Love food hate waste competition
We ran a competition to find a Love Food Hate Waste Champion in Brighton & Hove.
The prize was a place on a Harvest training course, donated by the Brighton & Hove Food Partnership.
We asked people to give us their handy tips and tricks on reducing food waste and we got some excellent suggestions through email, our Facebook page and our Twitter page.
The winner was James Spender who passed on some of his fantastic methods to save waste. Below are some of his excellent tips along with other suggestions and recipes we had sent through.
The best entries
Herby ice cubes
“Chop and freeze your surplus soft herbs (coriander and chums) with a little bit of water in ice cube trays. Then if you have a soup/curry/stir-fry, just chuck a herb-cube into the mix. Also, wrap the stalks of your hard herbs (the barky ones like rosemary) in damp paper towel to keep them young and supple.”
Turning scraps back into food
“All my food waste goes to feeding my Chickens. They will eat almost anything including boiled vegetable peelings. This is a fantastic way to recycle leftover food as you get lovely yellow yoked fresh eggs in return.
I have 15 hens, they are all rescue birds. Most people with a garden could have a few hens they are very easy to look after and easily obtainable from most animal rescue centres."
Peel it, core it, cook it, store it
“If your fruit is starting to get over ripe then remember - peel it, core it, cook it, store it. This is perfect for fruit such as pears, apples, nectarines, peaches, apricots etc and all of these can be cooked together.
I like to add a little rose water to fragrance them but a splash of normal water and a squeeze of lemon juice will do. Do not add sugar in the preparation stage, after you defrost the fruit you can add sugar to taste. This is perfect for pies or crumbles.”
Trust your nose and eyes
“Supermarkets definitely don’t want to poison you, so they’re going to leave themselves a margin of error on best before dates. This is often at least a day more than specified on the label. Trust your nose and eyes.”
Other top suggestions
"I didn't realise this until recently but you can freeze hard cheeses so they last for ages. They're brilliant for cooking afterwards as well, I turn them into a nice cheese sauce for macaroni or cauliflower!"
"To keep potatoes from budding simply place them in a bag with an apple. Also, wrap celery in aluminium foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks!”
“When you are shopping for 'seldom-use' ingredients like almonds for a cake you don't make often, get them from a store where you can weigh out exactly what you need, not a set amount in a sealed package. This saves storing the remainder, which could potentially get too old before you need it again, and it saves money!”
“Chicken leftovers will make a great soup or chicken pie. Either that or I’ll give them to my lovely cats. “
Recipes
Below are the top four recipe ideas we received:
Tomato soup
“Last week I had some celery, onions, tomatoes and basil in the fridge. This made a delicious tomato soup:
Fry onions, garlic and celery until soft
Chop up tomatoes and fry for a further five minutes
Add a tin of chopped tin tomatoes, one teaspoon of tomato paste and a cup of vegetable stock
Simmer for half an hour then wiz in a blender, served with fresh chopped bails and crusty bread
Soups are really easy to make just experiment with different vegetables and pulses.”
“When peeling potatoes don’t throw the peelings away. Make rustic chips and serve with aioli (Spanish mayonnaise), this is so easy to make if you have a hand blender:
Crack two whole eggs into long jug
Start to blend the eggs with sunflower oil, a little at a time until the eggs and the oil emulsify
Add lots of fresh chopped garlic, salt, and pepper and some lemon juice.”
"I often have a few spare onions lying around and this recipe is a great way to use them up before they start sprouting."
Onions sliced very thinly
Gram flour – from Asian supermarkets
Fresh root ginger, chopped with garlic
Chilly powder, mild or hot
Caraway seeds
Cumin seeds
Curry powder
Salt
Pepper
Fresh coriander chopped
Sun flower oil for frying
Put a third of a bag of flour sieved into a bowl and add enough water to make a thick batter.
Then add seeds to a dry pan and toast for a few minutes. Add this to the batter with all the other ingredients except the sunflower oil.
Heat oil in a wok or frying pan, add a small piece of batter in the pan, if it sizzles then the oil is ready. Place a table spoon of Bhaji mix in to the oil, reduce heat, fry until golden brown then turn over. Remove from oil and drain.
You can also use batter for any left over vegetables. They’re great served with plain yogurt with some fresh mint.
"Here's my recipe for using up old fruit going wrinkly in the fruit bowl. It's an elaboration of my friend's banana bread recipe. It uses up all the 'odds n' ends' and is done within an hour.
4oz sugar
4oz butter
8oz self raising flour
Splash of milk
Sprinkle of mixed spice
2-3 over ripe bananas
Six over ripe apples or equivalent quantity of other fruit.
Handful of pumpkin seeds/walnuts or any other nuts and seeds that need using up.
Pre heat oven to 180c - middle shelf.
Cooking time 30 min.
Grease a baking tin.
Beat sugar and butter until light and creamy.
Dice fruit into small chunks.
Stir in fruit and sieve in flour.
Add a splash of milk and stir in mixed spice and nuts/seeds.
Put mixture in tin and bake for 30 min.
Remove from oven and turn out onto wire cooling rack.
Enjoy with a cup of tea."
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