An expensive and environmentally damaging issue many of us face is wasted food. It’s not uncommon for perfectly edible vegetables to get chucked away at the end of the week. In fact, Potatoes are the single most wasted food in the UK. A staggering average of 170 potatoes are thrown away each year per household. That totals 4.4 million potatoes thrown away each day in the UK!
This recipe is one way you can minimise that waste and save yourself a little cash while you’re at it. You can also make a difference in the amount of veg you waste by keeping the peel on and giving your veggies a scrub under the tap instead. This will make your meals more nutritious and fibrous too! (Not to mention the time saved by skipping the peeling stage).
Get the best value for money with this quick and easy, hearty, nutritious pie. Without further ado, here’s the recipe.
Reduced Waste Veggie Pie
Ingredients
- 1 400g can chickpeas drained and rinsed
- 1 broccoli
- 1 fennel root roughly chopped
- 1 large garlic clove crushed
- 1 lemon
- 1 red chilli finely chopped
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 1kg Maris Piper potatoes
- 200g vegan cheese, grated
- 3 carrots grated
- 3 celery stalks finely chopped or grated
- handful fresh parsley finely chopped
- Olive oil
Instructions
- Pre-heat your oven to 200C / Gas mark 6.
- Skip peeling and get straight into slicing your potatoes into small cubes, after giving them a fair rinse and scrub.
- Place them in a pot with boiling water for 12 minutes until soft.
- Meanwhile, prepare the vegetables. Keeping the skin on, grate your carrots into a baking dish. Add the chopped celery, fennel root, chilli (making sure not to waste any edible parts) parsley leaves and stalks, chickpeas, red onion, garlic, and 100g of vegan cheese.
- To reduce your food waste, chop the florets off the broccoli head and then grate the stalk – it’s actually more nutritious than the florets!
- Add both to the baking dish along with the zest from 1/2 a lemon and the juice of the full lemon.
- Season with salt and pepper, and mix all the ingredients.
- After the potatoes have been boiled, mash them with olive oil (or what you’d prefer to use) and add in the final 100g of cheese. Then mash until smooth.
- Next, layer your mash on top of the pie mix and place in the oven at 200C (Gas mark 6) for 35 minutes.
We’re going to keep it simple: if you’re going to be adding more fruit and veg into your diets, there are some bits that you can’t eat, and will get wasted. Not good! However, never fear, you can turn that waste into something good for the environment!
There are lots of good reasons to compost. Save money, save resources, improve your soil and reduce your impact on the environment. Regardless of your reasons, composting is a win/win scenario. Good for you and good for the environment.
Adding compost to your garden will not only fertilise, it actually feeds your soil with a diversity of nutrients and microorganisms that will improve plant growth. Chemical fertilisers on the other hand provide a quick burst of a limited number of nutrients that can wash away into our rivers and streams. Compost also increases soil stability, improves drainage and helps retain moisture.
These Garden Composters are perfect for adding into your garden, as it’s got a stable hinged lid for easy filling from above, with hatch door. There are ventilation openings to let out the smell, without getting ‘pongy’ and it’s made of dark colour for better heat development.
This is the perfect garden composter for organic household and garden waste. It’s easy assembly because of easy click system so you can be saving your potato peelings and egg shells in no time.
