Empty the Storecupboard Challenge 2016: Week 9
The last week has been devoted to knuckling down and cooking up some good, honest Empty the Storecupboard dishes. We’re really crossing off the list now.
I started off by using 30g of rice flakes to make the base for a mushroom and green onion quiche (main pic, above). It was a reasonably healthy TV dinner that also included four eggs, a splash of milk, a punnet of mushrooms and two shredded spring onions. We had that served with some greens, and some HP sauce on the side. That leaves 60g of rice flakes in the storecupboard.
The next Empty the Storecupboard Challenge meal used up all the remaining cous cous. I mixed in some sweetcorn, red pepper and home-grown red and green leaf beet, and topped it with garlic and chilli prawns. Bye bye cous cous.
We’ve also used up 30g more of the flax seed and cinnamon powder: 10g mixed into blueberry porridge, and 20g added to smoothies made from bananas, a little preserved watermelon and economy frozen berries. That leaves just 10g in the cupboard to get through next week.
And finally I worked out how to use up the jar of mincemeat that was left over from Christmas, plus 40g of the remaining pumpkin seeds, chopped finely. It was used as a filling for chelsea buns (unglazed stage shown above), which meant that I didn’t have to buy any extra ingredients because we have a fully stocked baking box at the moment. I added bread flour, yeast, milk, an egg, caster sugar, butter, ground allspice and ground cinnamon. It all turned out surprisingly well, and made a lovely breakfast treat at the weekend.
We didn’t have any jam to make a glaze, so I used some of the syrup from the remaining preserved watermelon and that worked pretty well paired with a silicone pastry brush. Seriously zero waste. There’s 10g left out of the pumpkin seeds, and 1/4 of a jar of preserved watermelon still to use up.
Also, I thought you might like to see a quick picture of what’s left in the storecupboard. Feels like we’re nearly at the finish line. What do you reckon?
Come back next week to see what happens to those remaining things still lurking in the cupboard!
How are your food stocks looking? Any success stories you want to share?
Dear Penny,
So what’s left ?
Hi Patricia. Going into Week 10 of the Empty the Storecupboard Challenge we have 1/4 jar of preserved watermelon, 2 portions of Chinese curry sauce, 1/2 a jar of dried borlotti beans, 100g brown rice, 10g of ground flax seeds and cinnamon, and 60g of rice flakes. A weird mix of ingredients, I think you’ll agree!
P x
Dear Penny,
I bet you’ll finish it all for next week…
I love the pic of your chelsea buns. Looks delicious….Can you post your recipe with the mince meat ?
Love, Pat,
Hi Patricia – here’s the recipe for you:
Well this has given me a fantastic idea of what to do with the mincemeat I’ve got leftover from Christmas. I love it as a year round thing anyway, so it doesn’t feel unseasonal at all (plus, the weather here in Edinburgh has returned to being decidedly wintry again this week anyway).
We’ve managed to clear our cupboards a bit as we’ve tried to use up anything with milk in it to work up to being dairy free! I’ve still got passata, baked beans, rice and pasta enough to see me through to 2017, but these are at least staples that do get used and replaced regularly.
Hi MaggieBob – it does seem to work well as a filling. There are also a few cake and muffin recipes if you search for them, where the mincemeat gets broken up and stirred into the batter. They look pretty good, and that’s coming from someone who finds mince pies too sweet.
Let me know how you get on with being dairy free, should be interested. Beau has cut down on dairy a lot in the last few months, so that’s been a change here.