Take My Advice and Eat Deliciously!

That was good, wasn't it – a lovely springy weekend. My real man and I did some gardening, we think, we don’t know much about gardening. Segue coming up!

And talking of things people don’t know much about I was asked recently, by Marks and Spencer no less (hopefully more about this later) what has been the inspiration behind Sudden Lunch! and The Leftovers Handbook? (This book is now in its second edition called Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers.)   I knew the answer immediately – utter irritation!  

I am amazed, discombobulated and yes, irritated by all the things people don’t know about food, eating, cooking, best before dates and so on. 

I often joke that cooking is just cutting things up and making them hot but realise there is a fair bit more to it than that (plus maybe I’m a natural).  But honestly, cooking really is not at all difficult.  I am not suggesting that people learn to cook like … I dunno … Heston Blumenthal or Ottolenghi but it would be time very well invested indeed to learn how to feed yourself quickly, easily, economically, deliciously and to your very own tastes.

To this end I wrote my book, with recipes, ideas, handy hints, suggestions, cook's treats, storage advice and more for over 450 different leftovers.

To illustrate my point ...

Because I can cook these are the last three meals I have eaten (not including breakfast) prior to writing this post.  For me they take no forward planning whatsoever; as I say the header of this blog ... 

“Spontaneous eating from store cupboard and leftovers”.

Roasted Butternut Squash, Leek & Chorizo Soup

I had half a butternut squash and half a leek in the fridge plus, of course, chorizo which to me is an essential store cupboard item (see here for 21 Ways Chorizo can Enhance Your Life!).  

I was cooking a roast dinner for my real man so roasted the squash as the oven was already on.  I gently cooked the leek in a little oil till meltingly tender (this is the best way to cook onions too - see here), added the roasted squash and enough veg stock (half an oxo and hot water) to just cover.  I also added 3 chopped slices of chorizo and simmered for about 10 minutes.  I puréed the soup, although just mashing would do, and served myself the result together with 1 small slice of bread which I had torn up, tossed with a drizzle of olive oil and another coarsely chopped slice of chorizo and popped in the hot oven to crisp up. More information on Croutonology here.

Time taken about 45 minutes but most of that was just waiting for the squash to cook alongside the beef. It made two portions so I’m guessing about 50p a portion.

Penne Pasta in a Rich Oxtail Sauce

We bought a small bag of oxtail in the bargain department of Tesco for £1.21.  I braised it with onions, a little tomato paste, beef stock and splash of red wine and we both had a bowl of lovely stew with a chunk of bread.  There was a little left so I reduced it slightly (by simmering), and sauced some pasta with it, Parmesan sprinkle of course.  Easy peasy, maybe 15 minutes time and 40p for the meal. If you can spare 2p or so more a sprinkling of pangrattato would be great on this!

Warm Boursin Scones with Cherry Tomato Salad

I bought two garlic and herb Boursin at a much reduced price so decided to play with some.  I have often made a kind of pan-cooked scone called a Singin’ Hinnie (recipe here) and wondered how it would turn out if I used Boursin instead of butter or margarine.  It turned out really well so whilst they cooled a little I mixed some chopped tomatoes with a little red onion, olive oil, drizzle of balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper.  Lunch …

These didn't take long or cost much – 50p say!

So please, take my advice ...

By simply learning a few basics; including perhaps some idea of what goes with what, and also keeping your favourite basics in the store cupboard then eating really, really well for not much time or money becomes a daily event. 

Which, incidentally, is wonderful!

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 ...

7 Ways to Avoid Wasting Food at Home

I have noticed a lot of hashtagged national days on Twitter recently, some British, some international and a lot American, some of which are very strange.  Recently they have had …

National Eat a Cranberry Day

National Spicy Hermit Cookie Day

National Pizza with the Works except Anchovies Day

Go Hog Wild - Eat Country Ham Month

Funny chaps, the Americans!

The national day that interests me at the moment, however, is today …

Throw out your Leftovers Day

… which is surely a bit foolish to say the least.  

I believe 29^th November was designated Throw out your Leftovers Day as a safety measure to remind people not to let their Thanksgiving leftovers malinger too long.  Sometimes, however, Throw out your Leftovers Day is almost a week aafter Thanksgiving which can be a problem.

All this is academic, of course, there’s really no excuse for throwing away good food and it does seem a bit daft to give thanks for all you've got and then throw some of it away! 

How about making the day after Thanksgiving ... “Plan what to Make Next Day”

7 Ways to Avoid Wasting Food

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1.  If you buy two for one and can’t eat both – give one away!

2.  Learn how to store things properly – see here for some help in this. 

3.  Understand the difference between “best before” and “use by” – read my little rant here for more about this. 

4.  Learn to cook, at least the basics. It’s not difficult, honestly, and can bring you so much yummy pleasure for the rest of your life!  

5.  Plan the week's meals ahead, make a shopping list and stick to it. (I do none of these things but do as I say, not as I do).

6.  Don’t overload plates – these leftovers are the hardest to use up (although within the family you can use this method for using up leftover dinner). 

7.  Read my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers. Yes, this is a plug but a damn useful one as it will be a real help if you have leftovers and no idea what to do with them.

