River Cottage Love Your Leftovers

If you embrace leftovers as a central part of your daily cooking and a wellspring for culinary creativity, you will change not just the way you eat, but also the way you buy food and the way you manage both your kitchen and the time you spend in it. This is because all your food plans will be made – consciously at first but soon pretty much without thinking – with leftovers in mind.

The business of getting food on to the table can be split into three broad stages: shopping, storing and cooking. All of those stages can be quite stressful if you imagine each meal must be a self-contained unit – you are constantly trying to calculate quantities, always planning to end up with zero when the meal is done.

Take a more leftovers-centred approach and the entire process becomes more relaxed and flexible because each meal can beget another, or part of another, with precise amounts mattering very little, if at all. I’m reminded of a line from the American writer Calvin Trillin, ‘The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.’

I love this quote. And I aspire to be more like Calvin’s mother! I do still cook a few ‘original meals’ but I like to think of each one as the beginning of a daisy chain of deliciousness. Sometimes it’s a short chain – leftover meat and veg into a simple hash. Sometimes a meal keeps giving all week, as is often the case with big roast joints of meat or hearty feed-a-crowd stews and curries.

So I’m going to outline what I think is the best approach to establishing and maintaining a glorious, belly-filling procession of lovely, leftover-y meals.

Why talk about shopping in a book about leftovers, you may ask? Leftovers just happen, don’t they, whatever you buy? Well, yes and no. You will always find yourself with some wild-card ingredients to hand, the result of unexpected under-consumption. But, as I explain more fully later, clever cooks can (and I think should) deliberately create leftovers. And it pays also to keep a pretty good stock of leftovers-friendly complementary ingredients. All of which means shopping with a modicum of foresight.

For me, shopping starts before I leave the house, with a cursory check of the fridge and cupboards to see what’s running low and what I have in abundance. I then note the things I might want to turn into meals in the next few days and the kind of ingredients necessary to complete those dishes. But I also make sure there’s a good amount of play in the plan and plenty of blank space on my mental list so that I can take advantage of what I find when I hit the shops.

When I say ‘hit the shops’, that’s a pretty flexible term. Actually we order quite a bit of our fresh food from a local organic delivery service – especially in the winter when our own veg garden is less productive. But I also regularly visit my favourite local delis, health food shops and farmers’ markets. I like to see what’s new in store, what’s coming in with the seasons, who’s making a quirky new cheese… And I like to chat with people who are roughly in the same business as I am – the business of feeding people. I have to admit that for me, food shopping is kind of a hobby.

Of course it’s not like that for everyone, and how you shop depends very much on how, and where, you live. Perhaps you like to buy a week’s groceries from an out-of-town store in one trip, though there is some evidence that ‘the big shop’ is falling out of favour and being replaced by smaller, more frequent trips. I do think that shopping widely, fairly often, in multiple retailers, at least some of whom are independent, pays off – because it makes you more adventurous, more savvy and more likely to take advantage of seasonally plentiful foods.

I make the point several times in this book that it’s nearly always worth cooking more of something than you need. However, this approach does not neatly translate into a shopping strategy. It’s not always a good idea to buy more than you need, if what you are buying is fresh produce.

Be wary of the BOGOF (buy one, get one free). One of the biggest causes of food waste in recent years has been the increase of supermarket two-for-one or three-for-two deals: seemingly irresistible offers on fresh food which tempt us to buy more than we can possibly eat in the time before it goes off.

Having said that, if you see a brilliant offer on fresh produce in your supermarket or farmers’ market, you have space in your freezer and, more importantly, you have space in your diary, it is a great opportunity to get ahead, to stock up on what I think of as ‘forethought leftovers’ (as opposed to afterthought ones).

Prepping a big stash of fruit or veg doesn’t have to mean the time-consuming making of whole meals. It can simply be blanching or roasting ingredients and/or freezing them in portion-sized bags, ready for when you need a handful of broad beans to toss into a soup or some raspberries for a smoothie. So, although it may sound a little paradoxical, my advice is not to buy too much but to buy as much as you can for the resources (in terms of time and space) that you have.

