JULIE GOODWIN – AUSTRALIA’S FIRST MASTER CHEF shares with 1 Million Women – BIG SAVINGS in the kitchen

I’m always looking for ways to save in the kitchen, whether it’s saving time, money, electricity or effort.  Making good use of leftovers addresses all of these.

Leftovers are traditionally much-maligned, with the announcement of “leftover night” bringing groans from the family.  But if they are stored well and used imaginatively, they are every bit as delicious as the original meal.

One of my fears as a cook, is that people will leave my table hungry.  So I admit to being someone who cooks a little more than I think will get eaten.  Having some food left over at the end of the meal reassures me that everyone has had enough.  But I can’t bear waste, so I try to put these leftovers to good use.

One big lesson I have learned is that leftover food needs to be stored properly.  Putting it into the fridge in the big baking dish it was cooked in means it dries out quickly and looks unappealing. (Meaning that it’s less likely to be selected by one of the three teenagers who constantly have their heads in the fridge and pantry.)  It also takes up a lot of fridge real estate which is annoying.  So, any leftovers go into an appropriate-sized airtight container, ready to be reheated for lunch the next day or sent to school. I have involved the whole family in this so whoever is on kitchen duty knows what to do.

Not everything is appealing after being refrigerated and reheated.  Some things need to be re-worked.  Vegetables, for example.  Cold mashed potato, cooked green beans, carrots, zucchini and so forth are kind of ghastly to contemplate on their own but chop them up, add some cheese, crumb and fry them for yummy vegetable croquettes.  Cold roast vegetables can be mixed with some eggs, a tiny bit of flour and some oil and baked for an “impossible pie” – awesome picnic food, by the way, or add a bit of salad for a whole new dinner.  Leftover veg can also be used for kids’ lunches in these cheesy lunch muffins. http://www.juliegoodwin.com.au/recipe-cheesy-muffins.html

When we are having a green leaf salad on the table for our family meal, I don’t dress it but let everyone do it themselves, on their own plate.  Undressed salad leaves can be stored and used again the next night, whereas dressed salad goes slimy and disgusting very quickly.

Here’s a food saving method that will sound quite gross, but it’s true – if your hard cheese (tasty, parmesan, cheddar) grows a bit of mould on the outside, just take a slice off all the surfaces and voila.  Edible again.  I promise!  Make sure it’s wrapped tight in the fridge to prevent mould growing again.

Rice and pasta is something that often gets thrown out because once it’s cooked and refrigerated, it goes quite hard and doesn’t necessarily improve with reheating.  To refresh it I add a tablespoon or two of water, cover it and microwave until hot.  The water generates steam which softens the rice or pasta and makes it nice to eat again.

When I look for ways to save in the kitchen I find it useful to think back to my nan and the way she used food.  Nan grew up in the depression and not a single thing was wasted.  It was during eras such as these that dishes like Shepherd’s Pie were created.  Shepherd’s pie was, traditionally, leftover roast lamb and veg baked in gravy with mashed potato on top.

Leftover sausages were turned into a mild sausage curry for the next night.  Leftover corned beef (home cooked of course!) became lunch for the week served cold with cheese, pickles and bread.  Lambs were bought as a whole or a side and every part of the animal was put to use.  Lamb shanks, until recently relegated to dog food, have made a comeback in recent years.  Here’s  a beautiful way to use them as a pie… http://www.juliegoodwin.com.au/recipe-lamb-shank-pie.html

 

While I am probably not even close to getting my boys to eat lamb’s fry on a regular basis, I can still channel the thrifty nature of Nan’s generation and be as waste-conscious as possible in my own kitchen.  In her era it was mainly about saving money.  Now we know that it’s not only economical, it’s earth-friendly and it’s one of the many things we can do as individuals to contribute to the future of our planet.

Leftover night?  Hooray!

 

Eat your way to a better environment – Sustainable Table’s top 5 tips for a better food system

Up to 60% of our eco-footprint is embodied in the food we buy. It may sound like a bit of a porky pie (pardon the pun), but when you count all the resources and energy invested in food production, processing, packaging, transport and storage – from water, oil, land, chemicals, right through to animals’ lives – you can begin to see how things might add up. In fact, the well-off consumer gobbles up the equivalent of 66 barrels of oil each year.

