Love your cupboard – and waste less food

Shropshire Council has teamed up with Love Food Hate Waste to give shoppers a guide for getting on better with their store cupboard.

The kitchen cupboard is the nerve centre of our kitchens.  Keeping it well stocked means we can save ourselves time and avoid those last minute dashes to the local shop for that missing key ingredient.  It also makes life easier to keep a well-stocked supply of staple cupboard ingredients to hand, and easier to throw together a delicious meal at a moment’s notice.

Visit Store Cupboard Essentials at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for a wealth of information on storage and menu suggestions to help save money and time:

• Did you know, for example, that when sultanas are re-hydrated in liquid they can be added to mousses, fools and ice creams for a delicious treat?

• The humble tinned tomato will keep for up to a week once opened.  Simply empty the toms into a bowl or container and put it in the fridge!  They’ll live in suspended animation for a full year if frozen.

You can use Store Cupboard Essentials to create quick and delicious meals and transform your leftovers into a fabulous feast.

• Leftover tomatoes can be added to canned tomatoes to make a tasty topping for homemade pitta bread pizzas.
• Neglected veg. can be turned into a tasty stir fry with a few cupboard staples like rice and tinned beans.
• Add a tin of lentils to your minced meat to make it stretch further.

Why not try and keep your store cupboard stocked with a variety of canned, dried and bottled goods which your family loves to eat?  Tinned beans, dried fruit, nuts, pasta and noodles, rice are all essentials with a long shelf life meaning you will always have the ingredients standing by to pull together a healthy meal, or to jazz up some leftovers.  Keep them in air-tight containers or re-close the pack tightly to keep them at their best.

John Hurst-Knight, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for waste, said:

“Loving our cupboard is something we should all be doing when it comes to planning our weekly shop, especially when we know we can save time and money as a result.”