Please note, this post contains affiliate links. It won’t cost you anything extra to use the links and opinions are all my own.

Vegan pancake recipe ingredients:

• 120 g (or 1 cup) of self raising flour
• 1 banana (the riper it is, the sweeter the pancakes will be)
• 250 ml (or 1 cup) of water
• 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar
• A little coconut oil
• Optional topping ingredients: cinnamon and fresh lemon

Method:

1. Put one cup of self raising flour in a bowl.
2. In a separate bowl mash a banana?.
3. Whisk the banana with 1 cup of water.
4. Then add 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar to the water and banana mix.
5. Slowly add the liquid to the flour, mixing as you go.
6. When the mixture is ready melt a little coconut oil in a hot (but not too hot) frying pan ?.
7. Wait a couple of minutes, then ladle in dollops of the mixture.
8. Leave them to cook for a couple of minutes on each side and then serve freshly cooked.
9. Optional: Serve with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a squeeze of lemon?!

What to do with excess vegan pancake batter

If you make too much batter, I like to do one of two things.

1. Either I freeze the batter to use another time.
2. Or I make it into pancakes and freeze the pancakes to use at a later date.

You can keep the batter or the pancakes in the fridge to use the next day. But I find that it is easy to forget to use up the leftovers before they go off. In the freezer you don’t have to rush to use them.

Tip: to make it easy to use up the leftovers a bit at a time, freeze the pancake batter in icecube trays. Then you can defrost it as needed. If the pancakes are already made, open freeze them. This means lay them out so that they aren’t touching anything other than a tray in the freezer. When they are frozen store them in an airtight container in the freezer. This prevents the pancakes from sticking together and being difficult to separate once frozen.

Want some more vegan snack ideas? Check out these healthy homemade vegan and zero waste snacks!

The post You will love this simple, delicious, vegan pancake recipe appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

Did you know the flowers and young leaves of a courgette plant are also edible? This list includes recipe suggestions for how to use them up too.

Tip: bookmark the post so you can come back for inspiration, the next time you are in the courgette cooking mood!

Note: this post contains affiliate links, but all opinions are my own.

Savoury courgette recipe options

Vegan recipes

1. Courgette Salad – slice baby courgettes thinly and sprinkle over your salad. Alternatively spiralise the courgettes and mix with salad leaves. Drizzle over some oil and vinegar, or salad dressing of your choice.
2. Courgette Chutney
3. Courgette Pickle
4. Breaded courgettes: Coat in oil and then in breadcrumbs and then bake
5. Thinly slice and sprinkle over a pizza
6. Courgetti spaghetti/ noodles. Spiralise (I love my Oxo Good Grips Spiraliser) then steam them for 5 minutes, or fry in a little oil. Use them as a noodle base, or add spiralised courgette to salad raw.
7. Roasted. Mix with peppers (quartered), mushrooms and carrots (chopped in half if large ones) toss in olive oil and season with Italian herbs. Roast for around 30 mins at 180 to 200 degrees C (turn over the veg after 15 mins).
8. Ratatouille
9. Slice thinly and dehydrate, to either use later or eat as a snack.
10. Grate or dice, blanche in hot water and freeze to use another time.

Vegetarian recipes

1. Zuchinni pea fritters
2. Spicy courgette koftas
3. Courgette / zucchini souffle
4. Courgette lasagne Courgette lasagne
5. Creamy courgette soup
6. Courgette and lemon tagliatelle. Slice the courgette thinly, then fry in a little oil and garlic. Next add to the cooked tagliatelle (cook 90g raw tagliatelle per person), with a squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of oil. Add salt and pepper to taste and grate over some parmesan.
7. Melting cheese courgettes
8. Courgette risotto
9. Courgette/ zuchinni bread
10. Canneloni filling – grate the courgette and mix with ricotta or cottage cheese. Cover with a passata pasta sauce and bake
11. Pistou soup
12. Courgette and red onion bhajis

Sweet dessert courgette recipes

1. Spelt, zucchini and lemon cake
2. Gluten free courgette chocolate cake
3. Blueberry zucchini muffins
4. Courgette and lime cake
5. Courgette jam
6. Courgette lemon drizzle cake
7. Dairy free chocolate zucchini cupcakes
8. Banana zucchini muffins
9. Zucchini chocolate chip cookies

Courgette flower and leaf recipes

I have always wanted to learn how to cook courgette flowers and once I got going with it, I got a bit addicted. Most courgette / zucchini flower recipes involve deep frying them. But sometimes I tear them into pieces and sprinkle them over salads raw. I love the splash of colour they add to the salad leaves!

