The Recycled Cook

Recycled Casserole If you have frozen any previous meat, regardless of whether it is roasted , slow cooked or casseroled you have the basis for a really nice meal. It may be that you have a singe lamb chop left, some slices of beef or some pieces of chicken, not enough for meal on its own but just sitting there getting frost damaged with so much potential. If, like me, you are bad at labelling then you could end up with a lucky dip casserole but so long as you are not mixing fish and meat you should be fine. Today while rummaging through the freezer I discovered I had some slices of steak and the  remnant of a slow cooked beef dish so decided to combine them into a beef stew I started by cooking off a small chopped onion, garlic, celery and a carrot util it was soft and starting to  brown. This mix is used a lot in latin countries as a base, what the Italian call a "sofrito". The steak was raw so I seared it in some olive oil...

The Recycled Cook By Adrian Sleeman Lentils and sausage In the spirit of recycled cooking, today I am revisiting a previous blog of mine, Lentils  that great alternative and versatile staple much loved by health food shops and Indian restaurants. While trying to find something to make for dinner yesterday I remembered that I had two lots of leftover lentils in the freezer, along with a tomato based sauce that had once accompanied a pasta dish. Be creative and see what else you could add to change the character of the original dish. Before I froze the sauce I pushed it through a conical sieve (also known as a Chinois because of its resemblance to a traditional Chinese hat). Lentils and Tomato sauce Chinois Just combine the sauce with the lentils, heat through and reduce until it reaches the desired consistency. Taste and adjust the seasoning, in this case I added a little  Pimenton  (smoked paprika) and some coarse ground black pepper. Be careful w...