Recipe: Love Your Leftovers – Stir Fry and Xmas Pud Brownies

Here in the Fuss Free kitchen we hate food waste, in fact we positively abhor it.    But let’s face it leftover meals can be a little hit and miss.  As I said when I wrote about my Birdie Song soup there is nothing that I enjoy more than finishing stuff up when cooking a meal.   The more things that I use up, the better!

My leftover fry up above provided a tasty mid week lunch.

I fried half an onion, a stick of celery, half a red pepper, half a green pepper, a spring onion and several cloves of garlic.   I added the remains of a jar of pasta sauce, a bowl of rice and half a tin of chickpeas and let it all simmer for a minute.   I then made two wells in the mixture and cracked an egg into each (yes, these were my last two eggs, “hurrah” I cried as I threw the empty carton into the recycling bin).

The resulting mix was delicious, and perfect for a mid week, pre-supermarket run lunch.   Special mention must be made of my new Neoflam frying pan, which is so non- stick that I am convinced that it has a layer of anti gravity coating.   I am totally in love with it, insofar as it is possible to love a frying pan.   It is lightweight, but still solid and I love that it is both bright red and dishwasher proof.   The non-stick is amazing, everything literally floats in it and I consider it the best pan that I have ever had.  I think that I will be buying another for my mother, arthritis in her hands is making life a bit difficult, especially lifting  and twisting.

My leftover lunch was timely, as I spent the evening with Lucy Cufflin, author of Lucy’s Food, who cooked up a feast of leftovers.   She has a simple philosophy of keeping a well stocked store cupboard filled with simple ingredients and using them to embellish your leftovers, which you must think of as tasty ready to use ingredients.

I have already written about Lucy’s salad soup, which was amazingly delicious, but who would have thought that carrots, chickpeas and peanut butter make the most scrummy dip?

I especially liked that Lucy’s store cupboard was packed with the budget ranges from Tesco, Asda, and Morrisons.   She may be a trained chef, but the food snobbery and love for niche ingredients that is all too prevalent in the world of food blogging and self titled “foodies” has no place in Lucy’s kitchen. Hurrah for someone that caters for the 90% of the British population that shops at supermarkets and lives on a budget.

We ate our fill, and some more, which left me wondering for the umpteenth time why I did not call this site “My second (or even third) stomach”, everything was delicious and I returned home with some leftover chilli calzone, and a leftover Christmas pudding chocolate brownie.   Who knew leftovers could be this good? I’ll be cooking double for every meal from now on and revelling in my leftovers!

Recipe: Lucy Cufflin’s Christmas Chocolate Brownies

Makes 12 large brownies

Oven temperature 180C/350F

Cooking time 25 minutes

Preparation time 10 minutes

Ingredients

200g butter
400g caster sugar
4 eggs
100g cocoa powder
100g milk chocolate
100g SR flour
6 or so large dessert spoons of left over Xmas pud

1) Line a 20x30cm shallow roasting tin with baking parchment

2) Melt the butter and sugar in a large saucepan

3) Add the cocoa and milk chocolate and allow the chocolate to melt.

4) Beat in the eggs and then the flour and spoon into the tin

5) Using your fingers crumble the leftover Xmas pud onto the mixture and swirl around with your finger to mix it in a little.

6) Bake for 25 minutes or until the top is slightly cracked

Allow to cool.

These taste even better after a few days (if you can keep them that long)