Use It All Up Easy Vegetable Stir fry

This week I was looking at an interesting piece examining the amount of food wasted by the average UK household in real terms. Just in the UK the food wasted by households each year is equal to 7 million tonnes - or roughly the same weight as the largest of the pyramids! Of this 7 million tonnes, 4.2 million tonnes represents food that could have been eaten, but ended up past its best and in a landfill.

This drives home to me the reason why I started this blog. Although one of the reasons is that I am trying to cut back on my spending and make cheap and delicious food, I also hate the amount of food that gets put in the bin. As a people we are too greedy and too lazy, and a small change to the way we shop and eat makes a difference to how much you spend on food as well as how much gets chucked away. I'm not saying that I don't still find ingredients festering in the fridge and regret not using them sooner, but I am making a conscious effort to change what I buy and eat to get the most from my shopping.

I always stock up on plenty of vegetables, and one of the best ways I know of using up any of those slightly sad or unusual ingredients is in a stir fry. Obviously this can be made as soon as you get your veggies home from the supermarket too! This sort of dinner is so flexible, and has transformed many a slightly limp vegetable before it can venture into the light and embrace the afterlife in the bin.

Obviously it is easy to buy a stir in sauce, but these can add unnecessary sugar and salt to your meals without you realising it. These are the ingredients I keep on hand for a basic but delicious stir fry sauce. This will work with pretty much any vegetable... I was going to include some vegetables here that wouldn't be suitable, but I'm having trouble thinking of any. A potato? Maybe. But I still think it would be worth trying.

1 chilli - red or green, as hot as you like. Sliced finely
1 glove garlic - sliced finely
Thumb size piece of ginger - grated
Glug of sunflower or olive oil
1 tablespoon sesame oil
2 tablespoons soy sauce - I use light
Juice of half a lime
Vegetables of your choice
Rice or noodles to serve

Heat your wok - make sure it is nice and hot. Add your cooking oil (NOT the sesame oil yet!). Once the cooking oil is really hot chuck in the grated ginger, chilli and garlic. If you wanted to use tofu then add this at the same time. Stir fry on a high heat for a minute or so - it does need to be hot, but be careful not to burn these flavours. The key to it is that it's a STIR fry, so keep STIRring!

Add in the vegetables. If you have anything that might need a bit longer cooking - broccoli stalks for example (yes I said STALKS, they are delicious. Please don't throw them away) - then add them in first. Stir fry for a couple of minutes, and then add in the rest of your veggies. You may want to hold off adding any delicate vegetables until the very end, peas for example don't need much cooking. Add in soy sauce and sesame, stir fry for a minute or so.

Splash in the lime juice as well as any remaining vegetables - peas, bean sprouts, spring onions - for the last minute of cooking. Serve with noodles or rice, garnished with coriander or sesame seeds if you have them.