Cook on a budget: Dont throw it away: waste nothing, practise root-to-fruit eating and save money. Heres how to turn 10 offcuts into essential ingredients

I practise a style of cooking that I call root-to-fruit eating: its about cooking consciously, making the most of our ingredients and wasting nothing. Its a step on from the nose-to-tail philosophy, which means to eat the whole animal. By cooking from root to fruit, we can save money by using the offcuts we would have thrown away. This creates a budget for buying higher-welfare, better-quality ingredients that, in turn, provide better nutrition and support local communities. Heres a list of 10 ingredients we definitely shouldnt be throwing away.

1 Root greens

Supermarkets and many greengrocers cut off root tops from carrots, beetroots, radishes and onions. If you can find a greengrocer or market that sells locally grown vegetables with the root greens still intact, then its worth paying a bit extra for them. There are several reasons why root greens should be left on. Firstly, they indicate the freshness of the root because they perish more quickly, and second, they are delicious ingredients. Use beetroot tops as a replacement for spinach or chard: wilted or stir-fried. Carrot tops are bitter, but nice added to a salsa verde or pesto. Radish leaves make a delicious soup or can be eaten as a salad leaf.

Salad

Salad leaves: restore droopy lettuce by refreshing in cold water.

2 Salad leaves

Salad is the most common food to be bought then thrown away uneaten: 45% of all salad produced will end up in the bin. Highly perishable ingredients such as salad and herbs need to be stored properly in the refrigerator and eaten in good time. If your salad leaves or herbs do wilt, however, dont throw them away. You can restore a droopy leaf to its original perky state simply by refreshing it in cold water. If your leaves really are past their best, then you can make them into a lettuce soup, blend them into a vegetable soup, or chop and add at the last minute with some mint leaves.

3 Meat past its sell-by or bestbefore date

A sell-by, best-before and even a use-by dates purpose is to ensure a product reaches you in safe condition. The manufacturer cannot take any risks with this, and the dates are thus very conservative estimates. Keep this in mind and make your own judgment. Steer on the side of caution, especially with poultry. Check the food for mould and sniff it; if its not smelly, its probably fine. Either keep it in the freezer or cook it so that it will last another three to four days in the fridge. I often make a stew at the end of the week to use up any leftover meat.

4 Animal fat

Fat is where most of the flavour comes from in a piece of meat. The more even and evident the marbling of fat is, the more savoury the meat will be. Since the Industrial Revolution, intensive farming techniques have decreased the quality and health benefits of meat. When animals exercise more, the marbling is more even, which is why wild, organic and free-range meat is not only better for the animal, but better for your health and to cook with, too. I always eat the fat attached to my sirloin or rib-eye steak and my favourite cut to roast is a brisket of beef. A good brisket has a high fat content that, cooked slowly, makes the most tender joint.

Fat is the most energy-dense macronutrient food. This makes it very good value, pound for pound, and a delicious source of energy to eat in moderation. I would recommend always buying meat with the fat on; buy less and get more out of it by never throwing the fat away. Keep the fat that renders off your meat for use when cooking other dishes to add more flavour. Bacon fat adds a delicious depth of flavour to a soffritto of onions and tomatoes, for instance.

Bottle

Sour milk: good for scones our soda bread.

5 Sour milk

Milk is often good past its use-by date. Even when it first splits and turns sour, it isnt actually harmful to eat when cooked. In fact, it is the perfect ingredient to make scones and soda bread, or to add to scrambled eggs. These dishes benefit from the thickness of the milk, and the sourness adds depth of flavour. My favourite soda bread recipe is written by my old colleague Daniel Stevens with whom I used to work at River Cottage HQ many years ago. Mix 500g of plain or wholemeal flour with 2 tsp salt, 4 tsp baking powder, then stir in 300ml of sour milk. Knead together until thoroughly mixed, split in two and shape into rounds. Cut a cross on top and place in a preheated oven at 200C/400F/gas mark 6 for 20-25 minutes until nicely browned.

