Food waste has become a major problem in the West and elsewhere.

In France, where 7.1 million tons of food are wasted annually, new laws are being passed to combat this, including forcing supermarkets to give to charities that food, near or at its sell-by date, which they would normally dump, often dousing it in bleach to prevent it being foraged.

Of the 15 million tons wasted in Britain, worth about £12.5 billion, over 50 per cent is wasted in the home.

The Love Food, Hate Waste (www.lovefoodhatewaste.com) is a charity seeking to address this problem with much practical advice about shopping for, storing and cooking food. Another way of looking at the problem is the 141 trillion calories of food wasted every year in the US.

And 55 per cent of the household waste collected in Malta is food. So this is a problem we can all address and take steps to overcome, even in a small, personal way. Do you really need three of those just because they are on special offer? Don’t throw away the rest of the roast lamb; make moussaka. That piece of grilled tuna will be perfect in a salade niçoise.

But enough preaching. How elegantly the French put it; the art of using leftovers. This is a practice – whether an ‘art’ or skill is debatable – we usually associate with the aftermath of feast days and celebrations but my kitchen diary a couple of weeks ago is full of it. And as so often happens, the second time around dishes were so tasty that I did not have time to photograph them.

Roast chicken became a chicken and fennel risotto, with the chicken stock made from the carcase, and plenty of breast meat to shred and stir into the creamy rice.

Risotto became arancini, which I made in the traditional shape of small oranges, rather than the hefty conical ones we eat in Catania.

Poached fish provided one meal, but the second meal of breaded fish cakes with parsley sauce was even tastier; for flavour, of course, ‘fry’ wins hands down over ‘poach’.

Pisto manchego served as a course for a dinner party one evening had enough left to make a vegetable sauce for pasta the next day, rich with tomatoes, red peppers, young onions and courgettes.

Of course, pasta is the perfect ‘mopper-up’ of leftovers and the second pasta meal that week was with veal sauce following an earlier dish of osso buco.

With mixed vegetable salads to begin with, some cheese and plenty of delicious seasonal fruit to finish, there was no sense that we were eating leftovers, and I took a special delight in the creativity involved in turning them into new dishes, not to mention the thrift.

Today’s easy to prepare soup and salad recipes are perfect for summer, and are all made with leftover ingredients or fruit and vegetables that are nearing their ‘use-by’ date.

Fried bread and tomato salad

This is more a method than a recipe. Take day-old hobża, slice thickly, remove the crust and cut into large dice or chunks. Fry in extra virgin olive oil until crisp and golden. Crush some peeled garlic with Gozo salt. Quarter some ripe tomatoes.

Toss all together with more olive oil, a grinding of pepper and a splash of vinegar if you think it needs it, but generally tomatoes have enough acidity of their own.

Serve the salad before the croutons become soggy.

Octopus salad, pea and mint soup

(Serves 2)

150g cooked peas
200ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
6 mint leaves, plus sprigs of mint for garnish
300g cooked octopus tentacles
2 or 3 waxy cooked potatoes
2 ripe tomatoes
Salad leaves or micro greens
Vinaigrette – see recipe

This is a dish to prepare if you have cooked octopus for stuffat tal-qarnit, but it is also worth cooking from scratch, as so many of these dishes are. So it’s a case of first boil your octopus.

Blend the peas, stock, olive oil and mint leaves, sieve and chill until required.

Slice the octopus. Dice the potatoes. Cut the tomatoes in half, discard the seeds and cut each half into three of four segments. Arrange all on the ingredients on the plates, adding some greenery in the shape of salad leaves or fresh herbs. Dress with your favourite dressing, pour the pea soup into small cups or shot glasses and serve immediately.

Skate, olive oil and mandarin salad

(Serves 2)

½ cucumber
2 mandarins or small oranges
250g-300g cooked skate
1-2 tbsp olives – I like to use the small Taggiasca olives, but the fresh green Nocellara Del Belice are also good in this salad
Some seasonal greenery – see recipe
Extra virgin olive oil – see recipe
Seasoning
Herbs

Peel the cucumber, halve it lengthways and discard the seeds. Thinly slice, place in a colander and sprinkle with a generous pinch of salt. Squeeze the juice from one of the oranges, reserving it, and divide the second carefully into segments, minus peel, pith and membrane. Rinse the cucumber and dry it thoroughly on paper towels.

Arrange the cucumber on two plates, with the cooked skate on top. Divide the orange segments and olives between the plates, and decorate with some seasonal greenery; I used broad beans, but as the season is over, you might use blanched courgette ribbons.

Mix extra virgin olive oil with the squeezed orange juice, add a little seasoning and dress the salad or hand the dressing separately.

Chilled peach and pumpkin soup

(Serves 2)

2 ripe peaches
200g piece of cooked pumpkin
½-1 tsp Gozo salt
50ml extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tbsp sherry vinegar
2 tbsp ground almonds
2 tsp flaked almonds, lightly toasted
6 ice cubes

Halve the peaches and discard the stone. Roughly chop the pumpkin and put both in the blender with the olive oil, sherry vinegar and ground almonds. Add the ice cubes to the blender and crush on a low speed, gradually blend everything until smooth. Sieve the soup, transfer to a glass jug or other suitable container and refrigerate until ready to serve.

Toasted flaked almonds are used to garnish the soup. If the soup is very thick, you may want to add some iced water.

Prawn and vegetable soup

(Serves 2)

1 small onion, peeled and thinly sliced
1 large ripe tomato, roughly chopped
1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
500ml fish or shellfish stock, made with fish bones, prawn or lobster shells
500g cooked vegetables, such as carrots, courgettes, kohlrabi, and including a boiled potato or two, roughly chopped
1-2 tbsp anise liqueur
Several heads of fennel in flower
50g cooked or raw prawns, shelled
Seasoning – to taste

In a saucepan gently fry the onion and tomato in the olive oil for a few minutes until the onions are soft and turning golden. Add the stock and cooked vegetables, the anise liqueur and a few fennel flowers.

Bring to the boil and simmer for four or five minutes. Remove from the heat, and when cool enough, blend until smooth.

If it needs it, sieve the soup, back into the saucepan. Bring to the boil once more, and if using raw prawns, cook them for three to four minutes; cooked prawns will only need heating through.

Taste for seasoning, and serve with a few fennel flowers on top.

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