19 January, 2015
Last week I asked you on my social media pages what food items you most often throw out because you didn't use them up. One of the most common ones was Lettuce and salad leaves, and I'm as big of a culprit as any of you. About a year ago I realised the amount of food we threw out in a week was completely unacceptable. I do a shop every few days and sometimes on a weekly basis. Every time I came back from the supermarket, I would end up emptying out my fridge of things I should have eaten up.
It also coincided with a time where we were trying to teach our son not to waste food. So I decided I needed to practice what I preach. I'm used to doing a shop for a few days, but if there were things that where in my fridge that needed using up then I made sure I took a note of them before I went shopping. I planned meals around using up all my veggies rather than throwing them out. Like many of you, lettuce is something that time and time again ends up being wasted in my fridge. I made a decision to be more conscious about buying it. What I mean by that is, I tend to buy bags of spinach now because they go with every type of meal. Plus you can eat it raw or cooked. I also think spinach keeps quite well. If I know i'll be making a stir fry or mexican, sometimes I use iceberg lettuce as a crunchy wrap instead of tortilla wraps.
Being better about not wasting food requires a conscious decision. Believe me I know how easy it is to just pop into the supermarket and buy what you fancy, but there are so many people in our world that don't have that luxury. They would give anything for the food we throw out. Perhaps its my advancing years but I'm starting to be more conscious of the world we're leaving to our children. And the type of children we're leaving in this world. Around the time we were talking to our kids lots about food waste, my son saw on advert in TV (we were watching afternoon cookshows). It was an advert showing starving children in a foreign country. My son turned to me and said, "mammy, I'll send my lunch to the boy". It was difficult to explain to a 3 year old that wasn't possible, but that what we could do (among other things) was make sure the food we do have isn't wasted.
With the topic of food waste in mind, this week's recipe is a quick one for lettuce pesto. Yes, you heard me right, lettuce pesto. It is actually really delicious. I made some last night to stir in with our carrots, we were having a roast beef dinner. I even had enough for the roast beef sandwich I brought to work. You can make this with just lettuce, or you can add some herbs lile basil or parsley. I added parsley to mine last night as it goes so well with carrots. This pesto would be especially nice with rocket or spinach. You could stuff some chicken breasts with goats chesse and when cooked drizzle a little rocket pesto on top. This pesto would also be delicious mixed into some new potatoes.
For this recipe I used:
Half a butterhead lettuce
50g grated parmesan
50g pine nuts
100ml olive oil
1 small garlic clove
I added a small handful of parsley, but you leave this out or substitute it for corriander, basil or any other herb you fancy.
Place all ingredients into a small food processor and blitz until smooth. This will keep covered in the fridge for a few days but I think it's best made fresh.
Stay tuned for more food waste ideas over the coming weeks. Next up are some ideas to use up those veggies lurking in the bottom of your fridge. Enjoy!
