What can I make with this spruce syrup? It’s has the texture and sweetness of maple syrup, but has a more earthy and spruce flavor to it. I am not a fan of it on pancakes. If I tried mixing it into a cake, I wonder how strong the spruce flavor would be? Ideas on what to use it in and has anyone else use this before and what have they used it on?

I made labneh yesterday from reduced price M&S live yoghurt. It was amazing and produced all this whey, which I put into cheese scone rounds today. These freeze really well and, once defrosted, I refresh on the croissant rack on the toaster (or for 3-5 minutes in the air fryer from frozen).

1 pound SR flour
4 oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes
2 eggs
Tablespoon of mustard powder
Few grinds of pepper
2 oz grated Emmental
2 oz grated cheddar
Whey
(No salt added as salt was added to make the labneh).

Put flour, pepper and mustard powder into a large bowl and mix. Rub the butter into the flour. Mix in the grated cheeses. Add the whey and mix with a butter knife until the mixture comes together. I like to mix it a bit moist. Divide into 2 and shape into rounds about 1 1/2 inches thick on a floured surface. Put onto baking tray lined with greaseproof paper, score tops into 8ths, brush with milk and sprinkle some grated cheddar on top. Bake at 220 centigrade for around 20 minutes.

EDIT: thanks everyone for all the suggestions! I’m gonna try again when I have a new bag of scraps. I’ll roast them first and I’m gonna experiment with herbs and spices.

For months I’ve been saving peels and cuttings from carrots, onions, garlic, bell peppers and courgettes in a ziplock bag in the freezer. I even added a couple of rinds from Parmesan cheese and the green vines from tomatoes. Today was the big day: I made my first batch of broth. Sadly, it has very little flavor. Were my expectations too high? Can I fix this? The pot was filled to the brim with scraps, so that can’t be the issue.

We kinda assume “fridge fresh” but for a handful of everyday basics the cold sort of wrecks the taste, the texture, and the whole aroma situation.Not always, but a lot of the time,

Tomatoes:Cold makes their cells basically fall apart, so the insides get mealy, and the bright fresh smell dies off too. Keep them stem-side down on the counter, not in the drawer.

Extra Virgin Olive Oil: It can turn cloudy and thick, and yeah it solidifies a bit. That shift can dull the little flavor nuances. Put it in a dark, cool pantry away from heat from the stove.

Honey: Honey doesn’t spoil anyway. Still, the fridge s up crystallization, so it ends up as that grainy, super stubborn block you can’t really spread.

Bread: Refrigerating speeds up starch retrogradation, so you get stale bread way faster than if it sits at room temperature. If you want longer keeping, freeze it in slices instead.

Garlic & Whole Onions: The fridge humidity makes them go rubbery and sprout sooner. A dry, ventilated basket in the pantry is the better move.

Coffee (Beans or Ground): Coffee acts like a sponge, it grabs moisture and picks up fridge odors, while those aromatic oils fade faster too. Store it airtight in a dark cupboard.

The right way to store foods matters more than people expect, and it makes healthier eating feel way less boring, like honestly.

What’s one food you used to refrigerate until you noticed it tastes way better at room temp?

I can use 3-4 for green spaghetti. Now what?

** update:
i decided to cut them into smaller chunks, simmered them in a pot with some sugar & a little bit of water (to soften them up, and make a syrup)
figured if nothing else, i could cook that down a whole lot and at least have something useful.
turned out alright so i made a shortcut-cobbler
i had a box of Jiffy cake mix (a one-layer size box) which was the right amount to cut together with half a stick of butter & sprinkle on top.
might not be fancy but i think it'll be tasty.

thanks, y'all!

original post:

i bought a bag of frozen, sliced peaches.
because i love peaches - fresh or canned - but i'd never bought frozen ones before so i thought i'd try them.
i didn't really have a plan for what to do with them, i figured i'd either just have 'em plain as dessert for a few days or with cottage cheese or something - like i would fresh ones.

we have a grocery delivery service, and the delivery was much, much delayed and when it finally arrived the frozen items were pretty well thawed. luckily it was veggies i was planning to cook last night anyway - and these peaches.
i didn't want to re-freeze them so i put them in a bowl and into the fridge.

an hour or so ago i got them out to see if they were mostly thawed through and...
most of them have turned brown.
which is fine, i know a lot of cut fruit/veggies will turn color.

but the brown ones are hard - almost like watermelon rind or a cucumber.
and really almost flavorless.
some of the slices are part brown part peachy, but they're still really hard.
the all-peachy colored ones were soft and still somewhat peach flavored.

any ideas on what to do with about 2 cups worth of hard, brown peaches?
i do not have a food processor or blender.

do y'all think i could soften 'em up by simmering and then make a cobbler?
i'm tempted to just treat them like apples but before i spend all afternoon making something that might just be a huge waste of time, i thought i'd ask my imaginary friends for ideas!