Our food system is in crisis. It’s a system where fresh water sources are being sucked dry, where 24% of global farmland has already been destroyed and where 500 million animals are housed in factory farms each year, in Australia alone. It’s a system where we throw out up to half of what we grow and where 1 billion people go to bed hungry while 1 billion suffer from obesity.

The good news is that by changing the way we shop and eat, we can significantly reduce our impact on the environment, as well as help to build a fairer and healthier food system for all.

Here are our top 5 tips for making a big difference:

 Peninsula Fresh Organics farmers Wayne and Tash, at their organic farm on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. Read their story in our cookbook, The Sustainable Table. Photo © Maree Morris.

1. Buy local, seasonal and organic produce

Buying local, seasonal and organic produce means you are supporting a system where food travels less from paddock to plate and is grown without the use of oil-based synthetic chemicals and pesticides that pollute and damage our waterways. It also means you are supporting the local economy as well as local farms that are often family-run. Food grown in this system is fresher, tastes better and is better for you, the farmer, and the environment. Learn more about organic produce and why it’s better here.

Salad of ancient grains by Matt Wilkinson, Pope Joan cafe. Just one of the many sustainable recipes featured in our cookbook The Sustainable Table. Photo © Greg Elms

Download our free (and very pretty) pocket Seasonal Produce Guide here!

 2. Eat less meat, and choose ethical and sustainable meat & seafood

Reducing your meat and fish intake is one of the most powerful things you can do to reduce your impact on the environment. Meat production impacts the environment through methane emissions from animal grazing, land degradation, and through heavy water consumption (it takes an estimated 50,000 litres of water to produce 1kg of beef). We also grow enough edible grain to provide 50% more than is required for every person in the world, yet much of this is transported to feed animals for meat, dairy and egg production.

Commercial fishing can be equally destructive. In fact, the world is set to run out of ocean fish by 2048 if current demand continues.

Mark Fox, General Manager of Yarra Valley Caviar, with his sustainably-farmed salmon. Photo © Yarra Valley Cavier

So eat less meat, and when you do, choose meat and fish that has been ethically and sustainably farmed or sourced (it tastes better too). You can learn more about meat production in Australia through the Meet your Meat section of our website, and our free pocket Sustainable Seafood Guide can help you make the best choices for our ocean.

3. Reduce waste and start composting

In Australia we throw away $5.2 billion worth of food each year. This not only represents a criminal amount of waste of valuable resources, but this excess food ends up in landfill where it decomposes and produces methane—a greenhouse gas with 23 times the global warming potential of CO₂.

Plan your meals to prevent produce going to waste, order less at restaurants and take away venues, start a compost bin or worm farm or buy some backyard chooks to make best use of your food scraps.

In Australia alone we throw out $5.2 billion worth of food every year. It ends up in landfill releasing potent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Photo © Maree Morris

 4. Eat whole foods, not processed foods

Whole foods are foods that haven’t been processed or refined; they are eaten in their natural state. Think polished white rice compared to whole brown rice, canned corn compared to fresh corn. Overall, less energy and resources have gone into producing them, they are free from added preservatives and chemicals and most of them can be bought free from packaging. They are not only healthier for you but they also have a much lower environmental impact.

5. Ask Questions

As a consumer you have the power to avoid purchasing items that do not fit your environmental and ethical standards. The only way that shops, restaurants and supermarkets will change what they serve or stock is if sales decline and they recognise that their customers want something else. Remember to ask these questions:

• Is the meat organic or free range?
• Where was the seafood sourced? How was it caught? Is the species over-fished?
• Is the produce organic?
• Was the produce grown locally?

There are many ways we can help to build a fairer and more environmentally sound food system for all, like changing where we shop, growing our own food and reducing our use of food packaging. Check out our website for these and more. And remember, every dollar you spend is a vote for the type of food system you would like to be part of.

About this guest blog post by Sustainable Table – Sustainable Table is a not-for-profit organisation who uses food as an entrée to explore sustainability issues, helping to overcome today’s environmental challenges, one meal at a time.