Always use the male flowers, unless you are picking a baby courgette with a flower attached. You can identify the male flowers because they have no courgette attached. I wait until they have closed up because the closed flower will keep the stuffing contained. Carefully pull the stem and stamen out of the flower at the bottom, leaving a circular opening. Give it a wash and then it is ready to be stuffed

1. Deep fried courgette flowers stuffed with ricotta and herbs
2. Fried courgette flowers with honey and vinegar
3. Traditional Italian Fried Zucchini Blossoms
4. Finely chop a baby courgette, mix with a dollop of houmous and a chopped up mushroom. Stuff the prepared courgette flower with the mix. Then make up a simple batter of flour and water. Coat the courgette flower in the batter and then deep fry until crispy.
5. Make a simple batter as above and cover a washed baby courgette complete with flower still attached (but pull out the guts of the flower) and deep fry.

Take it one step further and check out this article with various recipes for courgette leaves: How to cook zucchini leaves

The post Love courgettes? Feast on these delicious ways to use them up! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

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In this article I’ve rounded up some delicious sounding condensed milk recipes. So if you have a can lingering that needs using up, or find yourself with a bit left over, you will know what to do with it!

Oh and if you don’t have any condensed milk yet, I discovered that you can get vegan condensed coconut milk*. Useful to know if you are on a plant based diet, or have a dairy allergy!

Condensed milk recipes which use up a whole tin

Fudge

I never realised how easy it is to make fudge until I had a try recently. We had various experiments and I can’t remember the exact recipe we used, but BBC Good Food has a popular recipe for condensed milk fudge.

You can pimp it up however you fancy. We made some fudge and added crushed up mini eggs* as a topping. I added them when the fudge was semi cool. They melted a little, but then stayed in place once it was all cooled down. I think this fudge would make an excellent gift e.g. for Christmas

You could also try this No Bake Unicorn Fudge, which is a bit different to traditional fudge, but looks like a lot of fun!

Banoffee pie

This condensed milk banoffee pie recipe from A Mummy Too looks delicious!

It has a biscuit crumb base. The recipe suggests using graham crackers or digestive biscuits. However you could take it in a slightly different direction by using up whichever biscuits you have available/ need using up. I hate waste and this is a great way to use up all kinds of biscuit crumbs!

Tip: If you want to make it vegan and dairy free make the following swaps:

1. Swap regular whipping cream for coconut whipping cream*
2. Use vegan condensed coconut milk* instead of normal condensed milk and
3. Use your favourite dairy free spread instead of butter

Caramel dulche de leche

This caramel is so simple to make and will use up a whole can or tin of condensed milk, with no other added ingredients! Check out the full recipe here: Caramel dulche de leche (it sounds much fancier than boiled condensed milk, doesn’t it!)

Condensed milk cheesecake recipe

Have you got lemons that need using up, as well as condensed milk? This baked lemon curd cheesecake sounds amazing. After clicking the link, scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.

Again if you want to make this vegan/ dairy free, you can get a vegan cream cheese substitute* and make vegan lemon curd*. It is difficult to get hold of unsalted vegetable spread, but coconut oil* is unsalted and could be used as a substitute for butter

Chocolate truffles

When I was a kid, I loved making chocolate truffles with my mum. Sometimes we coated them in chocolate sprinkles like in this recipe, but often we just rolled them in cocoa powder.

I love that this condensed milk recipe for truffles uses up digestive biscuits. Again remember that you can substitute them for any biscuits you like – make use of what you have first! Another option is to use up weetabix like in this recipe: double choc balls (scroll down for it)

To make it dairy free/ plant based, swap to condensed coconut milk* and use coconut oil* instead of butter.

Homemade icecream

This is another one of those condensed milk recipes that is really easy to make: condensed milk icecream. All you need is whipping cream and condensed milk to make this recipe! Substitute with vegan versions as required.

Alternatively you could try out Thrifty Lesley’s rhubarb and chocolate icecreams, which use half a tin of condensed milk each.

