The Food Waste Banquet - A Trash to Table Feast from Kitchen Scraps

Dry old floppy veg, a bag of peelings from the freezer, leftover mash, herb stalks going yellow, and the water out of a can of chickpeas. That is the entire shopping list for this banquet, because there was no shopping. Six courses, a whole table of food, and every bit of it came from something most people put in the bin. Here is everything you need.

What's Included

The full trash to table feast, course by course, with every recipe linked below. Potato bread from Sunday's leftover mash, a fridge raid salad dressed with herb stalks, crisp bhajis made from a freezer bag of peelings, a fritto misto of the last stragglers in the drawer, a curried mayo whipped from chickpea water, and a chocolate mousse made from the other half of that same tin. Below you will also find the numbers on what we actually throw away, and the handful of habits that make the whole thing possible.

Course 1: Potato Bread from Leftover Mash

The one that starts every conversation. Leftover mashed potato, flour, a little butter and a pinch of salt, kneaded, rolled and fried in a dry pan until it blisters. Crisp, golden, and somewhere between a pancake and a gnocchi. Brush it with butter while it is hot.

Potato Bread from Leftover Mash - The best thing you will ever do with the mash nobody ate.

Course 2: Fridge Raid Salad with Herb Stalk Dressing

The floppy celery, the drying carrot, half an apple and the last wedge of cabbage, all sliced thin. The dressing is where it turns clever: coriander stalks, lemon, capers, garlic and cumin blitzed into something sharp and green, made entirely from the part of the bunch you were about to bin.

Fridge Raid Salad with Herb Stalk Dressing - Fifteen minutes, no cooking, and it costs you nothing you had not already bought.

Course 3: Veggie Peel Bhajis

A freezer bag of parsnip skins, onion ends, carrot bits and leek tops, defrosted, spiced and fried. The freezer has already done the softening that salting an onion normally does, so the work is half finished before you start. Nobody guesses what is in them.

Veggie Peel Bhajis - Crisp, golden and properly spiced, from the bits you peel off.

Course 4: Fritto Misto with Curried Aquafaba Mayo

Beetroot tops, sage leaves, a soft old lemon, a bendy carrot, a mushroom and a cauliflower floret, in a batter that is half cornflour so it shatters. Served with a mayo made from the liquid in a tin of chickpeas, which whips exactly like egg white and normally goes down the drain.

Fritto Misto with Curried Aquafaba Mayo - Eat the lemon slices whole. They are the best thing on the plate.

Course 5: Chocolate Mousse Made From Chickpea Water

The other half of that tin, and the dish that convinces people. Aquafaba whipped with sugar exactly as you would whip egg whites, folded through melted chocolate, and topped with a compote made from a bruised apple with the skin left on. Completely vegan, and nobody can tell.

Chocolate Mousse Made From Chickpea Water (Aquafaba) - A proper dessert from something you were pouring away.

What We Actually Throw Away

The numbers are worse than most people assume, and they are the reason this video exists.

• Around 80 kilos of food per household, per year, thrown out in New Zealand, worth roughly $1,364 a year to the average household
• About $3 billion of wasted food nationally, every year
• Vegetables are the single biggest category at 57 percent of what gets binned, which is exactly why this banquet is almost entirely vegetables
• 29 million loaves of bread a year go in the bin in New Zealand alone
• In cafes and restaurants, research for WasteMINZ put it at around 24,375 tonnes a year, and 60 percent of that is preparation waste, the trimmings and peelings that come off before anything is even cooked

That last one is the one that stuck with me. Sixty percent of professional kitchen waste is peelings and ends, and every home kitchen quietly does the same thing on a smaller scale. That is a bag in the freezer, not a problem.

The Habits That Make It Work

Keep a scrap bag in the freezer. Onion ends, parsnip and carrot peel, leek tops, broccoli stalks, the woody base of a celery stick. It costs nothing, takes up no room, and freezing softens everything for you so a bhaji mix is half made before you start.

Buy robust veg instead of bagged leaves. Bagged salad is the fastest thing in the shop to turn to slime. Celery, carrot and a whole cabbage sit happily for a fortnight, which means there is always something to make a salad from.

Stop binning the stalks. Coriander, parsley and basil stalks carry more flavour than the leaves. Blitz them into a dressing. Celery leaves taste like parsley and go straight through a salad or a tabbouleh.

Save the chickpea water. One tin gives you mayonnaise and a chocolate mousse. Three tablespoons of aquafaba does the work of one egg.

Slice tired veg thinly. Floppy is not off, it is just dehydrated. Thin slices and a sharp dressing hide it completely. Slimy, mouldy or sour smelling is a different matter and belongs in the bin.

Season pumpkin seeds and roast them. If you have gutted a pumpkin, wash the seeds, dry them, toss them with a splash of soy and a little oil and give them a few minutes in the air fryer. They come out crisp and savoury and make a brilliant topping for the salad above.

Fry the things nothing else will rescue. A bendy carrot is grim raw and dull boiled, and excellent in a crisp batter. Same for a soft lemon, skin and all.

Cook the fruit that has gone soft. A bruised, floury apple makes a compote in ten minutes. Leave the skin on for a bit of texture and one less thing in the bin.

Why This Collection Works

Every one of these six dishes started as something with no plan attached to it. That is really what food waste is. Not food that went bad, but food that nobody had a use for at the moment it needed using. The mash from Sunday, the herbs bought for one recipe, the peelings that come off automatically, the liquid in a tin you opened for the chickpeas.

What makes the banquet hang together is that none of it tastes like a compromise. The potato bread is genuinely one of the best things on the table. The bhajis get fought over. The mousse fools people completely. If saving food meant eating worse, nobody would keep it up, and the whole point here is that it does not.

And it stacks. One tin of chickpeas gives you a mayonnaise and a dessert. One pumpkin gives you soup and a seed topping. One bunch of coriander gives you leaves for one dish and a dressing from the stalks for another. Cook like that for a fortnight and the difference in your bin is obvious.

Related Pages

Don't Throw That Away, Zero Waste Recipes for Every Kitchen Scrap - The full reference guide, scrap by scrap, if you want to go further than this menu.

Homemade Vegetarian XO Sauce - The best condiment I know for turning odds and ends into something you crave.

How to Make Homemade Fruit Vinegar - Cores, peels and bruised fruit, turned into something worth keeping.

Leftover Porridge Bread, Seeded Wholemeal Loaf - The other great use for a pan of leftovers nobody wants.

Brussels Sprout Caesar Salad with Crispy Rice - Leftover rice, fried until crunchy, in a salad worth making on purpose.

Have a proper look in the bottom drawer of your fridge, the bag in your freezer and the tin you are about to open. There is a considerably better dinner in there than you think, and the bit you were going to throw out is usually the bit that makes it good.

Enjoy!

Del x

Six courses built entirely from kitchen scraps, leftovers and the things most people put in the bin.