Comfort cooking

Lately I have become very economical in the kitchen and using every last scrap of leftover food and I am very impressed at how far leftovers can go by being a bit imaginative.
I have always hated wasting food and I must admit that I have overeaten far too many times just to prevent food being thrown away. I'm determined to break this cycle without depriving myself or my family of some favourite comforting foods.

I used the leftovers of a Sunday roast chicken in two dishes. The first was chinese style egg fried rice with shredded chicken and peas, sweetcorn and any other leftover vegetables you have in the fridge. The second was chicken and vegetable soup made with the stock from the chicken.

I had a big amount of lamb mince in the freezer and I used some to make spaghetti bolognese but I didn't need to use all of the mince. I used the leftover lamb mince to make ''arayes'' which is an Arabic appetiser and is literally translated as 'brides' or it could even be 'bridegrooms'.
This is made by mixing the lamb mince with finely chopped onions and parsley and then spread as a filling into flat bread such as pitta bread. The sandwich is grilled and it can also be a meal in itself with some salad and hommous as sides. My children like it with fries.

I used sliced bread in a bread and butter pudding, and while researching the recipe I discovered that the pudding itself was invented purely out of frugality, to reduce waste and make use of stale bread. The recipe uses egg yolks to make the vanilla and nutmeg custard, and I have reserved and frozen the egg whites to use in a meringue recipe another day.

I also used leftover grilled salmon fillets to make salmon fishcakes, made with leftover mashed potato, spring onions (or parsley) and breadcrumbs which can also be made from the leftover bread. Because all the ingredients are already cooked, they can be grilled to make the breadcrumbs crispy, or lightly fried till golden and crunchy.

Fishcakes after cooking....and tasting!!

In my research I also found out that there are actual names for recipes that reduce waste such as ''Econo cooking'' and ''Frugal cooking'' There are communities of people who build up and contribute to these websites that make use of leftovers, making more with less and budget cooking on a non-junk food, non-takeaway diet. Credit crunch cooking, recession recipes, leftover queen, it goes on!