made the chocolate banana pots, thank you to whoever suggested them!

'Poor'Man's Soup

Heat lots best virgin olive oil, add lardons and onion, turn down to low for 20 mins. Then add half L good chicken stock, tin tomatoes, chopped carrots tin cannellini beans ( mash half, put rest in whole) plus old rind of Parmesan - be sure not to omit this - let simmer, then add chopped greens - cabbage or kale, ( Cavola Nero in the old days) add lots dried bread crusts removed and torn into chunks- I had some left over sour dough, but you could use ciabatta ( if you have any) Serve with further good olive oil and grated Parmesan.

It's one of those dishes that far outweighs the sum of its parts in terms of taste. It's filling and delicious.

A good home made stock and good oil make all the difference.

Placemarking - amazing ideas on this thread

Thank you to the pp who said about the peach lollies. I like to use the syrup from tinned peaches to make peach iced tea. So I blended the peaches with condensed milk and froze them. The kids absolutely loved them!!

We had roast chicken tonight so I'm currently making chicken broth in the slow cooker to make chicken noodle soup tomorrow. I also took a lot of the grizzly bits off and mixed it with the dogs food to stretch it out a bit

Chicken stripped and stock made from Carcass. Threw a bit of leftover stuffing in too. Will make soup for next week lunches. The meat will be split in two. Half going into a quiche and half to hecsevedcwith some leftover lemon chicken sauce in the freezer from our last takeaway.

I’m not doing any random stuff because I didn’t panic but and get too much food in the first place !

It’s not random because people panicked! It’s random because people are squeezing every last morsel from what they have.

I cut up celery really finely to use in soups and put it in the freezer.

Yes. Random because we like cooking and therefore had a wide range of ingredients in the cupboard anyway. We’ve been self isolating for a fortnight and I’ve no desire to go to the supermarket any time soon so we are making the most of what we have. Eventually we’ll have to shop but I don’t want to go out until we are really in need of food. For now, we make up random meals and don’t throw anything out.

Have you seen Jamie Oliver’s new cooking series - it’s along similar lines to this thread.
He made a minestrone the other day using all sorts of bits & bobs. No revelations to a seasoned cook but some will find it very useful.
He did use the stalky parts of cabbage leaves too which I would usually discard.

You can soak old bread in water (squeeze out excess liquids afterwards) and use it to make a new loaf of bread. I can find the recipe I used to use, but iirc, you can substitute about 20-30% of the flour for old bread, then make up as usual.

@TolstoyAteMyHamster are you using a bread maker or making by hand? If you are making by hand, make sure it rises properly for each stage.

If you have any vitamin c tablets, it is a bread improver and grinding up and putting a small amount in will help the loaf rise. You can also improve the loaf by making the dough wetter, I'm rubbish at handling wet dough so dump it unshaped into a tin. You have to be careful handling the tin as it collapses more easily, but it makes a lighter, less dry loaf.

The final thing that would help if you can do it is getting lots of steam in the oven - it gives you a much better rise. If you have a cast iron pot, baking the bread in that is the easiest way of getting more steam.

Afraid I mostly use recipes from my home country so don't have any recipes in English i can recommend.

That is really good advice, duckchick. I have both a cast iron pot and vitamin C tablets so will give that a go. There’s probably enough for two loaves so I don’t want to waste it.

Chicken carcass going in the slow cooker to make stock later today (well DH is doing it as I'm veggie and can't bear touching it)

I had onions and peppers in the fridge that were starting to look a bit sad so I've sliced and frozen them for future recipes. I had fresh due to be delivered today so didn't want to waste the sadder ones.

Made vegan banana bread, as didn't have any eggs of milk. It was delicious, recipe on the BBC good food page

Any suggestions what I could do with old custard powder, other than the obvious custard please ?

You can use custard powder in cakes. You'd have to google for a recipe as I can't remember the one I used before but it was nice.

Dh's attitude to freezing leftovers has changed overnight! I freeze things that will come in handy later on - chicken carcasses for making stock, for example, or the end of a loaf of bread made into breadcrumbs for stuffing/topping macaroni cheese/making bread sauce - and periodically he would go through the freezer and throw out all the 'miscellaneous, low value shit' (his exact words).

Now I am being encouraged to freeze things that are going past their best but could be used in cooking at some point - limp celery, soft peppers etc.

I feel vindicated!

I have half a tub of ready made buttercream in the fridge leftover from a recent birthday cake. I was considering using it in a cake instead of butter and then reducing the sugar too. Do you think that would work?

Do you think that would work?

Theoretically, it should, I suppose, since it's basically creamed butter and sugar (albeit icing not caster/granulated) plus/minus flavouring and/or colouring.
Trouble is, baking needs more exact proportions than lots of cookery so if you make a cake mixture that requires eggs, you may risk losing your precious eggs.

I wonder if cookies would be better to try with it; or flapjacks are pretty forgiving.