#clearaplate – love your leftovers. A recipe bank of ideas.

Funny what catches your eye,stops you and makes you think isn’t it? Earlier this week I came across the #clearaplate campaign from Project Sunlight, in conjunction with Oxfam. The core values of the campaign are to fight against food waste in commercial settings, at the home level and to provide assistance to families struggling with food poverty.

In the UK today, 11,500 tonnes of food will be thrown away, yet one in five families will struggle to put food on the table. Project Sunlight has already provided two million meals to British families through their partnership with Oxfam UK. With our help they are aiming to provide half a million more. #ClearAPlate because no one should struggle to feed their family while food is being wasted.

What can I do? I’m only one person, but I’m a person who writes about food all the time. I am passionate about leftovers and what you can do with them. I have written so many leftover recipes. So that what I’m doing for #clearaplate.  What I have I’m willing to share.  To be fair, they have been freely available on Mintcustard for ever but now I’m putting them all together in one place. I’ve sorted them into categories by ingredient type. I hope this helps. As I publish new recipes on Mintcustard I’ll try to remember to update this list.

Meat leftovers

Monday Pie, using up leftover roast chicken. (or turkey)

Chilli dogs, using up leftover roast beef or beef casserole

Vietnamese spring rolls, using up leftover lamb, or any meat you happen to have!

Chicken stock and a chicken noodle soup – don’t throw away the chicken or turkey carcass.

Char sui bao, steamed pork buns filled with leftover pork

Vegetable leftovers

Broccoli Stalk soup – yep, don’t throw the stalk away!

Fridge bottom risotto, using up those unloved vegetables

Pepper baked tortillas – yesterday’s roast potatoes get used up

Roasted pumpkin fougasse – using up squash and pumpkin

Fridge bottom quiche with a potato crust

Potato scones – using up leftover mash

Panzanella – using up leftover tomatoes, and ideal packed lunch salad.

Sweets and snack leftovers

Tiffin, using up leftover chocolate and biscuits

Compost cookies – sweet and savoury snacks used up together.

There are also many fantastic meal planning blogs. I urge you to make use of their expertise and enthusiasm.

Everyone can make a difference

Let’s hope that our generation can be the one that ends food poverty in the UK. No child should go to school hungry, no Mum should skip meals to feed her family, no older person should live on tea and biscuits. But they do.

What are YOU going to do to stop this happening?

 

 

Advertisement