Leftovers Experts... What are your canniest tips?

[Chil1234]

Money's tight, food's pricey and the phrase 'waste not want not' seems to crop up in our house quite a lot these days. All we need is rationing and a blackout and it could be 1941 all over again :)

So with your Marguerite Patten make do and mend hat on, what thrifty tips does anyone have for making full use of a few spare spuds, stale bread or cooked pasta? What leftovers that others might consign to the bin would you rescue and make a marvellous meal out of?

Ooh, timely thread. I just used up a whole loaf, bought on BOGOF, which was stale - i forgot to put it in the freezer. With the addition of an egg, a lump of butter and some dried fruit I now have a lovely old-fashioned bread pudding on the oven.

I use up over-ripe bananas in baking too - banana muffins.

I make bread and butter pudding from stale bread. A whole chicken last us 2 meals, make a stir fry with the left overs. Make egg fried rice with left over boiled rice. We keep any left over cooked pasta and eat it the next day, usually with salad cream and tinned tuna through it. Old bakers get used for wedges.

Being Scottish, I find that Stovies is a good way to use up spare potatoes and any leftovers from the fridge. www.stovies.com/ has a recipe which I think gives a fair idea of how variable you can make it. Though I'd cook it for longer than they do from the picture and bash it more together!

Spanish omelette is a good home for spuds, onions and assorted veg and ends of cheese.

Oh and you don't have to have 3lb of spuds to make it - any quantity works just fine!

you can chcuck pasta in an omelette too, and call it a fritatta or some such poncey name.

i had a sudden realisation the other week when i was making my roast that i actually waste food and i'm a bit stupid

i always do jamies gravy from MOF so under the meat goes garlic, herbs, carrot, celery and onion, i actually get nice fresh whole carrots celery sticks and onions and use them, now i use the ends of the carrots, the carrot peelings, the bits you chop of the end of celery and the bottom heart bit, the tops off parsnips if we are having them and all the flavour is still there, i also throw in the odd past its best apple

i like to call it my 'compost gravy'

written down it seems like its a bit yuck, but its lovely honest!

I have always made risotto with the chicken left over from Sunday lunch, but after reading the recent PFB thread I now make orzotto with pearl barley instead of rice for a fraction of the price

potato I saute with garlic and herbs, then serve with a cooked breakfast of bake beans, tomato and poached egg.

Or mash potato and add a tin of fish or cheese to make potato cakes

bread, soak and make bread pudding or if you have a bag of frozen mixed berries in the freezer make summer pudding. You can make savoury bread and butter pudding, with cheese and onion, then serve with bake beans