Too Good To Go: How to reduce food waste and get cheap meals

How can you get cheap restaurant food and bargain bakery deals?

Many of us like a bargain and in these strange times a lot of people are struggling financially. It’s a well known supermarket shopping tactic to go at the end of the day when they are reducing their items that are close to use by dates - known as ‘yellow stickering’. But did you know that there is - in the UK at least - another way to get reduced food not just from shops but also from cafes and restaurants?

A while back a colleague told me about an app called Too Good To Go. The idea is to help shops and dining establishments to reduce food waste - and help customers save money at the same time. You can buy a ‘magic bag’ for a couple of quid - usually between £3 and £4 - with the items inside worth at least £10, often a fair bit more. The only thing is - you don’t know what you will get, as these are mystery bags! They all contain food that needs using quickly and might be at its best before date already but still safe to eat.

How does the Too Good to Go app work?

You can set the app to your local area - eg near home or work - and each day see where there are bargains to be had. But you have to be quick! Each offer goes live at a certain time - which varies according to the shop and I’m not sure it’s the same every time even then. I haven’t been able to figure out a way of discovering when is the best time to secure one of the magic bags - though if you are interested in a particular shop or restaurant, keep an eye on the app as it will tell you what time the bags sold out each time, and you can use that to get an idea of when they might have been released.

 The bags must be collected at a certain time and this can be a little tricky - for instance a cafe might want to sell what is left over from their lunch rush but you need to collect it between 2 and 2.45pm. Or a restaurant will ask you to collect between 9 and 9.30pm. But what’s ok to eat at 9.30pm should still be ok to eat the next day and don’t forget some things can be frozen - so in my opinion it’s definitely worth doing.

As the contents are a surprise you can’t factor in allergies but Too Good To Go says that if you pay for and collect a bag and find it has something inside you are allergic to, to get in touch with them. If you have certain dietary requirements like you are vegetarian, you can filter your search.

I’ve never been able to take advantage of the app before due to the timings and my commute but now that I’m working from home, suddenly it is accessible. There aren’t any restaurants in my local area taking part - the nearest being a ‘chicken hut’ 3km away where I would have to go at 10.30pm. There is a nice sounding Italian deli a similar distance with collection at lunchtime so one day if I don’t have meetings I might see if I can fit it into my lunch break!

But happily the local garden centre five minutes away takes part in the scheme so one day last week I managed to go into the app at the right time while there were still some bags available, and snagged myself one.

What I hadn’t realised was that the delivery time stated was for the next day, but that was fine and I could still manage to go. You pay via the app or by card and it tells you where to go in store - in this case it was the deli counter where they had the bags ready and waiting, I held my phone out for the app to be scanned and was handed the bag and that was it - in and out in five minutes.

What do you get in the Too Good to Go bag?

I couldn’t wait to look in the bag when I was home and see what I’d got! My haul consisted of: a large bloomer loaf (which stayed fresh for a few days), a packet of mixed heritage tomatoes which still had several days to go, a packet of two jam doughnuts (which for eaten the same night), a packet of four vegetable spring rolls and a fresh ready meal of monkfish kebabs (to serve two), both of which had use by dates that same day and I had already defrosted something for dinner so they went straight in the freezer. They looked very tasty and a premium item - I think the whole bag was probably worth around £12-£15 and I paid £3.99 for it.

Last month Too Good To Go saved more than 100,000 meals from going to waste. I have also seen internet articles about people getting £30 worth of food from their local supermarket for just over £3 on this app, which is especially good for those finding money a bit tighter than usual at the moment. For me personally, the magic bag was more of a treat (I must say I had been expecting more bakery items, ie cake!) at a bargain price and not something I would have the time to do regularly - but I really like the surprise element as I wouldn’t have thought to buy monkfish kebabs.

If you live (or work) in a big city you are more likely to find places taking part in Too Good To Go, and it seems like the range is growing all the time - so it’s definitely worth taking a look. Let me know if you’ve used it before and what was the best thing you got in your magic bag!

 

Chicken and Chorizo Filo Parcels

Isn't it always the case that when you use ready-made pastry, you have some left over that find its way into the fridge or even the freezer? Not long ago I decided I needed to use up some filo pastry and had a look on the Jus-Rol (the pastry brand) website for inspiration. I thought these chicken, manchego and chorizo briouats.

 

I made them a little differently, as I always do; I left out the lentils as I don't like them, and rather than sun-dried tomato paste or even tomato puree (which would have been a good alternative) I used some chopped sun-dried tomatoes, and added some sweet potato puree I had previously made, and a little plain yogurt to create some moisture. I'm also not quite sure why the recipe on the link above mentions puff pastry and think this might be a mistake!

