6 New Year (or any time) Resolutions to help you Love your Leftovers

I love leftovers, they inspire me, and every day I eat really well by using scraps, trimmings and remains creatively. 

As I  have said before, using leftovers tackles not only the waste of money and resources but also of good eating opportunities.

So, here are 6 rules you might like to adopt this year which are certain to help you make the best of whatever leftover food you have.

1.  Act Quickly with Leftovers

       Deal with leftovers before they have deteriorated – eat, cook and eat, cook and freeze or just freeze but don’t ignore them.

2.   Be a Leftovers Collector

       Group together similar scraps and leftovers in the freezer till you have enough to make something delicious.  Here are some of my freezer collections and what I do with them…

Bread Scraps 

These are great for bread pudding, French toast pancakes, stuffing, bread sauce, and lots of exciting things such as Curried Cashew Fritters.  

Loads more ideas where they came from!

Raw Meat Trimmings   

When there are enough I make stock, soup, add them to stir fries, risotto, pasta dishes etc.  Sometimes if the meat is all of good quality I make burgers, not necessary beef burgers, however.  Here is a great recipe using pork trimmings …

BBQ Pork Burgers

2 rashers bacon – I like smoked

1 tsp paprika

1 tsp dark brown sugar

½ tsp salt

500g good quality pork scraps – minced or fairly finely chopped

1 tbsp oil

BBQ sauce

~   Coarsely chop the bacon and cook, preferably in its own fat, till crisp.  Drain on kitchen roll.

~   Mix together the next 3 ingredients.

~   Form the chopped meat into two or three burgers.  People sometime ask me what I add to burgers to keep them together eg. egg or breadcrumbs but the answer is Nothing. Just munge it lovingly together and all should be well.

~   Rub the burgers with the sugar mix.

~   Brush with a little oil and grill or pan fry till crisp and golden and cooked through – it’s a bit risky under cooking pork.

~   Brush with a little BBQ sauce for the last minute of cooking.

~   Serve on buns drizzled with more BBQ sauce and a great addition is a spoonful of coleslaw on each burger.

Seafood Bits and Pieces – raw and/or cooked  

Fish pie is the obviousest thing to make once there are enough, topped with mashed potato or scraps from my pastry collection.  Less obvious but a really gorgeous use of varied fish scraps is my Seafood Chowder.

Pastry scraps 

Here are lots of things to do with pastry scraps from crunchy pie topping to Napoleons, Tatins, Turnovers and more.

3.     Be Prepared for Cooking Spontaneously

        Keep a well-stocked store cupboard.  I don’t just mean flour, sugar, oil, salt, pepper and so on although they are crucial but also the flavourings, seasonings and accoutrements you most like to add to a dish. I always have chorizo, black garlic, panko crumbs, chilli pickle, balsamic glaze and one or two other oddments so that I can eat really well whenever I want to.

4.     Be Selfish!

          If your leftover is too small to share and unsuitable for freezing then have yourself a Cook’s Treat, it’s traditional!  There are loads of great ways to enjoy yourself with a little something from simply scraping the bowl to this idea if you have one or two livers just removed from a fresh chicken.

Luxurious Chicken Livers on Toast for the Cook

 ~   Season and sauté in butter till brown outside and pink in the middle.

~    Flame carefully with a touch of Brandy and add enough cream to make a sauce.

~    Mash all together and eat on toast as a lovely sudden lunch.

(Of course you could collect all your chicken livers in the freezer, so long as they are not from a frozen chicken, till there are enough to make a pâté.)

5.     Be Creative with Leftovers

          Leftovers are ideal for playing with as, in the unlikely event that you mess up, well – it was only a leftover so hasn’t cost you much. The  more you know, however, the more confidently creative, and less wasteful, you can be so …

6.      Keep Learning more about Cooking

            Learn about proper storage, learn about best before dates vs. use by dates, learn what goes with what so that if two or more complimentary scraps occur simultaneously you will know what to make.  Above all, however, Learn To Cook, it has one of the greatest boons my life.

Oh, and here’s another good idea!  Allow me to present my book on leftovers …

Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers

In Other News …

I should just like to make my annual joke! 