Condensed milk recipes that use up less than a whole tin

Flapjacks

We always have loads of porridge oats* at home, because we buy them in bulk . So flapjacks are an easy go to recipe for us. I haven’t tried making a condensed milk version, but this Raspberry and White Chocolate Flapjacks condensed milk recipe sounds so good!

The recipe contains unsalted butter, condensed milk and white chocolate. If you want to make it dairy free and plant based, make the usual swaps. Plus you can follow this recipe to make your own vegan white chocolate using coconut milk powder* and cocoa butter*. Or look in your local supermarket to see if they have any dairy free chocolate buttons.

Tip: I find in general that chocolate buttons are cheaper than chocolate chips. If you want them to be a bit smaller for a recipe, just break them in half or into quarters.

Thai red curry

Don’t fancy making a dessert? This Thai Red Curry, doesn’t use up much condensed milk, so it would be perfect for using up some leftover condensed milk from another recipe!

Roti

Roti’s are a sweet dish which involves making a type of flat bread, frying it and drizzling over toppings of your choice! This Roti recipe contains just a little condensed milk, which is great if you just have a little to use up!

Condensed milk doughnuts

Doughnut fans will love these condensed milk doughuts ! It uses up 3/4 cup of condensed milk. So you will have some leftover from a tin to use in another recipe.

So there you have it 10 delicious condensed milk recipes! Plus tips on how you can make some of them plant based and dairy free if needed.

Birthday cake icing

Mrs Mummypenny made some delicious looking cakes for her son’s birthday and topped them with condensed milk icing. Check out the recipe here: how to save money on a boys birthday party

For more ideas for how to use up leftover or excess foods, check out my list of ideas here: A round up of use it up ideas! Also if you have any questions about using up condensed milk or want to show off your creations, come and join my Eco Thrifty Kitchen Club (a free to join Facebook group). The group is a friendly community with the aim of helping people to waste less in their kitchens!

The post 11 ways to take condensed milk to the next level appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

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I usually buy kale, but my next ambition is to attempt to grow my own and then it would be very low cost and come with less packaging.

Kale crisps recipe

Ingredients:

• Washed and dried shredded kale . Dry the kale in a salad spinner if you have one, or in between two tea towels if you don’t.
• Some olive oil
• A little sea salt

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 150 degrees C
2. Put your kale in a bowl.
3. Drizzle some oil and sprinkle a pinch of salt over the kale
4. Toss the kale in the oil and salt, making sure all the kale is coated in the mixture
5. Spread out the kale on a silicone baking sheet* on an oven proof tray. and put in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes.
6. After 5 minutes take the tray of kale out and mix it up/ turn the pieces over.
7. Next, put the kale back in for another 5 minutes
8. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until the kale has crisped up to your satisfaction. You will need repeat this step a few times. It is important to keep turning the kale pieces to stop them sticking to the tray and so that they don’t burn.
9. Optional: If you aren’t in a hurry, turn the oven off and leave the kale in the cooling oven for up to 30 minutes for a final crisping.

It really is simple to make these kale crisps and they are a delicious homemade, very inexpensive snack!

Tip: to make the most use of the energy of the oven make these kale crisps at the same time as making a zero waste snack like croutons or potato peel crisps.

The post Kale crisps that you can’t stop eating recipe appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

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There are no specific quantities in this recipe because the idea is to use up potato peels that would otherwise have been chucked away. So it all depends on how many potatoes you peeled as to how much potato peel you have.

Potato peel crisp recipe

Ingredients:

• Clean and dry potato peels (I recommend scrubbing and washing the potatoes before you peel them)
• Some olive oil
• A little sea salt
• A sprig of rosemary (optional)

Method:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 150 degrees C
2. Put your potato peels on a silicone baking sheet* on an oven proof tray.
3. Drizzle some oil over the peels
4. Sprinkle some finely chopped rosemary and a pinch of salt over the peels
5. Toss the peels in the oil, rosemary and salt, making sure all the peels are coated in the mixture
6. Spread out the peels over the silicone sheet and put in the pre-heated oven for 5 minutes.
7. After 5 minutes take the tray of peels out and mix them up/ turn them over.
8. Then put the peels back in for another 5 minutes
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until the peels have crisped up to your satisfaction. You will need repeat this step a few times. It is important to keep turning the peels to stop them sticking to the tray and so that they don’t burn.
10. Optional: If you aren’t in a hurry, turn the oven off and leave the peels in the cooling oven for up to 30 minutes for a final crisping.