6 Pastry and pasta offcuts

While making pastry one day I had a bit of an a-ha moment. I had remembered that there is a type of pasta made from offcuts called malfatti, which roughly translates to misshapes. Whether you are making your own pastry or buying readymade, you will have offcuts as you trim it to fit its case or tin. These leftovers can easily be made into delicious biscuits. Roll out the excess pastry about 5mm thick, cut into rough shapes, sprinkle with flaky sea salt and a mixture of whole spices, press them in and bake for 25 minutes in a preheated oven at 180C/350F/gas mark 4 until golden brown.

Although we might not always have time, Id highly recommend having a go at making your own pasta. Its super simple to make. For each person, add one egg to 100g of 00 plain or spelt flour, mix together and knead, roll out and cut to size. When using a pasta machine, you will be left with funnysized offcuts that can be cut into odd shapes and dried to eat another time.

Egg

Egg yolk: add to pasta for a richer sauce.

7 Egg whites or yolks

Often recipes call for just one or another part of an egg and its all too easy to let the other part go to waste. Eggs are a great, healthy source of protein and energy. There are many delightful things you can do with the remaining albumen (egg white) or vitellus (egg yolk) depending on what you have left.

With egg whites, Id recommend adding them fresh and raw to your smoothie for a protein booster, or using them into a cocktail sour: in a glass jar, shake up one egg white with 100ml of whisky, bourbon, amaretto or pisco, plus 100ml of lemon juice, a tablespoon of sugar and some ice, then strain the mix into a glass. If you prefer your egg whites cooked, add them to a larger batch of scrambled eggs or fry with some leftover rice with a drop of soy sauce.

Egg yolks are marvellously rich and can make a simple dish decadent. Serve a yolk on top of your tagliatelle or spaghetti with a generous grating of parmesan, then stir in at the last minute for an instant velvety sauce, or use it to make a fresh mayonnaise.

8 Stale bread

Our appetite for daily bread creates a great deal of waste that the baker cant sell the next day. Its also one of the biggest food waste items in our homes, too. According to Wrap, the governments waste prevention scheme, we waste 328,000 tonnes of bread a year. A big loaf of sourdough can take several days to use up, and offers different things as it ages. In the UK we might make toast, breadcrumbs or croutons with an old loaf, but across Europe there are many interesting ways to use it over its lifespan. Repurpose old sourdough to make dishes such as pappa al pomodoro, an Italian bread and tomato soup; or panzanella, a salad of tomatoes and shards of fried bread that soak up the dressing; or migas, a Spanish dish made with rehydrated bread fried with olive oil and different flavour combinations, such as mushrooms, paprika and onions. This makes a brilliant breakfast served with a fried egg.

9 Mouldy cheese

While soft cheeses and curds shouldnt be eaten if they go mouldy, hard cheeses are fine. I once asked a manager at Neils Yard Dairy whether I should be cautious of mould on a hard cheese, to which he replied: So long as its not black, its fine! If I find some unsuspected mould growing on my cheese, I cut it off and eat the remainder. Cheese left unpackaged in the fridge so that it dries and cracks is best used melted in a cheese toastie, or grated on top of hot pasta or soup.

10 Vegetable skins

The nutritional value of vegetable skins have been researched and proven many times over the years; potatoes, for example, have their vitamin C concentrated under the peel and we can lose as much as 35% of it when they are peeled. I always roast potatoes with the skin on: first boiled, then crushed so they split, they end up with a wonderful crispy flesh and skin. If you must peel an ingredient, then save your peelings to use in a stock or to use as a trivet underneath a roasting joint of meat. I now teach my team of chefs never to peel an ingredient unless absolutely necessary. This saves us money and also makes food more wholesome: food is best ingested with its fibre, so that our bodies can digest it slowly, and thus absorb as many of the nutrients as possible. Unfortunately, the skin of conventionally farmed vegetables is not always good for us because of the chemical residues that can result from the use of fertilisers and pesticides. Its best to spend a little more on organic produce, and then get more out of it, from root to fruit.

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