ramadan
How to reduce food waste during Ramadan
Action starts with you
Make the most out of your food
Save Leftovers - Storing leftovers in a clear glass container, rather than in an opaque container, helps ensure you don t forget the food.
Eat the Skin - People often remove the skins of fruits, veggies and chicken when preparing meals. So many nutrients are located in the outer layer of produce and in poultry skin. For example, apple skins contain a large amount of fiber, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.
Be a Seed Saver - Aside from using the tasty flesh of your pumpkins in recipes and baking, a great way to cut waste is to save the seeds. In fact, pumpkin seeds are tasty and packed with nutrients.
Blend It Up - Blending up a nutrient packed smoothie can be a delicious way to reduce food waste. Make use of all your over ripe fruits in your smoothie.
Learn to Preserve - While you might think fermenting and pickling are new fads, food preservation techniques like these have been used for thousands of years.
Make Homemade Stock - Whipping up a homemade stock is an easy way to use excess food using vegetable scraps like the tops, stalks, peels and any other leftover bits
Don’t Toss the Grounds - Coffee grounds make excellent fertilizer for plants. The grounds are high in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which are nutrients that plants crave.
Perk Up Your Water - You can make water tastier and reduce your food waste impact at the same time using peels from citrus fruits, apples and cucumbers
2. Be smart about your food
Store Food Correctly - Improper storage leads to a massive amount of food waste.
Keep Your Fridge Clutter Free - While having a well stocked fridge can be a good thing, an overly filled fridge can be bad when it comes to food waste.
Shop Smart - Most people tend to buy more food than they need.
Don’t Be a Perfectionist - The consumer demand for flawless fruits and vegetables has led major grocery chains to buy only picture perfect produce from farmers. This leads to tons of perfectly good food going to waste.
Keep Your Serving Sizes in Check - Making sure your portion sizes stay within a healthy range doesn’t just help keep your weight down, it also reduces food waste.
Get Friendly with Your Freezer - Freezing food is one of the easiest ways to preserve it, and the types of food that take well to freezing are endless.
Understand Expiration Dates - “Sell by” is used to inform retailers when the product should be sold or removed from the shelves. Best by ” is a suggested date that consumers should use their products by. Neither of these terms means that the product is unsafe to eat after the given date.
Get Creative in the Kitchen - One of the great things about cooking your own food is that you can tweak recipes to your liking, adding new flavors and ingredients. Including parts of foods that aren’t usually used is an excellent way to repurpose scraps when you’re experimenting in the kitchen.
Pamper Yourself - If you want to save money while avoiding potentially harmful chemicals found in some skincare products, try preparing a scrub or mask at home using fruit or food leftovers
Cook along to this UPcycled recipe
Lamb Ouzi Sarates
By: Adil Mabchour, Chef de cuisine, Armani Hotel Dubai
Preparation: 20 - 30 minutes Cooking: 12min at 180◦c Serves: 10
Wasted ingredient: Lamb shredded, Oriental Rice, Reduced Roasting jus from braised baby lamb ouzi
Ingredients:
1000g - Slow cook Baby Lamb Ouzi shredded (balance for the buffet)
500g - Oriental Rice (balance from the ouzi station)
35g - Fresh Mint
250g - Yoghurt
Spring roll sheets
150g - Cucumber
500 ml - Reduced Roasting jus from the braised baby lamb ouzi
20g - Dry mint
100g – butter
Salt & Pepper to taste
Tahini Sauce
Method:
1 – Shred the baby lamb ouzi into small pieces.
2 – In a mixing bowl mix the rice and lamb with reduced roasting jus and add the chopped fresh mint then season with salt and pepper.
3 – Choose a small bowl which matches the shape you prefer for the Sarates. I chose a small round bowl.
4 – Place your spring roll wrap in the bowl, leaving enough of the wrap outside the bowl to cover the mouth of the bowl. Now, apply some butter on it. Next fill the bowl with the lamb and rice mixture.
5 – Flip the bowl over, make sure you close the mouth of your bowl with the spring wrap so that nothing falls out. If you used a round bowl like me you’ll get a shape that resembles a semicircle. Don’t forget to apply some more butter on the top.
6 – Bake it in the oven for 12min at 180°C and serve it hot with tahini, cucumber and dry mint rita.
This delicious dish was made from leftover Ouzi. Stay home and make Lamb Sarates from your leftover ouzi or machboos.
“Lamb Ouzi Sarates, it is a combination of rice and ouzi. Made with ingredients that would have otherwise been wasted.”
- Adil Mabchour, Chef de cuisine, Armani Hotel Dubai
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