Long time Recycle This-er Lizzy has asked about “the big brussels sprout stalk thing”:

Any ideas for the big brussels sprout stalk things? Oh, and can you eat the leaves that are sometimes on top?

I think the easiest thing to do here would be to reduce in the first place – don’t buy sprouts in the first place, they’re horrible ;)

If you do insist on eating them though, apparently the leaves can be cooked like cabbage. I’ve had less success finding out anything about the stalk though… Other stalks in the Brassica family (like broccoli) can be eaten so it wouldn’t surprise me if you could eat them – just I can’t find any recipes for doing so. Anyone got any suggestions?

As for other reusing ideas, apparently chickens love playing with them – pecking off all the last bits of sprouts. Does anyone know if other small animals (rabbits etc) could nibble at the stalk too?

Any other ideas?

It’s all to easy to cook too much rice but thankfully there are lots of ways to use it up.

Food safety warning: bacteria, specifically Bacillus cereus, loves cooked rice – and it can quickly grow to dangerous levels. Minimise it’s growth by cooling it quickly, put it in the fridge as soon as possible then use it with a day or so.

1. Rice pudding

Rice pudding is eaten all over the world in one form or another. The general principle is the same – cook the rice in milk then when it’s tender, add a sweetener (sugar, honey or fruit syrup) and something to give it a bit more flavour such as cream, egg yolk, fruit or nuts and spices such nutmeg & cinnamon. There are thousands of different ways to make it – experiment to find your favourite!

Leftover cooked rice can be used in place of dry rice – particularly if you’re happy to have a mushier pudding in the end. When making it fresh, most people use short grain rice but anything will do – white or brown, long or short, basmati, jasmine – whatever you’ve got on the go.

One of my favourite rice pudding recipes is with coconut and mango – yum!

2. Add it to soup

Leftover rice – again, any time – is great as a bulking agent in soup. Added early on, it breaks down and makes the whole soup thicker; added towards the end, it provides scoopable particles to chase around the bowl.

Add it to a hearty minestrone, or a tasty Moroccan veg soup – or add it to a simple chicken soup for those days when your belly needs something nice and bland.

3. Stuffed peppers (or marrow)

You can quickly make a tasty dinner by stuffing bell pepper or marrow rings with leftover rice.

Cut the top off the bell pepper and remove any seeds/white bits, then mix the rice with any meat, veggies or herbs you fancy, top with a bit of cheese and bake in a medium oven for about half an hour.

As with rice pudding, everyone has their own way of making them with their own favourite ingredients. Some great examples to get you started: beans and rice stuffed peppers; courgette, basil and rice ones; and super saucy tomato and beef mince ones.

To be extra frugal, use whatever meat or veggies you’ve got leftover alongside the rice – a little chilli con carne or casserole is perfect to stir in and lightly flavour the rice.

4. Bake it into bread – or muffins

Have you ever tried rice bread? Not rice cakes, those boring puffy white things but actual proper bread? If not, you should – it’s great and since you need to cook the rice down into a mush, starting with leftover cooked rice will save you time as well as preventing waste.

Check out this video how-to to see how it’s done.

Alternately, fancy something sweeter? Then I give you vanilla rice muffins.

5. Fried rice

Finally, no “uses for leftover rice” list would be complete without fried rice. Fried rice is best made with cooked rice left to go cold so it’s perfect for using up leftovers.

Again, there are a billion varieties and flavours. A simple recipe makes a good side dish but a couple more ingredients – some meat, fish, tofu or exciting veg – and you’ve got yourself a tasty main meal. Try this flavourful chicken and prawns recipe.

What’s your favourite thing to do with leftover rice?

Hey guys, sorry I haven’t got time to write a full Recycle This post today – but can I point you to the latest article on my new blog The Really Good Life?

It’s about how to reduce food waste and having to rely on supermarket supplies by getting the most out of each home baking session – how to make baked goods that’ll last.

Do you have any tricks to stop bread, biscuits, cakes etc from quickly going stale?

Do you freeze dough or part-baked/fully baked items? Any tricks or tips?

Any special ingredients to include or avoid to make things last that little bit longer?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Ok, this is a bit of a rant dressed up as a Recycle This style question – it’s a genuine question but I feel the need to rant too! ;)

So many people in my (geeky) world are going nuts for these at the moment and it makes me want to cry — all the packaging, all the waste.

Graze boxes are designed to lure people away from vending machines and sugary snacks at work and get them eating more natural, healthier alternative instead. For £3.29 a pop, you get a box of snacks delivered to your desk instead – four different snacks (such as dried fruit, nuts, seeds, olives or crackers) inside little film-covered plastic tubs and encased in a cardboard box. The idea is to have them delivered regularly – several times a week – so you’re never tempted by that Mars bar or long-life vacuum-sealed muffin.

Graze’s claim to have thought carefully about the packaging – the cardboard is from a sustainable forest, is designed to be use as little material as possible & can easily be recycled again, and Mrs G from My Zero Waste asked about the plastic of the pots and it’s apparently PETE (resin code 1) which is widely recyclable where plastics are recycled.

Yes, it’s good news that the plastic is widely recyclable plastic – but getting a pack of it delivered to your door is hardly reducing waste (the first and most important of the 3Rs) and it’s not obviously reusable either. Where plastics aren’t kerbside recyclable, that PETE is likely to end up in the bin – and even the cardboard might too since offices don’t always have full recycling facilities.

(I’ll try to remain on topic with my rant here and not get into: i. how much energy is wasted transporting these light but bulky items around the country; ii. how much more expensive they are than buying the items directly; iii. how it’s easier to buy something than make a genuine lifestyle change.)

Anyway, I think you probably get the gist of my annoyance so let’s get constructive instead: the packaging can be recycled where facilities are available, any reuse suggestions though?

And what about reducing people’s use of them? Do you have any tips or suggestions how people could have the same healthy snacking experience without so much packaging?

(PS. sorry for the ranting ;) )

(CCA Photo by philcampbell)

It’s very definitely jam season at the moment (in the UK at least) and I thought it might be fun to hear people’s favourite fixes for sticky situations (ho ho!) when the preserves don’t come out quite as you’d hoped.

How do you test for the set point? The most common method seems to be the “when it wrinkles on a cold plate” test but anyone use any other methods?

What do you do if it’s too runny once in jars? Or too solid?

And, not quite in the question but related, do you use/reuse anything interesting instead of commercial-bought pectin?

And any tips for reusing old jars? Reusable alternatives for waxed discs?

Finally, what do you do with jam that can’t be saved – stuff that burnt in the pan for example?

(“Why is this on Recycle This?” I hear you ask because it is a little tenuous as a “repair”. Well, one, because with the giant piles of fruit in our kitchen at the moment, I’ve got jam on my mind. And two, because jam failures may lead to food waste – and if we can save some rescueable jam from going in the bin, that’s a good thing.)