Food Waste: 5 simple and creative recipes using your left overs

RECIPE:

• Peel the potatoes and slice thinly lengthways.
• Peel the onions and slice thinly.
• Build layers of 2 potatoes followed by 1 onion in your roasting tray and so on until you end up with a potato layer on top.
• Then cover them ¾ with a good stock. I used Aebi’s Gemuse, which is gluten and lactose free.
• Drizzle the top with a little olive oil and season.
• Bake for 50 mins in a 180C oven. It doesn’t matter if a few on top are super crispy!

On Monday I made Rhubarb and Ginger Syllabub
I was trialing a rhubarb tart by Amelia Freer and had some leftover rhubarb ends. Rhubarb is so expensive it seemed like a waste to discard them. I am not the biggest dessert fan but a little treat now and then works wonders. Anyone can make this simple recipe. Had I had some, I would have used COYO instead of lactose free cream but you can also choose from mascarpone or Greek yoghurt whatever your preference.

RECIPE:

• Place 220g chopped up rhubarb ends, 8g grated ginger, 50 ml water and 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, white sugar or in my case jaggery (a raw cane sugar) in a saucepan,
• Bring to the boil and simmer until the rhubarb is soft. This will take ca. 10 minutes.
• Leave to cool.
• In the meantime, whip 250ml double cream and 1 tablespoon of icing sugar until it forms soft to stiff peaks. There must be some structure but do not over-whip or the cream cannot be used.
• Layer rhubarb alternately with cream in a glass jar in any order you like.
• Top with some grated dark chocolate and eat!

On Tuesday I made Apple, Mint and Fennel Soup
Lunch was fennel, apple, avocado, spring onion, pine nut and mint salad with lemon dressing. I am a sucker for lemons. However I digress. I was left with bits of apple and fennel fronds and ends. All perfectly good to eat but if you leave a nice green apple for a bit it turns brown and nasty. A soup I adore is fennel and pear, so inspired by this soup, I chopped the apple and fennel up a little bit and cooked it with some lovely Aebi stock, adding mint at the end. Blitzed it and had it with my salad. It was delicious.

RECIPE:

• Chop the leftovers from 1 fennel and 1 green apple into smallish pieces.
• Bring to the boil in sufficient stock to cover, ca 250ml, then simmer until tender. This takes approximately 8 to 10 minutes.
• Blend with a few fresh mint leaves. Taste.
• You can add a little powdered fennel to bring out the flavour even more and season as you like. This will depend on your stock.

On Wednesday I made White Miso Roasted Cauliflower Florets 
The sun was shining, so dinner was marinated bbq’d venison but I’d had enough salad over the last few days and wanted a warm side. I chose cauliflower steaks, but of course you have to cut them from the middle of the head, leaving the rest in a bit of a mess. New recipe time! White miso is my new favourite way to add flavour. It gives you that much sought after umami experience. You cannot pinpoint what you like about it but it enhances the taste. Try it.

RECIPE:

• Preheat the oven to 225C.
• Combine 2 teaspoons of white miso with 1-2 teaspoons z’atar (a middle eastern spice found in most stores now)
• a good pinch salt and 3 tablespoons of olive oil.
• Coat the cauliflower leftovers in the dressing. I had about a third of a large head left but it was broken up into different sizes.
• Roast for 15 minutes turning half way through.

On Thursday I made Root Vegetable Hummus 
The children had spirallised root vegetable spaghetti for lunch resulting in a few odds and ends. There was kohlrabi, carrot, beetroot, sweet potato and courgette. None of which I wanted to eat as they were, so I reached for the tin of chickpeas and made a nice little hummus. Even the girls like it! Maybe because it was pink!

RECIPE:

• Empty and rinse the contents of a tin of chickpeas, place in a bowl with a good pinch of salt, whatever veggie scraps you have,
• 1/2 clove of garlic, a pinch of cumin and sumac, a few tablespoons of mild olive oil and a good squeeze of lemon.
• Blend and taste. If it needs more salt add, more oil to loosen add, more lemon juice add. I do not use tahini in mine but feel free to freestyle!