With a busy life, rushing around to meet lot of different commitments the contents of the fridge will often be the last thing on your mind, even if you love your cooking and trying out new recipes. In fact a study reported on yesterday said that people who like to try out 'celebrity chef' dishes on their families will often end up wasting a lot of the ingredients! (We can't win, can we?)
Image c/o ecofoodrecycling.co.uk
So here are some simple tips to minimise food waste. And save money, which is always a good thing.
1. Keep the more complicated recipes for special occasions. Otherwise, keep it simple. There are lots of recipes with say, 5 or 6 ingredients which can be different enough to provide variety, but are simple enough that you may actually want to cook them towards the end of a long day.
2. Plan meals. It may sound boring but unless you are good at staring into the fridge/cupboard and finding inspiration, you are probably more likely to want to cook if you know you are making chicken tikka masala or shepherd's pie tonight and just immediately start chopping an onion. Otherwise it's so tempting to go "Oh I dunno" and reach for the takeaway menu. You don't have to plan each meal for a specific night, but planning 5 or 6 dinners a week helps a lot.
3. Put your 'menu' of dinners and recipes somewhere visible/easily findable, on a noticeboard or on the fridge.
4. Choose recipes that use a lot of similar store cupboard ingredients. It might work out more expensive at first, but once you have built up a store cupboard of herbs, spices, seasoning, stock, vinegar, sauces and purees you only need buy the fresh ingredients each week and make the odd replacement.
5. Make a list of ingredients and shop from it. Or, as I do, shop online at the same time as meal planning, while checking cupboards to see what I've run out of. There are delivery charges but it can work out cheaper overall as you don't load up your trolley with tempting things you might end up wasting. Another option (suggested by the report) is to shop every day but I'm afraid that idea makes my eyes glaze over. I don't mind the odd top up of milk/bread or browsing in a deli/popping to local shops but Sainsbury's #othersupermarketsareavailable every day, eh, no.
6. Grow your own frequently used herbs. But not that kind, ok? You don't even need a garden. Basil grows exponentially in my kitchen window (though I have been known to destroy a plant for a bowl of pesto). Also salad leaves are very easy to grow.
7. Get your family involved. Let the kids choose one dinner each, say. Also, it goes without saying, let them help (to the extent their age allows). I definitely find the kids enjoy family meals more when they have helped to make it. And they might cook for you when they are old enough :) ...breakfast in bed (I can dream anyway).
8. Get a good freezer. Freeze left overs into single portions. Also put your fresh meat and fish in there, you will soon get into the habit of remembering to defrost it if you have planned what to cook. Making some for now and freezing some is an economical way to cook. And if you really don't feel like cooking that evening you can just heat something up.
9. Don't let things get lost in the fridge. What's the date on the yogurt at the back? By planning meals, you should be using the fresh stuff up, but keep checking and use any remaining fresh items. If you can't think what to cook, try a web search, say on http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/. You can search by ingredient.
10. Practise good cupboard/freezer management. Think of it like "facing up" in a shop. Put the shortest use by/best before date at the front. Have an honest look at your cupboards and freezer every few months. Don't let the packet of cous-cous at the back be a stranger.
11. (There were supposed to be ten :)). If there is some food to throw away (almost inevitable with little ones) try and reuse as much as possible. Get a food bin with a charcoal filter and start a compost heap. Some councils bin collections also include food waste. Also of course pets like dogs and chickens eat most things, though don't make them fat by your environmentally friendly efforts. Chickens can eat anything except avocado which is very poisonous to them, but having left-over avocado when I'm around is about as likely as getting six numbers in the Lotto.
If you have any more tips I'd love to hear them.