Obviously the above suggestions are for Life, not just Thanksgiving.

I am, of course, very much looking forward to 30^th December – National Bicarbonate of Soda Day, exciting or what!

Incidentally I read recently that in the UK we throw out 24m slices of bread every single DAY. Apparently this would stretch up and down Snowdon 110 times which would, of course, be pointless!     

  

How to use Every Part of a Chicken

There's been a fair bit of foodie talk recently about how many meals a responsible adult can get out of a roast chicken.  The highest I have heard posited (and I think it may have been part of the recent Jamie Oliver brouhaha) is 40! Well I don't know about that but I do know a handy trick to get every single scrap of meat off the carcass.  Read on.

My normal behaviour with a whole chicken is to roast it for our dinner.  My real man has a leg and a wing and I have a few slices of breast. As is normal for us, we have different accompaniments - he has homemade stuffing, homemade bread sauce, homemade sloppy peas, sausage meat, potatoes, veggies and real gravy whilst I have butternut squash and red onion roasted with a little chilli!

The next day he has the same meal again and I have something including leftover chicken and leftover roasted squash such as a risotto or, if I haven't eaten all my dinner the night before, I might have a bit of a munge - see here for details of this culinary technique.

On the third day I normally use the second, uncut breast to make a pie for my darling.

At the same time I have a  a curry (quick and lovely recipe here) or similar for me for that night.  Lots more ideas throughout this blog and in my book, Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers - extensive preview here! 

Extensive preview here!

In addition we may well have a chicken sandwich, salad or similar for lunch before moving on to the next stage. 

How to completely strip a chicken carcass ...

~   After the above kind of meals bung all the rest of the chicken including skin, bones, flesh and any goo, into a saucepan with a lid and add about 1½ inches (4 cm)of cold water.

~   Bring to a boil over medium heat, turn down the heat, cover and simmer for about 20 minutes.  During this time turn the carcass once so that all of it gets a go in the water.

~   Turn off the heat and allow to sit for 20 minutes or so. 

~   Use tongs to lift the carcass out of the pan and set in a bowl or on a plate to cool a little.

~   Whilst still pleasantly warm manually (yes, with your hands) remove every single scrap of edible meat.  This is NOT unpleasant and DOESN'T take long.

~   Keep the broth - it will be a pretty golden colour and lightly flavoured.  It is not a true rich chicken stock but is prettier and better than water to use in any soups or sauces you might be making.

Here's a gruesome pic of a carcass I stripped earlier, have yourself a zoom, I don't think you'll find much I've missed!

The next day I make soup with the broth and probably the last of the chicken.  If it's not the last I can always think of something to do with it!

This is, of course, nothing like 40 meals, it is 10-ish and at £5 or so for a reasonable 2kg chicken  that's about 50p per meal plus a few nibbles. 

Oh, and before you go see here for how to use
chicken fat and skin in delightful ways.

Lovely lunch for 15p!

~  Menu  ~

Pease Pudding Soup

Multigrain Bread

Glass of Fizzy Water

This week is the Live Below the Line Challenge an initiative of the Global Poverty Project; the challenge is to spend no more than £1 per person per day on food and drink for 5 days.  I apologise for not mentioning this before but have only just become aware of it - good luck to everyone taking part.

Actually I myself personally eat so very frugally (and deliciously) I think I would often be hard pushed to eat cheaper and am sure I am often well below £1 a day although to be fair I do have a small appetite!

For lunch today I had pease pudding soup - every week or two I cook my Geordie lad a piece of ham and use some of the stock to make pease pudding  

A bag of split peas costs 49p for 500g.  I cook half a bag per batch so say 25p and this makes enough pease pudding accompany my darling's ham dinners say 3 times plus sufficient for a soup or a curry for me, that's 25p divided 4 so say 6.5p.  

The stock is a by product and possibly costs nothing as it is only water and seeped out ham juice.  I use 1 small onion.  

We recently bought a bag of little 'culinary' red onions for 12p reduced from £1.20 and as it contained um ... quite a few lets say 1p for the onion which is a bit high I think.  Incidentally these onions are still perfectly fine although about 3 weeks past their best before date.  

I used an abstemious amount of olive oil to cook the onion and, the stock being salty, nothing was spent on salt although I did have myself a sprinkle of black pepper. 

 So my bowl of delicious, homemade soup cost 7.5p, let's be generous and say 15p with the slice of toast I ate with it.  

This is typical of the way I eat but the funny thing is although we could no way claim to be flush with money I cook this sort of thing because I like it!  I am always telling my darling that if he wasn't so fond of meat and was more fond of 'interesting flavours' I could feed him much more cheaply but he loves his manly meals and at least I get to be creative with the leftovers.

I drank a glass of fizzy water with this - 17p for 2 ltrs so negligible really.  I only have it because I find sparkling more refreshing than still.

Incidentally I saw this good idea for storing onions on Pinterest ...

Speaking of best before - we had some of the best rhubarb ever, which I made into a crumble (recipe here), the other day.  It was sweet and tender, juice and very pink.  It cost 30p instead of the original £3.00 but I didn't cook it for a few days and it was still as perfect can be.