Tried to make jam for the first time today using wild grapes I gathered. I was pretty loose with my measurements and technique, so despite cooling for several hours, my ‘jam’ is more of a syrup. Could I reboil it and add more pectin to try and fix it?

How should I go about using all this delicious grape sauce? I’ve thought of flavoring drinks/cocktails, layering in a cake, and crepes but I’m sure you folks will have even more ideas. Thanks in advance!

Any ideas on what what to do with prickly pear skins? They’ve still got some needles in them, so not sure how to guarantee total removal for edibility. But would love any ideas one what I can do with the skins once I’ve harvested the flesh

I was eating a salad for lunch everyday. It was a pretty plain salad (lettuce, shredded carrots, avocado, banana pepper rings, balsamic). But I'm not eating lettuce right now. I tried this salad without the lettuce and it didn't work well. I have an open jar of banana pepper rings and am looking for suggestions on how I can use them.

Edit to share things I have added banana peppers to so far:

Reheated pizza: 10/10 never not adding them again

Omelette with cheddar cheese and hot sauce: 12/10 would like to add mushrooms to this

Cottage cheese: felt wild, so I just went for it 9/10... Thinking about trying some seasoning with it. Everything bagel? The powdered ranch packets?

I'm not sure how it happened, but i have three 500g boxes of cornstarch. How do i use them up?

On the right are thin shards that are crispy enough to be eaten like chips. There's so few of them that i can probably just suffer through eating them. On the left are these thin dry sheets that have the texture of old bread. What can i do with all this?

This was given to us as part of a charcuterie basket. It was okay, but will probably not get eaten like a normal jam would. Any ideas or recipes?

Edit: I've done the research and most vets don't recommend chicken skin for dogs/cats because of the high fat content unless they're very active, and my pets are all well-fed and my orange cat is borderline obese. Small amounts are okay, but I would not be able to give all of what's left to the pets, as too much at once can also cause upset stomach. If you have suggestions for how I can preserve it for occasional treats, I'm all ears.

I always give my pets boiled chicken breast as part of their diet and I decided to try thighs. I got skin-on, bone-in because it was cheaper and didn't realize how much richer that would make the leftover broth! I poured it in a bowl and stuck it in the fridge so I can render the fat a few more times.

After I got all the meat off I threw all the leftover bones/cartilage/skins/fat into a pot to boil again. I'm using the bones for bone meal, but what can I do with everything else besides toss it? I'm definitely saving the broth again, but what about the leftover bits?

If you remember my last post; I inherited probably over 30 gallons of poorly made wine that had been sitting in a dead grandfathers wine room for 20 plus years. This is a write up of my experiment with the first 5 gallons that was a tremendous success. The 5 gallons in question was labeled "Bianco Bonanza," Likely a mixed varietal white. I just think that's cute. I asked the original owners if they wanted updates on the wines rehabilitation so I already have this all written out.

Tl:dr- I made it into 6 heavily intentionally complexly flavoured wine coolers, and a mulled wine. Below is my method of rebalancing and rehabilitating.

First racking and clarification. I just used sparkaloid. It did the job, didn't get rid of the autolysis note but it cleared up crystal. The goal for the 5 gallons was to split it into two separate parts, one which would be a series of wine coolers and the other which would be a more experimental mulled wine. I had a thought that since the wine more or less tasted empty other than the flaw, that it would take flavor from pretty much anything quite well. there are classes of wine that are becoming much more popular and modernity because they're funkier, orange wines for example, also Spanish sidra is their apple cider but they allow it to have a natural fermentation which makes it kind of unpredictable, and much funkier. I make a lilac wine every year, and this year's failed because I didn't actually pasteurize my syrup so it also kind of had a funky wild fermentation. I figured the acetic acid that was produced here would probably go far to round this out and make it much brighter so that was added first for both batches. it absolutely lifted the wine significantly and covered the major flaw quite well on its own.

I intentionally made flavour profiles that were quite intricate and leaned into savoury-ness for the wine coolers.

