Our Community Current Projects Produce to Plate Love Your Leftovers Love Your Leftovers As part of our 'Frugal November' we explored the subject of leftover food. The UK throws away around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste in a single year – even though 8.4 million people in the UK are in food poverty. Billions of pounds are wasted each year when food is disposed of unnecessarily. We feel passionate about preventing food waste and helping people to explore different ways of making recipes into new dishes, or simply making sure that nothing is wasted. Top Tip! When planning your meals for the week, why not plan for leftover food by adding a 'Leftovers Day' on your calendar.'Leftovers Day' could simply include eating leftover food as is, or being a bit more creative and turning them into thing new. Either way... less cooking, less cost, less waste Research shows that eating leftovers is healthy, when you reheat already cooked fruit and vegetables, you may lose a very small amount of vitamin C and B, but the fibre content is just as high, and the flavours can often be better the second time around! For some foods like carrots and tomatoes for instance, the beta carotene value is more easily absorbed when cooked than when eaten raw, so people with sensitive digestive systems can often find cooked vegetables easier to digest. In terms of the environment, non-compostable food waste has just one destination, landfill. In fact, it represents a massive 20% of landfill and is a major source of methane production, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming It's up to all of us to try and reduce food waste, make better use of our leftovers & eat more frugally 🌍 What to make with leftovers... We also asked our social followers for inspiration on what they make with leftovers, things like: - Stews, pasta bakes and stir fry's with leftover vegetables - Making vegetable crisps with the peelings (flavoured with paprika and/or rock salt) - Bread and butter pudding with leftover/stale bread Carrot top pesto If you buy your carrots with the greens still on... the tops aren't just for your rabbit - you can eat these too! Here is a super-quick pesto recipe. Just pop all the ingredients into the blender and whizz together. The leafy tops from 1 bunch of carrots (discard the larger stems, just chop the feathery leaves) A small handful basil leaves (or add some parsley for a different flavour) 50g walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds 25g Parmesan (or plant based alternative) 1 garlic clove Approx. 100ml of olive oil salt and pepper to season