Leftover Stew

It's come to my attention that despite blogging on a staple range used by university students throughout this country using memories drawn from university, I have not done too many meals based on leftovers, and none especially tailored to dealing with leftovers. However, recent circumstances have conspired against me, such that I'm now forced to try to get rid of, amongst other things, the baked beans from the previous post, the burger patties and grated cheese used for the Ramly Burger, the latter now 5 days past its best-before date, and the Basics instant mashed potato mix from long ago.

So it is with great relief that somebody has provided a solution. I owe it to The Everything Meals on a Budget Cookbook, by Linda Larsen, a copy of which I bought when Borders was having its closing down sale in Birmingham. The book had a section catered specifically for leftovers, one of which was the Everything Stew. Basically, the recipe involved throwing together tomato juice, pasta, cooked vegetables, mince, cheese and curiously, potato flakes, into a saucepan and bringing it to a boil. That effectively covers everything that we have to get rid of, as shown below (not shown: Basics instant mashed potato).

So start by bringing the packet of tomatoes in juice to the boil in a saucepan.
Add the pasta, boil for 1-2 minutes, and then throw in the rest of the ingredients except the cheese and potato flakes, in this case, the baked beans and hamburger patty.
Keep boiling until the beef is cooked and the pasta is soft. Add Basics mashed potato and cheese to thicken.

If the dish looks unappealing I regret to inform you that the result, while not unpleasant in taste, makes you wish that you haven't had so many leftovers to clear. In addition, you might experience a slight carb overload as aresult of having both baked beans and pasta in the same sitting. Tomatoes have a slight amount of sugar too, so feel free to reduce the amount of pasta used in the process.

Potato Flake Fish

It turns out that there are other uses for instant mashed potato. You have the Americans to thank for this, who seem to regularly use potato flakes as a coating for meats. Fish seems to be the most common thing to be coated in this manner, although chicken can be coated as well. There even is a recipe for making bread using wheat flour and potato flakes.

This recipe has given an opportunity for me to use up the remainder of my instant mashed potato from my previous outing, and the two remaining frozen fish fillets from long ago. Execution is almost trivial, involving the coating the fish with flour, followed by egg, and then the potato flakes, preferably combined with some herb mix. The coated fish is then baked for 20 minutes at 190 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.






It also turns out that if you are going to use potato flakes to coat fish, you would have to combine the potato flakes with something very flavourful - there is a reason why many of the recipes of the Internet specify that the potato flakes are combined with parmesan cheese. The fish does look somewhat pretty to look at however, resembling some sort of poor man's tempura. All said and done, I am most definitely looking forward to coming up with a better tasting recipe for the next blog post.

Chunky Cottage Pie

As far as I can tell, pies feature quite heavily in British cuisine. In fact, if memory serves, the first meal I ever had from college catering at my dormitory was cottage pie. These were relatively cheap, simple affairs: beef mince (or lamb mince if you wanted shepherd's pie) was cooked with some seasoning and root vegetables if the caterer was feeling generous, before this was used to line a baking tray with gravy, with the whole thing topped with mashed potato. While the concept of not using pastry to make a pie may take some getting used to, many of my British colleagues are fond of a good cottage pie, and it definitely serves as effective comfort food during the harshest of winters. Apparently, this post is being written in the middle of a British Pie Week.

I had quite a substantial amount of beef stew left over from the previous post, and hit upon the idea of pairing it with mashed potato for a quick dinner. Funnily enough, Wikipedia says that cottage and shepherd's pies came about as a means of making use of leftover roast meat by topping it with a mashed potato crust.

The Basics mashed potato mix is found to have a higher potato content than its regular counterpart (98% vs 86%). In fact, its contents are just dehydrated potato flakes, and little else, which would benefit those who are looking for fewer additives in their food. Care must be made in preparing however; if too much water is added you may end up getting what looks like wallpaper paste. If this happens, just add more potato flakes until the desired consistency is obtained.
Preparation is trivial and will only be expressed in photos.

It might be a good idea to season your mashed potato during preparation. Pepper and salt might be one idea. Where I work, from time to time the canteen serves mashed potato containing wholegrain mustard, which I find to be a good idea.

Description	Price per Unit	No. of servings	Trade-up Premium	Trade-up Benefits
Mashed Potato Mix	£0.34	250g	+£0.53 for 432g	More comprehensive mix, no need for milk