Xmas leftovers ~ too busy eating!

We’re stuffed and we haven’t managed to eat everything even though we’ve been training for weeks and gave it our best shot.  Here is a portrait of our leftovers …

I have of course written about seasonal leftovers before and with so much chocolate, brandy and other goodies to get through I’m a bit busy!

Today we went for a lovely Boxing Day Walk from Bedruthan Steps to Mawgan Porth and back, took a few pictures and discovered that my real man is a bit of a pin-head!

All the best for the rest of the festive season – I’ll get back to real blogging in the New Year.

More info on Christmas Food and Leftovers here …

Lovely Romantic Glazed Shallots

Recently my romantic darling brought me home a small bag of shallots which were reputedly almost past their best before date. 

I removed the plastic bag so they could breath put them in my basket of various onions and forgot about them for about a week. When I remembered them they were still in prime condition so I decided to glaze them.

Glazed Shallots

~   Don’t peel the shallots just remove any loose papery skins.

~   Put the shallots into a small pan, cover with boiling water and simmer for 2-3 minutes. This has two useful effects:

1.         the skin is now easier to remove and doesn’t make you cry.

2.         the shallots are slightly cooked so the rest of the process takes less time.

~   Drain and rinse.

~   Now peel them. If you cut off the stalk end and squeeze gently from the root end the shallot should slide out but this is a tiny weeny bit wasteful and could shoot across the room and take someone’s eye out!

~   Heat a tablespoon of oil in a pan large enough to hold the shallots in one layer and sauté them, shaking and tossing from time to time till they are turning golden.

~   Add a light sprinkling of caster sugar, a little salt and enough hot water to just cover.

~   Simmer till tender when pierced with a sharp knife. If you run out of water before they are tender add a little more, if they are tender before you run out of water increase the heat and continue to cook, shaking the pan till there is just a little sticky goo left.

~   It’s a nice idea to add either a glass of “leftover” red wine or a splash of balsamic vinegar towards the end of cooking and simmer till it is reduced to almost nothing.  I chose red wine this time.

Nice pinnable image, don’t you think!!

The first thing I made with my glazed shallots was a rather lovely pizza. Instead of a tomato sauce on the base I used an abstemious amount of balsamic glaze and the topping was simply glazed shallots, lovely St. Agur cheese and lots of black pepper.

Then, last night, I made myself a delicious dinner using a small piece of fillet steak which had been reduced from £2.50 to £1.53 so I’m not being extravagant here. I cut it into strips and sautéed half of them with some of the shallots, made a quick pan sauce with red wine and served it on top of fried mash.  Awfully good and I think this must have cost me about 90p or so!

The other half of the steak?  I marinated ready for a Bulgogi tomorrow night. 

I still had four shallots and two halves plus a small piece of St. Agur.

What would you do?  I made a …

Compound Butter

I creamed the cheese with about twice as much softened butter, added the shallots, coarsely chopped, plus a little salt (the cheese and the butter being already salty) a lot of pepper. This will be great on steak, in jacket potatoes or to make hot flavoured bread, like garlic bread only different. 

Flavoured butter is an excellent way of using up small quantities of all sorts of leftovers; (see here for all sorts of ideas for flavoured butter) and this is a good way to store it …

~   Spread a square of clingfilm or baking parchment onto the counter.

~   Scrape the soft and tasty butter into sausage about 30mm from and parallel to one edge.

~   Lift that edge and use the film or parchment to roll and shape the butter into a cylinder.

~   When satisfied roll the butter in the rest of the clingfilm and twist the ends to secure.

~   Chill or freeze until needed.

~   Use a hot knife to slice cold or frozen butters.

By the way, if you are thinking that a bag of cheap shallots isn’t that romantic – think again, he also bought me this!

  

… and three of these!

Roasted Windfall Clafouti

Sorry I’ve been a bit of a slacker; we’ve been away for a couple of weeks visiting family and friends all over the place.

My friend Diane gave us a bag of windfalls but looking at them when I got home I didn’t fancy peeling them – fiddly little buggers! 