Making the parcels very small and tight isn't that easy and mine were rather bigger than expected; we ate them as a main course with potato wedges but I think they would be brilliant as part of a buffet. The chicken and chorizo are a great flavour combination and the sweet potato puree really adds something slightly sweet and creamy, though if you don't want to go to the effort of making this specifically, just use the cheese and the yogurt. Manchego is a Spanish's sheep's cheese which I couldn't get hold of for this recipe so I used cheddar which I thought worked fine. I also took the opportunity to use up some left over roast chicken, which I shredded.

Here's what I did:

Serves 6
6 Filo pastry sheets
2 tbsp. oil for brushing
50g chorizo, diced
1 onion, diced
dash of oil or low-fat cooking spray
25g sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
4 tbsp. plain yogurt
either 4 cooked chicken breast fillets or about 400g cooked shredded chicken
salt, pepper
75g grated cheese
4 tbsp. sweet potato puree (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Heat the oil or cooking spray in a frying pan and fry the onion and chorizo over a low to medium heat for ten minutes, stirring occasionally.

Transfer to a bowl and mix with the shredded chicken, cheese and sun-dried tomatoes. Season. Stir in the yogurt and sweet potato puree.

Lay out a sheet of filo pastry and cut into three long thin strips. Brush with oil then add a spoonful of chicken mixture at one end.

Fold over the pastry to form a triangle, then flip the triangle up and to the right and then to the left and repeat until you have folded the filling all the way along the strip of pastry. Brush with more oil and place on a baking sheet.

Repeat until you have used up all the filling and the pastry.

Bake the parcels in the oven for 10-12 minutes. You may need to do this in a couple of batches. Serve warm with salad, couscous or potato wedges or as part of a buffet offering.

I'm sharing this with the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary - it's a good way of using up filo pastry and cooked chicken.

I'm also sending it to Cook Once, Eat Twice, hosted by Corina at Searching for Spice, as you can cook some chicken one day (eg a roast) and use it in this recipe another day.

Molten Chocolate Filo Parcels

I had some filo pastry left from making a pie and decided to use it up in a dessert. I found a recipe for molten chocolate parcels on the Good Housekeeping website and decided to give them a go. They did taste nice but were very messy!

To serve 4, you need:
250g dark chocolate, chopped
60g butter, at room temperature
100g caster sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
40g plain flour
6 large filo pastry sheets
icing sugar to dust

First melt the chocolate, either in a bowl in the microwave or in a bain-marie. Stir until smooth and allow to cool for 15 mins.

In a large bowl cream 40g of the butter and the sugar together and beat in the eggs and vanilla. Fold in the flour then the melted chocolate. Chill for about an hour in the fridge until firm.

 

Melt the rest of the butter and cut the filo pastry into large squares (I cut each sheet in half). Brush with the melted butter and lay two pieces of pastry on top of each other. Using a spoon and/or your fingers scoop some of the chocolate mixture into a ball and place on the filo pastry. Gather up the pastry and scrunch together at the top so you have a little parcel.

 

The recipe said to then chill the parcels for 30 minutes but I decided not to as I was making these after dinner and we wanted dessert!

I put them into an oven that was preheated to 180C and baked the parcels for 10 minutes - less than the 15 minutes in the recipe but these were perfectly done, the pastry crisp and the chocolate soft but not runny. Sprinkle with icing sugar and eat with a spoon - be prepared to get messy!

 

I'm sharing these with the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary as I was using up leftover filo pastry.

Love Food Hate Waste: Food Diary Project and Tips

 

Did you know that the average family in the UK throws away £60 worth of food and drink every month? That sounds like a huge amount, but those are the official stats from the government’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign.

 

I recently took part in a project run by my local council to raise awareness of, and reduce, food waste. I had to keep a diary of what food I wasted for a week, and then go to an information session at the council office, then do another food diary for a week.

 

Love Food Hate Waste reckons that we are throwing away a quarter of the food we buy. I’m sure most people don’t waste a quarter of the food they buy from Tesco every week (having said that, I do know someone who throws away an awful lot every week) but just think about when you sort out your cupboards and find things lurking at the back that are out of date… or your child leaves half their packed lunch and it goes in the bin…. Or you cook too much pasta every single time as you can never work out how much you need (I’m certainly guilty of that!). It all adds up, and the government wants us to be more mindful of what we are buying, and cooking.

 

It’s not just about saving money for households, though that is a big part of it. Wasting food also means using unnecessary resources (money, energy, time etc) when it comes to producing the food (everything from heating greenhouses to running factories), transporting it to stores and so on.

