by Maria C Collins

Created on: October 27, 2009   Last Updated: December 23, 2009

British households throw away one quarter of the food they buy. In more affluent times people became wasteful. Before the 1970's people in Britain could not afford to waste food and used every bit. Wasting food at any time is wicked but, in these more straightened times, it is just the same as putting money in the bin. Cooks in the past knew how to make leftover food seem like a newly cooked dish, tasty and heartwarming. In modern times we have forgotten those lessons in food and budget management.

Stale bread need not go to waste; it can be used for a variety of purposes. Tear out the inside of the slices, tear them into pieces and put them into a blender to make breadcrumbs. Pop the breadcrumbs into a plastic bag and put them into the freezer. Not only have you used up the stale bread but you have fresh breadcrumbs, much better than buying them.

Many people forget that originally toast was made from stale bread. So have a toasted sandwich. Other uses of stale bread include bread and butter pudding, bread pudding, and croutons.

Leftover mashed potato can thicken a soup. Leftover boiled, mashed or roast potato along with cooked vegetables can become the old English favourite, "Bubble and squeak" or American hash.

Leftover beef or lamb can be minced, flavoured well and with a gravy and mashed potato topping turn into cottage or shepherd's pie. If you cut the meat into bite sized pieces and put it into a curry sauce and you have a quick and easy curry. Cut the roast meat into small pieces, put it into a bowl. Then add some chopped onion, a diced cooked potato or two, some cooked vegetables or frozen peas. Add whatever flavourings you fancy and perhaps some bottled brown sauce or Worcester sauce or some gravy, a pinch of curry powder, mix it so that it binds together and place it onto some pastry, flaky is nicest, form into pasties and bake, eh voila! Surprise pasties!

The carcass of a roast chicken, or the bone from the Sunday joint, can be boiled with onions and a carrot to make stock or to form the basis of a soup.

Leftover cooked vegetables can be put in a soup or stock. They can make an omelet more interesting. They can go into soup, or brighten up a pasta sauce.

Throwing food away is throwing money away. Learning to be creative with leftovers makes money go further, plus it reduces the amount of food waste that ends up in landfill sites. There are millions of people in the World who do not get enough to eat, it makes no sense at all for people in the richest parts of the world to waste food.

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