My mum can create something out of nothing, well not nothing, but that woman can look into the pantry and freezer and figure out a yummy and nourishing meal at any moment. I am blessed to have been influenced by this creativity. I didn't even realize it until someone pointed it out to me. Adam joked the other day about recycling a terrible steak I had cooked. You are not going to make a soup or lunch out of that? he asked as I stood over the trash can hesitant to scrape my plate into it.
Both of my families come from hard work and an attitude of DIY. Scotch, Dutch, misers, thrifty, prudent, frugal... call it what you will, I didn't realize the behaviours even had names as I grew up. I would watch in horror as people threw out the rest of dinner or friends trashed paper that had only been written on one side. I have been known to get quite upset over letting a bunch of asparagus go bad in the refrigerator.
I encourage you to cruise your food stock every morning.
Here are some things I keep in mind-
- look at your fresh produce EVERY day. If something looks like it might be going bad then cook it. Boil it or blanch it then put it back in the fridge. Who knew that you could mush cooked radishes in with your boiled potatoes? You can get another week of storage by cooking.
- keep wraps or tortillas around. Left overs + some lettuce and salad dressing can make a yummy wrap. Rice, beans + meat = burrito. Veg + cheese + meat if you need = quesadillas.
Layer tortillas and left overs, cover with soup or sauce, bake and you have left over lasagna.
- keep spring roll wraps around. Just about any vegetable can go into a spring roll and they are fun to make.
- keep pizza dough ingredients on hand. You can put many many things on or in pizza crust. You don't need cheese, or official pizza sauce and it doesn't even need to be flat, you can roll stuff up in it.
- my sister would remind me that you can make a casserole or goulash at any moment if you add noodles and a soup to well, whatever fits in the pot.
- use a sharpie to write the open date on jars and containers when you open them. Things like stock, salsa, half used spaghetti sauce can linger in the fridge. The date should remind you to use them up.
- if you cannot compost, keep your vegetable scraps, skins, ends, and stalks in a bag in your freezer. Keep adding to the bag instead of the garbage. You can make a tasty vegetable stock from those scraps by boiling them with water. I add them to the chicken stock I make from the chicken bones I keep. The freezer is an amazing tool.
Try to identify the anchor ingredient, this should be the thing that is going to spoil if you do not use it. Could be a sauce, veg, meat, left overs, bread, and begin to build from there. Do not forget that you can have multiple courses at any meal if you are worried about quantity.
How you put ingredients together is up to your taste. If you don't try you will never know if you could take that terribly dry roast beef and slow cook it with some curry for a great Indian meal ( I had so much beef left that I rinsed the curry sauce off and made an enchilada lasagna out of it!) Creativity in the kitchen takes time to develop and you may have to choke some things down but you have done yourself a real service, You have not wasted FOOD.
I force this creative process every month as we "eat the house down". I refuse to go to the store until the cupboards and fridge are just about empty. I am incredibly fortunate that Adam is a good sport about my substitutions. Last night we had spring rolls to finish off the rest of the fresh veggies, you wont find the recipe anywhere, they had a little bit of everything - everything but the kitchen sink.
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