Cleaning and Waste

Serving your meals with a good side dish helps to give taste, consistency, colour and presentation to the main dish and is another food-use strategy to clear out what you have in your fridge, freezer or pantry. You can accompany first and second dishes, desserts and drinks with pieces of fruit or vegetables, creams of soup, sauces, home-made conserves or leftovers from other meals.

• Decorate the plates with slices of ripe tomatoes or oranges, or leftover fried or sautéed vegetables.
• Caramelise or sauté dried fruits and nuts, such as pine nuts, peanuts or almonds, slightly ground. They will give an original taste to cream soups and salads.
• Toast or fry slices of bread with garlic and parsley. They will go very well with omelettes and cream soups.
• Use leftover rice or pasta to accompany a meat or fish dish. You can also accompany them with an elaborate sauce, cuts of cheese or leftover vegetables.
• Cut parsley, mint or lettuce leaves, whole or a la julienne. They will help you decorate or give a taste to any kind of dish.
• Add a spoonful of cream of vegetables or a sauce that we have opened. They will help you to add colour or taste to a dish.
• You can make vinaigrettes with leftover fruit, vegetables or mushrooms to accompany salads.

Traditional Catalan cuisine includes lots of recipes that used to be ways of making the most of food in the kitchen. The following are some examples of these recipes:

• Salads. You can add everything in the fridge that might go off. If you dress it with a good dash of olive oil or a home-made vinaigrette, you will have a fresh and healthy dish that will also have helped you to clean out the fridge.
• Cannelloni. Traditionally these were made with the Christmas Day leftovers. These days they are made with any food you have in the fridge: vegetables, mushrooms, rice, pine nuts and raisins, cheese, and so on.
• Cream soups. One of the classic creations for making the most of what you have in the fridge. They are quick to cook, tasty and as diverse as the ingredients you would like to add.
• Pastry turnovers. This dish provides an outlet for any ingredient that can be used as a filler. Once made, you can fry them or do them in the oven.
• Croquettes. Made with a filling that always depends on skill and what ingredients you have in the fridge. The combinations are endless
• Gazpacho. Although it didn’t originate in Catalonia, this is one way of making the most of any vegetables left over. It is a cheap and very refreshing summer dish.
• Cakes. Although we usually think of cakes as sweet, those made from savoury products, such as peas, vegetables and meats are very interesting too. Also original are the cakes made from rice, potatoes, etc.
• Pizzas and savoury pastries. Ideal for concocting some quick dishes that get you out of a fix when you hardly have any time for cooking.
• Soups. Ideal for making the most of meat, fish and vegetable stock and, what’s more, you can add any ingredient to complement them.
• Omelettes. You can make these by combining eggs with any type of ingredients you have to hand. Vegetables are the most common, among others, onions, courgettes, potatoes, aubergines and artichokes. But they can also be made by mixing other foods with the eggs, such as tuna, breadcrumbs, chorizo, cheese and so on.