A guide to creative food recycle

Breadcrumb, stale bread, tofu, and chickenpea flour : the reuse allies!

Everyone, at least once in their lives, felt like the “eyes are bigger than the hunger”, therefore finding themselves with leftovers in the fridge, others may ask themselves what to do with the wastes of food like broccoli’s stalks or carrots’ beards.
Well, this is the guide for you!

Breadcrumb, stale bread, tofu, and chickenpea flour : the reuse allies!

Meatballs

While working in a hotel I saw the most unlikely things being meatball-ed (do yourself a favor and don’t order meatballs at a restaurant if you care about your well-being).
If you have some vegetable wastage like for example broccoli’s stalks, all you need to do is peel them with a vegetable peeler and blanch them in salted water, let them cool down and mash ’em with a fork or a potato masher, crumble a stick of tofu, add some aromas (paprika, pepper, cinnamon, and cumin just to name a few) and blend.
You’ll notice the result is way too sticky and likely to crumble in your hands…

Turning it to a patty will be impossible but here’s where the chickpea flour and the breadcrumb will come to your aid; add them in equal measure to the mixture until you have a stable and easy to work with one.
From here on out it’s up to your imagination: you can make some delicious meatballs, vegetarian sausages, or cupcakes.

My advice would be to let the mixture rest for a couple of hours in the fridge, so that all of the ingredients will mix together just right, making it easier for you to work on it.
Another recommendation that might sound like “duh!” for some of you is to work with your hands moist to avoid everything sticking to them.
You can bread your meatballs with some breadcrumb or cornflour to then fry them or bake them in a static oven at 180 degrees until they look crunchy and browned (around 30 minutes).

Use the same baking instruction if you want to make a cupcake by putting the mixture in some silicone molds.
There’s more, put the same mixture in a pan to get an omelet, anoint the hot pan with olive oil and put it over high heat, cook both sides until they appear browned (or a little burnt, just how I like it).

Porridge

Another great ally for reuse is porridge: 300 grams of chickpea flour, 900 grams of water, 50 milliliters of oil, and 13 grams of salt.
Blend everything with an immersion blender until all lumps disappear and pour it all into an oiled baking tray; with this done you can add everything that’s in your fridge.
I like to use the upper part of leeks as it’s always fibrous and coriaceous, I cut it in strips, give it a go in the pan until it softens and then I add it to the mix.
The usual 180 degrees in a static oven until everything’s browned on the outside and ready: even today you managed to recycle!

Pasta

For pasta and rice’s leftovers, the same “rules” are applicable.
With pasta’s leftovers, you can make a “Pasta al Forno”, just add a bit of béchamel sauce, stir well and drop everything in an oven dish: problem solved.
An interesting alternative is a Pasta Supplì (a bunch of restaurants in Lazio made a fortune off of this recipe).
Just create a pasta-ball (maybe add some vegan cheese in the middle of it), bread it, and fry it: I guarantee you’ll love it!

Rice

It’s about the same idea with rice: arancino (or arancina, depending on what Italian person you ask, be careful though as you might start a civil war), a “rice cake” if you will.
All you need to do is take the rice, add it to other leftovers, mix everything uniformly, add a bit of vegan mozzarella cheese and let it gratinate in the oven.
You’ll never be going to eat the same thing twice again!

Pesto

Even different types of “pesto” can do the trick while trying to recycle.
Artichoke stems, carrot beards, nettles celery leaves, for example, are really suitable for this kind of idea.
Blanch the leftovers, let them cool down, dry them well and blend everything with a handful of almonds, nuts, or any kind of dried fruit for that matter, add olive oil and some salt: you just created a sauce that’s perfect for your pasta or even on some bread for the aperitif.

Panzanella

There are infinite ways to reuse, even some Panzanella can be a way to go.
If this can help, for example, besides the classic tomato’s Panzanella I made one with steamed green beans and tomato flavored lentils from the day before’s dinner.

Obviously, you should use some common sense while recycling, I suggest you don’t use leftovers that are older than a couple of days if you don’t want to spend your afternoon hunched over the toilet cursing me and this guide. As you saw, the ways to reuse food are truly infinite and with these couples of tips, you’ll see the wet waste’s bag getting emptier as your wallet will thank you.

Article by Gabriele, Cucina Clandestina
Translated by Teo

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