If you hunt down the plumpest and perkiest produce, it will keep well and see you through the next few days or even weeks, broadening your options when it comes to using it. At the same time, bruised, blemished and even slightly mouldy fruit and veg don’t need to be thrown away, they just need to be used up first and trimmed as necessary. (Whatever The Osmonds may have told you, one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch, girl.)

While quality is important, bear in mind that appearances aren’t everything (it’s a lot like falling in love). Try to see past lumps and bumps and less-than-perfect skins, and think about flavour. Sometimes it’s the less buffed and alluring-looking fresh fruit and veg – that are, crucially, in season – which taste the best.

And if you can get a great deal and you have a little time, do consider produce that’s past the first flush of youth, especially if it’s at a reduced price (often the case at the end of the day in street markets selling fresh produce). Slightly bendy carrots can be roasted, soft tomatoes turned into soup, tired parsnips puréed and stirred into cakes. Bargain.

When shopping for meat and fish, however you intend to cook it, bring home as much of the beast as you can. If you get your fishmonger to clean and fillet your fish, ask them to wrap up the bones and heads for you too, because they make great soup or even an unusual and tasty light meal (see spicy crispy fish skeletons).

If you’re planning a chicken dish which only uses parts of the bird, you may be better off buying a whole chicken and cutting it into portions – or have the butcher do it for you – rather than choosing the portion pack in the first place. Then you have the bones to make stock and the skin for delicious crackling. In fact, it’s worth building up a good relationship with your butcher so they’re more inclined to pass along the bounty of free bones for stocks, and who knows what other perks, next time you’re buying a more substantial cut.

Buy eggs when they’re good and fresh and they will keep for a couple of weeks at room temperature (see Eggs), no problem. With milk, try to pay the best price for the best quality you can find. Supermarket price wars have had a catastrophic effect on the British dairy industry, so seeking out more ethical suppliers is a long-term investment in our farmers.

Your storecupboard is the single greatest weapon in your leftovers-to-dinner arsenal. So it’s really worthwhile keeping it well stocked with tinned and dry goods, useful condiments and seasonings (see Storecupboard essentials). Pulses and lentils, tins of tomatoes or passata, jars of capers and cornichons, packets of rice and pasta, spices, good oil and mustard – these are the things that will stretch what remains of your Sunday lunch into Monday dinner for four or more. But keep a brisk eye on them. There is a balance to be kept between having enough to make whipping up meals a cinch, and having so much crammed in there that you don’t know what you’ve got and end up repeat-buying things that are lingering out of sight at the back of the shelf.

Internet shopping is the friend of the thrifty cook, allowing you to select just what you need without having to leave the house and subjecting yourself to the varied temptations of the supermarket. It also opens the door to some particularly interesting and unusual ingredients, including the sort of fantastic spices and seasonings that can really lift your daily cooking.

Box schemes, meanwhile, are an excellent way of discovering fresh seasonal produce you might not otherwise come across. They also encourage just the kind of ‘what-have-I-got-in-here’ spontaneity that is the life and soul of leftovers-friendly cooking.

The more you embrace your food shopping as a wily, strategic-minded adventure, the less of a chore it will seem.

The cooking in this book is based around two key groups of ingredients: leftovers of a single product nearing the conclusion of its useful life (the half-tub of cream, the last few slightly soft digestives), and leftovers that are the remnants of prepared meals (the chicken carcass, the roast potatoes, the excess tomato sauce, etc.). Generally, I try to shop in a way that minimises the former and cook in a way that maximises the latter. But great leftovers cooking is really about bringing the two together, taking whatever good things you find when you open the fridge door and re-combining them in delicious, neat, waste-busting harmony.

