Bring Me Your Leftovers - MadameD's Food Surgery

[MadameDefarge]

Got a fridge full of nonsense, or indeed, rather lacking in anything?

This thread is to help those stumped for ideas with what they have lurking in their fridge/freezer/cupboard and need to knock something up.

I am here quite a lot, and as a professional (resting) cook I would relish the challenge to help people out!

Pie - sounds brilliant.

pie or pasties yes! same principle, just different use of pastry!

ooh. I missed out the carrots. if they are looking really sad, peel, chop and freeze. ready for chucking in stews or sauted as a side.

Two of those continental long semi dried sausages, iyswim.

Several frozen Derbyshire oatcakes ( the pancake kind).
A few tomatoes and carrots and onions and garlic.

Lasagne sheets varying colours and sizes.

Bacon.

Milk, butter, cheese. Just run out if eggs but could get more.

Frozen bean and pea mixture.

Masses of frozen fruit, blackberry and apple, red currants, raspberries, apple.

Prob some frozen home made stock masquerading as apple, or vice versa.

Three frozen fish fingers.

Two pomegranates and two lemons.

Some manky bananas.

Dog food.

In the store cupboard, along with the Lasagne sheets, rice, lentils, flour, herbs and spices, aged dried yeast, maple syrup. sweetcorn, sugar, baking powder. Loads of home made jam. Golden syrup, molasses and the marmade stuff for making marmelade. Sardines and anchovies. Might be a small tin of baked beans. Prunes and raisins and currants. One can of chicken soup ( I loathe). Couscous ( none of us likes it). Prob run out of tinned tomatoes and kidney beans.

Ds does not like lentils nor sweetcorn.

right. let me make a cup of tea and ponder that.

Do you have onions and garlic?

Oh, and a frozen gammon.

Had scrambled eggs with ageing smoked salmon for lunch on lovely bread made by kind neighbour. Yum. Used up aged lettuce yesterday to make variation on French style peas, this time with beans, as Ds hates peas and DH beans. Veg supertasting here, as they find them v bitter, ditto much fruit. Hence jams and puddings. Sigh

Yup. Almost never without, go into crisis if so.

DH not over keen on tomatoes (" bitter").

DH not over keen on tomatoes (" bitter").

Madam loving this thread....saving it....thank you

Am also saving it.
Any ideas on how to make a GREEN pepper interesting? I usually bung it in curry / mince etc, but any foods or flavours that it goes well with would be good to know!

that's fine.

right. MMeDs paella (or Spanishy Rice)

chop semi dried sausages into discs. fry gently until cooked and oils and spices released. remove from pan. soften two chopped onions and two or three chopped garlic cloves in the pan. do this on a medium heat so they soften down but don't burn. they should go pretty mushy and deeper brown in colour. Trad paella would also put fresh pepper in now, but no probs. Add paprika if you have any.

when it is cooked down, add two anchovy fillets, cook until they have melted. (trust me on this). put the sausage back in. make sure you have enough oil, as you will need to coat the rice with it.

Put in a small cup of rice per person, stir, soaking up the juices. once coated with oil, add heated up stock, same cup one and half per person. stir once. leave on low heat, with lid for ten minutes. Then add two or three handfuls of the frozen pea and bean combo. keep cooking until defrosted/cooked. prob about 5 mins or so. keep an eye on the water, it should all be absorbed, but dont be afraid to add some more if you think the rice needs it.

If you have any fresh herbs, do chop and mix in, squeeze lemon juice over.

I would make a mixed fruit crumble. I find nigel slaters crumble recipe from real food the best one.

will they eat red cabbage? cos I am thinking braised cabbage with gammon/ham is lush and you can offset the veggieness of it with sugar and apples cooked down into it.

green pepper is the work of the devil. But but...

I do love peppers de padron. and you could do a yummy version with green pepper, as a sort of drinks nibble.

fry strips of green pepper in a reasonable amount of olive oil (6 table spoons). until the skin starts blistering. remove, scatter over sea salt flakes.

or chop, freeze, and keep for gazpacho. or chop very finely and add to salad.

or throw in the bin.

oh, and a good trick for getting oldish bananas is to peel, wrap in clingfilm and then kitchen foil and freeze...banana lolly!

re the green pepper, I much prefer it cooked alone, or just raw with other stuff, than cooked in other dishes. It seems to add an acrid note...

the spanish rice thing should sort out the bitterness of the veg, maybe add them a bit earlier, so they really take on the sweetness of the onions?

Did you see that PigletJohn has put up a thread asking for help making a very small hotpot? You might be the very person to sort it for him, judging by the genius here.

send him over to me...

and thank you!

I've given a couple of tips on his thread...hope it helps.

thanks, Madame!

no probs! I must say I am enjoying this!