More than $31 billion worth of food is wasted every year in Canada and when energy, water and other resource costs are factored in the true cost could be up to three times that much, a new report suggests

So, times up, two weeks, no waste?  Did you manage it?


The GLAD Fresh Food Challenge was two weeks with no food waste.  Seems simple enough but the shocking statistics show that the average Canadian family throws out 13% of all food purchased!

For our little family, honestly, it was not that much of a challenge because that is the way I shop and cook anyway.  I hate waste full stop.  I plan my meals and shop accordingly using what I have left before it goes to bad.  I buy in bulk and use my freezer to store things in correct portion sizes so I only ever defrost what I need at any one time.

For us the main use of the Glad products we were sent to try out was to deal with leftovers.  I often plan to cook a meal that leaves me some leftovers.  It makes subsequent meals easier as the bulk of the cooking has already been done.

Monday was Canadian Thanksgiving and we sure had some tasty leftovers!


As always, I let the boys set the table.  Harry built us a Thanksgiving Lego robot each that would help us with all the jobs we do- mine did the washing and the cleaning (Oh I wish it were true!)

My Thanksgiving leftovers made it into two meals over two days, here is what I made;

THE HUMBLE LEFTOVER PIE

I love pie.  Its warm, comforting and is like a hug in food form.  I made a simple pastry using half white and half wholemeal flour.
So this crust was 75g white flour, 75g wholemeal flour, 75g butter (you can use all butter or part butter and part shortening), fat pinch of salt and a little water to bind.  You simply rub the fat into the flour and salt and when you have the texture of sand add a little water to bind it into a ball- don't over work it.  Wrap and chill for 20 mins then roll out and give it a good egg wash with just the yolk and a pinch of salt before it goes in the oven.

The pie was layers of leftovers and included stuffing, chicken (we had chicken instead of turkey this year), vegetables, roast potatoes and the leftover gravy.

This is hands down my favorite way with leftovers- pastry for the win every time!

LEFTOVER SOUP

I roasted some baby carrot in honey, butternut squash with some smoked paprika and some beetroot with cumin seeds for Thanksgiving lunch and the leftover veg was just begging to be made into a rich, thick bowl or warming soup.

I only needed soup for two and I had half an onion in the fridge, stored in a freezer bag or it makes the fridge smell funky!  Chop the onion and fry in a little oil until soft, add some stock and your leftover veg.  Bubble for a few minutes and then blitz till smooth.  Add a splash of cream and taste for seasoning.

Toast some fat slices of bread, butter them generously and sit back to dip your toast into your soup and enjoy.

Now it is foolish to think of food waste only in terms of what the fresh stuff we throw into the garbage.  It also boils down to the fact that we might as well be throwing money in the garbage too!  So saving food and saving money go hand in hand.

So you are driving down the road and the coffee shop is lurking just up ahead.  It's only 5 minutes to get home but we stop by the coffee shop anyway.  Its been a busy day, you deserve that hot, milky coffee and a large chocolate chip cookie, of course!  Well what if I told you that you can have access to fabulous double chocolate chip cookies in under 20 minutes whenever you need one- day or night!!

Meet the Double Chocolate Chip Cookie for Emergencies;

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES FOR EMERGENCIES

INGREDIENTS

• 125g good chocolate 
• 150g plain flour
• 30g cocoa powder 
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 125g soft butter
• 115g soft light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 300g dark chocolate chips

METHOD

Black banana's are a pretty handy thing to have in your kitchen when the urge to bake banana bread arises but what if you just don't want to grab the loaf pan today but those bananas need attention now?  Look in my freezer and you will always find a few peeled, cling wrapped frozen banana's.  They make the very best milk shakes and the fact that they are frozen means they thicken up your shake without the need to add ice cubes.  This recipe does not include any ice cream but by all means add a large scoop of vanilla or chocolate ice cream if you fancy.

BANANA & OREO MILK SHAKE

• 1 frozen banana
• 2 Oreo cookies
• 1 cup 2% milk

 This water is infused with strawberries, blueberries and a few lemon slices.  Fruit water is a great way to ensure that soft fruit does not go to waste either.  The strawberries were in desperate need of using up and I had half a lemon looking miserable from being left over from a little gin 'o' clock time over the weekend.
 So remember that no matter how pretty Pinterest makes it look, substance is always more important that style when it comes to food so give that fruit a good squeeze before you put it in your water.  You will have a better flavour and a better colour, every time.

Happy fruit water drinking.

You will always find a block of hard cheese in my fridge.  Parmesan, Peccorino and more recently an Assiago are my go to cheeses.  I don't actually like most cheese (gasp in horror!), and I have been conditioning myself to like them more over many years as initially I couldn't stand any cheese and now mozzarella and hard cheeses have made it onto my good list.

