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Tackling Food Waste: 3 Easy Ways To Use Up Common Ingredients That Often Go To Waste

Chucking out food has become far too common in society now, which means valuable resources, energy and money are being wasted. If you want to find out more about the problems of food waste, then click here to read my previous blog post. There's some common foods that get wasted a lot, so I'm going to be sharing some of my favourite ways to make delicious treats out of leftover ingredients so they never get thrown out again. Here are 3 easy recipes to start us off...

1. Potatoes ~ Homemade chips

Before we get started, let's just talk about one of the best things to ever exist: the humble, yet absolutely delicious, potato. You can literally eat them for any meal, in so many ways (hash browns, I'm looking at you) yet still, they're the third most wasted food item in the UK. Often, you buy a big bag with the intention of making golden roast potatoes or mounds of creamy mash, and then they get overlooked for a quicker carb to prepare. Considering how cheap, versatile and a great option for buying locally and plastic free, I really think we should all be cooking from scratch from potatoes much more than we do.

Having grown up eating oven chips without ever questioning it, the first time I made chips from scratch I was shocked at home much tastier and easier they are. No boiling, cooling, or deep frying is needed to get a delicious alternative to oven chips that isn't even that much more effort- and cheaper too. In my first year at university, my housemates and I would often pile together all our slightly past it potatoes and make piles of crispy, hot chips that are far cheaper than popping down to the local chippy. Simply chop the potatoes into chunky wedges and spread out on oven trays in a single layer with a sprinkle of olive oil, paprika, salt and pepper at 200C for 35-40 minutes, turning once.

2. Puff pastry ~ Pain au chocolat

Shop bought pastry is a wonderful thing- it's a huge time saver, often accidentally vegan, and once it's baked, will fill your house with such tempting aromas that your household will think you've spent hours slaving away in the kitchen, even though in reality it was more like minutes. Whether you use it for sausage rolls or a tempting tartlet, often, you'll end up having leftover pastry that then sits in the fridge with no use in store, slowly turning a sad grey colour until you finally admit you were never going to use it up in the first place, and chuck it out.

After making a vegetable pot pie with defrosted pastry (so no option to freeze it to prolong it's life), inspiration hit as to how to use up the leftover pastry when I found some uneaten -unlikely story, I know, but true- dark chocolate in my cupboard. I rolled out and cut the pastry into small rectangles, placed two thin rectangles of dark chocolate about a third in from the edges (parallel with the shorter edges) and rolled the pastry up inwards, so it mimics the shape of a pain au chocolate. Then, I baked them at 180C for 10-15 minutes, until puffed up and golden. These are best eaten when they're still warm, as the chocolate will still be lovely and gooey. 

3. Fresh herbs ~ Pesto

Traditionally, pesto is made with basil, but there's no reason why you can't experiment with whatever herb you've got leftover. If it's a stronger herb like mint or basil, perhaps balance it out with a milder flavour like spinach or watercress, and use in a dish that compliments the herbs in your pesto. Other traditional ingredients in pesto include pine nuts and aged Italian cheese such as Pecorino Romano, but whatever nut and hard cheese you've got will also work fine. If you want to make the pesto dairy-free, you can omit the cheese, but make sure to increase the amount of nuts to keep the flavours and textures balanced. For more useful tips, check out Bon Appetit's post about making pesto out of just about anything here. 

If you don't fancy making something new with the herbs, there're plenty of ways to store them to prolong their life too. If you've got freezer space, chop the herbs up and freeze them in ice cube trays with some oil. Then, whenever you're cooking a dish like stew or bolognese, you'll have an instant way to boost flavour in your meals and ensure nothing goes to waste. Or, you could freeze the herbs in butter instead and use them to make your own garlic bread. Simply defrost a cube or two, add some crushed garlic and spread over a sliced baguette before baking.

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