I decided to try roasting them.  At first I thought I’d add a little butter but was worried it would burn. Then I thought I might add a little regular olive oil (which is what I cook with) but thought it might taste wrong.  In the end I decided to add nothing and it worked.

~   Preheat oven to 375ºF/190ºC/170ºC fan/gas 5.

~   Don’t peel the apples but cut into chunks, discarding any rotten bits (obviously) and the cores (after having a nibble).

~   Lay the apple pieces in a single layer skin side down.

~   When the oven is hot roast the apples till they are turning golden and they are tender when pierced with a knife.  About 20 minutes.

Whilst I was thinking what to do with them I ate some Cambazola and Roasted Apples on Toasted  Ciabatta for a sudden lunch which worked very well. 

My next idea was …

Roasted Apple Clafouti

~   Make one batch of the Yorkshire pudding batter here but add ½ tbsp sugar.

~   And allow to rest for an hour or so.

~   Preheat the oven to 425ºF/220ºC/200ºC fan/gas 7.

~   When the oven is hot put a knob of butter in a shallow ovenproof dish and pop it into the oven for a minute to melt.

~   Arrange the cooked apples in the dish according to your whim. Sprinkle with sugar and return to the oven just to heat the apples through.

~   Pour the batter over the apples and bake (without opening the door for at least 10 minutes) until risen and a deep golden brown which takes about 15 minutes.

~   Serve immediately with cream.

Playing with Yorkshire Puddings!

This quantity of batter would make enough Clafouti for three or four but as there was just us two I decided to hold back a bit and play with it.  I made three little testers →

In each case I heated a little wincy bit of oil in a silicone muffin case, poured in the batter and then added, granola, chopped chocolate or chopped pecans.  The chocolate sank but the other two floated.  All three were good but the pecan variety with maple syrup was our favourite.

With both the Clafouti and the experiments we had a damn fine lunch pudding and it cost very little indeed – the batter uses 1 tablespoon of flour, ½ tablespoon sugar (for sweet dishes), 1 egg and a little milk and it is a great vehicle for all sorts of leftovers when trying to be economical (or when not!).

I have plans for the rest of the roasted windfalls which include adding them to gravy next time my real man has pork, bacon and apple sandwiches, maybe a cake and so on.

More ideas for apples can be found here.

Jamie Oliver & Me!

Today I saw, for the first time, Jamie Oliver’s new much discussed book “Save with Jamie”. 

I can’t afford to buy it but I did browse for a long while. The first recipe that caught my eye, and which seems to have attracted the attention of lots of other people, included in its ingredient list a side of salmon. (More about this in the future here!) 

On closer inspection, many of the recipes (which all look fine to me, by the way, and I have always thought Jamie’s food appealing) include ingredients I would not expect people on a tight budget would have much truck with: fennel, lamb (so expensive these days) and prawns, for instance.

Having said that, and seeing that there has been such an outcry among foodies and bloggers as to how unrealistic this book is for “genuinely poor people”, I would just like to say that, whilst I can see their points, I don’t suppose the book’s target market is people actually below the poverty line, (which officially I believe we are), but rather at middling sort of chaps (I wrote that on purpose to sound middle class!) who are now feeling the pinch but can still afford a book to pick up some new ideas.

Jack Monroe says people are constrained by lack of knowledge and I very much agree with her.  It has been said that my generation (fairly old!) were the last to “learn at their mother’s knees “and I don’t think cooking education at schools is of much use. Wasn’t it Jamie Oliver, however, who started the Ministry of Food in Rotherham together with the Pass It on Campaign whereby a few people were taught some basic recipes with the hope that they would teach more people, they would pass on the info and so on.  

This was a good idea I think but if you don’t know Jamie Oliver or anyone else who can teach you to cook there are lots of books available to read for free in pubic libraries, lots of stuff on the telly (“massive fucking” big or otherwise) and learning the basics is so very, very worthwhile.  Just imagine being able to make yourself something quick, easy, cheap, healthy and utterly, utterly yummy.

At the end of April Global Poverty Project challenged us to eat for under £1 a days but I didn’t join in because as I really do know how to cook and how to use every scrap I often do this anyway by accident!  

I am sure Jamie Oliver knows his stuff but so do I!

