Eking out the food

Loved today’s posts. You lots seem to have found new ways of entertaining yourselves and so inspirational ? thank you

I’m on a war footing haha just used up some stale bread for nelson squares waste not want not as my dear mum would have said

I ate my last banana yesterday and it is another 10 days before my delivery. My little garden has so far been only for flowers and pretty plants. No veges, no fruit - big mistake I am thinking now! Will rectify that when I can. Strange meals to come as I am going through each cupboard in turn to see what can be used up and made into a meal. Some stale nuts, prunes etc will go into a casserole and should be OK. If my flour has not gained weevils then I will do some baking! Strange times - stay well everyone...

I hate waste at the best of times but it seems to be a bit like ready steady cook here until next order arrives.
Had a packet of puff pastry with an imminent use by date, a dish of cold mashed potato, a bit of manchego and a crust if Parmesan, 2 slices of streaky bacon. I reverted to making what I used make for my dad when I was in school “cheese and potato puffs” thoroughly enjoyed two for lunch with hubby and froze the other two.

If you bake bread MamaCaz, rice flour can be used to make a tiger bread type topping. Lovely with Marmite mixed in instead of salt.
Agree re online shopping. Nobody has slots and Sainsbury’s won’t take new registrations and mine has expired as so long since I used them. ?

Wouldnt get too excited,id a shopping delivery last wk,loads of stuff not available..went to sainsburys 15mins after opening sunday to make up difference- hardly anything in.so risked going out for not much

We have bought a box of emergency supplies and put it in the garage so that we don’t use it now. Lots of tinned and dried stuff. We can cook fresh at the moment but who knows what will happen eventually. Hopefully, we won’t need our emergency food.

It’s amazing what is lurking in the backs of cupboards. I’ll eat anything (maybe not kippers and custard) to avoid starvation - just get inventive.

Oh and other son refuses to eat leftovers also due to 'food issues'.

I am cupboard cleaning for something to do so will make a meal of anything that says

“use before 1999”LOL

Stay cool, we can do this x

be thankful you have a delivery date

Sainsburys promised us self isolated a delivery,, sent me mail saying I could,, I did it, booked delivery,, not can`t complete the order, cos their website is overloaded.. they can`t cope with the promise they made...

so I have no idea when I can get a delivery.

pleased for you though

I have a very choosy teenager who only eats 'certain' things due to ASD /textures issues,so its very awkward stocking what he will eat if we can only buy 2/3 items at a time,but i dont want to risk shopping every few days as we're in high risk group.its a struggle.and theres only so much i can keep in freezer for him and still make use of it for food for other son and plus ive to get all lactose free for me.! Its a shopping nightmare.we very rarely can have all same meal.

When I worked full time including Saturday, Saturday evening was usually a "see what's in the fridge and what I fancy" meal when I got home.
It was often using up things - even though I had usually done a grocery shop on my day off, which was a Friday!
I was brought up not to waste food and some of the nicest meals I have had were often from the few veg, and an egg or pasta. Bit of a shame that I never had the same combination available so I could do a repeat dish!!

Risotto made with whatever you have, or if you have no fruit or veg, just flavour it with olive oil, and a tin of tomatoes, and some wine, or even concentrated tinned soup, or Marmite.

It is spring and young delicate nettle leaves are becoming available, also very young rosebay willowherb will soon be up.

Concentrated tinned soup is also useful for a pasta sauce.

Oh, thanks so much for the orzotto recipe - I have quite a lot of orzo!

Yes, Witzend I did Google it after posting and thought the same whan I saw that recipe. I also found a really basic recipe for rice flour biscuits, and right now I could really eat something sweet, so think I will make some later when the oven is on for our main meal.

Some great ideas here as I'm the world's worst " chucker-outer " of all things on the sad/stale side. I really have to be ravenous before I'll resort to a mixed menu.

PS @MamaCaz, I just looked and there’s plenty of info about rice flour on google - rice pancakes sound nice!

This looks like a good pasta recipe to use up bits & bobs

Orzotto

My master-plan (at this stage) is to try and keep what I have in the freezer, just a three drawer fridge/freezer, which along with cupboard goods of pasta, pulses, spices, etc, I'm hoping will see me OK if things go to the wire and there are real shortages/breakdown.

In the meantime, I'm eating fresh food as it's still available, in the main.

No idea what to do with rice flour, MamaCaz - have you tried good old google?

My lemon curd smells very ?so that’s the end of the lemon curd tarts.
There’s some plum jam that nobody ever eats - though dh is supposed to like it - I might go mad and make some jam tarts with my lumps of leftover frozen pastry.

I’d never normally fancy any such thing, but when I’m prowling around the kitchen in the late evening, wanting ‘something nice’, and there’s sod all else in this time of crisis....

I will also have just about enough to make a quiche - luckily still have eggs and cheese. And there’s some frozen streaky bacon left over from Christmas (pigs in blankets) to add, so that’s another meal lined up.

Happy ekeing, everybody!

One possible silver lining from all this (maybe) will be a lot less food waste, though nothing much will change here, since we’ve hardly ever wasted very much anyway.

Pasta lovers if you cannot get dried pasta at the supermarket then apparently Anne Summers have a good stock of “penis” pasta....really!

Oh, and I was worried about running out of spaghetti but I seem to have a whole loaf of dried noodles, so I suppose we will have to substitute those. Can you have noodle bolognese?

We should manage for a while. I have plenty of eggs at the moment, and cheese and, like others, have been ‘recycling’ our slightly depressed fresh veg into things that can be frozen - some spring onions and spring greens ended up as bubble and squeak cakes and frozen for later use; a bag of chicken wings and drums I had chucked in there at some stage will become soup. Son in law managed to get me a kilo of minced beef yesterday and that will be made into dishes for the freezer. On a recent trawl through there I seemed to have rather a lot of frozen bananas, so if I can get hold of some walnuts there could be a whole lot of baking going on, but that depends on how long the margarine lasts! DD sent me over one of her spectacularly sticky ginger cakes yesterday and we will certainly be eking that out!

I made scones yesterday with a sad looking banana. I used the bigger size muffin cases. My usual mix. Didn't add sugar, but the mashed banana, a few sultanas and some walnut pieces. Served with red fig jam, (no butter). If I say so myself, they are delicious.

I have the a tiny freezer that comes over a fridge. Just two shelves. I have always used fresh ingredients. This Virus has taught me a lesson. When things subside I will buy a freezer, I will struggle through this , food wise as I can't go out, never a big fan of tinned food either, but I do have some, my meals will be interesting. The two things I do have is pasta and brown rice so there will be some interesting combinations. I have a feeling though that I will not go down a dress size whatever.