If you understand the immense satisfaction that’s to be got from leftovers, you may well find yourself, as I do, deliberately creating them. In fact, I’d urge you to do so. For me, cooking more than I need for one particular meal is just as likely to be a deliberate act as a fortuitous accident. These ‘planned overs’, the leftovers you know about in advance, are perhaps the most valuable of all.

If I get a leg of lamb out of the freezer to roast for a family Sunday lunch, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest to know that the six of us won’t eat it all. In fact, I’d be consternated if we did eat it all – partly because that would mean we were being exceptionally greedy, but more because I’d feel robbed of 2 or 3 days’ worth of gorgeous cold meat sitting in the fridge tempting me to make shepherd’s pie or a Middle Eastern-inspired lamb and chickpea thing-in-a-pan with spices and raita (see Spicy lamb and chickpeas).

Likewise, these days, I rarely roast just one chicken. I can get two into my oven, which means a great feast for the family plus plenty of leftover meat and a couple of lovely carcasses ready to be simmered down into a litre or more of fine stock.

The creation of ‘planned-overs’ doesn’t even have to be linked to the meal you’re making. If I’m in the kitchen anyway, roasting vegetables or stirring a soup, I’ll often throw half a box of Puy lentils into a pan with a bay leaf, half an onion and a kettleful of water, and get them cooked. It’s almost no work, and while I might not have a specific plan for their use, I know that tub of pulses in the fridge will see me right for some mouth-watering, substantial salads over the next few days, with crumbled cheese, crisp leaves – and perhaps some of those roasted roots.

Another canny cook’s trick is to double-up (or triple-up) recipes. With one-pot dishes in particular, such as casseroles, soups, chillies, pasta sauces and curries, twice as much food can be produced with only a little more effort, ready to be bagged up and chilled or frozen for a rainy, or a lazy, day. These stewy, ‘wet’ dishes are prime candidates for making in advance anyway – they taste even better after a day or two’s maturing. And they lend themselves to further additions from the larder or fridge: Sunday’s stew gains a pastry lid and becomes Tuesday’s pie; a bolognese, with kidney beans and spices, becomes a chilli con carne; a veg curry becomes… another veg curry, with more and different veg added, and maybe a dash of coconut milk second time around.

And those pockets of the day when you are naturally kitchen-centred and food-focused are also a good opportunity to deal with the unplanned kind of leftover. So, while I’m boiling pasta or frying onions for tonight’s supper, I might also quickly melt some slightly aged butter into longer-lasting ghee, suspend some mature yoghurt in muslin to make a batch of labneh or bake some stale bread into croûtons, which will keep in an airtight jar for a week or so and crunchily enhance the appeal of any soup or salad they’re added to.

The key to using such opportunistically created items is to be relaxed about quantities. Go with what you have. In my ingredients lists, you’ll notice quite a few ‘abouts’, ‘handfuls’, ‘bits’ and ‘splashes’. That’s because I don’t want you to be put off trying a dish because you’re 50g short of something. There are almost always very good potential swap-ins anyway (you’ll find myriad suggestions for such in the recipes). Why not throw some cooked pulses or sautéed mushrooms in a pie or casserole to make up for not having quite enough meat? No one will berate you – though they may hassle you for the recipe after they’ve tasted it.

Being a successful leftovers cook is not labour-intensive. Quite the reverse. The joy of using leftovers is that you’ve already done most of the work – why create more? The ideas in this book are as quick and straightforward as I could make them. Use a bit of nous when it comes to maximising the quality and usability of your leftovers, and you’ll find life in the kitchen just gets easier and easier.

Go easy on the seasoning at first if you are doubling, tripling or even quadrupling the quantities of a recipe – and taste, taste, taste. You may not need to add seasoning in the same multiples as the rest of the ingredients. For example, a recipe that calls for a couple of chopped fresh chillies may be volcanic if you triple it up and add six.

Add veg late on to a soup or stew and stop simmering when the veg are still slightly underdone. They will continue to cook when you reheat them and this precaution avoids mushiness.