It really is simple to make these potato peel crisps and they are a delicious homemade, very inexpensive snack! By making them you also save the peels from the bin.

Tip: to make the most use of the energy while the oven is on, make these potato peel crisps at the same time as making kale crisps and/ or fruit leather.

For more ideas for yummy snacks that also help prevent food waste, take a look at this: 5 of the best homemade zero waste snacks

The post Homemade potato peel crisps that taste so good! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

This blog post contains affiliate links marked with * and anything you buy through them will help to support the blog. All opinions are my own and it won’t cost you anything extra to use the links.

Popcorn – one of my all time favourite zero waste vegan snacks!

I regularly make popcorn. It is up there at the top of my list of favourite zero waste snacks. The kids enjoy watching it pop and then grabbing a bowl of freshly popped corn to munch on.

Make it lightly salted and it is a brilliant alternative to crisps. There is far less packaging overall, especially if you buy the popping corn in bulk*. It is also a very inexpensive snack to make. If you don’t want to buy it in quantity but do want it to be zero waste, buy it packaging free from your local zero waste shop.

How I make popcorn

There are various ways you can make popcorn, but I make mine in one of my Le Creuset 3 ply saucepans* . They are expensive saucepans, but if you do need to buy a new saucepan, check out my article about why I chose to buy them here: how to choose a saucepan.

My trick to avoiding burning the popcorn in the saucepan is to heat up some oil in the pan with 3 kernels of corn to start with. When they pop, I then add in the rest of the corn. The other tricks are to keep a close eye on the pan, set the heat to medium high heat and take a break half way through. I decant the popped popcorn into a cake tin usually and then add a bit more oil and carry on popping the rest. Rightly or wrongly I use extra virgin olive oil to make it, because I like the taste best.

*Update* – We now have a popcorn maker that we got for free from someone on Facebook Marketplace, so our popcorn is even healthier as it is air popped.

Fruit leather

Fruit leather is not quick to make, but you can batch cook it. It should work out cheaper than buying the packaged variety, especially if you are using up fruit that would otherwise go off. I followed this apple and cinnamon recipe recently because I needed to use up some wrinkly apples and it was really tasty. Next time I’m going to try it without the added sugar.

Melba Toast

Melba Toast is a type of cracker made out of bread. It is very more-ish and is a great zero waste snack. Check out my simple and easy recipe for how to make it here: melba toast recipe

I find it is a great way to use up a lot of bread at once e.g. a whole loaf. Sometimes we end up with a spare loaf of bread due to lack of planning or plans changing. I don’t want that bread to go to waste, so I make melba toast!

I recommend eating it dipped in houmous, plain or spread with a little vegetable spread.

Make a zero waste vegan snack from roast potatoes – potato peel crisps!

Making potato peel crisps is one of my new favourite zero waste snacks. Yes there is an argument for not peeling the potatoes in the first place, but I don’t think roast potatoes taste as good if you leave the peels on. Plus what is the problem if you can turn those peels into a tasty snack?

Get the recipe here: Homemade potato peel crisps that taste so good!

Croutons

A lot of people don’t like bread ends and will throw them out or hopefully compost them instead of eating them. Don’t do that! Make croutons instead. If your family gets through a few loaves of bread a week, save the bread ends for the end of the week and make a batch of croutons. Find out how to make croutons here: Yummy homemade crouton recipe.

They make a nice snack on their own, but are also delicious added to salads and soups.

Let me know how you get on making these snacks in the comments below or tag me on social media on @ecothrifty (Twitter and Instagram). I’d love to see your snack pictures!

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My kids love them and they are so simple to make that my 9 year old can make them himself (with a little help from me)

The obvious thing to do with croutons is to put them in soup. But they are also delicious in salads and as a snack on their own. We recently used up some homemade croutons in a ‘Harvester style’ salad, which went down a treat. The croutons in this picture are quite dark because we used brown bread.

Rosemary and garlic crouton recipe

Ingredients:

There are deliberately no quantities in this recipe. This is because you can make as much or as little as you like depending on how much bread you need to use up!