 

My downfall is buying a specific ingredient for a recipe – eg fresh dill – and then not needing it again, but forgetting/not having time to take it out of the fridge and portion it up and put in the freezer. By the time I remember I had dill from a recipe last week it’s gone off!

 

The Love Food Hate Waste website has recipes to use up leftovers, a suggested 2-week meal planner using similar ingredients in different recipes across the week, a portion planner tool so you don’t cook too much and all sorts of information and tips about reducing food waste. It’s well worth a look!

 

Do you know the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates? Best before refers to quality –the manufacturer or seller can only guarantee the food will be at its best until that date, but it should be safe to eat after the date. Use by on the other hand does refer to safety – even if food looks or smells OK you shouldn’t eat it after this date – though I have to say I’m not that strict with myself, preferring not to waste something if it’s only a day over.

 

The session I attended at the council covered a lot of this, and a lot of what I heard was obvious, e.g. take a shopping list when you go to the supermarket, check the cupboards before you go. It also wasn’t hard to work out when quizzed what the main reasons were for people wasting food, or some ways to use up various leftovers (I think the lady running the session was surprised when I said you could use up leftover mashed potato in cake!).

 

I did pick up some useful tips in the session though, like: keep fruit (other than bananas) in the fridge, and label food when you put it in the freezer both with the name and the date – you are only supposed to store certain foods for certain amounts of time, even in the freezer.

 

I always thought if you bought fresh food and wanted to freeze it, you had to freeze it on the day of purchase, but apparently it’s perfectly fine to freeze right up until the use by date. So if you buy a pack of chicken breasts and think you will use them all before the use by date, but then your plans change and you have a couple left, they can still be frozen. This is a very useful tip for me!

 

Comparing my food diary from the first week to the second, I found I had wasted less food. I think because I was filling in the food diary I was making a conscious effort, but things like freezing leftovers quickly becomes second nature – and I often take leftovers from dinner to work for my lunch the next day!

Slow Cooker Ham and Potato Soup

Just before Christmas I made slow cooker ham in Cherry Coke which was delicious. I deliberately cooked too much ham so I would have some left for another recipe the next day; if you have leftover ham from Christmas this is a great way to use it up (and any leftover potato and veg you have as well).

 

The quantities are easily adjusted depending on how much leftovers you have to use and how many people you are serving so my recipe is more of a rough guide.

I used:
2 cups leftover cooked ham, chopped
1 pork stock cube (you could also use chicken or vegetable)
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped (I used a raw carrot but you could use leftover cooked veg)
1 cup leftover mashed potato, cooked (you could also use leftover boiled or roast potatoes, or raw potatoes cut into small cubes)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream (you could also use leftover single or double cream)

Place all the ingredients in your slow cooker apart from the milk and cream, and add enough water to cover the veg.

Cook on high for 3 hours or medium for 5-6 hours.

When ready, take about half the soup out of the slow cooker and blend until smooth in a food processor.

 Return to the soup and mix in so it still has some chunks of meat and veg. Add the milk and cream and serve. You can add more water if you want the soup to be thinner but I liked it as it was.

I'm sharing this with the Slow Cooker Challenge, hosted by Lucy aka Baking Queen 74 as the theme is Christmas.

I'm also sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge hosted by Jen's Food as this recipe uses all sorts of leftovers.

Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread

 

 

I’ve already described how I used up some soft bananas from a fruit box we were sent at work in this banoffee pie with a chocolate cornflake base. There were actually more bananas left over and I’ve always wanted to make banana bread but never got round to it (the fact that I don’t like banana also puts me off!). As I have mentioned before, once a month I spend a day in the office of a design agency that we work with to produce a particular internal project and it’s usually a very long day.

 

As I spend so much time with them, and a couple of them end up having to work late due to this project, I’ve gotten into the habit of taking cake. It seemed a good idea because I have a small team at work and people don’t want to eat cake all the time, so this way I had a new audience – one who wasn’t bored of cake. They were very appreciative so I’ve now made cake every time I’ve been to their office. This time was great fun – not long after I had arrived, I overheard a conversation between two of the team that they were hungry and didn’t have any food in the office. I turned around and innocently remarked “well I did bring cake” – the look on their faces was priceless!

 

I knew there would be enough hungry people in the office to eat the cake that I could make banana bread and it didn’t matter if I didn’t like it. As it was, it tasted really good – I didn’t want a whole slice as the banana flavour was quite strong but it was lovely and moist and the addition of chocolate was lovely. I took inspiration from this recipe but did make it differently.