Cool cooked food that you’re not going to eat straight away (and so is destined to become ‘leftover’) as quickly as possible. Rinse it in cold water, if that’s practical (e.g. with just-cooked veg) or stand the saucepan in a sink of cold water (for a stew or sauce). You’ll preserve better flavour and colour this way – and it’s good food hygiene too.

Minimise the risk of freezer burn (which taints and gives an unpleasant flavour to foods) by getting rid of as much air as possible before you freeze things. Either carefully press air out of the freezer bag before sealing or, if you’re freezing in a plastic container, cover the surface of the food with baking parchment before you put the lid on. And label it. You may think you’ll remember what’s in there but you won’t. Don’t forget to put the date on too.

Pick meat off bones from a chicken carcass, or flesh off a fish skeleton at the end of a meal, while you have a glass of wine beside you and a conversation on the go, rather than leave it until tomorrow. Finding a plastic tub of tidily torn cooked chicken or nicely flaked fish in the fridge, without remembering precisely how it got there, is one of the great treats of being a leftover-mindful cook.

Once you get the hang of it you will find that leftovers are the oil that greases the wheels of a well-run kitchen. And I don’t mean a Michelin-starred enterprise ruled by a tyrant. I mean a happy-go-lucky family kitchen that pootles along merrily, satisfyingly and sustainably, with one tasty meal being carried over into another, the week’s shopping all happily and frugally used up (except for the bits that aren’t yet, but are about to be). That’s the kind of kitchen we all want to be in, isn’t it?

If you cleave to the virtuous goal of turning leftovers into great meals, one thing that will boost your success rate more than anything else is proper storage. If your ingredients are in good nick to start with, you’re halfway there.

Storage isn’t just about maintaining food quality, it’s also about food safety. The older the food, the more chances of it becoming home to some nasty microbe or other. Happily, the bacteria that cause food poisoning can be assailed in a two-pronged attack.

Firstly, there is cold. These days, we are blessed with superb, efficient fridge and freezer technology, which is something previous generations didn’t have – and an enormous boon to the leftovers cook. It’s one of the reasons I am very much in the laid-back camp when it comes to how long you keep things for. I now maintain my fridge at a rather chilly 3°C – and it’s remarkable how well, and how long, many foods keep at that temperature, even when compared to, say, 5°C. A fish I’ve caught myself, for instance, will be perfectly good after 4 or even 5 days at the bottom of my fridge – a less fresh but still respectable specimen from the fishmonger will be ok for 2 or 3 days. And the other powerful tool is, conversely, heat. Although some bugs can withstand cooking (see rice, below), generally, if you heat something high enough for long enough, it will be safe to eat. The official guidelines are that food reheated so that the internal temperature reaches 75°C or more for at least 1 minute is safe to eat.

This is not completely fail-safe. Rice and peanuts can both grow moulds that produce dangerous toxins not destroyed by cooking. And botulism toxin requires a more prolonged, hotter treatment in order to be destroyed. But these are rare exceptions to a rule on which the food safety of the entire catering industry depends, and which will also stand you in good stead in your kitchen at home: heat something until piping hot all the way through, and it is safe to eat. Soups, stews and saucy dishes should be stirred during the process so that heat is distributed throughout.

It is prolonged mild warmth that should be resolutely avoided: keeping fresh food at room temperature for hours, not reheating things thoroughly, or simply leaving the door of the fridge open on a hot day, are all invitations to bacteria that can make you ill.

I hope these points make it clear that I absolutely do not advocate a cavalier approach to food safety. However, it could certainly be argued that these days we have become a little too fearful. Almost everything we buy is plastered with scary-looking dates, suggesting that ill will befall anyone who doesn’t heed them. The result is that many of us are chucking out food that is perfectly good to eat. Let’s take a look at those dates:

‘Use-by’ date This appears on perishable fresh foods like fresh meat, fish and dairy products, prepared veg, some deli items, and chilled ready meals. You’ll see it mostly on things you would put in your fridge. These dates are conservative and make some allowance for inconsistent fridge temperatures and storage habits of the general public.

