Meals from left overs – frugal and self sufficient?

It is estimated that in the UK, we throw away, on average, one third of all the food we buy each week.

A lot of this is through leftovers. So it makes sense to either measure out portions more carefully or start viewing ‘leftovers’ as ingredients.

This is one of the ways in which you can move towards a more self sufficient and sustainable lifestyle. A few years ago, NOTHING was wasted; it would have been unethical to do so! All scraps were used up and made into a home cooked meal.

Practising this yourself is not only better for the environment, reducing landfill and packaging, but will save you money.

Looking through the ‘fridge this evening I found a few pieces of cooked carrot, broccoli and cauliflower, a few ounces of mashed potato, some cheese coming up to it’s ‘grow a green jumper’ moment, a few tablespoons of curry, some split pea soup (enough for one hungry baby), one naan bread and 327 peppers. (well, I exaggerate on the peppers, but you get the drift).

So tonight’s feast consisted of bubble and squeak (fried broccoli, cauliflower, carrot and mashed potato), and stuffed peppers with naan bread.

The peppers were stuffed with an interesting mix of curry mashed up with split pea soup (I usually make soup that you can stand spoons in) and topped with cheese.

We cut up the naan into small pieces, dipped them in olive oil and fried them.

Some of our best meals are created in this way. Yes, some of them are complete disasters, but most of the time they turn out wonderfully! Most chefs will admit that many of their best recipes were created through ‘mistakes’. So, put aside your assumptions and your expectations, mix things together that you would never normally consider and see what you can come up with.