So, the reason for this post and it being posted considerably later than usual is the same thing – we had a bonfire night party last night — great fun but it ended somewhat late for a school night. Prior to Wednesday, it had just been a couple of friends coming around to burn things then play Guitar Hero, then it suddenly became a whole bunch of people (including one six week old person) coming around for food and flames. I, unwisely, decided I’d be able to make two soups and two cakes in the hour-and-a-half I had between getting in from the office and people starting to arrive… Not recommended.

Anyway, alongside the soup, sausages and parkin, we cooked a load of jacket potatoes – both normal white potatoes and sweet potatoes – but not all of them were eaten: we’ve got a GIANT sweet potato left over and four medium size white potatoes.

When I’ve been in a similar situation in the past, I’ve tried reheating potatoes in the microwave but it had less than desirable results. Anyone got any techniques for a more successful reheating? Is the oven the answer?

What about other ways to use up the potatoes? If we didn’t already have two lots of leftover soup, I’d possibly use one or two in there. A mash-topped pie might work too. Any other suggestions?

• How can I reuse or recycle bonfire ashes?

• dancingfarmer over at Not Dabbling In Normal pulled together a comprehensive list of ways to make starter pots for seedlings out of newspaper – different methods to suit different uses. (The dancing one has also written a great article on how we often kid ourselves about how much time our “convenient” lifestyles save us and also how what at first seems overwhelmingly difficult and time-consuming, can quickly become internalised and easy peasy.)
• Crafty Nest featured a cute tote bag tutorial last week – made using old tank tops/vest tops. Two different methods are used, drawing on the style of two different tops.
• It’s a few weeks ago now but Kate over at Living the Frugal Life wrote a great article about alternatives for feeding chickens – using what the land provides rather than just using always store bought food.
• Dollar Store Crafts linked to this fab necklace made from pennies – I like the idea of making a holiday memories one with very low value (so not worth changing) coins from a trip.
• And Junk Jewelry‘s Jane has added to her list of other junk jewellers – her list now totals 53 – lots of ideas for reusing and recycling lots of things to make fun and interesting jewellery.

I guess this is more of a straight “reuse” and less of a “recycle” than normal but it’s Monday morning and I’m tired, and I can’t think of anything else ;)

We had a ham the other day and it was the fattiest piece of meat I think I’ve ever seen. There were inches of the stuff.

I usually keep the bone and use it to make a stock/soup but the fat would completely overwhelm said stock or soup. There are some suggestions here for rendering it and some recipes to use it in too – anyone done anything like that or got any other suggestions?

Also, what do you use ham bones for? The stock doesn’t seem to me that it’s as versatile as vegetable stock or chicken stock because it’s pretty strongly flavoured in its own right. I’ve used it, with chunks of the ham, to make ham-centred soups (mmm, hearty ham & bean) and the bone itself in the pot with rice while cooking at add a bit of flavour. What do you do with them?

We’ve had an email from Dani:

You’ve said to avoid composting a lot of lemon peel, what can I do with it instead? There isn’t any juice left, just the tough yellow skin.

You should avoid composting too much of any citrus fruits in one go because it can make the compost overly acidic and when the peel is fresh, can make worms pull little bitter pursed lips faces and you don’t want to annoy your friendly compost worms ;)

You can, perhaps obviously, grated the peel to use as zesty pieces in baking or make candied lemon peel for snacking/cake-decorating.

Around the home, lemon peel is handy for freshening up garbage disposals or dry the skin and use it to add a fragrance to homemade pot pourri.

Any other suggestions?

One of our worst habits is wasting food. Not huge amounts but enough to make me want to change our ways.

Sometimes it’s store-cupboard stuff that goes well out of date without us noticing – stuff we bought on 3-for-2 offers but got bored after the second one, or stuff we bought because we were, for example, eating a lot of nut roasts at that point but then we seemed to forget about them and developed a blind spot around their part of the shelf whenever we looked into the cupboard for something for dinner. Other times, it’s fridge stuff – salad mostly or half-eaten packs of cheese – or stuff that was once store-cupboard but is now fridge stuff: partially used cans of beans or custard that turn before we can use the second half.

We’re not overly fussy eaters and generally regard best before and use by dates as guidelines – if it smells alright and looks alright, we’ll eat it. I’m also happy making soup, chillis and curries out of misc things that need eating, and we’ve tried to cut down the very short-life veg we buy: we’re going to grow pick-and-come-again lettuces in our new-house sun-porch and realised that in many places a pickled pepper or the like will serve just as well as fresh. But I still think there is more we could be doing.

What do you do to make sure you don’t waste food? Do you only buy for a couple of meals at a time? Do you plan weekly menus that you stick to? Do you have procedures to make sure you use up cupboard items in a timely manner? Love to hear your thoughts and ideas.