A use-by date sounds a note of caution, certainly, but it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily risky to consume a product after that date. If your nose, and a cautious taste, tells you that yoghurt or cream or milk or cheese, or veg or salad, is still good a few days out of date, then go for it. Even meat and fish, provided it is smelling fine, and thoroughly cooked before eating, could be safely consumed a day or two out of date. A lot of people are throwing away food religiously on the day it hits the use-by date. And that means we are wasting a lot of good food.

‘Best-before’ date Whereas ‘use-by’ relates to food safety, ‘best-before’ simply relates to food quality. It applies mainly to ‘ambient foods’ – tinned foods and dry-store goods, such as pulses, rice, biscuits, cereals, etc., that do not require refrigeration. It’s a manufacturer’s way of saying that flavour or texture may diminish after this time. But the food can be safe to eat for weeks after that. Trust your eyes, your nose and your good sense.

It won’t suspend the deleterious effects of time indefinitely, but an efficiently working fridge gives you a lot of control when it comes to meal management. Try to perform a brief fridge survey about once a week so you can remove anything that is beyond redemption, clear up any spills and bring to the fore those things that most urgently require the cook’s attention. Beyond that, simply love your fridge for the magnificent leftovers-marshalling machine it is.

It’s important to store meat safely in the fridge to prevent the spread of any bacteria it might contain. Chicken and pork are the most likely to harbour harmful bugs, so take particular care in storing them. (And always make sure they are cooked right through, never left pink.)

Keep raw meat at the bottom of the fridge so it can’t touch or drip onto other food. I ring-fence the salad drawer for this since it’s self-contained at the bottom and is easy to remove and wash.

Leftover cooked meat, carefully sealed in a plastic container or wrapped in several layers of cling film, will keep for 3 or 4 days. If it was thoroughly cooked to begin with (i.e. not pink in the middle), it may still be good to go for a couple more days if it smells fine and is free from mould and you are going to thoroughly reheat it. I have roasted a shoulder of lamb on a Sunday, fridged the leftover joint, and made a shepherd’s pie the next Friday. But I should add that I trust my fridge and my judgement.

Safe storage of cooked meat

Some recipes in this book suggest that meat can be used and reheated several times over: the roast that becomes a curry, the remains of which end up in a pasty or wonton. This is acceptable practice, provided you are being sensible about how long you keep the meat at each stage, and provided you heat thoroughly to bug-killing temperature every time. It’s also good practice to cool anything that is surplus to the meal rapidly – or at the very least decant and refrigerate as soon as the meal is over. This level of vigilance means you can safely keep a stew, curry or bolognese on the go for up to a week, serving it in three or even more incarnations.

Fish is particularly susceptible to deterioration at room temperature, so it is essential to get it into the fridge as soon as possible after buying.

Smoked fish in vacuum-packs may last a week or so beyond its ‘use-by’ date in the fridge. Once opened, keep it sealed in cling film and eat it within a few days.

Shellfish should be bought live and kept damp – not soaking in water, but wrapped in clean, wet tea towels (or under a few handfuls of fresh seaweed if you can get them) in the fridge. Most shellfish will keep for a couple of days like this, but the usual caveats for checking clams, mussels and oysters apply.

Cooked leftover fish or shellfish should be sealed in glass or plastic containers and used within 24 hours if eating cold (in salads, for example), or 48 hours if being thoroughly reheated (in fishcakes, kedgeree, soups, etc.).

Some dairy products, particularly cultured ones like cheeses, yoghurt and crème fraîche, can keep for several days past their ‘use-by’ date, especially in a very cold fridge. Fresh whole milk is not so obliging, especially once opened. But unopened, it’s probably good for a couple more days than advised on the carton.