 

Marbled Chocolate Banana Bread – an original recipe by Caroline Makes

 

Makes one 1-litre loaf cake

  

 

You need:

¾ cup caster sugar

2 ripe bananas

½ cup crème fraiche

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

4 tbsp cocoa powder

 

Preheat oven to 180C.

Mash the bananas and cream with the sugar, then add the crème fraiche and eggs. Fold in the flour.

Separate the mixture into two bowls and add the cocoa powder to one bowl.

 

 

Grease a loaf tin and spoon in the chocolate banana cake mixture, then spoon the plain mixture on top. Use the spoon to swirl the two around – take a spoonful of the bottom layer and bring it up to the top, twisting as you do so. Repeat this along the length of the tin.

 

 

 

Bake in the pre-heated oven for 50-60 minutes, testing with a skewer to see if it is cooked through. Allow to cool in the tin and then turn out.

 

 

This cake slices really well and because there is no frosting, it’s something you can wrap up and take on a picnic or in your lunchbox for work. It was really moist and the chocolate flavour went perfectly with the banana and considering that I don’t even like banana, I would say this was a success!

 

As I used up old bananas I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted this month by Foodie Quine on behalf of Elizabeth's Kitchen Diary.

 

Apple Pie with Lattice Top

Before I went on holiday I went through the fridge and tried to use up anything that would go off before we went away, or throw out anything that I couldn't use but would go bad. I had a bowlful of apples on the table that I hadn't gotten around to eating and as they were already going a little soft, I knew they wouldn't be any good by the time I came back from holiday (not to mention the fact that I am going to Edinburgh for work for a couple of days as soon as I get back!).

One of my favourite things to make with apples is apple pie, and as I was recently sent this lattice pastry cutter from  a German company called MeinCupcake which also has the UK site CakeMart, which I was excited to try it out. I've often wondered how you create a perfect lattice effect in pastry on top of a pie and if it takes ages - now I know, and I can tell you that it doesn't! Read on to see what you have to do....

Apple pie with raisins, by Caroline Makes

6-8 eating apples, peeled, cored and sliced
100g caster sugar
100ml water
handful of raisins or sultanas
250g plain flour
140g cold butter, diced
1 egg, beaten

First stew the apples, by heating in a pan with the sugar and water - the water stops them sticking and you can add more or less as you like. I did this over a medium heat for about 20 minutes; it depends how soft you like your apples as mine retained the sliced shape but you can also cook them until they are soft enough to mash.

To make the pastry, rub the cubes of butter into the flour with your fingers until you have a dough. Add a couple of spoonfuls of water so you have a pliable dough. It's a good idea to put this in the fridge wrapped in clingfilm for about half an hour, which you can do while your apples are cooling. Preheat oven to 180C.

Roll out half the pastry dough on a lightly floured surface and use to line your pie dish.

Add the raisins or sultanas into the apple mixture and spoon into your pie base.

Roll out the remaining pastry and roll the lattice cutter over it. You'll see that the lines are broken by parts where the cutter doesn't cut through and the pastry stays joined together. I couldn't figure out initially what to do so had to watch a video on YouTube - carefully take each end of your pastry and pull apart and the lattice should open like a concertina!

Brush the top of the pie with beaten egg and bake in the pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown.

 

Unfortunately mine didn't quite work perfectly. I blame the fact that my pastry was overworked; it took me several attempts to figure out how to do this as there were no instructions with the lattice cutter and it was only later that I resorted to YouTube. I wasn't sure whether my pastry was getting too sticky so I kept adding flour, which was probably a mistake; once I had figured out how to use the lattice cutter and tried to pull my pastry apart, it was too dry and broke in several places. So you can see the idea but it doesn't look perfect - next time I think I might try with ready made pastry!

I'm sharing this with the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen, since I made this to use up fruit that would otherwise go to waste while I was away.

Ham and Cheese Quesadillas

The letter for this month's Alphabakes is Q - a little difficult when it comes to baking (I did a Queen of Puddings when this letter came up last time) - but there are a few savoury dishes and ingredients that begin with Q.

I've made quesadillas before and they are quick and easy; they are a Mexican dish so it was particularly good timing as I was looking for ways to use up ingredients in my fridge before going on holiday to Mexico, and as I was in the middle of packing didn't want to make anything that would take too long.

A quesadilla is basically a tortilla, filled with cheese and anything else you fancy, folded over and fried on both sides or grilled, so the cheese melts, then cut into triangles to serve.

I had some soft flour tortillas in the fridge to use up and a packet of ham, and bought some spicy cheese which I thought would work really well in this recipe.

