Making a meal of it

Tips to help you save food and tackle climate change at the same time

If everyone stopped throwing away food that could have been eaten, it would have the same benefit to the environment as taking one in five cars off the roads.
That's because a large proportion of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions are linked to food production, distribution and storage.
So here are some meal-making tips that will reduce the amount of food waste that's sent to landfill, and cut your household's grocery bill.

Top tips

• Make fishcakes by mixing together left over fish with left over mashed potato.
  Add seasoning, roll in fresh bread crumbs and egg before shallow frying.
• Make bubble and squeak by mixing together left over mashed potato with cooked, green vegetables.
  Shape into patties and shallow fry.
• Make bread and butter pudding by cutting the crusts off stale bread and spreading butter on one side of each slice, before cutting into triangles and arranging, buttered-side up, in the bottom of an ovenproof dish.
  Add a layer of dried fruit or mincemeat.
  Repeat with layers of bread and fruit before covering with custard and baking in a moderate oven for 30-40 minutes.
• Vegetables stored in a brown paper bag keep up to three times longer than if they're kept in a plastic bag
• Don't throw away your chicken or turkey carcass.
  Boil it with carrot, onion and seasoning to make stock for gravy or soups.
  Stock freezes well too.
• Store bananas away from other fruit because bananas speed up the ripening of other fruit
• Liquidise left over broccoli then heat very gently with single half-fat cream for a delicious sauce to serve with fish or chicken.
  You can also add a dash of white wine for extra zing!
• Make breadcrumbs from old bread and add to sage, chopped onion, salt and pepper to make your own sage and onion stuffing
• Don't throw away tired looking oranges or grapefruit – squeeze or juice them for one of your five a day
• Make 'eggy bread' with old bread by dipping a slice in a beaten egg then frying it gently on both sides
• Some food waste – like egg shells, fruit and veg peelings and tea bags – is unavoidable, but you can turn this into compost using a home composter (for more info about home composting visit www.recyclenow.com)

info

Hull City Council is supporting the Waste and Resources Action Programme's (WRAP's) 'Love Food Hate Waste' campaign. Look out for the Love Food Hate Waste posters appearing around the city and find more recipes using leftovers at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com