Most of you would have know that my purpose of setting up this platform is not just to share my novice cooking (or I should say my Mister's) but also to share how we can reduce food wastage thru our cooking and eating out.
I used to be a wasteful and implusive person who likes to buy but never make an effort to use it. When something goes expired without even opening it, I feel the pain because not just the money wasted but the food item itself. So I changed.
As and when I shall start sharing the ways which I used to reduce food wastage and to maximise the use of food items.
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Let's begin.
MAKING GOOD USE OF SOUPS FROM TAKEAWAYS AND HOMECOOKED
We have this favourite stall for Prawn Noodles Soup at Yishun Park Hawker Centre.
The name is JJ Big Prawn Noodles at Unit 01-21. The soup is a hit. So sweet and flavourful. Really can't resist asking for their soup.
So whenever we get our food delivery from this stall, I will put a note and ask for soup. And whenever we have leftover soup, confirm put to freeze after it is less hot. Because my Mister will want it as broth for his Homecooked Hokkien Mee.
Plus the broth he makes himself using the prawn heads. I usually separate the heads and body then put to freeze (for prawns heads) whenever I buy fresh prawns from wet market (aka traditional market).
Either you use it for next day consumption or for cooking, don't underestimate the leftover soups from takeaways. It can help you save some water usage as compared to boiling a pot of soup all over again.
Please make sure that before keeping your soup, filter the small contents (like some rice grains, bits of meat and etc) out from the soup so that it is like a complete clean and clear soup for cooking.
Adjust the flavour through adding water or light seasoning.
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Another one will be your homecooked soup. Too much to even finish in a day?
First, finish whatever food content in it and keep in the chiller compartment. The next day, bring it out and use it for rice cooking.
If you have enough soup to even spilt for multi usage, even better. We use just enough of soup to cook a cup of rice in the rice cooker. And the balance, we have it for drinking. I mean why not right? Water saved again. And money too because no takeaways or eating out for a night.
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GRAVY IS A SAVIOUR
Sometimes you want neither rice nor noodles but probably some others for staple.
For us, we want Roti Prata.
Once awhile, Mister will buy curry noodles from the coffeeshop near us. And the gravy was good and the flavour was just right which you really can taste the curry rather than some other places where you get diluted ones.
And that stall's curry gravy was just right for roti prata. So we will keep the gravy for next day's lunch or dinner. Because it has this coconut milk in it, it will be best to keep not more than a day.
At least 5 roti pratas to finish the gravy, depending how much you have left. Heat up and serve. Just need to fry your instant roti pratas from supermarkets.
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FASTFOOD RESTAURANTS' CHILLI AND TOMATO SAUCE
We tend to ask for more chilli or tomato sauce whenever we buy takeaways. Some of them can't finish and then end up in the bin or clutter the fridge for as long as it can till expiry.
Recently thought of it carefully. Since I don't use much of chilli or tomato sauce, I shall not buy those bottles to waste. I shall use those from fastfood restaurants for my cooking or dipping.
The most recent one is using 12 packets of chilli and 1 packet of tomato (if I can remember correctly) to whip up my prawn dish. The feeling was real good. Because I got rid of 13 packets for cooking rather than throwing away. So long as it tastes normal and not spoilt (even though past expiry), I will still use because afterall, it is kept in the fridge. If you are not comfortable with that, then drop it.
Lesson learnt: Only get what you need and not over-do it.
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I hope you like what I have shared through the bits and pieces from our daily life, or even frequent homecooking. For busy bees like us, cooking hacks are essential because you don't want takeaways or eat-out every single day. It is too boring.
Will update again when I get inspirations. Meanwhile, share if you find this post useful or meaningful.