Rachel Pitts of the Fruitful Kitchen, is a Melbourne-based recipe writer and cookbook writer. Rachel is the author of The Hungry Girls’ Cookbooks, and four brand-new mini season books, printed locally and featuring beautiful design, illustration and photography.
Rachel’s food is simple but interesting – global, eclectic, mostly vegetarian.
She also happens to be a long-time user of Mount Zero products, and over the years may have eaten her weight in French-style green lentils.
We caught up with Rachel, who shares our desire to minimise waste this Christmas. Rachel has enthusiastically shared her tips and tricks on how to use your Christmas leftovers, to help prevent food waste over the holiday season!
Christmas cooking is a big effort! The Christmas Day host in your family, has a tough gig. Trying to execute the planned incredible feast, calls for an overload of premium ingredient coupled with many intense hours in the kitchen. It’s not uncommon that a true Christmas host doesn’t fully enjoy the fruits of their labour, until after the main event. It’s all about those leftovers! So why would you even consider wasting any of them? Pay homage to your hard work, the producers of your ingredients and the planet by reinventing your Christmas Day leftovers with these simple hacks.
1. Pad out leftovers with a golden wedge of Italian Chickpea bread, called Farinata.
On Boxing Day, when the leftover salads and meats are still plentiful, you probably don’t need to do much at all beyond getting them back out of the fridge. To make a more substantial meal, add a wholesome slice of Farinata, made from a simple batter of Chickpea flour, water and Mount Zero EVOO. Find the recipe here.
2. Say Hello to a Chrissy Croque Monsieur!
The days surrounding Christmas should feature plenty of this cheesy sandwich! It’s hard to beat the combination of dijon mustard, quality ham and cheese. For the best results, use good bread, and toast your sandwiches in a frying pan, using Mount Zero EVOO, until lightly charred.
3. Leftover Roast Meat or Vegetables and Grain Salad.
Cut your leftover meat or veggies into small pieces.Toss through freshly cooked grains such as Mount Zero freekeh or farro. Add lots of herbs, Mount Zero Lemon Pressed EVOO, nuts or currants, and whatever else takes your fancy. You can adapt this MZ Recipe by adding your leftover meats or roast vegetables.
4. Leftover stuffing and Green Bean salad.
If you happened to make a breadcrumb stuffing for a chicken or turkey, and it didn’t all fit in the bird, rejoice! As the leftover stuffing make a flavoursome base for a salad. Simply fry some sliced onion in a generous amount of Mount Zero EVOOO, in a frying pan until golden. Turn up the heat and add a big pile of green beans, trimmed and cut in half, plus a couple of finely chopped cloves of garlic. Fry for around 5 minutes before adding the stuffing. Stir until it crisps up. Depending on the flavoursin your stuffing, you can also add nuts, grated parmesan, sage and parsley. Fantastic hot or cold.
5. Ham-bone soup.
When your ham is just about down to the bone, throw it in a pot with sautéed onion and garlic, bay leaves or rosemary, water and Mount Zero Biodynamic Soup Mix. Simmer for as long as you please.
Also, remember when setting your Christmas Table, make sustainable choices like glasses instead of plastic cups, paper or metal straws and have a food scraps bin for your guests to scrape their leftovers in!
If you would like to learn more about our Mount Zero hero, you can view The Fruitful Kitchen blog here. Find her and her books here.
