Zero Refund Pantry Kitchen
By Chef Daniel
In Sustainable cooking, there are 3 basic principles.. Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
Food wastage is a very big issue in the world and especially restaurants, hotels and catering outfits.Reduce simply means buying only what you want and also the smallest quantity too.Few years back, I used to buy a lot of things I didn't really need or even know how to use simply because they were cheap, colourful or just nice to have.I'll buy cooking cream or cheese or even fresh produce that were on sales and that led to a lot of waste... Simply because of price and availability.
Reduce is just a way of telling us to... Know what you wanna buy and stick to it.
Reuse encourages us to not discard things because think it has no use anymore.Take for instance... Jollof rice or Sunday rice and stew.Some people might be tired after eating that for a while but that same food can be reused or repurposed to create another wonderful meal.White rice can give you fried rice( Chinese, Indonesian or Thai), jollof can give you rice balls (Ghanaian or Italian Arancini) etc.
Recycle tells us not to discard things even after being reused or repurposed, rather it can be beneficial in some other way.Take for instance a dead leaf from a tree, it doesn't just die off and has not use but rather, it in turn nourishes its parent plant which leads to it flourishing.
Composting is another form of recycling... Food items that have gone off can be used as compost for our potted plants and gardens.I encourage everyone to have a least 3 potted plants.We can all plant some of the food we use example, parsley, basil, pumpkin, spinach, pepper, sweet corn etc.
There are a lot of ways we can achieve zero pantry waste and I'll outline some:
1. Store Food Properly: this can never be over emphasized. How we store our food has a huge role to play on how much we consume. Fresh produce will go off really fast if not stored properly. We can all agree that we've being found wanting in this area.Animal flesh should be stored on the lower part of the fridge to avoid drippings from them, some seasonal vegetables can be frozen to preserve them etc.
2. Organise your fridge and store: A lot of times we might be so tired that we tend to skip this important aspect of the kitchen life. With proper and periodic organization of these places, we can curtail a lot of what we buy and waste.If you organise your pantry regularly, you'll know which grain is going off, which container is not properly sealed or which item you already have when grocery shopping.It will save you a lot of money.
3. Buy what you need, learn to substitute and buy with a plan: I can remember when I'll buy a lot of expensive and single use items for a particular meal or when I'll just impulsively buy. This has cost me a lot of money and I'll still feel bad.There are substitutes for a lot of things and they are cheaper too. You don't have a buy cooking cream or parmesan cheese because you want to make spaghetti Alfredo which you know you might not cook for a very long time.Cooking cream can be substituted, just like buttermilk can.Buy only what you need because at the end of the day, the excess might go to waste.
5. Learn to repurpose: The greens of beetroots, celery, carrot can be added to your Smoothies or sauces.The vegetable scraps can be pureed and served as part of a side dish.Veggies going off can be fried in batter and eaten as a snack.The possibilites are endless.
6. Buy seasonal produce: There are always food that are in abundance in every season. Using up a lot of them helps to reduce waste.A lot of restaurants craft their menus according to seasons to get the most of seasonal produce.Mango season is upon us and there are a million ways to enjoy this sweet fruit From jam to juices to Smoothies to chutneys.Avocados also be extracted to get oils.Plantain can be eaten in several ways.. Flour, tatale, swallow, fried, pureed etc.Buying seasonal produce means the item are fresh and we get optimum quality and health benefits from them.
7. Plant something: Planting helps to reduce the amount of food wastage because you'll only take what you need at that moment. For instance a recipe calls for a tiny amount of basil and we all know there's no ₦20 basil, but if we had planted some we could have easily gotten from there.Spinach is a really easy plant to cultivate, it requires little attention and has lots of health benefits and uses.Invest in potted plants and see how you'll transform your homes and cooking with wonderful fragrance.
8. Learn to preserve: Everything loses it freshness. We can preserve excess food items by freezing, pickling, dehydrating or in oil.Yam can be turned to flour just as rice and beans too.Cabbage can be pickled.Veggies can be frozen.
9. Reinvent: a lot of foods can be reinvented to produce outstanding and delicious meals.We can make juices from fruits or Smoothies.Almond, coconut or tigernut pulps can be refried as healthy snacks or used as swallow.
The possibilities are endless...
By Chef Daniel
Excerpts from TICW2020.
This is fantastic
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