Janet from Essex bins about a quarter of all the food she buys.
I buy quite a lot of food and then find I waste it where I don't use it.
She knows she needs help with her food waste, so I'm rocking up to hijack her kitchen.
Oh come in you!
Come on darling, how are you? ((Hello gorgeous, welcome back to Essex)) So.
What's going on then what's the problem? What's the biggest thing that you waste?
((Salad, cream cheese, bread lots of bread)) Should we focus on bread? ((Yeah go on then))
We're not gonna be using that, but look just look... oh dear, you see?
But actually, stale bread is a gift and it's the perfect thing to give your food great texture.
If your bread's just on the turn, clank it into chunks and bake it. You'll have gorgeous croutons
ready for whenever you want them. So they're not gonna go anywhere. Put them in an airtight jar,
they'll be good for a year. They're ideal for adding another dimension to soups, salads,
and all sorts of other dishes. You can actually smash it over the top of a lasagna and put a
bit of cheese over the top and get that really crunchy top. So it's a good little thing. Or,
if your bread's already gone stale don't bin it! Turn it into my favorite pappa di pomodoro,
a deliciously thick tomato and bread soup from Tuscany. I'm gonna put some garlic in here,
I'm just gonna sweep in that basil. So this goes back on here. Now I quite like spicing up this
soup so I put just a little bit of dried chilli. So what we're gonna do is go in with one tin of
tomatoes and then we go over with our bread, just tear it into thumb-sized pieces okay. If you use
fresh bread for this it would be soggy and gluey and horrible. Stale bread however, is phenomenal.
So look here we go, we're gonna season it with salt, pepper, and olive oil.
A tiny bit of parmesan I put in there, I'm using it not as
a cheese but as a seasoning. And then what you'll notice is it just shines.
Just finish off with a handful of basil leaves and a few shavings of parmesan.
Right darling, you have a little taste.
Lovely.
My final bread-saver is pangrattato, a crunchy tasty breadcrumb topping that's gonna
revolutionise your pasta and your salads. You mind whacking that in your machine and giving it a good
old blitz up for us? Whiz up leftover bread along with herbs, garlic, and salt and pepper to pump
up the flavour. And if I'm being really lazy I ain't even gonna peel it I just put it in.
It's so simple, just fry it for about five minutes in a little oil until golden and
crunchy. Think of like garlic bread, but smashed up into little crispy bits. So that's the
pangrattato ((Pan...grattato)). Pangrattato ((Pangrattato!)), si, fantastico.
Once it's nicely crisped up the pangrattato can be stored for up to a week. But right now I'm gonna
add it to the pasta dish I'm making with tomato, chilli, and basil sauce. We'll season it with salt
and pepper. We'll have a little bit of a shake around. Have a taste... sweet,
a little bit chilly garlic ((Lovely)) it's really really nice. And let's serve up this spaghetti.
Sometimes even a little of that water is good to have as well. And then we have a little toss-up.
And then we can finish with some good olive oil at the end, and we can tear in
some basil so you get that fresh hit.
I know I'm deeply biased but I want you to try this pangrattato and tell me that
it doesn't set off the whole pasta dish. You're gonna go absolutely wild for that,
and get in there darling, I might even join you actually for a little mouthful. ((We can do a
Lady and the Tramp)) Yes we can. I think my time here is now done, but the question is will you be
wasting bread anymore? ((No, definitely will not be wasting bread anymore)) I'm gonna ask
you just go into that room in privacy, because it's too much to ask a woman to eat pasta on TV,
it's too much you gotta have respect, so you just eat away. ((Oh, mm!))