Friday Fridge Challenge

It’s the end of the week and there’s nothing left to eat, right? Just before you head out to the supermarket, open the fridge and check out the half-used vegetables, and opened packets and tubs. Make a list and see how many meals you can devise, perhaps with just a few more fresh or frozen ingredients.

Here is the list I wrote this week:

Half a jar of green pesto

One large peeled potato in water

Half a jar of feta cheese in herbs and oil

Half a cucumber

One large red pepper

Six small yellow and orange peppers

Six large new potatoes

Garlic bulb

Two lemons

One lime

One red onion

One white onion

Half a box of cooking wine (white)

Half a tub of crème fraiche

An unopened tub of ricotta cheese

Pack of ready-made pizza pastry

I’ve always been a believer in lists. Shopping lists are no exception; I feel uncomfortable shopping without a list, and can guarantee that I will forget to buy something important. I also hate waste, so although we have an active compost heap for scraps and peelings, I hate to throw away food just because it is out-of-date or I haven’t had time to use it. The best way I know to avoid food waste is to make a weekly meal-plan, draw up a shopping list based on the plan and only buy the food that you are going to use. I read an interesting article in The Guardian recently that stated the US throws away almost the same amount of food as it eats, and food waste is the largest proportion of landfill.

I’ve been working on some seasonal meal plans as part of the next stage of my culinary Project 333 project (Can you have a project, project?), so the Friday Fridge Fest was a good opportunity to put some of my new-found recipes to the test. So, what did I make from the Friday Fridge?

Falafels with couscous: use the half jar of green pesto with couscous and falafels from the freezer with a tomato salad dressed with olive oil and lemon juice

 

Chickpea and vegetable curry: use the large peeled potato, garlic, red onion and red pepper with a tin of tomatoes and a tin of chickpeas

Risotto with roast peppers and garlic: use the white onion and box of white wine to make risotto, with roasted small orange and yellow peppers and roast garlic

Courgette, mint and ricotta salad: a new meal I had been planning to try next week, used half the ricotta cheese and the lime

Spinach and ricotta pizza: use the pizza pasty, the rest of the ricotta and crème fraiche mixed for the base, garlic, and thawed frozen spinach

Couscous lunch: mix the feta in oil, lemon juice, chopped cucumber and a few cherry tomatoes with cooked couscous for a couple of lunches

That’s six meals from the ingredients left at the end of the week, plus two tins from the store cupboard, falafels made a few weeks ago from left-over burger mix and frozen, and some frozen spinach. I only had to put courgettes, cherry tomatoes and a lettuce on my shopping list – of course, these could have been picked from the potager, if only something would grow, but that is another story!

Here is my new Courgette, mint and ricotta recipe, adapted from a BBC Food recipe: