Food waste reduction
Sikil P’ak
Mayan Roasted Tomato & Pumpkin Dip
Before us Mediterranean, Middle-Eastern and even Northern Europe inhabitants claimed the tomato as one of the fruits defining our food cultures, this divine berry was a staple of the Mayan diet. Its ancient Mayan name is P’ak. In Nahuatl cultures ingesting the seeds of the tomato berry was considered a divine blessing – its name closer to its worldwide term nowadays is ‘tomatl’. This dip or as some of guests called it ‘tomato and nut butter’ hails from the olden times of South American food heritage. My recipe was inspired by the infamous Diane Kennedy, whose books on Mexican cuisine are a precious ethnography of the land’s food culture. You can use raw, un-peeled pumpkin seeds for one third of the quantity of pumpkin seeds used here. If you do be careful to NOT use salted ones and you might need to increase the water quantity used. I prefer to play safe and to use organic peeled and home roasted seeds.
What
(yields approx. 500g dip)
- 350g ripe tomatoes
- 160g pumpkin seeds
- Half a habanero or Hungarian hotwax or jalapeño chilli pepper (optional)
- 65-85ml water
- 15g fresh coriander leaves finely chopped
- ½- 1tsp salt
- 2 pinches of smoked or plain salt
- Juice of half a lime
- Handful of chives, roughly chopped or some parsley
How
- Place the washed & dried tomatoes a non-stick pan with a couple of pinches of salt. Preferably use ripe cherry or small plum tomatoes whole. Other tomatoes should be sliced in half.
- Roast the tomatoes on high heat for the first five minutes and then lower to medium heat to cook until soft in the middle, usually for another five minutes.
- Whilst the tomatoes roast, place the pumpkin seeds in another non-stick pan and toast for a few minutes until they start popping. Make sure you regularly shake the pan to avoid burn.
- Set aside the pumpkin seeds to cool down (5 minutes).
- Whilst the pumpkins are cooling down dry toast the chilli pepper until it browns in spots and softens.
- Using a coffee or spice grinder blend the toasted pumpkins to a fine meal.
- In a food processor place the tomatoes, chilli (if using), the ½ tsp of salt, the coriander and some water. Blend until well mixed.
- Transfer the pumpkin meal and tomato mix into a bowl, add the lime and mix well. You can also mix in the food processor if big enough.
- The mixture should resemble a mayonnaise dip in consistency or a thin hummus.
- If you don’t mind a chunkier dip, you can make the dip in a large stone pestle and mortar. Starting with the grinding of the seeds, then the tomato and pepper and then the other ingredients.
- Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
- Mix in the lime juice and garnish with the chives.
- Serve with nachos as a starter or beer snack.
USE-WHAT-YOU-HAVE MOUSSAKÁ
As a person who grew up in Greece I get asked for Moussaka recipes all the time. Moussaká is really as diverse as each household. Go to http://www.instagram.com/lias_kitchen to read what differentiates Moussaká from other bakes!
In this post we want to demystify one of the most popular dishes of modern Greek cooking. My usual béchamel sauce is one where milk is flavoured with mace or nutmeg in advance and then slowly heated whilst you slowly add flour, butter and one egg. Not really a roux method but something we call Kourkoúti. But to make things simple for you we recommend you make a béchamel (or morney) sauce you know how to make and have provided a link to a BBC recipe.
In the past year I have made Moussaka with what I have. I always have uncooked lentils in my store cupboard and love using them for a vegetarian, use-what-you-have version of the dish. Use 300 to 500g of minced beef if that’s what you prefer. The authentic Moussaka in my mum’s kitchen uses two layers of aubergine but potato is just fine particularly when your vegetable box has too many potatoes you need to use up.
Enjoy our delicious recipe below!
What:
⁃ 3/4 to 1 cup or mug uncooked lentils (brown or green or black)
⁃ 1 onion, chopped
⁃ 3 allspice berries, crushed (optional)
⁃ 1/2 cup white wine
⁃ 3 to 4 garlic cloves, finely shopped
⁃ 1 tin chopped tomatoes
⁃ 500ml hot water (2cups)
⁃ 30g chopped parsley
⁃ Bay leaf (optional)
⁃ 1 egg beaten
⁃ 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
⁃ 250g crumbled or greater goat or ewe’s cheese such as feta, Abergavenny goat, manchego, pecorino or graviera.
⁃ Salt
⁃ 1 béchamel portion of your choice
⁃ Mace + bay leaf or just grated nutmeg to flavour
⁃ Half kg potatoes or as many it takes to fill a medium baking tray, sliced in circles of 1.5 to 2cm thickness
⁃ Mix of vegetable and olive oil to shallow fry
What:
1. Soak the lentils for an hour or two (optional).
2. Start with making the lentil filling.
3. Fry the onion in 2tbsp. Olive oil with a pinch of salt for 5min.
4. Add the drained lentils, a pinch of pepper and the crashed allspice berries and fry for a couple of minutes.
5. Add the wine, stir and follow with the tinned tomatoes & hot water.
6. Add another couple of pinches of salt, the bay leaf (if using) and the chopped parsley.
7. Cover and simmer for 30.
8. Whilst the sauce is simmering make a béchamel portion of your choice and fry the potatoes till mostly cooked.
9. Use 2-3 Tbsp. Vegetable oil and 2 Tbsp. Olive oil to fry the potatoes.
10. Make sure to cool down the lentil sauce before adding the beaten egg, cheese or mix of cheeses your choice and breadcrumbs. Taste and season if necessary.
11. In a medium baking tray at least 10cm deep, layer the potatoes, the lentil sauce smoothed across the surface and then the bechamel sauce.
12. If you want sprinkle with some more breadcrumbs and cheese.
13. Bake in an 170 Celsius degree fan oven for 45 min or until golden.
Broadbean CropShare #3: Broadbean pod fries with Korean Gochugang dipping sauce
When you read our guest Broadbean Crop Share blog on Global Gardens Website News Section on 10/06/2020 you can read more about our approach to food and culinary exploration. In the past year Lia’s Kitchen has collected over fifty cook books (second hand and donations) for a shared cookbook library. When exploring what we could do with the fresh broad bean crop given to us by Global Gardens Project we turned for inspiration to these books. It was in Genevieve Taylor’s Charred that we learned how to make a dipping sauce with Korean red pepper flakes. We had to adjust the recipe to our ingredients but we want to fully credit this book for the idea and inspiration. Our Broadbean pod fries inspired by Chef Tom Hunt are gorgeous with that sauce. The only problem is you can actually eat too much and be unable to move. Our crop share recipes have taken a Wasteless approach using the whole plan from leaves, pods and beans. Enjoy!
Ingredients
- Discarded pods of 300g fresh broadbeans (used in our crisped mint broad bean crostini or creamed broadbean crostini recipes)
- 6 Tbsp. self-raising flour (GF flour works well too)
- A couple of generous pinches of salt
- 200ml milk
- Vegetable oil for deep frying
Genevieve’s Korean pepper flakes dipping sauce variation
- 3 Tbsp. soya sauce
- 1 Tbsp. Korean chilli red pepper flakes
- 1 Tbsp. sesame oil
- 2 tsp. white wine vinegar
- 1 tsp. mirin sauce
- 1 crushed garlic clove
- 1 tsp. caster sugar
- 1 Tbsp. sesame seed toasted and then ground
Method:
- Toast the sesame seeds in a non-stick pan and set aside to cool down.
- Mix all the sauce ingredients in a bowl. When the seeds are cooled grind finely in a pestle and mortar and add to the sauce. Let it sit whilst making the Broadbean pod fries.
- Place three fingers of vegetable oil in a deep pot and turn the heat up placing a lid on.
- Make sure you string the pods well when you are shelling the beans. Use a sharp knife to double string the sides of the split pod again before frying preparation.
- Cut each pod shell in 5cm long pieces.
- Mix the flour and salt well in a bowl.
- Place the milk in another bowl.
- Dust the pod shells in flour lightly on both sides. Shake flour off well.
- Swiftly dunk the floured pods in the milk and return to the flour.
- Dust in flour for the second time.
- By this time the oil should be ready for deep frying.
- Place the pods in the pot but do not cram.
- Reduce the heat and deep dry for around 4 minutes or until golden but not burnt.
- Remove with a slotted spoon
- Drizzle with the sauce or dip each fry in the sauce with every bite you take!
Broadbean CropShare #1: Crisped mint broad bean crostini with Feta mash
This week we are participating in a crop share project by Global Gardens in Cardiff. One of our director’s Lia has been given a crop of broad beans, pods/beans and leaves to cook with! She is publishing a blog about what this crop share meant to her and what to do with beans on the Global Gardens Website News Section. Here is the first recipe she made for this project.