1. Day old bread (i.e. bread just past it’s best)
2. Fresh garlic
3. Freshly picked rosemary or dried garlic
4. Olive oil

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 150 degrees C
2. Cut up the slices of bread into crouton sized cubes.
3. Place into a baking tray. Avoid using foil or baking paper, by putting the croutons directly onto a baking tray.
4. Either cut the rosemary finely (I recommend using herb scissors*, but normal kitchen scissors will also do the job), or you could blitz it in a blender
5. Then crush the garlic and mix with the rosemary and some olive oil
6. Drizzle the blended liquid over the breadcrumbs and mix well to coat them.  You may find you need to be quite generous with the oil as the breadcrumbs drink it up!
7. Place the breadcrumbs in the oven for around 15-20 minutes, turning them over every 5 minutes to stop them from burning.
8. Leave to cool. If you leave them in the cooling oven for up to 30 mins afterwards it will help them to crisp up further.
9. When they are completely cool and hard to the touch, store in a airtight container, like an old jar or a tin.
10. Enjoy!

How to save energy while following this crouton recipe

If you have some space in the oven while you are cooking these, you could also make some fruit leather, potato peel crisps or kale crisps at the same time. That way you make the most use of the energy.

For those of you who have solar panels, do it while the sun is shining and pay less or perhaps nothing at all for the electricity used.

Making your own croutons is very satisfying. You can feel proud that you made your own delicious croutons, eliminated food waste and saved money!

Find out lots more ways to use up unwanted bread here: 20 ways to stop wasting bread

Want more snack ideas that help prevent food waste? Check out my list of 5 of the best healthy and homemade zero waste snacks.

The post Use day old bread in this delicious crouton recipe! appeared first on Eco Thrifty Living.

*This post contains affiliate links, which are marked by an asterisk. It won’t cost you anything extra to use them, but if you click through and buy something it will help to support the blog! Thank you!

Some of the recipes that jumped out at me included:

• Jerusalem artichoke risotto, which will be handy when I harvest mine in a couple of months! I can add it to my list of ways to eat Jerusalem artichokes!
• I also liked the idea of the cabbage chips recipe, which uses the outer leaves of the cabbage. However I had recently made something similar after going on my annual onion picking trip with the leaves/ tops from kohlrabi, carrots, beetroot and cabbage!
• Bubble and squeak! I had some leftover roast potatoes in my freezer and I still had quite a lot of cabbage left after my trip to the fruit and veg PYO farm. So I decided to give the use it up bubble and squeak recipe a go!

The Mindful Kitchen’s Bubble and Squeak recipe

Known in the UK as bubble and squeak, this dish was invented to repurpose leftovers, so don ́t feel restricted by the recipe. If you don ́t have potatoes and cabbage, try it with carrots, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, squash, or celeriac (celery root).

Serves

As many as your leftovers allow—you want a volume ratio of 1:1

Ingredients

• Leftover potatoes
• Leftover cabbage
• 1 egg (optional)
• 2 tablespoons butter or coconut oil

Method

1. If your leftover potatoes or root vegetables were roasted, baked, or boiled, mash them but keep on the chunky side. Or, if the vegetables can be shredded, shred into thin slices, otherwise chop thinly. Mix your vegetables and potatoes together. Mix in an egg to bind, if needed.
2. Melt the butter or oil in a skillet over medium heat. Give yourself a mindful moment to listen to the fat bubbling in the pan.
3. Add your potato-and-vegetable mixture to form one large “cake” or separate the mixture into patties. Let “bubble and squeak” in the pan for 10 minutes—you want a nice brown crust to emerge on the bottom. The time it takes depends on how much butter or milk you used to make mashed potatoes in the first place. When you have a good brown crust, flip the cake or patties and fry on the other side for about 10 minutes.
4. Transfer from the pan to a plate lined with paper towels to soak up some of the fat. Serve as it is or with a dollop of applesauce (page 170), sauerkraut (page 100), or a fried egg.

What I actually did!

I am so rubbish at following a recipe! I like to think of them as suggestions and a starting point. Although the recipe clearly says keep the bits of cabbage and potato chunky, I mashed them. That is for two reasons:

1. The potatoes I used had been roasted and frozen. The potato skins might have not been very nice if I hadn’t boiled (to reheat) and then mashed the potatoes.
2. I thought I might be able to get away with feeding it to my family if they couldn’t see any cabbage.

