Photo by Piotr Miazga on Unsplash
by Christine Muller
What to do with various leftovers? Be creative and prepare a delicious soup! You may find a small portion of broccoli or other vegetables in your refrigerator, perhaps potatoes from yesterday and some mushroom sauce from the day before … just mix them all up! All vegetables taste good together. Some leftover pasta sauce will add great flavor to your soup. Do you have a few tablespoons of cooked rice or pasta left from the other day? Just add them at the end of cooking your soup—especially when you start with fresh vegetables—so that they don’t get too soft. Leftover lentils are a special treat in soups. If you like your soup creamy, you may blend your leftovers together with water.
For flavor, you may like to add organic chicken broth, or some leftover juice from when you recently baked chicken. When saving the juice after serving the chicken, pour it into a jar and refrigerate. The fat will move to the top and harden. When you use the juice, you can easily separate and discard the fat. An excellent vegetarian option is coconut milk. Its healthy fats add substance to the soup and together with soy sauce will make a yummy soup.
If you like, add some spices, fresh herbs, or minced garlic, and salt to taste. Bon appétit!
Why does it matter? One third of the food produced globally is never eaten. This is very troubling in a word where hunger is again on the rise. In addition, food waste is a major contributor to climate change because of the release of greenhouse gases by the conversion of land needed for agricultural production (deforestation), by its processing and transportation, as well as by its decomposition in a landfill. In addition, just imagine the waste of water for irrigation! While much of the food loss and waste is a systemic social problem, we can all help to reduce this problem by not wasting food in our own homes.