Crisp mint broad beans with Feta mash on Crostini (for three slices)
We have been baking a lot of sourdough bread at home. When it goes stale we love slicing what is left very thinly and making crispy crostini to add seasonal toppings. For the Crostini all you need is finely sliced bread (up to 2cm) brushed with olive oil and toasted on a really hot non stick pan. Now for the topping.
Ingredients (three portions)
- 100g shelled and double podded green broad beans
- 6gr fresh mint leaves (any kind)
- 15g butter (roughly a Tbsp.)
- Pinch of salt
- 100gr Feta cheese
- 30ml Extra virgin olive oil
- ½ tsp. freshly ground pepper
Method
- For the Feta mash: mash the feta, olive oil and pepper in a bowl until creamy. Set aside.
- You will need around 300g broad beans in pods to yield 100g double podded beans.
- Remove the bean seeds from the pod. Keep the pods aside to make delicious fritters on the same day.
- Blanche the beans in boiling water for at least 3 minutes. Cool and remove the shell. Here is how to do it.
- Melt the butter in a non-stick pan .
- Before it browns add the whole (washed) mint leaves and crisp up on medium heat for a minute or two.
- Before the leaves brown add the shelled and separated beans, a pinch of salt and stir well.
- On each crostini spread a medium thick layer of the Feta mash and top with some beans.
The Wasteless Skordalia Bread Dip
This Wasteless dip is inspired by my Greek heritage. Skordalia is a popular dip which can be made with stale bread or potatoes. My favourite is the one using bread. It is a kind of bread sauce, brought to life by walnuts, sharp vinegar flavours, garlic and extra virgin olive oil. It is traditionally served with deep fried salt cod and once you start you can’t stop eating it. At Wasteless suppers we usually serve it with smoked paprika temperate vegetable and cucumber slices.
Ingredients
- 200g leftover bread, soaked in water and well drained
- 1 large handful walnuts
- 3 tbsp. white wine vinegar
- 1-2 garlic cloves, minced
- 60 ml extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp. salt
- ½ tsp. pepper (optional)
- a generous pinch of grated nutmeg (optional)
Preparation
1. Soak the bread slices with the crust in some water until soft.
2. Squeeze out the water well with your hands and place in a food processor.
3. Add the garlic cloves crushed. You can add more garlic but the longer you leave the dip in the fridge the stronger it becomes.
4. Top with the walnuts, salt and pepper/nutmeg and olive oil and blitz until lovely and creamy.
5. Taste to adjust the salt and vinegar levels. The vinegar really makes this dip special so if you feel something is missing add another teaspoon.
6. This dip is absolutely delicious with raw vegetable, as an accompaniment to salads, with tempura vegetable and fried fish (in the traditional Greek way).
Lia's Kitchen 
The Wasteless diaries #2
Posted on Updated on
As the dust settles I am finally getting to reflect on the Wasteless Cardiff suppers journey so far. I planned to write a blog for each Wasteless supper we delivered in March 2018 but surprises such as the heavy snow really threw us. The Wasteless team had to work hard and seamlessly to deliver the events against all odds.
For those of you who might not have heard about Wasteless in Cardiff it is a collaborative platform which involves more than one food businesses in the delivery of a pop-up feast using food surplus, food that would have been wasted and food that is produced in a less wasteful manner. I have been running it for the last ten months with Rebecca Clark from Green City Events. It is our brainchild as Ruth Molaski recently wrote in her Western Mail article. Wasteless has taken most of my ‘food work’ time in 2018. And we both really care about it.
We held our pilot Wasteless in October 2017. And in March we got together to deliver two additional events partly supported by the Sainsbury Waste Less Save More fund. The talented Jane of Hungry City Hippy wrote a fantastic review about the early March event too.
Who is Wasteless for?
Bringing new businesses to the table to inspire and be inspired by them in taking a wasteless approach remains one of the key objectives of Wasteless suppers trials. We wanted and continue to aim to showcase our local chefs and food businesses, and how they do ‘wasteless’ food.
Wasteless also aims to bring crowds to the table educating them about the potential of food they may waste and informing them about ways to be savvier at home. The events are much more than a meal, with guests really engaging in discussions about their footprint and impact, leaving more empowered after having shared knowledge and ideas on their journey to becoming wasteless.