It’s best not to keep dairy items for extended periods in those handy compartments in the fridge door, though. Frequent opening and closing of the door means that the temperature there fluctuates too much for delicate dairy: keep it at the back of the fridge.

Yoghurt keeps well in the fridge, often for a couple of weeks or more but, like crème fraîche, cream cheese, cottage cheeses and some soft cheeses, it should be discarded as soon as it shows any sign of microbial growth, i.e. if it is fizzy or the carton has blown, or if it doesn’t smell fresh.

Hard ‘dry’ cheeses such as Parmesan or Cheddar keep much better than soft ones. If you find a bit of mould around the edges, it’s perfectly safe simply to cut it off and eat what remains. Don’t throw out the thick rind left at the end of a wedge of Parmesan – keep it in the fridge or freezer ready to toss into simmering soups and stocks to add a rich umami flavour.

Milk that is just on the turn, and so just a bit too sour for your cornflakes or tea, can still be used for pancakes, breads, béchamel etc., or for making simple cheeses (see Paneer).

Butter that has seen slightly better days, and smells just a touch cheesy, can still be used for savoury cooking, or to make some ghee to extend its life.

Cooked rice and pulses, including opened tinned pulses, should be cooled quickly, stored in a covered container in the fridge and eaten within a day or two.

Safe storage of cooked rice

As cooked rice cools down, the spores of a harmful bacteria, bacillus cereus, can germinate on it and produce a toxin that causes food poisoning, particularly if the rice is left standing at room temperature. The toxin is not killed by reheating, no matter how hot you get it, so it’s important not to let the bacteria grow in the first place. Cool leftover rice down as rapidly as you can so the spores don’t get a chance to proliferate. Either rinse the rice under cold water and drain it well or spread it out on a plate to cool rapidly. Either way, get it into the fridge within an hour of cooking. Even cooled efficiently and stored safely in the fridge, you should use it within a day or two.

Many fruits and vegetables can be kept quite successfully in the fridge to prolong their lives, although any you want to serve raw should be returned to room temperature before eating, for the best flavour. Others, however, are spoilt by such low temperatures.

Apples stay plump, firm and crisp at low temperatures (industrial scale refrigeration is how the season is extended commercially). I keep mine in the fridge (including my own orchard windfalls), releasing a few every couple of days into the family fruit bowl.

Bananas ripen very fast in a warm kitchen. You can halt this by refrigerating them once they have reached the point of ripeness you like. The cold will hold them there for a few more days. The skins will blacken but the flesh will be fine. Fridge-cold ripe bananas are great for smoothies.

Celery can last for a week or so if it is kept upright in a jug of water in the fridge. Wrapping it in a wet tea towel is a good alternative if vertical storage is not practical. You can revive wilted celery in this way too.

Herbs such as parsley and coriander can be stored in bunches in water in the fridge, as for celery, or wrapped in a wet cloth.

Raspberries, blackberries and blueberries are delicate and turn bad very quickly if they are not kept chilled.

Root veg such as carrots, parsnips, celeriac and swede do well for at least 2 weeks in the fridge, loosely wrapped in whatever packaging you bought them in.

Salad leaves and leafy greens such as lettuce, rocket and spinach are best kept in the fridge in the packaging you bought them in or loosely wrapped in a roomy plastic bag to hold in some moisture, otherwise they are liable to wilt if they dehydrate. The salad drawer is the obvious place to store them unless, like me, you save this for meat, in which case keep them on the shelf above. Avoid placing them in the coldest part of the fridge (usually the back) as they might get frost damage.

Aubergines and courgettes both go a bit soft and wrinkly in either warm kitchens or cold fridges. A cool larder is the best place for these.

Garlic is likely to develop those dreaded green shoots in the fridge, as low temperatures stimulate germination. Ideally, keep your garlic in a cool, well-ventilated place. However, if the only other option is a warm, humid kitchen, your fridge probably is the best bet – just use up the garlic quickly.

