Looking to help you minimise food waste at home and save some money along the way. Here are 5 tips that can help!
A Guest Post by Holly Taylor, chef and co-founder of Kindling Restaurant in Brighton.
For many, the desire to reduce the amount of meat they consume has its roots in environmental concerns. At times it may seem that the individual’s efforts are tiny compared to the enormity of the challenges we face globally, but all of our small efforts combined can make a significant difference. And you can help even more by taking a fresh look at what you buy, how you use it and learning how to minimise food waste.
Over 30% of all food produced globally ends up in the bin. In the UK we are by far the worst offenders in Europe, throwing away 9.5 million tonnes of food each year. This is an enormous problem because as food degrades in landfill sites it releases methane gas which contributes to global warming.
Household food waste accounts for 60% of all food waste, so even small changes in the amount each family throws away can make a big difference.
Being careful with how much you buy, keeping an eye on use-by dates, and getting savvy with the freezer are all great ways to start minimising how much food ends up in the bin. And with a bit of creativity and know-how you can start using more of what you buy and getting value for money too.
At Kindling restaurant in Brighton, we design our whole menu around using amazing local produce and minimising food waste. Here are five tips and tricks to help you do the same at home and save some money along the way.
1. Get creative with your green trim.
A large proportion of green vegetables is often thrown away simply because we don’t think it is edible or don’t know what to do with it. The green part of a leek still tastes amazing, it simply needs to be well washed and cooked for a bit longer than the paler part. The outer leaves of cauliflower are gorgeous roasted in the oven for 5 minutes at 220C with a little oil and salt, but they’re equally good shredded in a stir fry or added into a cauliflower cheese. Broccoli stalk is delicious sliced and pickled in a salad.
In the restaurant, all our green trim is saved, thinly sliced, and then turned into a beautifully vivid green soup which we offer to our evening diners as an amuse-bouche. The finely chopped greens are sauteed in butter, then cooked out in milk before being blended into a silky-smooth soup that’s chilled over ice. Everything from the outer leaves of cabbage to the trim from broccoli can feature in the soup. It simply depends on what’s on the menu at the time.
2. Keep the peel
The peel from onions, garlic and shallots can be used to make an amazingly fragrant oil for dressing and cooking with. Simply save all your trimmings in a bag in the freezer until you have enough to fill a large saucepan. To make the oil, cover all the peelings with a neutral-tasting oil such as rapeseed oil and heat over a very low heat for 2-3 hours. Allow to cool, then strain and decant into bottles. This oil is lovely for cooking with or as a base for a salad dressing, or as a dip for bread.
3. Keep fresh spices and citrus in the freezer
Some of the most commonly thrown away food items are wrinkled chillis, pieces of mouldy root ginger and citrus fruits that have been zested and become dried out. If you keep all these things in the freezer, you can grate them straight from frozen. This means you can easily portion half a chilli, the zest of half a lime or 1 tablespoon of ginger without the rest going to waste. Once you have what you need simply return the item to the freezer ready to use again next time.
4. Have a go at preserving and fermenting
If you end up with too much of something there are a lot of different ways you can preserve it for use later in the year.
Gluts of fruit and vegetables can be turned into jams and chutneys or pickled. These make excellent presents or additions to a Christmas hamper.
Cabbages and root vegetables like carrots and beetroot can be turned into kraut. Thinly slice or grate the vegetables, carefully weigh how much you have and sprinkle in 3% table salt by weight. Set the veg aside for an hour then massage it with the salt until it creates enough liquid to fully cover itself when put in a jar. Pack the vegetables and liquid into a Kilner jar ensuring they are fully submerged, then seal and leave in a cool dark place to ferment for anything from a week to six weeks. It’s a good idea to open the jar once a week and have a taste to see how the flavour is developing. Once it’s reached a taste that you’re happy with, transfer it to the fridge.
Once fermented, fruits and vegetables will keep for months in the fridge provided they stay in the fermentation liquid. On a dark winter’s day, it’s nice to have a splash of colour from some fermented rhubarb or the zing of a preserved plum to remind you summer is not far away.
5. Don’t forget the garden
Some items of food waste can make excellent additions to your garden or allotment. Crushed eggshells make an excellent slug and snail deterrent around young plants, or they can be dug into the soil to add vital nutrients for seedlings. Coffee grounds can be added to soil to create a nitrogen-rich environment loved by plants such as onions and salad leaves. And of course, anything you really can’t find an edible use for can be used to start a compost heap. Unlike in a landfill site, food decomposing in a compost heap doesn’t produce greenhouse gases so it’s a much better choice than putting food in the bin. At Kindling any veg trim we can’t use is collected and sent back to our local growers to use as compost, creating a closed-loop where nothing is wasted.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Holly Taylor and Toby Geneen are the founders of Kindling Restaurant in Brighton. Kindling is about more than just the delicious food, it is a community of people: staff, customers and suppliers all sharing and celebrating local produce. Nature writes the menu as the seasons inspire the dishes. Kindling is featured in the Michelin Guide and is a member of the Sustainable Restaurants Association.
Website: www.kindlingrestaurant.com
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