One of the reasons I don’t follow recipes and particularly the ones with exacting measurements is that there is always a quarter of this left or a sprinkling of that. What do you do with these tiny non useful amounts of weird and wonderful ingredients? Normally they hog up valuable space in my fridge until they are well and truly past their sell by / eat by date and crawling out the fridge without help.
Sometimes I find I have enough to throw together something different and make it a fridge meal. Having found some wonderful fresh vegetables in my organic Riverford box and a fridge full of odd bits I would never have used I decided to put them together hoping to keep some for lunches over a few days. It was a little more popular than I anticipated and lunch will be somewhat drab for the rest of the week.
Ingredients
Sweet Potatoes
Fennel (half left over from another dish)
Ginger chopped small
Onion ( I had a quarter left over from a BBQ and chucked it in)
Chilli (having chopped a large chilli up for a curry – I decided it would be too spicy for the children hence a ready chopped half chilli in fridge)
Spinach an ever versatile and useful vegetable that I sneak into lots of dishes
Butter
Soured Cream – left over from Fajitas
Cheese – this was pre-grated Red Leicester – not used when we went on a picnic, but you could use any cheese
Parsely – from my herb garden to finish it off
Boil the sweet potatoes with the fennel, ginger and onion till soft enough to mash.
Drain then mash adding a touch of butter. I also threw in a large dollop of soured cream at this point.
Add the chilli and some cheese then mix well.
In a baking dish lay the spinach in a deep layer on the bottom and cover with more dollops of the soured cream.
Add the potato mix on top and finish off with the rest of the cheese.
Cook in hot oven for about 20 minutes until the top is bubbling and golden.
Serve.
You could use this as a main dish maybe add a beaten egg to the mash or serve with boiled or poached egg on top. I served it as a side dish to accompany a piece of chicken – delicious.
Try it out, I would not expect you to have the same ingredients in your fridge as I found in mine so try out other combinations and let me know how you get on. Leave out what you don’t have or like but be adventurous and mix the flavours together. Share your attempts with me.
Happy food
Tiggy
Check out my ramblings from my other blog Tiggy Hayes. This week we went out to dine but I am still passionate about my food!