Onions soften in the relative humidity of the fridge and their aroma can permeate other foods stored in close proximity.

Peas and beans – once picked – convert their sugars to starches rapidly. While refrigeration slows the process down a little, it’s really best to cook and freeze those you’re not eating straight away.

Potatoes are best kept in a dark cool larder. Fridge temperatures encourage potatoes to turn their starches into sugars and develop an odd, sweet taste. These sugars can also convert into a potentially harmful chemical called acrylamide when the potatoes are cooked at high temperatures.

Squashes and pumpkins can keep for a month or longer in a dry and well-ventilated place between 10°C and 15°C. They deteriorate more quickly in the fridge.

Tomatoes lose their aroma and flavour and become mealy when chilled, so store them at cool room temperature. Or keep at warm room temperature if you want them to ripen – but be vigilant, as they will go OTT in a couple of days.

Crackers and biscuits should be kept in airtight tins or plastic containers. If soft they can be revived for a final outing by baking briefly in the oven to crisp them up: 5 minutes at 180°C/Fan 160°C/Gas 4 should do it.

Keeping a well-stocked larder will help you create the sort of flavourful and filling meals that are the joy of leftovers cooking. In a sense, the sealed, tinned, bagged, dried or preserved ingredients we fill our cupboards with are permanent leftovers – ready to be pressed into service alongside fresh bits and pieces. Most of these ingredients keep very well for over a year in a cool and dark place: try to locate your main food storage cupboard(s) away from the warmest, brightest part of the kitchen.

Chocolate that is coated with a white bloom is fine to use. The bloom develops when cocoa fats are exposed to air. You can still cook with the chocolate quite happily, and deliciously.

Chutneys and jams sealed in jars will keep for a year or so, but inspect the lids and the surface on opening for any taint or sign of mould. Once opened, store the jars in the fridge and use within a month or two. In the case of the usual bluey-green-whitish mould that often appears on jams (usually after opening and keeping in a warm kitchen), I am happy to scrape off the mould and keep using the jam.

Flour can deteriorate more quickly than other storecupboard items. All wheat flours contain some oil and so have the potential to turn rancid (particularly at warm temperatures), but the risk is much higher for wholemeal flours, which are richer in oil. Keep them cool and use within 3 months of buying. White wheat flours usually keep very well for several months. Some very sweet and/or oil-rich flours, such as chestnut flour, do better in the fridge.

Honey keeps almost indefinitely, although it may crystallise. This is nothing to worry about: just stand the jar in a bowl of hot water or remove the lid and warm the honey jar gently in the microwave to re-liquefy.

Mustard keeps very well unopened for several years. Once opened keep it in the fridge to preserve its flavour and colour.

Nuts and seeds will keep in sealed packets for up to a year, but once opened, they should be used up fairly quickly as they can go rancid. Never eat nuts that are mouldy – some nut moulds are dangerous.

Pasta in its dried form will keep, unopened, for a couple of years. Once opened and resealed (or transferred to a jar), it should be used within 3 months.

Pulses in their dried form keep for several years but they will become tougher and require more soaking and simmering to get them soft the older they are. To get the best out of them, try to buy them from somewhere with a brisk turnover and use them up at a steady rate. This shouldn’t be difficult as they are one of the mainstays of leftover cooking.

Rice will keep for several years if it is white rice, but brown or wild rice spoils more quickly and should be used within 6–8 months.

Tinned goods can last for years as long as the tins aren’t dented or damaged in any way.

As a nation, we follow distinct patterns when it comes to food waste, binning certain ingredients such as bread, potatoes, milk, fresh fruit and salad in enormous quantities. We could banish the huge bulk of that waste, partly by more savvy shopping and better portion control, but also by having some super-simple strategies for these FOLs (frequently occurring leftovers).

These common leftovers are all celebrated more fully, via many delicious recipes, in the chapters that follow – but this handy list is a first-stop, quick-fire guide to help you buck the chuck-it-out trend.