Use it up! Don't throw it in the bin!

dom300186

For tea tonight we are having a homemade pasta back with homemade cheese sauce on top with grated cheese.

We had some left over hot dogs so ive sliced them up seasoned and chucked them in, as well as some bacon that needed to be used and half a tin of sweetcorn, a pepper needed using and half an onion that looked like it was going limp.

A year ago i would have thrown all of this all away now i look at it as a free meal

mlz1413

heretolearn wrote: »

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sad lettuce - is there anything you can do with it? try lettuce soup
red and green peppers - I'd like to chop up and freeze, do I need to blanch first? just freeze, I try and spread out until frozen and then put in a bag otherwise its just a lump I can't seperate.
Pack of cherry toms, very ripe but ok, we'll eat some tonight, what can I do with the rest? Can they be frozen? Can I chuck them into a random soup freezer bag or will the skins/seeds be nasty in soup?
you could roast these and then when cool keep in an airtight container for about a month.
Also every time I freeze stuff it gets frosty and icy - even though I'm using freezer bags and I don't think the freezer is up that high (it's not all iced up). Is this just inevitable? Should I double-bag? Is it something I'm doing wrong? I've got two freezers and they both do it.
Does the door get left ajar sometimes? I've only known frostyness when the doors not shut properly and then it seems to freeze 'wet' when the door is shut again.

My lunch today is leftover jacket potato with cheese. It was supposed to be part of OH's dinner last night but I found him taking it off the plate and about to dump in the bin before he'd even started his dinner! (It was late at night, I'd left his dinner in microwave for him). Grrrrr. Little chat about waste - just because you don't want it right now, don't throw it out.

If OH doesn't understand this then a bit of tough love works wonders. If you catch him chucking something out that could have made a meal, don't cook the next night and say "ell your planned dinner is in the bin where you threw it last night." being hungry does wonders for the memory I find

Hippeechiq

heretolearn wrote: »

Also every time I freeze stuff it gets frosty and icy - even though I'm using freezer bags and I don't think the freezer is up that high (it's not all iced up). Is this just inevitable? Should I double-bag? Is it something I'm doing wrong? I've got two freezers and they both do it.

It's important to get as much air out of whatever it is you're freezing your food in, so don't freeze a small portion of something in a large tub for example - especially if it isn't pre-bagged.

I use ziplock/resealable bags mostly as they're easier to get the air out of. You can also twist a non resealable freezer bag ready to put a freezer tie round, but before doing so suck the as much air out as you can - straws are a good for this.

Double bagging also helps. I use value food bags to put the items in and then into a resealable bag. This also means you can re-use the resealable bag over and over.

Things I do put in tubs I put into value food bags first.

Hope the above suggestions might be helpful to you

dannie

I had a bag of homemade large buns in the freezer (baked weight 465gr) so am working on using this February 2011 leftover recipe up. I taste some first and consider how they can be used up (as they are or "reinvented" into another dessert). This deters me from buying extra ingredients to some extent.

dannie

By the end of this week all the buns will have been used either spread with margarine, ground up to make a flapjack-like recipe or in a blender pudding recipe.

Lots of leftovers have been used up so far this month and it is surprising how many other ways they have been used.

DebtFree2012

Hi lovely OS'

I would like your help - I have half a bag of fresh spinach and small bag of new potatoes plus a huge amount of coriander powder which i presume is just ground as that's what it looks like yet I have no idea what to make to use them up. They all need using this weekend so I would love your help to think of something.

I have a good pantry full of essentials so could probably add staples/basics.

Thanks in advance peeps

meritaten

Were you thinking of side dish or main dish?
I would make two side dishes personally. either use the half bag of spinach as a fresh salad with perhaps a grapefruit or orange segmented into it and perhaps a nice vinaigrette dressing or fry up a couple of chopped rashers of bacon then wilt the spinach in the bacon and fat.
The new potatoes could be parboiled and then tossed in some olive oil (or sunflower - whatever you have) and and roasted in the oven (if you have some garlic then toss that in too to roast)

If you want to make a main dish then if you have some eggs make a potato and spinach frittata. Or quiche if you fancy making some pastry and have some cream to go with the eggs!

Sorry, but I really couldnt think of a way of using the ground coriander! er if you have a bit of curry powder you could try 'Bombay Potatoes'!

zippychick

Spinach recipes should have some ideas. WHat about spinach soup or lasagne? I know there is a philadelphia spinach lasagne recipe if you check their website


Why do all the ingeredients need used this weekend?

how many things can you do with potatoes may also interest you

What about carrot and coriander soup?

we will merge this later

Zip

saveabobortwo

So we try not to waste any food because it is expensive trying to make a meal each day with something we already have in the fridge or cupboard yesterday we found chicken bits and a curry sauce so made a very tasty curry and rice. tring to see if we can possibly go without food shopping for longer have lots of tins of stuff etc in the cupboard but trying to think up tasty dishes that are appealing with some old curry sauce or similar you know the stuff thats left each week that no one wants to eat trying to use this up.

Reverbe

in th fridge itself nothing as it has been broken for about a year now but todays meal is some precooked broccoli with leftover jar of pesto and some surplus fresh egg pasta ( i bought a bag for a meal for just me and found it contained a lot more than I thought - usually cook dry)