By Christine Salins.
Personally, I think I have a knack for minimizing kitchen waste, and reading Use It All: The Cornersmith Guide To A More Sustainable Kitchen would seem to confirm that as a lot of the suggestions in the book are things I do already. Yet it never ceases to amaze me how wasteful many home cooks are.
Now more than ever, we need to think about what we can do with leftovers and scraps, not to mention all the good food that gets thrown away before we get around to eating it.
The wastage doesn’t always come down to the fact that people can’t be bothered or are bad planners; often it’s a case of them genuinely not knowing how to make use of scraps. A lot of those skills have been lost over the years.
Alex Elliott-Howery and Jaimee Edwards, from Sydney’s Cornersmith cooking school, spent years experimenting in their home kitchens to figure out how to feed their families efficiently, affordably and sustainably. Elliott-Howery has become a leading voice on the war on food waste.
Their guide, Use It All, is a treasure trove of recipes and advice. An invitation to reduce food waste while eating generously, it is structured around weekly seasonal shopping baskets and has more than 230 recipes. Alternative flavour combinations are also provided so that you can adapt a recipe to what you have on hand.
Much more than a cookbook, however, it has hacks for turning tired produce or offcuts into something delicious, and clever ideas to make the most of each ingredient so that a little goes a long way.
The authors tackle common myths such as that carrot tops are poisonous. They’ve been eating them for years in carrot top pesto and other dishes. I can vouch for this too, having enjoyed delicious crisp-fried carrot tops in Thailand.
They have great suggestions for using up leftover rice, offer lessons in soup making, have recipes for green sauces using up tired herbs, and go even further than I would normally think to do, boiling up pineapple and mango skins to make beautiful syrups.
The recipe here is for occasions when you have a few ingredients left over in the fridge and you want to make them taste great with little effort. Eat it the next day for breakfast, pop it in your lunchbox or enjoy it on a crusty roll with green leaves and chutney. It’s perfect for the festive season when there are usually lots of leftovers in the fridge.
Eggs bind other ingredients as they cook, and what you might think are a few random bits and pieces – half a broccoli, a few sprigs of parsley – can become a complete meal when combined with eggs. Combinations that work well together include:
- Capsicum (pepper), cauliflower, potato and parsley
- Onion, zucchini (courgette), broccoli and English spinach
- Leek, mushroom and dill.
The Best Vegetable Slice
Serves 4 to 6
Olive oil
140 g chopped/sliced veg
1 small onion
sliced leeks and their tops
finely sliced fennel
thinly sliced capsicum
2 to 3 garlic cloves, crushed
500 g grated vegetables (a mix works well)
cauliflower and stems
broccoli and stems
zucchini
potato
mushrooms
1 cup chopped soft herbs or leafy greens
parsley
dill
rocket
baby or English spinach
1 cup (100 g) grated parmesan
130 g self-raising flour
6 eggs
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Brush a 20 x 25 cm baking dish with a little olive oil and line the base with baking paper.
Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add the chopped or sliced vegetables and garlic and sauté for 5 to 10 minutes, until soft, translucent and sweet. Transfer the mixture to a large bowl.
Squeeze out any excess liquid from the grated vegetables, then add to the sautéed vegetables, along with the herbs or leafy greens. Stir through the parmesan and flour.
In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs until fluffy, then add to the vegetable mixture. Season with the salt and pepper and gently combine. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and smooth the top with the back of a spoon.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until firm to the touch. Serve hot out of the oven or allow to cool and store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days.
Recipe and image from Use It All by Alex Elliott-Howery and Jaimee Edwards, photography by Cath Muscat. Murdoch Books RRP $39.99.