Our choice to go from potential food waste to fine dining is deliberate. I am very keen that we make the point that a menu you are likely to have paid two or three times the price of a Wasteless supper ticket can be actually made from ingredients that we as consumers and the retail process most commonly waste. I hope this stark antithesis between food destined for the bin turning into gourmet dishes really sticks with our guests and those who read about Wasteless.
Our choice to do Wasteless and yours to attend the events also sends an important message to food retailers, who can see that we care more about what may perish – they are willing to work with all of us and they are listening. They have people like you and me working for them who care as much about reducing food waste. This has been one of the most encouraging messages of the project. We are in it together!
How many?
To date three Wasteless suppers have taken place in the Welsh capital of Cardiff. The WasteLess suppers preserved, pickled, cooked and served around 261 kilos[1] of the food collected in the weeks leading to the events. The food was then safely handled, stored, distributed and cooked by the participating chefs/businesses to offer five-course feasts.
There were eighteen participating food businesses with different practices and business models, who prepared and donated food, and hosted the suppers – a number that has by far exceeded our expectations. In fact, when we wrote our project plan we thought we might attract around fifty people to our table at this stage of the process. But the food collected ended up feeding 135 guests (and another twenty people who volunteered to help deliver the events).
What was served at Wasteless…
The creativity of the chefs we have worked with is humbling. Dishes such as sourdough flavoured ice cream from Cocorico Patisserie who then used the bread again to make tartelettes for the canapes serving the cheese donated by the Cheese Pantry were a massive hit. Laurian’s recipes were conceived during the heavy snowfall when bread and vegetable was in shortage, and many of our guests had already started to think about food as a precious commodity. The fact that we already had over 80 kg food collected at that time propelled us into action to ensure that Wasteless supper happened regardless of the snow. The response was amazing and most of our guests turned up on the evening – many quite hungry for vegetable and bread at the time.
Also for Wasteless supper #2, our preservation master, the beloved Eira of Inner City Pickle created a delicious aubergine, tomato and chilli relish and a banana jam which we used in our menu. The amazing Laura of Tidy Kitchen company laboriously sliced and minced different cuts of chicken and pork to make scotch eggs and terrines for our guests. Laura came on the team just ten days before the event. And she blew our guests away with her dishes’s presentation as well as the flavour. You must give her food a try and support her newly established independent business.
At Wasteless #3 Chef Jan’s (Anna Loka) recipe of mixed vegetable rostis with a butternut squash sauce and crisp fried greens (a great use for wilted greens) inspired a lot of our diners to go home and look at their vegetable draw twice before clearing it. Melissa’s (Penylan Pantry) starter balls mixing various vegetable, fish and meat into delicious bites showed people you don’t need much to create an impressive party platter. Beca Lyne Pirkis’s trio dessert using tens of kilos of bananas, mandarins and frozen berries in a sticky mandarin cake, jam doughnuts and the most delicious banana fool I have ever tasted was spectacular and gave us ideas on how to use ripened fruit.
Beca, who is one of the baker’s dozen in the 4th series of The Great British Bake Off and now cook, food writer and TV presenter, said, “The issue of food waste is something that concerns me, and helping to raise awareness around it by being part of Wasteless is one way of inspiring others to make better use of leftovers as well as drawing attention to the volume of surplus food that happens weekly in Cardiff. I’m honoured to be asked to play a small part in helping the cause.”
Phil’s (Dusty Knuckle) mushroom ketchup, pickled apples, daikon slaw and slow cooked meat was a dish that required much labour and ingenuity in using everything that was made available to him – it had so many layers of flavour and texture and nothing was wasted. And I hope that my own new-found, personal obsession with dehydration, pickles and pickling methods from around the globe gave people at our table more ideas on how to make the most of seasonal resources.
Clare Williams of Penylan Preserves who created three different relishes for Wasteless supper #3 says, “I am extremely humbled to be part of the #Wastelesssupper team. Preserving is a great way of ‘keeping food’ for longer and I couldn’t believe how good the food was that was going to be thrown out!! I am a great believer in using my senses on when food needs to be thrown NOT a best before date on the packaging!”
The Purple Poppadom team transformed frozen chicken, most of it a by-product of the Wasted suppers at Selfridges last year into a delicious curry produced to us by the fantastic Illtud of Charcutier. ‘We are great believers in the work of the Wasteless team. Chef is very excited to have contributed a Purple Poppadom Nadan Kozhi chicken curry, showing how ingredients that would otherwise be thrown away too early, can be so tasty.’