I am not one to throw Italian phrases around lightly so understand that sometimes a little bit of Italian is exactly what is needed to give a leftover ingredient a new lease of life.

Maltagliati pasta, which literally means badly cut, is irregularly-shaped pasta of different-sized pieces and originated as the collected leftover pieces from other pastas traditionally made and cut by hand.


So take a quick look in your cupboard and if like me you cannot stand to be without a good stash of pasta, you will possibly have packets of different sizes and shapes and probably not enough of any one of them to make a full meal- this is the magic of Maltagliati pasta.  The problem with using pasta of different shapes and sizes in one dish is that all pastas have different cooking times but bashing up your leftover bits of pasta to make Maltagliati means that you can cook it for the same length of time, meaning you never waste any pasta again.


To make this simply place all of the little bits of pasta into a freezer bag, cover it in a towel and bash it with a rolling pin until you have lots of little bits of pasta.  Store it in a jar and throw it into soups and stews when needed.

This batch of Maltagliati was added to a Tomato, Fennel & Ham Soup that was made with some leftover ham and a stock made from the bone of the whole ham- perfect Waste Not, Want Not food!


Don't forget to enter my competition to win five fabulous books- just go to this post and comment.

Eggs feature in so many recipes in my kitchen from baking to simply being brushed onto raw pastry to create a golden glazed top.  They also create spare bits on many occasions where recipes ask for just the yolk or three whole eggs and two yolks, the question is what to do with the bits the recipes don't need?

This is when the freezer jumps into play and you will always find zip lock bags with eggs whites and yolks happily waiting in the bottom of my freezer till I need them.  I freeze them in two's and they don't take long to defrost at all.

The following recipe calls for 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks.  It was made for lunch with a friend and alongside a dressed green salad made a fantastic afternoon treat;

BACON, ONION AND CARAWAY TART

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 4 rashers of streaky bacon
• 4 onions, thinly sliced
• 2 tsp. caraway seeds
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Eggs
• 2 Egg Yolks (See below before you throw away those leftover egg whites)
• 300 ml whipping/double cream

Link to printable recipe

Caraway Seeds

Baking blind is the process of baking a pie crust or other pastry without the filling. Blind baking a pie crust is necessary when it will be filled with an unbaked filling (such as with puddings), in which case the crust must be fully baked. It is also called for if the filling has a shorter bake time than the crust, in which case the crust is partly baked. Blind baking is also used to keep pie crust from becoming soggy due to a wet filling

Adding extra yolks to recipes adds fantastic richness to a dish but you are left with egg whites and I know you may be tempted to let them run down the sink when you separate them but think again, this is what two eggs whites can become with a little sugar;

All from just two egg whites!

TWO EGG WHITE MERINGUE

INGREDIENTS

• 2 large egg whites
• 110 g caster sugar

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 300 F 
2. Place the egg whites in the bowl (The bowl must be very clean as any grease will affect how the egg whites whisk up, if unsure of your bowls cleanliness use half a lemon and rub it cut side down over the bowl and it will remove all grease) of a mixer and using the balloon whisk start whisking on high for about 2 minutes, until the whites are foamy, then switch the speed to medium and carry on whisking for 1 more minute. 
3. Next turn the speed to high and continue whisking until the egg whites reach the stiff-peak stage. Next, whisk the sugar in on fast speed, a little at a time (about a dessert spoon), until you have a stiff and glossy mixture. 
4. Now you can place spoonfuls of the mixture onto baking sheets lined with parchment for small individual meringues, spacing them evenly or create one large or two smaller rounds.  You can use a piping bag to create little nests or fancy shapes- just make sure you leave a little room around them on the baking sheet.  
5. Place them on the centre shelf of the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 275 F and leave them for 30 minutes. 
6. After that, turn the oven off and leave the meringues to dry out in the warmth of the oven until it is completely cold (usually about 4 hours but I usually leave them in overnight- just don't forget to pull them out before you switch the oven on again!)

The shelf life of spices vary, and you never really need to worry about them going “off” like other food. For example, a bottle of curry powder that’s been around a questionable amount of time probably won’t make you sick … it will just be less potent.



I have been looking longingly at our new BBQ now the temperature has finally started to rise and I am ready to get grilling.  To ensure that your spice cupboard is not just gathering dust why not knock up a batch of SOS BBQ Spice Rub (That's Save Our Spices of course!).  Its hot, sweet, salty and is great rubbed onto any meat or fish.  This will also save you some cash as ready made spice mixes tend to be very expensive.

SOS BBQ SPICE RUB

INGREDIENTS

• 1 tsp. Black Pepper
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1 tsp. Dried Chillies
• 1 tsp. Ground Cumin
• 1/2 tsp. Cayenne Pepper
• 1 heaped tablespoon of brown sugar

METHOD

1. Simply mix them all together and store in a jar.  Try other variations of spices and herbs, there are so many great combinations of flavours.