Do you have vegetables lurking at the bottom of your fridge past their sell-by date and you think you need to throw them out? Want to get rid of your used jam jars? Think again!
Getting children to enjoy healthy food from an early age is a great way to help them eat well. Vegetables are a great healthy food and the children love getting involved with their preparation!
A long-standing member of our team at Cygnets Sam is a keen chef who loves making good use of vegetables and hates throwing food away, so we thought we would share some of her tips with you. A great activity to do with the children!
TIP 1
–
Do you have limp-looking celery, cauliflower, or carrots in your fridge that you think should be thrown out? Your saviour is a glass jar:
- Add a small amount of water in the bottom of a jar (the large coffee jars are good for this)
- Slice the celery or carrot lengthways and so the vegetable fits inside the jar.
- Place the vegetable in the water, put the lid on and place in your fridge
- In a few hours the vegetable will be back to its former glory and crisp again
- If you keep the vegetable longer than a few hours change the water.
TIP 2 – Make
vegetable crisps! Don’t throw away those peelings!
- Spread the potato or parsnip peelings over a lightly greased baking tray with some oil spray
- Season with herbs and a little garlic or onion powder
- Place in the oven until crispy and cooked.
TIP 3
– Make pasta sauce.
- You need: 2 x tins of chopped tomatoes; any vegetables you want to use up (for example, mushrooms, butternut squash, pepper, sweet potato, onion, carrot, leek, celery, tomatoes); 1 vegetable or beef stock cube; a squirt of tomato puree; and a splash of Worcester sauce
- Roughly chop the vegetables and place into a large pan.
- Cover with the tomatoes, tomato puree, Worcester sauce and crumble over the stock cube.
- Pour half a tin of water (use the chopped tomato tin) over and then bring to the boil then simmer for a good 20 minutes until all vegetables are tender.
- Take off the heat and allow to cool. Check the sauce and add a teaspoon of sugar if you think its required.
- You will have a sauce that will work either with an abundance of meals like pasta, chilli or lasagne or you can eat as tomato soup!