The future is bright for Wasteless food events. As well as being a finalist for the Cardiff Life Awards in the first six months of its life, it has received much attention from the public and media platforms.
The question we keep getting is, ‘When is the next Wasteless happening?’ With the encouragement and support we have received from all of you and businesses in Cardiff and across Wales wanting to be part of Wasteless, there is a lot more that we can do to spread the message by inviting people to a wasteless table, and maybe a more wasteless lifestyle.
We would like to thank all the volunteers who have worked hard to make Wasteless happen. Most notably Dai Tilbert (Punk Bikes Cardiff), Laura Sorvala (Auralab) and Dan Barnett worked tirelessly on the events through collections, deliveries, preparation and on the night.
Great thanks go to Oasis Cardiff, the refugee charity who let us use their fridges and freezers for the vast amount of food that we used for Wasteless. Any fresh or frozen food we did not use was left at Oasis for the use of their daily lunches.
The fantastic businesses which contributed to WasteLess include Penylan Pantry, a sustainable café and grocery store which implements the low-waste approach in its practices; Mezza Luna, an award winning, independent, Middle Eastern restaurant; Anna Loka, the first 100% vegan café in Cardiff; the Tidy Kitchen Company, a dynamic, fine dining catering company run by chef Laura Graham; Dusty Knuckle, the best UK pizzeria according to the Guardian, a promoter of slow food and Wasteless menus; the award winning Purple Poppadom; the Cheese Pantry; Cocorico Patisserie and deliciously creative dishes; Penylan Preserves and Inner City Pickle chutneys, relishes and jams; the talented Beca Lyne Pirkis; Oriel Jones’s fine Welsh mutton meat. Wasteless Suppers have been hosted by the Little Man Coffee company, an ethical coffee shop which is a hub of community activity; Illtud of Charcutier who has been involved in WastED at Selfridges and is a talented food businessman in Wales; Caffi Sio, the sister company of Chapter Arts in Cardiff Bay and The Old Library Milk & Sugar.
Lia Moutselou of Lia’s Kitchen and Rebecca Clark from Green City Events co-design and co-run Wasteless. Our partnership on food waste and ethical ventures is well established. Over the three years we joined forces to deliver a series of food waste projects and initiatives in Cardiff, in collaboration with Love Food Hate Waste campaigns and other local organisations and businesses. From community cook ups with food destined for the bin, to roadshows, school lunch clubs and pop up street food stalls, we have inspired, engaged and educated to encourage action and behaviour change relating to food waste.
Lia’s Kitchen is an ethical food venture inspired by sustainability, Greek cuisine and world flavours: www.liaskitchen.com. Green City is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company based in Cardiff, hosting a range of exciting and inspiring environmental and sustainability events and workshops: www.greencityevent.co.uk
Special thank to Suzie Larke Photography for covering our Wasteless #3 supper and to Dan Green Photography for covering Wasteless #1. The rest of the phots are from Green City Events and Lia’s Kitchen.
Follow the links to view the menus of Wasteless #1,Wasteless #2 and Wasteless #3.
Wasteless has received some queries about why this food waste was not used for the homeless and charitable purposes. Both Lia’s Kitchen, Green City events and many of the businesses we worked give support in kind and otherwise to many projects supporting charitable causes. In fact the profits of the pilot Wasteless supported the Cystic Fibrosis Better Life Appeal at Llandough Hospital. However, using food surplus to feed the homeless is not the purpose of Wasteless. For those concerned please rest assured that there is plenty of food waste at the disposal of charities, organisations and projects to support the homeless or otherwise less fortunate – Wasteless collected from just one supermarket location in Cardiff and we are sure many retail outlets would be happy to partner with charities. We are happy to share our experience if this helps anyone wanting to set up a project. The positive experience our supermarket retailer is having with Wasteless may provide them and other retailers with reassurance which might facilitate more agreements and projects in the future. Through our previous food waste reduction work we have facilitated partnerships. But often the limited resources of charities or such projects and the hard work required for the collections has been an obstacle to their long-term sustainability. Nonetheless there are fantastic projects in Cardiff, elsewhere in Wales and all around the UK that do charitable and stellar community work successfully either through their own collections or a subscription to Fairshare and we are sure that many more will continue to flourish.
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This entry was posted in Comment, Food waste reduction, Review and tagged food waste reduction wales, Green City Events, Lias Kitchen, lovefoodhatewaste, reduce food waste, wasteless, wastelesscardiff, wastenot.