The all new using what you have from your Freezer, Cupboard or Shed (Barn)

joedenise

In:  bulk purchase of sausages and burgers, portioned up and frozen
Out:  HM chicken chasseur for dinner tomorrow night

carinjo

joedenise said:

Using up one of my butternut squashes to make a squash and chickpea curry.  Just need to make some curry powder first before I can do that though!

The weather definately called for a curry yesterday!
Out: allotment pumpkin, tin chickpeas, tin coconut milk, tin tomatoes, spices, frozen cooked quinoa. All for curry.
In: 2 portions leftover curry.
@Cherryfudge, you could try and "hide" the chocolate brioche in a bread&butter pudding! 

joedenise

Cooked a savoury mince & bean thing in the SC yesterday.  We'll have a portion for dinner tomorrow.  2 x 2 dinner portions and one 2 smaller portions to have with jacket potato have gone into the freezer.

2 x 2 portions of the squash and chickpea curry went into the freezer yesterday.

2 Wholemeal rolls will come out of the freezer for lunch tomorrow having bought burgers and sausages yesterday, which have been portioned and frozen.

Happy_Sloth

Hey all,  

I was wondering what you go to methods are you using up the random items in your cupboard.  Our food storage has gotten out of control.  We are mostly creatures of habit so we eat the same items alot,  but it doesn't stop me trying to be interesting and buying random new things.  however more often than not i end up with these items end up sitting for months before throwing them away.  

i've been checking the cupboards today and i have alot of random things i have no idea what to do with.  How do you go about clearing out the random items that don't fall into your normal rotation?

YorksLass

I'd suggest google might be your friend here, something along the lines of "what to do with xxx" for ideas.  You could think about keeping these items separate from your "normal" stores, somewhere in your immediate line of sight, so they don't get lost at the back of a cupboard.  Maybe have one meal a week made from one (or more) random thing(s) to use them up?

If you give us a list of your "random" items I'm sure someone on here could come up with suggestions as to how to use them.

Happy_Sloth

YorksLass said:

I'd suggest google might be your friend here, something along the lines of "what to do with xxx" for ideas.  You could think about keeping these items separate from your "normal" stores, somewhere in your immediate line of sight, so they don't get lost at the back of a cupboard.  Maybe have one meal a week made from one (or more) random thing(s) to use them up?

If you give us a list of your "random" items I'm sure someone on here could come up with suggestions as to how to use them.

haha you asked for it... 

• Egg Noodles 
• Rice Noodles 
• Dumpling mix (I don't think i have ever made a dumpling in my life!, i enjoy them, but it always seems like to much effort when i cook a stew)
• alot of chapati flour! again i love chapatis but when i cook a curry it's a step to far on the effort meter! 
• Yorkshire pudding mix (As above!) 
• Oatmeal 
• tinned ham 
• Tinned cornbeef.  
• Tinned sweetcorn 
• Tinned tuna (Mostly i bought the sweetcorn/tuna intending to make tuna pasta, but OH doens't like it.. ) 
• White lentils
• yellow lentils 
• Tinned black beans
• Vacuum packed chestnuts 
• Dried Veg Soup mix with pasta 

Wraithlady

• Egg Noodles - use instead of rice with Chinese dishes, or instead of long pasta in italian dishes
• 
  
• Rice Noodles - bit of an acquired taste. Google 'Easy Pad Thai'
• 
  
• Dumpling mix (I don't think i have ever made a dumpling in my life!, i enjoy them, but it always seems like to much effort when i cook a stew) 
• - if they're in date and you really aren't going to use them, donate them. It's not much more effort to make them from scratch imho, so you won't lose much
• 
  
• alot of chapati flour! again i love chapatis but when i cook a curry it's a step to far on the effort meter! 
•  - OK. 2 options - either make up a load of chapati's when you have a spare afternoon and freeze them (with greaseproof paper to separate), or - use for other things. Apparently you can make bread with it, though admittedly I've never tried
• 
  
• Yorkshire pudding mix (As above!)  - see Dumpling mix
• 
  
• Oatmeal - assuming you don't eat porridge, then flapjacks or biscuits would seem an obvious route.  
• 
  
• tinned ham - I always struggled to use up a whole tin when I was a student. The texture is softer than 'normal' ham, but works fine in things like egg fried rice
• 
  
• Tinned sweetcorn - sweetcorn fritters?
• 
  
• Tinned tuna (Mostly i bought the sweetcorn/tuna intending to make tuna pasta, but OH doens't like it.. ) - I use it quite a lot as a pasta sauce with tomatoes or mushrooms - Google is your friend here
• 
  
• Tinned black beans - assuming they're not the Chinese salted ones, use them instead of red kidney beans in chilli?

Hope that gives you a few ideas

Wicked_Lady

Egg noodles are good in stir fries.

Yes, make and freeze chapattis when you have time to spare.

Second the oatmeal in flapjacks or biscuits.

We have tinned tuna made into tuna mayonnaise, sometimes with some chopped spring onion, then eaten with jacket potatoes or as a sandwich filler.

DawnW

YorksLass said:

I'd suggest google might be your friend here, something along the lines of "what to do with xxx" for ideas.  You could think about keeping these items separate from your "normal" stores, somewhere in your immediate line of sight, so they don't get lost at the back of a cupboard.  Maybe have one meal a week made from one (or more) random thing(s) to use them up?

If you give us a list of your "random" items I'm sure someone on here could come up with suggestions as to how to use them.

The suggestion af keeping these random items separate reminds me of someone who used to post on another thread. They had a 'use up box' from which every so often they made an effort to use the items. I must adopt this idea.

pelirocco

Happy_Sloth said:

While i was sorting out my cupboards yesterday i found 2 butternut squashes i had completely forgotten one was "Gone"  so it had to be binned but the other is ok.  I also found 2 little bags of chicken breast,  neither enough for a full meal.  

The plan is to roast the butternut in the air fryer with some onions and add to the chicken to make a "korma like" curry... with some cream i got in a To good to go bag yesterday and coconut cream.    

Just trying to figure out if i can stretch this to 2 portions (Each for 3 people)  when you go to the Indian we always have a lot of sauce and not much meat,  wondering if i can beef up the sauce in some way so people don't miss the meat and just enjoy the sauce with the rice.   

I have a bit of a philosophy when it comes to cooking... if i make the effort to cook you better believe I'm doubling the portion so i have another day i don't need to cook but there really isn't much chicken, the squash should add abit of bulk but still worried i won't get 2 meals from it.  

I always add potatoes to curry