Next I mixed the potatoes and cabbage with an egg and put half the mixture in the frying pan after adding some olive oil. I left it for a bit and it started to burn! It was my fault because I hadn’t put enough oil in. So to avoid disaster I scraped it out of the pan and made some smaller patties which I fried in a lot more oil than I had originally put in. With the rest I made bubble and squeak soup and I also baked some of the mixture in the oven in an oven proof dish!

Bubble and Squeak soup!

Ingredients and method

• Use the same ingredients as above.
• Boil or steam the potatoes and cabbage
• Mash together the potatoes and cabbage and mix in an egg (optional)
• Add salt and pepper and put into a saucepan with some water. It is up to you how much water you add, depending on how thick or thin you like your soup.
• Eat straight away. You can’t freeze this if you have used leftovers, because this will be the second time you heated them up. If you can’t eat it all at once, you can eat it later cold.

Despite not having any stock in the soup, I thought it tasted really nice!

Making it in the oven

I put some of the mixture in an oven proof dish. I decided to do this based on my past experiences of burning frittatas in the saucepan and them turning out much better in the oven. It turned out quite well and I ate it cold over the course of a few days with my lunch! I think it would be even better if it wasn’t mashed though.

Ingredients and method:

• Follow the Mindful Kitchen ingredients list and the first point on the method. Then put the mixture in a greased oven proof dish!
• Cook it for around 40 mins at 180 degrees C.
• Either eat straight away or leave to cool and eat cold over the next few days.

I enjoyed trying out this recipe and although it didn’t quite go to plan and I didn’t end up feeding it to my family, I discovered some new inventions instead! I’m looking forward to trying out some more recipes from the book. There are also some lovely little snippets at the bottom of each recipe, which I liked. They talk about environmental issues and help us to be mindful of the cooking process.

You can pick up your own copy of the book here: Mindful Kitchen* . If you do buy it and like it – leave a review. Now that I have published my own book, I’m really aware of how helpful it is to authors to have people review their books!

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Some recipes use more bread than others, and when faced with a whole loaf , you need a recipe that is mostly bread! Luckily melba toast is one of those perfect solutions to this problem. Once cooked it doesn’t have to be eaten straight away either – you can be stored for a few days, so you don’t have to speed eat your way through it!  

Melba toast is pretty quick and simple to make!

Melba toast recipe   

Ingredients:  

Bread (usually slightly stale day old bread that needs using up) .

Note: You need to have enough bread; i.e. at least a few slices to make it worthwhile putting the oven on for it.

Method:

1. Toast the bread
2. Cut off the crusts
3. Slice the bread in half so you have 2 thin pieces of bread (each with a toasted side, and a non-toasted side)
4. Place the slices non-toasted side up on an oven tray, spread out over the tray . No foil needed as it will not be messy!
5. Put in a preheated oven at a temperature of around 180 degrees. 
6. Leave for a few minutes and then turn the pieces over. 
7. Repeat the above step until the slices are browned and crispy. Make sure they don’t burn, but they need to be fully dried out as otherwise they won’t keep well. 
8. Leave to cool.
9. Serve straight away or store in an airtight container and consume within a few days.

Melba toast is delicious with butter or vegetable spread, dipped in houmous, served with cheese and makes a great substitute for crackers! My kids love it as an after school snack, and it would be a lovely complement to a salad. It also goes down well with guests as something to nibble on if you are hosting a party!

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The season of gourds, ghouls, pumpkins, squashes and ghosts is upon us and there is so much you can do with these colourful fruits other than carving scary faces into them  (I want to call them vegetables, but apparently they are technically fruits). There are loads of recipes out there for how to use them up, but did you know that every part of them is edible and that you can make a zero waste pumpkin soup using it all up?

Please note this article contains an affiliate link marked with an asterisk. If you click through and buy something, it won’t cost you anything extra, but it will help to support the blog – thanks!

