Council team will visit Hereford’s River Carnival to show visitors how to do a lot with a little by turning leftovers into tasty treats

Some spuds. Half an onion. And various bits and bobs from the bottom of your fridge.

Those ingredients may not sound particularly appetising. But less-than-tantalising bits and bobs are all that’s needed to create a tasty meal. At least they are if you know what you are doing.

The problem is many of us don’t. So, those scraps often get thrown onto the compost heap or, worse, tossed into the bin.

But the cost of living crisis and a desire to waste less is inspiring more of us to think again about throwing away ingredients we’ve already paid for. More and more families want to make the most of what they already have.

This is where Talk Community’s Clare Evans, health and wellbeing trainer lead, and Philippa Ellis, health and wellbeing service manager, come in. Clare and Philippa are appearing at Hereford’s River Carnival between 11am-4pm, Saturday 27 August to demonstrate what you can do to cut down on food waste and create healthy, nutritious meals for your family from leftovers.

To make the experience as authentic as possible, the pair will have no prior knowledge of the ingredients they will be given by The Living Room, just as those who collect ingredients in this way don’t know what they will receive. Clare and Philippa’s challenge is to think on their feet to come up with mouth-watering meals that are easy for others to recreate. They will have a few store cupboard ingredients, such as herbs and spices, to reflect what most people have at home.

Working in partnership with our waste management team’s Getting it right campaign, Clare and Philippa say:

“Most of us live really busy lives and don’t give a moment’s thought before chucking scraps away. But all those ‘scraps’ have been paid for with hard-earned cash.

“So, throwing leftovers away is equivalent to throwing money down the drain! When we appear at the river carnival, we’ll show people how to make really easy family meals with the most basic ingredients.

“We’ll also demonstrate good recycling habits and have some interactive games for children to enjoy. While they’re fun for kids to do they will help them understand what can and can’t be recycled. We’ll also talk about how to store food so it lasts as long as possible. We’re really looking forward to seeing as many families as possible down at the river carnival.”

We are grateful to The Living Room for providing the ingredients needed for our demonstrations at Hereford River Carnival.

Domenica Fitch, operations manager at Ethos, which The Living Room is part of, says:

“We’re thrilled to have been asked to provide the ingredients for the cooking demos at Hereford River Carnival. The ingredients will be collected as surplus food from supermarkets that would have otherwise gone in the bin. Together we can reduce food wastage and save our planet.”

Published: 22nd August 2022