Leftover treats? Wear them.

Have you noticed this too?

There are bound to be some candies that are close to their expiry date packaged in hampers received during the festive season.  Instead of gouging them up with your kids, you can do what Hoyan Ip is doing with her stock of leftovers candies.

In her efforts to reduce food waste she started the Bio-Trimmings project by converting them into fashion accessories that you will be proud to be seen wearing.

Leftover pasta works just as well as working material for her creations once she has them cooked, dried, crushed, blended and molded to shape.

And yes! She sells her creations and you can view them on her facebook page.

Before they rot, let's make salad.

Don't leave that leftover can of tuna in the fridge. By the time you remember that you still have it there, it is probably no longer safe for consumption. What a waste.

Here is a recipe for tuna salad that you can easily prepare with leftover cabbage, cucumber and an apple.

Salad out of Leftovers

View more presentations from Nancy Poh.

Yummy, just writing about it.

Cooking? Save time, save egergy.

I like this article about "Cooking for One or Two" by Food and Nutrition Specialist, Julie Garden-Robinson, Ph.D., LRD. She has included tips on reducing portions of ingredients required for a recipe and I like the links to websites that provide simple to cook recipes.

I have learned a new word from her and its “planned-overs” for people who do not like to use “leftovers”. I like the notion of cooking in excess so that your can create another dish with your “planned-overs”.

Recently I fried extra sausages for my children for breakfast. For dinner, I used my “planned-overs” sausages to decorate another mashed potato dish.



That way I saved on gas and time cleaning my frying pan.

Another way to save on time and energy is to find recipes that you can cook quickly. Just google "Cook It Quick .pdf" and you should be able to find many ideas and tips on recipes you are interested in.  By do that I found this website, Cook It Quick where you can find some useful kitchen tips. 

Try to figure out ways to use less utensils to cook. For example, I learn from Michael Smith that you can use vegetables, such as, carrots, potatoes and onions to replace the rack you need for roasting. Just place your meat on top of the vegetables. Now you do not have an oily rack to clean up.

Watch him on "Chef at Home" and you will be able to catch more tips and tricks that will help shorten your cooking time.

Why throw away food?

With prices of food going up, the question we should ask ourselves before we consider throwing away any food is, "Why are we throwing away our food?".

Here are some possible answers with links to solutions I discovered.

1) I did not learn the basic of cooking so I tend to cook in access of need. Sometimes the dish did not turn out well due to my inexperience.

2) I do know not how to cook with leftovers. Maybe I should join a forum about cooking?

3) I did not know what I have that foodstuff in my fridge and discovered it too late. How long should I keep that in my fridge?

4) I did not know that there are people around with insufficient to eat. Where can I send my excess food to?

5) I did not know that some local food outlets and franchises discard their stock about 3 days before their expiry dates, just to maintain their standards for freshness. If I can collect such food, surplus, distressed or damaged food and grocery items where can I send them to?

6) I did not know that I can start a Community Kitchen with of donated food and grocery product? Other than through donations, how would a non profit organisation like Second Harvest in America run?

7) Where else can I learn about making use of leftovers? How about from those in the record-setting food recovery programs highlighted by EPA?

8) What other facts should I know about?

What about those who eat out or do take-aways? Maybe you should first find out how others are rating drinks, food or outlets you intend to eat at. If the ratings are high on the food you picked, there would be nothing left on your plate to waste.

So, before you throw your food away, find out if they are any ideas here that you can make use of.

Did I throw the sauce? Of course not!

Did I throw away the sauce after removing that layer of oil? Of course not! Leave the bowl of sauce in room temperature for a while and...



...this is what you will get. A soup base.



I think leftover sauce is a very good way to wean my children off eating instant noodle. When I use it to cook 3 packets of instant noodle, I use only half of one packet of the flavouring sauce provided. I am sure you have heard that flavouring sauces supplied with instant noodles are high in sodium and MSG ( monosodium glutamate). These are food additives and preservatives that I do not want my children to overload themselves with.

Also, try to cook instant noodle the way I cook it, by first boiling the noodle in a pot of water. Remove the noodle once it has soften enough. Leave the pot of water to cool and you should be able to collect some oil and...



...according to Health2Know, wax off its surface. So, do not use this pot of water for soup. Discard it.



Boil the sauce and add whatever leftover meat you have from your leftover dish.



Once the sauce starts boiling add part of a packet of flavouring sauce to taste before you add the noodle. Let it boil first before adding an egg. Add greens if you have them and the noodle is ready to be served.



I can hear you asked, "Use half a packet of its flavouring sauce for 3 packets of noodle? Wouldn't it taste bland?"

I will leave it to Callie to answer that question.

Compost pile: what's in, what's out?

I used to think that you can compost all kinds of food waste, including used cooking oil until I discovered Compost This.

It reported that cooking oil attracts rodents or other undesirable creatures to your compost heap. It can also displace water which will slow down the composting process.

Leftover food you are not supposed to add to your compost pile are:

Baked Beans
Meat
Fish
Fat
Pasta
Bread
Biscuits
Cake

You can read their reasons for not using these leftovers. Now that we know that, what can we do with the used cooking oil?

You can find the answer by doing a search on "cooking oil" at "How Can I Recycle This?"

So, before you throw away any leftovers, remember that there are many people out there who are very eager to share their tips and tricks for reducing waste.

Leftover juice? Great ingredient for vinegar.

I have discovered from Vinegar Man that you can make vinegar out of juice from fruits or grains or roots and even wood as long as it contains sugar or starch.

So, before you throw away any leftover juices, take a look at "Vinegar Types, Methods of Making Vinegars Recipes" on Harvestfields, to see how you can make use of them.

And if you are worried that you will be wasting your time if your homemade vinegar did not turn out well enough for consumption, just spray it in your garden to help get rid of those weeds!

Don't forget to keep the leftover wine (fermented juice) as well. Gang of Pour tells you how in their article "So, Ya Wanna Make Vinegar From Leftover Wine, Eh?". Don't miss their do's and don'ts on the fine art of making vinegar.

Leftover mushroom? Grow them!

I buy oyster mushroom almost every week and I have been told by my supplier that they will remain fresh 2 to 3 days refrigerated. So, what if your package has more mushroom than you need for your recipe?

If you have some glass jars on hand, you can try growing new mushroom out of your leftovers if you place them in the right environment and medium for the spores to grow.

Wikipedia has a good list of substrate or growth medium for you to choose from and most of them are waste material that you maybe able to acquire free of charge. Here are some examples extracted from that list:

# Wood chips or sawdust
# Mulched hay
# Corncobs
# Waste or recycled paper
# coffee pulp or grounds
# Nut and seed hulls
# Cottonseed hulls
# Cocoa bean hulls

I have watched how mushroom was grown with strawbedded horse manure and urea on "Dirty Job with Mike Rowe". Here is a video clip from "How It's Made" posted on YouTube.



Other than Wikipedia, you can also read "How to Grow Mushrooms" posted by BioHaze on Squidoo.

Don't like reading? You can view videos posted on YouTube by MushroomVideos. Let's start with Part 1 of 4.



There are definitely lots of stuff that you can consider doing your 3Rs (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) just by cultivating mushrooms.

Beading string? Found in sports club.

If you take a look at the strings used in stringing rackets for badminton, tennis or squash, you will notice that they look like you could possibly use them to create handmade jewellery.

No, I am not suggesting that you buy them for stringing beads. Just be friendly to the staff who works on stringing rackets at shops or sport clubs. They may keep some leftover strings that are long enough for you to work on creating this bracelet.



Use shorter length strings for making earrings.