Quick, cook All The Things!

One of the issues of trying to limit how often I go to the supermarket is the variations between scarcity and glut. A lot of my recipes use fresh ingredients and which then creates a pressure of how long they will last before the have to be used. This has tripped me up a couple of times recently where I have bought ingredients to complete a meal, only to realise that the other ingredients I thought I had were too old/mouldy to be useable.

Last weekend found me in this position but it occurred to me that cooking fresh ingredients can help extend their life, and also opens up the option of freezing surplus until needed. I therefore spent a snowy afternoon in the kitchen bulk cooking.

Meal one-oven baked ratatouille

This was one of the recipes I had previously struggled to assemble due to expired ingredients. Once I had all the ingredients in a usable state I was keen to make this before I had more waste. 

Start with thinly sliced courgette, aubergine cut into half moons, red pepper (which I then realised I didn't have, so omitted!), red onion and garlic. Put these into a roasting tin with oil and top with tinned chopped tomatoes. Roast for half an hour then top with bread crumbs and cheese. The recipe says fresh white breadcrumbs and parmesan, but I used brown bread crumbs and cheddar as that was what I had in. Roast for another half an hour.

This created two portions which went in the fridge for use later in the week. It's also a recipe that improves with age, although this was undone slightly as the crispy topping got mixed into the veg when I decanted into the tupperware.

Meal two-Indonesian salad with potatoes, green bean, and beansprouts

The short life span of the beansprouts made this a priority to cook. It does seem to use a huge amount of potatoes (the recipe says 1kg for two).  

First roast the potatoes with oil for 40 minutes. Add green beans and beansprouts and return to the oven for 20 minutes. The dressing is what makes this meal so tasty. Mix coconut milk, peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, red chilli, and ginger into a thick dressing to serve alongside the salad. The colour of the resulting dressing isn't particularly appealing, but it is a tasty combination of flavours.

This made one portion which I had that night. The next night I had a stir fry using a spare courgette (I'd only been able to buy packs rather than loose), and left over green beans and beansprouts from the salad.

A sweet treat

This was less in the theme of using fresh produce quickly and more a vague inspiration from the previous weeks heritage kitchen. I'd struggled to think of many meals I enjoyed as child that would work for a single vegetarian adult (I had plenty of lovely meals as a child, but usually meat based). What I did remember was making cakes with my mother and with an impending birthday it seemed a good excuse to get baking. Making a whole Victoria sponge seemed a little excessive, but fairy cakes were quite acceptable. The main challenge on a cold weekend was ensuring the butter was soft enough and I wasn't entirely successful with this. The buttercream proved particularly difficult to make with cold, solid butter! The end result may not have been pretty but it tasted good, and one benefit of living alone is that presentation is less of a concern.

Despite all this bulk cooking, and further fresh produce in need of using I still resorted to pasta and pesto last night. Fully justified on low energy levels, a sore tooth (meaning just eating takes a lot of energy), and trying to fit eating around online dance classes.

Now to do a stocktake of the fridge and figure out which meals need to cooked most urgently, before I do a food shop and start the whole cycle again!