My Credentials …

~   I have been a professional chef for over 30 years not only in the UK but also in several other places where I have learned a lot more than if I had stayed at home. 

~   I have lived in a small, crappy caravan (not on holiday – lived in) with a broken oven and the only working space was if I put a chopping board over the sink.

~   I have also lived on various boats at sea, moored up, on the hard, passage making and for a couple of years stuck in the mud!  None of them were well equipped to say the least. 

~   For many years I cooked professionally on a Caribbean island where supplies were very erratic so I had to be not only very inventive but in an way that would impress rich people on holiday!  In short I know how to cook even in limited circumstances. 

The only sort of cooking I haven’t done is on the telly! 

Now In my own humble way I have been trying to spread the word on how to cook and how to make the most of your food. 

I have been writing a series of books on very useful, flexible recipes which can be learnt by heart then tweaked and adapted to make your own wonderful creations.  This seems far more useful than just publishing separate recipes. See here for all my books.

I have also written a real, grown up properly published book which can be of real help in making the most of all your food. If you want a book that helps you prepare delicious nutritious meals using even the smallest amount of leftover food and a few things you could already have in your kitchen cupboard may I recommend (and not only because I wrote it!) …  

Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers: An Inspiring A – Z of Ingredients and Delicious Ideas 

Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers has probably five times as many recipes ideas and suggestions as Jamie’s book does and is just over a third of the price, although admittedly it is not a lovely brightly illustrated hardback.  It is, however, a useful pocket bible which will certainly help save money and avoid food waste.

Considering the subject of the above blog post I think it only fair that I should show you this Amazon review of Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers.

Read more here.

Leftover dinner? Do this!

I’d like to suggest a simple cooking method which is ideal for using up leftovers; munging! 

Pin so you don’t forget!

For instance a recent dinner comprised cod in a buttery leek and lemon sauce, new potatoes and veggies.  As is so often the case I couldn’t eat the lot so put my leavings on a tea plate in the fridge in the hope inspiration would hit by lunchtime. 

It did – I’d mash it up together!  I just put everything except the lemon slice in a bowl and squashed it together with my hands till it was well merged 

I formed the result into a cake, coated it with panko crumbs (normal breadcrumbs would work too) and fried myself a lovely lunch which I much preferred, in fact, to the original meal!  

I think this “method” would be useful for all sorts of leftover dinners, so long as there is some potato involved and not too much gravy or sauce.  Give it a go!!!

Incidentally “munging” seems to have several new defintions …

~   The deliberate alteration of an e-mail address on a Web page to hide the address from spambot programs that scour the Internet for e-mail addresses.

~   To transform data in an undefined or unexplained manner, changing data into another format.

~   A trademark for a canned meat product consisting primarily of chopped pork pressed into a loaf.

~   Something utterly disgusting, either generally or specifically.

~   To munch up, in common use in Scotland in the 1940s, and in Yorkshire in the 1950s.

It is the final definition I am referring to here.

My New Store-Cupboard Essential

I have added a new item to my list of “storecupboard essentials”, which already includes quite a few items not normally considered basics. 

The new addition is chorizo.  Frequently whilst cooking recently I have thought “hmm, if only I had some chorizo” (must be my age!) and now I have.  It keeps very well indeed (the pack of sliced chorizo I just bought is good till 21^st September) and just a little is needed to give all sorts of dishes a boost.  

My leftovers of the day consisted of half a can of cannelini beans and a small piece of monkfish I know – posh leftover! 

~   I cooked some very finely chopped red onion in a little olive oil.

~   I added 3 slices of chorizo, shredded and let it melt and ooze a bit.

~   Then the beans and sliced monkfish were tossed in together with  some chopped tomatoes (from a carton of Tesco’s chopped tomatoes with chilli) and a weeny bit of dry white wine.

~   To a simmer, turned down the heat and cooke gently till I had toasted a slice of Vicky’s most marvellous bread.

~   I added a dollop of M & S roasted garlic mayonnaise (even posher!) and this was a fabulous lunch thanks in part to chorizo.

See here for lots of ideas for chorizo.

and

See here for lots and lots and lots of ideas for leftovers!