Heat a frying pan and spray with Fry Light, then place the tortilla in the pan. Place the ham and cheese on top - you only need to cover one side of the tortilla with the cheese. Fold in half and cook for a few minutes, then carefully turn over and cook on the other side.

Slice into half to serve. You can see the melted cheese oozing out here - delicious!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen is Q.

As I was using up ingredients before I went on holiday this is perfect for the Kitchen Clearout challenge, hosted by Madhouse Family Reviews.

For the same reason I'm sending this to the No Waste Food Challenge, hosted by Elizabeth's Kitchen...

.. and Credit Crunch Munch, hosted by Baking Queen74, on behalf of Helen at Fuss Free Flavours and Camilla of Fab Food 4 All.

 

The theme for this month's Tea Time Treats is sandwiches, rolls and wraps. Tortillas are used more commonly as wraps but a quesadilla is basically a toasted sandwich. The challenge is hosted by Jane at the Hedgecombers and Karen at Lavender and Lovage.

Bellini Bundt

 This cake came into being for many reasons. Firstly, I got three Nordicware bundt tins for Christmas - I suggested to my boyfriend that I would like one, and picked out three that I liked, expecting that he might get me one of them. He did get me one - and his mum got me the second one, and his brother and sister in law got me the third! So I wanted to make a cake to try out the first tin. I also had some leftover champagne in the fridge from new year's eve that I wanted to use up, and thought I would see if I could find a cake recipe to use champagne - and I knew that would fit with the Baking with Spirit challenge as the theme this month is frugal. When I found a recipe and realised it used yogurt, I was pleased as that meant I could also enter it in Alphabakes. And finally another reason I wanted to make a cake - I've got a new job. I am a writer for a City firm and I'm, well, going to be a writer for another City firm - but it's a promotion and should be very different to what I'm doing now. I'm known for my cakes at work and realised that if I only had a month's notice left, I wanted to leave people with the memory of some really nice cakes. I also thought offering my colleagues a slice of cake when I broke the news might be nice - one girl actually did say she was so shocked she needed a cup of tea, and a slice of cake!

So this bellini bundt - featuring champagne and peaches, like the cocktail - is the perfect cake to celebrate my new job. Also, a cake including fruit seems somehow a little bit healthier, which is also a good thing in January!

I found a recipe on this website on FoodLustPeopleLove.com via Foodie.com though I adapted it as I found it easier to use tinned peaches rather than fresh (purely down to when I was able to go shopping).

You need:

375g plain flour

225g butter

450g caster sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp baking powder

400g tin of peaches, drained

150g peach yogurt

150ml champagne

75g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C then cream the butter and the sugar.

Add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each one.

Add the flour and baking powder and mix.

I couldn't find peach yogurt and instead used 0% fat mango, peach and passion fruit yogurt, which tasted very good.

I had two small tins of peaches which I drained.

Add the yogurt and peaches to the cake mixture and mix with a hand mixer so the peaches are broken up but not pureed.

Here's my leftover champagne, which kept its fizz thanks to a bottle stopper. Add 125ml champagne to the cake mixture and gently mix in.

This is the Nordicware bundt tin I received for Christmas. It has a lovely swirly pattern that I knew would look great on a cake. I sprayed it thoroughly with Dr. Oetker cake release, which worked perfectly.

Fill the bundt tin with the cake mixture and bake for about an hour until you can insert a skewer and it comes out clean.

Turn out and leave to cool. I was impressed by how easily the cake came out of the tin and how well the pattern showed up.

To make the glaze, mix a splash of champagne with the icing sugar and mix to a paste, and drizzle over the cake. You probably want to put it on a piece of greaseproof paper that you can throw away afterwards!

I love the shape of this cake and my work colleagues, who had never seen a cake tin like this before, thought it was amazing (one thought I had actually carved the cake into that shape!).

 Here you can see it from the side.

This cake was absolutely delicious - one person said it was the best I've ever made. The peach flavour was subtle but definitely there, and the yogurt made the cake really light and moist. This is definitely a winner!

I'm sending this to Alphabakes, the blog challenge I co-host with Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker, as the letter she has chosen is Y - in this case for yogurt.

 I'm sending this to Turquoise Lemons for the No Waste Food challenge as this uses up leftover champagne.

 As already mentioned, the theme for this month's Baking with Spirit, hosted by Janine at Cake of the Week, is frugal. This recipe uses up leftover champagne so while it's not cheap in the first place, it's better than letting the bubbly go to waste - and it doesn't cost anything extra if you had bought the champagne already for a party!

I am also sending this to Tea Time Treats, hosted by,Jane at the Hedgecombers and Karen of Lavender and Lovage, This month they are asking for any recipe that uses eggs; this cake uses four.