Leftovers #4: Curry Thingy

Sometimes there isn't much in the category of food in the fridge when you have teenage sons. Strangely, there are just bits of previous meals that seemed like the last forkful would be too much. Of course, later empty bags of chips or cereal boxes can be found in the house in places unexpected like under a couch, on the toilet tank or in a hallway. Maybe it's a half empty jar of peanut butter that I swore I just opened...

Anyway, there will be odds like a few mouthfuls of pasta. Maybe you have an end of an opened package of luncheon meat or sausages of some type. Sometimes, I find a package of frozen vegetables with a few tablespoons that is slowly becoming freezer burnt. Okay, that last one is often my fault. What do I do with this stuff. Maybe I am done with omelets or maybe I am just out of eggs. 

I get home and that is basically all I see aside from the pantry which seems to demand more work than I want to spend cooking for me. 

Now, I hate cooking for one sometimes but this is somewhere between cooking, warming up and being a little inventive. I call it curry thing. It requires that you have some curry powder or mix of some sort. Most masala mixes would work as well. 

The point is simple. Warm those few bits and pieces up with some liquid. Add a curry roux and serve it in a bowl with beer out of a can. Preferably some rye or red beer. Or a lager. Or whatever is in your fridge. 

The big leftover technique here is the thickening technique. Simple sauce thickener here. Mash equal part fat and flour. Mash in spices. Add to liquid that is warm. Cook it until you have the thickness you want. 

I usually use flour, butter and for this thing; yellow curry and a few spices. That's it. Like the frittata leftover thing, it is putting a bunch of ingredients together and making harmony with a sauce. 

Here are a few more in the series that I have been developing to deal with food waste. The first deals with spreads, sugars and syrups. The second with vegetable and vegetable soups. The third with odd bits into an omelet. 

More Leftovers:

Leftover Breakfast

Leftover Beet Soup

Leftover Oven Baked Omelet

Leftovers #3: Oven Baked Omelet

The waste series reminded me that a facility with leftovers creates less waste. Part of creating less waste is having a few handy go to recipes in your kit to pull out and adapt. This can be trying if you have kids or picky eaters in the house.

My kids have a wide palate but often resort to not wanting something or not liking a category when they like individual dishes. A good example is red peppers; one kid loves them raw but says he does not like them any other way, except when they are roasted they are good in a sauce or mixed in mayo but not left whole on a pizza. Get where I am going with this?

I'm not a fan of hiding the ingredients and we have adopted a try it once and if you don't like it, that's fine. On those days, I make sure there is something else on the table but not a whole other meal. Remember, this is a post about waste. I haven't forgotten but it seems that getting your kid to eat their food is a step towards that.

Here is one way that works mostly. Turn it into a baked omelet or a fritatta.

So leftover butter chicken sauce is added to beaten eggs. You could use any leftover saucy bits. Leftover rice from Chinese take-out, mixed veggies, frozen peas, almost any tiddly fiddly bits. French Fries. Bits of chicken from a roast. You know, leftovers. 

Anyways, the point is to add something just a bit different that is healthy or going to waste anyways or even both. If they like the whole egg thing, then this will most likely work. 

For advanced food waste management, use leftover food grease. Bacon fat is amazing. Above, I added the fat from stock making. I suppose the official name would be schmaltz. It is the fat from chicken. The stock had some seasoning that remained in the fat. If you are not looking for bonus points, just use butter or oil. 

Normally, I start the eggs on the stove, add the bits and then once the bottom has set, put the whole pan into the oven until it cooks all the way through. Is this gourmet cooking or the Jacques Pepin way? No. Is it delicious and good enough for my kids? Is it quick and easy for any schlub getting home from work with no ideas left and a half hour from taking one kid out to swimming while the other is getting back from karate? Most definitely. 

In short, this is a recipe idea to keep in your back pocket for those type of nights where you have some small containers of almost nothing, a few eggs, and a deficit of time. 

Waste Not, Want Not

Wow, I am lazy. I have a whole bunch of posts that I haven't done that kind of accentuate this topic. What spurred me to keyboard was receiving a text from my eldest son with a link to a survey around how much food waste your family wastes.

There was a huge amount of questions on how you know food is spoiled. I have posts on what to do with spoiled milk, leftover uses, and making things with traditional garbage stuff. I think I will try to focus on some of those posts in the next few weeks.

Also, I'm interested in keeping a waste diary. Maybe instagram the crap out of my food waste and see where it goes. I'm always a little skittish because there is the whole internet shaming thing. But I challenge anyone who wants to make a comment about what I ought to do, to keep a diary themselves.

There is another way of looking at this problem. I would guess, and I will fact check as we go along, that the food and restaurant industry has more waste than individuals. Where we intersect is at the supermarket and the restaurant. The pink sludge burger at McDonald's probably is less wasteful than a burger at Holy Chuck's for example. The desire for perfect produce places a part in this alliterative sentence and the waste in the industry. If we stop demanding certain things, it will stop being produced.

Conversely, I tend to hate packaged goods but buy baby cut carrots. Why? Because they are a traditional waste product that became a product unto themselves, and my kids will eat them for who knows what reason, I will often get them instead of other packaged carrots.

Now, if I can only find a way to stop wasting the food posts...