Forum Topic

Leftovers

As we tucked into home made soup last night I wondered how we ever accepted the stuff in a tin or packet in its place.  It just does not compare.  At this time of the year I'm in danger of roasting a chicken just so I can make soup with the bones.Are there any other 'leftovers' which are in danger of being rated higher than the initial dish?

Philippa Bond ● 6480d24 Comments

Thanks.  I'll go and have a look.Here is the web address for WRAP's new initiative regarding food waste:  www.lovefoodhatewaste.org.  The Scottish site seems to be more advanced than the English one.  Some good tips on measuring portions etc.  The Scottish one has a forum.

Philippa Bond ● 6466d

I bought an old style table-top mincer in Robert Dyas this week for £9.99.

Maria Pettit ● 6466d

That's an idea.  At the moment I just buy the raw mince and try and allow the time to let it cool after I've cooked it so that the fat sets on the top and can easily be taken off ...  before finishing it off with the topping.

Philippa Bond ● 6466d

Going back to mincers..I often see the old fashioned clip on ones in charity shops. I confess to not using one myself though !

Penny Crocker ● 6466d

Oh now I'm feeling hungry.  How to diet:  Don't read the website without eating first!Just came back from visiting my brother who makes a mean soup.  He loves ginger - which is really warming in this miserable weather.  Home made chicken stock, some chopped vegetables and then some grated and sometimes chopped root ginger.Oh and I've just discovered that you can make stock in a slow cooker.  Never thought of it before.

Philippa Bond ● 6466d

Emma, your left-overs suggestions sound great, especially for a mean and careful pensioner like myself. And delicious too.We're keenly into using left-overs in our household – bubble'n squeak, cottage pies, soups and the rest – we just love them. One of my abiding personal pleasures with left-overs is, on a  Boxing Day or the day after, turkey sandwiches with lots of salt and pepper, cranberry sauce and a touch of mustard and that thickened jellied turkey gravy in fresh bread – and a cup of hot Ovaltine, sitting in front of an open fire of an evening watching on TV(for the tenth time) Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" or Alistair Sim's version of "A Christmas Carol"(for the twelfth time).  Sheer bliss on the left-overs front!  ;-)

Gerry Tan ● 6469d

try using the left over potato skins drizzled in oil and roasted in the oven with lots of chilli flakes it's a good way of using the skins and delicious. I love them with roasted chicked rubbed in spices makes a wonderful evening meal and then the spuds can be made into a wonderful soup with leeks for the next day!

Emma Daniels ● 6470d

I got a hand powered mincer from the cook shop on the broadway - the one that's in the middle of closing down or may have closed down already.It was about a tenner if I recall, and it's a wonderful and very therapeutic way to make the best of your leftovers.  When Sainsbury's do the half-price silverside I deliberately roast three times as much as I need so I can eat cottage pie all week.  MMMMM cottage pie

Leon Markham ● 6471d

Yes Gerry I agree, and I knew you meant WW2, we are old but we aren't that old! I guess we were quite healthy too on that diet. Perhaps we all over indulge a bit. We supplemented things a bit 'cos we had an allotment down The Vale, where everyone shared their produce together. In adversity it brings people together sometimes, perhaps we were happier then in some ways.

Colin Vaughan ● 6475d

During the war - and I'm talking WW2 1939 to 1945 - when food was rationed and each person had no more than 4oz of meat a week, 1 egg, 2oz butter, 2 oz of flour and a couple of tins of soup or beans, our mother used to make something called corned beef hash. She'd open a small 6oz tin of the dreaded corned beef, throw in some fried onions and any other leftover vegatables, mix the lot with some flour and one egg and fry the stuff...served with boiled potatoes and some cabbage leaves(the outer ones discarded by the greengrocer)...and that would be for five people!  I can remember the taste today. Actually, I could murder a dish of her luvverly corned beef hash right now!  ;-)

Gerry Tan ● 6475d

Sorry me again:  Who is doing the stirring? :)  Thought it looked funny!

Philippa Bond ● 6475d

Hmm.  Hubble Bubble.  Whose doing the stirring?! :)I only peel potatoes when I'm cooking mashed potatoes.  After a friend introduced me to roast ones - wash cut drizzle with olive oil and a little grinding of salt and bung in the oven - I stopped. Crunchy and you don't think/realise they have skins still on.Just discovered a new recipe for mashed potato mixed with diced mozzarella and pesto and fried - a different sort of bubble and squeak.  We always seem to have leftover pesto here.  We have an-open-a-new-jar-every-time teenage midnight pasta eater!

Philippa Bond ● 6475d

It's funny how the Kenwood Chef is usually only used as a mixer or liquidizer, probably due to the cost of attachments.We've got the potato tumbler (brilliant, but one must buy rounded potatoes), fast shredder, slow shredder, mincer, and several other attachments which get lesser use, eg juicer, cream maker, and so on.Amazingly I'm the one who uses the machine most. I sometimes wonder if my wife wouldn't be happier with a cauldron rather than a cooker!

Alan Brainsby ● 6478d

Thanks Alan.  I have a thirty year old Robotchef at the moment.  It is brilliant for grating mounds of carrots - and can liquidise but doesn't mince.  We used to use the Kenwood for cakes but don't eat those so often any more.  We've always used the liquidiser on it a lot though.

Philippa Bond ● 6478d

I haven't dared try it yet!

Philippa Bond ● 6479d

Only on 'Genial Ealing' could a subject like cooking 'leftovers' be discussed. Takes me back to my early years in 1940/45 at Acton Vale, where such expediencies were very often a necessity,but we were happy somehow!I loved 'Bubble and Squeek! Can't imagine W4 discussing a subject like this.

Colin Vaughan ● 6479d

Philippa,If your mum's Kenwood cuts the mustard, so to speak, and she won't let you have it, then you could get a secondhand one on ebay rather than laying out £150 for a new one at Argos then searching for the mincer attachment for about £40.

Alan Brainsby ● 6479d

Thanks Alan, I'll investigate my Mum's one when I'm next home.

Philippa Bond ● 6479d

Regarding mincers.A Kenwood Chef with mincer attachment does a good job, price aside!

Alan Brainsby ● 6479d

Of course the shepherd's pie wasn't so fatty then because it was easy to avoid the lamb fat when you minced it. Ready minced lamb nowadays tends to be very fatty.As a small child I used to love helping to turn the handle on the mincing machine which was clamped to the kitchen table and finding the right size dooberry to fit on the end. Is there a better modern equivalent?I have to keep a check on my love of fried potatoes - leftover mashed or boiled or roasted - making me hungry now.  Don't seem to get bubble and squeak so much - probably because it is easier to divide and measure broccoli!

Philippa Bond ● 6479d

Bubble & Squeek, basically potato and cabbage left overs combined with onions and fried, wonderful!!

Colin Vaughan ● 6479d

As a kid, my mother would always make a wonderful shepherd's pie from the sunday roast. Brings back happy memories.

David Archer ● 6480d

my wife can do something really special with leftovers. Put it in the recycle bin

Verification Required ● 6480d

For me roast turkey is awful - we always have some other bird - but I did used to love turkey and chutney sandwiches on Boxing Day and turkey and leek pie the day after.  As you say, it's almost worth roasting a turkey just so I can have the leftovers.

Jane Salisbury ● 6480d