The Joy of Leftovers

Ratatouille

I don’t know whether it has something to do with my itinerant Forces childhood, or intense laziness, but I always cook for an Army!  After all, if you are going to chop one onion, might as well chop 3!  I have learned to ask at our nearest Fruit & Veg shop for ‘cooking’ bananas and tomatoes, and they know to offer me trays of spoiled or cheap fruit for Jam.

Freezers have gone out of fashion (we have 5 but then we buy in bulk, live a long way from a shop, have whole beasts in the freezer and are always prepared for flood!) but when we have lent small chest freezers to friends over the past few years they have realised the value of having fantastic home cooked meals on hand for the days when you come home too tired or frazzled to even think about cooking.

But if you don’t have a freezer, you can still reap the benefits of a 3 hour stint in the kitchen which feeds the family for a week.  Here are some of our family favourites, always on hand in the freezer for quick, easy and homemade meals.

 

Passata

This is so easy to make in a big pot and freeze for use as pizza topping, the base for spaghetti bolognese, pasta sauce, or chop zucchini and eggplant into it for ratatouille.  Or add stock, chopped vegetables and pasta for minestrone.  Or blend it for thick Tomato Soup.  Passata is so versatile and easy to make – chop onions and garlic and fry in balsamic and olive oil until soft.  I whizz the tomatoes now in a food processor rather than waste time chopping them.  Add salt & pepper, a good handful of mixed herbs – chopped fresh or dry and leave to cook on the stove for 8 hours, simmering and reducing slowly.

 

Lentil Stew

Recipe here

 

Hommous

This is so easy to make, so much better than anything you can buy in the shops, and lasts for lunches for 10 days.  Forever in the freezer.

Rinse and drain two or three cans of chickpeas and blend with 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, plenty of lemon juice, ground cumin, salt, pepper, a few heaped tablespoons of tahini and olive oil as required.

 

Lasagne

I hated making lasagne until I got the Thermomix but now making a white sauce is so easy I need to make it more often (I always forget about lasagne!).  It’s a great way to put sneaky veg in with the passata to thicken it up and make sure recalcitrant family members get their five a day!  Make one and freeze one or make one big enough that it lasts for a few days for brown bag and school lunches.

 

Apple Crumble

Cooking apples are cheap and just need chopping and chucking in a pan, half covered with water, to boil and then simmer for hours.  Freeze half for later, and make crumble for now.  I use oats, desiccated coconut, pecans or almonds, sultanas and a bit of butter.  Whizz before adding the butter and then mix slowly until it forms clumps.  Spread on top of the apple and bake for 40 minutes or until sizzling and golden.  You will have plenty leftover for desserts during the week and breakfast with yoghurt.

 

Spaghetti Bolognese

Pull out a passata and defrost in a bowl of warm water while browning an onion in a pan (always use balsamic as well as olive oil when frying onions to give depth of flavour and sweetness).  Brown the mince slowly, making chopping motions with your wooden spoon to break up clumps.  Add the passata when the mince is all brown and juices released.  Add a pinch more salt and pepper and leave to simmer slowly for an hour.  Spag Bog one night, mince on toast another.

 

Moroccan Chickpeas recipe here . . . 

 

And of course, Soup!  Whatever is in abundance or suits the season.  Current favourite (Leek glut!) is Leek & Potato, but soon it will be Pumpkin and Sweet Potato & Chilli in winter.  I love Minestrone, and our neighbour makes a mean Pumpkin and Potato Soup.  Any soup served with crusty sourdough is a weekday winner for me & mine!

 

What are your family favourites that keep giving during the week?

 

 

 

Where are all the Elves when you need them?

I could do with a little tribe just to pick up after his lordship . . . .as quickly as I go around decorating the christmas tree, picking up toys, cleaning the floor, putting back the drawers and cupboards there’s a little mischievous elf behind me creating chaos . . . . and we have one incisor down and one still cutting through – which means a little clingy, non-sleeping man and a very frustrated Mama!  It’s christmas morning here already and the house is clean (finally!) the lawn is mowed, I have spent all day doing a christmas pudding (my first!) with dried fruit that has been stewing in brandy for 18 months – it’s pretty potent!  Thank God for Google – wouldn’t have had a clue without the master at my elbow!  We are off to bed and still got to make the salads and the mayonnaise and the brandy butter and white sauce in the morning as well as enjoying Ben enjoying his presents.  It’s been a crazy week with trying to finish work, do the shopping, spring clean the house etc . . . and Ben is almost walking on his own!

Mummy's little helper

Walking Boy

Messy, me??

Blue eyed boy

The Oven Saga

Well, the never-ending saga here seems to be the oven.  I was so excited when we finally installed my new oven in my sparkling new kitchen a week or so before the wedding.  But everyone involved in the baking of the blueberry tarts for the wedding feast (Jane, Marcel, Shirley and me) soon discovered that the bugger didn’t work!  Whether it was a faulty item or whether it was the solar system that it didn’t like, the truth is that we have had endless toing and froing with the manufacturer and reseller since we got back from honeymoon.  The thing is that gas ovens aren’t just  gas – no, no, they have electric fans, electronic ignition, electronic thermostats and every other bell and whistle you can possibly imagine which consume megawatts of electricity – presumably all designed hand in hand with the fossil fuel companies to keep us raping the planet, guzzling mindlessly and pouring megatons of carbon into the atmosphere . . . (really, don’t get me started!!)

Anyway, I had to go into full battle mode but FINALLY the people who sold us the stove – ‘The Good Guys’ agreed to give us a full refund plus $500 for my pains!!  And then I went online searching, searching, searching for a replacement.  I thought I found the answer to my prayers in Queensland so bought it and had it shipped down here.  Picked it up from TNT in Port Macquarie with great excitement (baked potatoes at last!) but when we got it home and unpacked the pathetic wrappings it had clearly been dropped and the front glass was shattered into smithereens.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.  As it turned out the bloody thing had an element which lit the gas – which drained even more power from the system so I am stymied once more.
We have been wracking our brains and the closest we have come to some sort of solution is a camping oven – all gas, piezo ignition, but the trouble is, they only have a 30L capacity (tiny) and we want 80L.  Any ideas, my brilliant friends, as we now have a gaping hole in the kitchen and my baked potato craving gets stronger by the day . . .