Homemade croutons and tuna potato cakes

I can't believe it's the end of the holidays already! And I just realised it's Matthew's LAST EVER school summer holiday. Oh my!

We wanted a day out with all the family before the kids go back. We went to the park and took our own food and drink. The occasions when I can't be bothered to make a picnic and think I'll just get something there, I always regret it. Food is so expensive when you're out and about. And generally not that good. I'm all for the odd treat, but spending £20 on rubbish overpriced sandwiches does not work for me! So we took sandwiches, crisps, fruit and a bottle of squash.

I've been working on the leftovers again this week. To go with my super cheap, yellow sticker soup, I made croutons from old crusts of bread. The nicer the bread, the nicer your croutons will be. It's a perfect way to use up leftover French stick. But smart price wholemeal does the trick too!

I knew I wanted to make croutons but didn't want to put the oven on just for that. So I waited until I was doing some baking and chucked them in alongside the cake.

I chopped into cubes, added salt, pepper and herbs. Then sprayed with low fat spray.

These took about 45 minutes to be totally crisp, because the oven was on low. They'll be lovely on soup or a salad!

I've also cooked up some tasty tuna potato cakes using some left over mash. This is the recipe I used, but you can chuck other herbs/veg in based on what you have. 

Leftover mash

1 tin tuna

1 small grated carrot

1/2 grated courgette

2 spring onions

1 egg

Few chives

1 tsp mustard

Salt and pepper

Just mix it all together really well and squash into patties. I coat mine in flour before frying but you could cover in breadcrumbs if you prefer. They can be served with salad or peas.

I love finding ways to use those things a lot of people would just discard. If you have some tips or tricks I'm missing, be sure to let me know!

Yellow sticker treasures - what can we freeze?

I went to Tesco this evening and got some awesome yellow sticker bargains! Oh I do LOVE a bargain.

Sometimes I get a bit giddy when things are super reduced, like picking up all 4 packs of raspberries because they were 20p each... that's a saving of £7.20, who could resist?!

This is where my freezer becomes a total godsend. And there's loads of stuff you can freeze that you might not even realise. So I thought we could have a tour of mine, in case there are any ideas in there which might help.

One of my Tesco bargains was chives for 7p. I was already planning to make some potato salad, but I really don't need that much chive. So I froze the rest in ice cube trays, which makes it so easy to add to dishes as needed. Once they're frozen I will pop them out of the tray into a freezer bag so I can reuse the tray. I always used to freeze in water but I recently read that freezing in oil preserves the flavour better. I also picked up a big hunk of ginger for 20p. This freezes well too and is easy to grate straight from frozen.

Loads of fruit and veg freezes well. Beansprouts can be added straight to stirfries. Aldi seem to have them reduced all the time. Raspberries go a bit soggy when they're thawed but I think I might make some smoothies or bake some muffins. With 4 packs I've plenty to experiment with! My freezer also has grated courgette (I think I chopped the soggy ends off a couple and grated to save the rest - I tend to do the same with carrots going a bit yucky), and spinach which I wilted before freezing and just throw a bit into meals if I think it will go. If I'm not sure if something will freeze well I either cook it first, or google it.

Last week's epic yellow sticker bargain was some casserole veg for 8p a pack. So I bought 3. (Obvs!). I cooked it with a couple of stock cubes, salt and herbs, and whizzed it up to make soup. Bucketfuls of soup!

I didn't have anywhere near enough tupperware tubs so instead put them into freezer bags. To try to minimise mess I put the bag into a jug to help keep the shape, rather than try to ladle it straight into the bags. The result was about 10 of these...

Chicken stock also freezes really well. One of Les' sneaky tips is that he reduces the stock down so its really concentrated. Freeze it in an ice cube tray, and you just need to stick a cube in your cooking instead of a dried stock cube. The man is a genius. It also reduces the chance of taking chicken stock to work for lunch thinking it's soup. Yep, done that more than once actually!

I've also got leftover rice which I froze and will make fried rice with, and a few other bits of batch cooking or things that were left over and didn't get eaten within a couple of days; stew and dumpling, curry, bolognaise.

I abhor food waste. Mainly because it costs money, but also because it's bad for the environment, and because I hate the thought of food going in the bin when people around the world go hungry. So if we can waste less by freezing, why not?!

What else could we freeze? Do you have any top tips for dealing with stuff going past it's best?