The edible parts include the skin, the seeds, the shells of the seeds. Plus the soft, sometimes stringy flesh otherwise known as pulp surrounding the seeds is edible.  You don’t even need to cook them – they are edible raw too!   I didn’t used to know that and I would first gut and chuck the innards of my squash or pumpkin  as well as peeling it before making it into soup or roasting it (or if I did roast it with skin on I didn’t eat it) – what a waste!  Now I make zero waste pumpkin soup instead!

Zero Waste Pumpkin Soup Recipe

Ingredients – serves 6-8

• 1 medium sized pumpkin or two small squashes with seeds removed but skin left on and pulp retained
• 3 large onions (or more smaller ones)
• A large sprig of rosemary 
• A few bay leaves
• Two soft carrots (don’t peel!) 
• 1 large bulb of garlic
• Pepper (of the seasoning variety)
• 1 litre of vegetable or chicken stock. Can either be homemade or shop bought.

You can increase or decrease the level of zero wasteness (if that’s a thing) of this recipe and cost of making depending on how the ingredients are sourced.

This is how I sourced my ingredients for the soup pictured:

• The squash and onions were picked at a local pick your own farm. We took our own reusable bags to bring them home with us. You don’t need to go to a farm to do this. You could just take your own bag to the shops and put your pumpkin directly in it.
• The herbs and garlic were grown in my garden. Plant some garlic cloves now and you can have your own garlic harvest next year!)
• The carrot was shop bought but needed using up before it went mouldy. You don’t have to wait for a carrot to go soft before adding it to your soup, but the softer they go the sweeter they make the soup, so don’t even think about chucking out soft carrots!
• We buy pepper in bulk which is not plastic free, but reduces packaging overall and it is more cost effective than buying a little at a time.
• My stock was not homemade, but if you make your own stock you can take it a step further than me in the zero waste stakes!

Method:

1. Get out a large stock pot or saucepan. You could also use a slow cooker or a Wonderbag
2. Give your pumpkin or squash a wash.
3. Gut the pumpkin or squash. Separate out the seeds from the pulp. Then chop up the pumpkin or squash with the skin on and put it along with the pulp into your pan.
4. Chop the onions finely. Or if you are short on time just chop them into chunks and add to the pan
5. Crush the garlic into the pan
6. Finely chop or food process your rosemary and add into the pan along with the bay leaves which are left whole
7. Slice the carrots into coins leaving the skin on. 
8. Add your stock. Make sure all the ingredients are more than covered in liquid and add extra stock if needed.
9. Season with a little pepper to taste. I don’t like to add salt because there is already salt in the stock, but you may want to.
10. Put the lid on the pan (very important to retain the heat in the pan and keep the cooking process as efficient as possible). Then bring the soup mixture to the boil
11. Once boiling turn the heat right down, move to a smaller heat source e.g. a smaller gas ring if you have a gas hob and simmer for at least an hour. Alternatively transfer to a Wonderbag after half an hour of simmering and then leave to continue cooking slowly for 3 to 4 hours.
12. Once cooked take out the bay leaves and either blitz the ingredients together with a hand blender. 
13. Serve immediately or leave to cool and once entirely cooled down freeze or refrigerate for later use.

While your soup is simmering you can sort out the seeds. You can save some for planting in your garden next year. Alternatively you can roast them and eat them whole with the skins on! I’m still not sure if I like them or not, but they are strangely moreish and make a satisfying crunch when you bite into them!

Sea salted roasted pumpkin seed recipe

Ingredients:

• Pumpkin or squash seeds fresh from a pumpkin or squash with shells on, but separated from the pulp
• Sea salt

Method:

1. Spread your pumpkin seeds out on a naturally non-stick oven tray (I use this baking tray*)
2. Sprinkle with a little sea salt. You can buy salt in cardboard boxes in some stores. Be careful to make sure it doesn’t get damp in storage though as otherwise you will end up with soggy salt!
3. Put in the oven at 180 degrees C for 5 minutes
4. After 5 minutes turn over the seeds and put back in for another 5 minutes
5. Check/ turn the seeds again and then put them back in for a final few minutes. Keep a close eye on them to make sure they don’t burn. 
6. Eat them straight away or when they have cooled down!

There are loads more twists and turns you can take pumpkins and squashes in. So next time you feel inspired to cook one remember that you can eat pumpkin and squash, seeds, pulp and skin. When they are growing the leaves, stems and flowers are edible too! The only bit you don’t want to eat is the dead stalk!

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