British sinks, rather than palates, are guzzling £470 million worth of wine a year according to new research, and that’s just one statistic that shows we’re not as thrifty as we might like to think. Most of us realise by now that about a third of the food we buy ends up in the bin. For two years we’ve been hearing about the reality of our domestic food waste — the fall-out of supermarket Bogof offers, over-crammed fridges, lack of planning and, often, know-how.
It’s impossible to ignore the environmental impact — all those methane-producing landfill sites — and we know that if we changed just a few of our habits, we’d have more cash left over at the end of each month for the mortgage, the cinema or that must-have coat. Yet the monthly value of discarded food and drink in most households has risen to £50, from £35 only last year, according to the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap), which advises the Government. Almost half of that avoidable waste is liquids — at a staggering cost of £1.4 billion — and the main culprits appear to be milk, fizzy drinks, fruit juices and smoothies.
As we scramble to recycle batteries and take half-full paint pots to council collection sites, is this apparent culinary apathy because we are sick of being preached at about food? Has the message about getting wise with leftovers become so familiar that we listen but don’t really hear? Or is it that we’re frightened of getting it wrong: making ourselves ill with out-of-date produce or simply dishing up something less than tasty?
There probably isn’t that much you can do with a bottle of flat cola. But it’s not rocket-science to use up surplus milk in a smoothie (while mopping up languishing fruit, too). Who needs to keep companies such as Innocent in profit when a liquidiser would do the trick? Juicing helps to cut out wasted cartons, if youhave room for yet more kit in the kitchen. If not, kids love jellies, and fruit juice is tastier than water.
Half-full bottles of wine, if recorked and refrigerated, will keep for up to three days and still be drinkable; pumping out the air with a Vacuvin will help. Just remember to take out the red wine 30 minutes before you want to drink it. Nigella freezes the last drops of wine in ice trays — red or white both work, and you can do the same with cream. Use a handful of the red ones in gravies, stews or shepherd’s pie; add white to b?chamel sauce for a fish pie or defrost the cream cubes and use in mashed potato, custard or mousses (or drop a frozen cream cube into steaming, strong hot chocolate).
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It’s got to be worth a go even if it is too early for new year’s resolutions. With all that in mind, and if you’re sick of pouring money down the sink, try some of these recipes, adapting them according to what you have around.
Kate Colquhoun is the author of The Thrifty Cookbook: 476 Ways to Eat Well with Leftovers (Bloomsbury £14.99)
Tea and coffee
Use the last drops from the pot in cakes or puddings. Marguerite Patten uses strong cold tea in her fruit cake, and what’s a tiramisu without its coffee?
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For a variation on the classic Italian pudding, Marcella Hazan’s recipe uses shop-bought cake drenched in rum and coffee with a creamy chocolate mousse.
Marguerite Patten’s eggless fruit cake with tea
? Line an 18cm round cake tin with baking parchment. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
? Pour 300ml of well-strained moderately strong tea into a saucepan, add 85g butter, 85g sugar (light brown or caster or granulated) and 85g dried fruit.
? Bring just to the boil, simmer until the fat and sugar have melted then boil briskly for two minutes. Allow to cool.
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? Sift 300g self-raising flour (or 300g plain flour and 2 level teaspoons of baking powder), a pinch of salt (optional) and 1 level teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda into a mixing bowl.
? Add the ingredients from the saucepan; stir well. Spoon into the prepared tin; bake for about 1¼ hours or until the cake is firm and golden brown. Cool for five minutes then turn out.
? The cake keeps well for one or two days or it can be frozen.
Tiramisu
Serves 3-4 or double up
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? Line a narrow loaf tin with cling film, leaving the edges to hang down outside the tin.
? Mix together 3 tablespoons each of rum, caster sugar, water and strong espresso coffee in a bowl. Put to one side.
? Make a chocolate mousse by whisking 2 egg yolks with a teaspoon of caster sugar until pale yellow.
? Separately, melt 85g dark chocolate in a double boiler; leave it to cool a little and then pour into the egg mixture, whisking all the time; leave to cool. Whip 2 egg whites until stiff, mix one tablespoon of egg white gently into the cool chocolate mixture and then fold in the rest of the whipped white.
? Now cut a 250g bought Madeira or sponge cake into quarter-inch slices, dip them swiftly into the rum and coffee mixture and use them to line the bottom of the loaf tin. Then spoon over some of the chocolate mousse and go on layering the soaked cake with mousse until you reach the top, which should be a layer of drenched cake.
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? Fold the cling film over the top of the pudding and refrigerate for 4-6 hours or overnight.
? To serve, open the cling film and turn out the pudding on to a plate, shaking it free of the tin. Pull off the rest of the cling film and discard. Serve with very cold cream, nuts or berries.
Wine, cider and beer
Some of the best winter stews use wine, beer or cider to tenderise the meat. These thicken into rich gravies that cry out for mashed potato or dumplings and a heap of steaming red cabbage.
Boeuf Bourguignon
Serves 4-6
? Preheat the oven to 140C/gas mark 1.
? In a heavy casserole dish, brown 900g stewing steak cut into cubes in a splash of olive oil. Do this in batches to get the meat really brown, and put on one side on a separate plate.
? In the same pan, with a little more oil, fry a medium onion, peeled and sliced, until just golden.
? Return the meat to the pan with the onion and add a heaped tablespoon of flour, stirring well to coat the meat.
? Add a couple of garlic cloves, chopped, a sprig of thyme, salt and pepper.
? Pour over 425ml red wine, stir, put on the lid and cook in oven for 2 hours.
? Meanwhile, fry 225g streaky bacon (chopped) until just brown. Set aside. Next brown 8 peeled shallots (left whole). Then slice 100g mushrooms.
? After the stew has cooked for 2 hours, add the bacon, shallots and sliced mushrooms. Stir, replace the lid and cook for a further hour.
? Boozy alternatives If you have beer to use up, use the same recipe but leave out the browned shallots and bacon. Add 4 sliced carrots if you like.
? To use up cider simply replace the beef with pork, follow the same recipe and replace the shallots and bacon with a large cooking apple (peeled, cored and sliced). Cover the whole lot with a thin layer of very fine slices of potato, dot with butter, cover and return to the oven for its final hour.
Milk
Sour milk is practically irrecoverable, but if the problem is simply a surfeit of milk, use it up in milkshakes, smoothies, hot chocolate, rice puddings or cottage cheese, or freeze it.
Cottage cheese or paneer
A litre of surplus full-fat or skimmed milk is all you need to make about 225g of cottage cheese or a little less paneer. Both are delicious in salads or pancakes and paneer is especially good in curries with tomatoes, spinach, peas or almost any other vegetable.
Both will keep in the fridge for up to a week in an airtight box.
? Bring 1 litre of milk to the boil in a large pan. Turn off the heat, add a tablespoon of lemon juice and a pinch of salt and stir well. After about 5 minutes the curds and whey (watery fluid) will start to separate.
? When completely separated, strain the whole lot through a fine sieve or muslin bag, gently rinsing the lumpy white curds under the tap to cool them down.
? Push down on the curds in the sieve to squeeze out as much liquid as possible and, voilà, cottage cheese.
? To take this a step farther and produce paneer, put the cottage cheese into a clean tea towel, twist the cloth and wring out as much liquid as possible, then weight it with a heavy pan, slightly slanting the plate in the sink so that the last drops of whey run off. After about 5 hours the cheese will be done. Slice into curries, drizzle with honey or just eat it on its own with a plate of fresh herbs, figs, dates or toasted nuts.