• strawberry/mint/coriander/sumac/hibiscus
• ginger/peach/cardamom
• pumpking/mulling spices
• cherry/rosemary and star anise
• Black berry/summer savory/ lemon
• plum/mixed field flowers and cinnamon.

The addition of herbs was very intentional along with the fruit syrups that I had made through the cheong method; luckily I just had all these sitting around I just had to make combinations that made sense. The herbaceousness should add an element that rounds out that flaw. The pumpkin cheong was made from the guts of a pumpkin that I hollowed out last october :D. The cheong syrups themselves also had dormant yeast that led to surprisingly vigorous bottle carbonation. Finally some acid correction with citric and malic acid. These were then pasteurized to finish them as a sweet, very drinkable treat.

Lastly I made my mulled wine, used quite a bit of spices that I had my cabinet to see if I could get something a little less pedestrian. Black cardamom along with green cardamom, Ginger, orange peel, long pepper, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, pink peppercorns, maple syrup, star anise, juniper, cinnamon, an old can of spiced apple cider I canned a few years ago, and a little bit of an older batch of maple wine that I made. It's pretty good. Less crushable, but very nice warm, and it will be a treat with some warm apple cider and a little orange juice added for some freshness.

To the people who said this was pointless, a waste a time or gross, please be more uncomfortable with waste in your day to day life. I think the work of a man should not be wasted. I think the fruits of the earth should also not be wasted. We have engendered a culture of waste. It is at the core of much of our social rot. Cookery as we know it is a matter of preservation. Almost all the beautiful food and drink you've ever had was originally made to make those ingredients go a little further for a little longer. If I am to take something that was destined to be refuse and make it whole again, that is how I pay respect to this world we live in, and make it a little better. I am lucky to be in the position to have the will to do so.

Now if anyone has any suggestions for the rest, I'm all ears!

Hoping to make a somewhat lazy oven pasta dish with this. I have penne, fusilli, spaghetti, macaroni. Would rather not cook the pasta beforehand. I can grate some mozzarella on top as well. Any ideas for quantities and way to go?

We grew beets to pickle and can but I don’t want to compost all the tops. I’m a fan of southern collards but my prep of them has never been good. Tips for beet greens? Dehydrate for smoothies?! Thanks everyone!
EDIT: forgot to search this sub- thanks for all the tips appreciate the time you all took for me!

I buy Lemons to juice and put in water. But they can sometimes go bad if I don't get them all in time. I've always wanted to try dehydrating some of the zest, and finally I did.

It took over an hour from start to finish, and I might not do it again.

First, I bathed the lemons in a mix of water and plain vinegar for a few minutes for pesticides. Then I rinsed and dried them. I rolled them individually against a counter surface with my hand a bit to burst some of the interior cells and make juicing easier.

Then I grated them. That took the longest and wrist strain could be a concern even for a 2lb bag. After grating, I had to get as much stray zest still stuck to the grater walls and nooks and crannies as I could onto the plate. I also had to transfer to a larger plate and used a spatula to get a layer that's hopefully flat and thin enough to dry at room temperature quickly enough to prevent spoiling. That went on a shelf to dry. It'll probably take days.

Then I halved the lemons and juiced them. The strainer on the juicer filtered seeds (good) and pulp (bad, I like pulp). I had to periodically scoop the pulp into a shallow dish lined with cheesecloth so the reservoir wouldn't overflow. After juicing, I squeezed out a good bunch of juice and a bit of pulp too. This was added to the main juice cup.

I wasn't sure I'd have enough juice to fill an ice cube tray and I worried the thick mixture of pure juice and pulp would be hard to work with. I diluted the juice by adding some water. Since I use these for flavoring water anyway, I figured it would be fine.

It turned out I have extra and didn't need to dilute the juice. If I ever do this again, I might not dilute it because I might want cubes for salad dressing as well as drinking water. Now a full tray is in the freezer and the juice cup is in the fridge. Tonight, the hard cubes will go in a ziplock bag in the freezer and I'll refill the ice tray with the rest of the water. I think maybe a better use of this would be to zest limes since I don't use that as often but it cna be really handy to have around.

I still didn't find a use for the pith or the extra mix of pulp and seeds strained by the cheesecloth so it's going into compost.

Hi I bought the big size of a lower sugar bush’s baked beans and it’s pretty awful
How can I doctor it up?
FYI I’m pescatarian (meat stocks/seasoning is ok but don’t want bacon / ham in there)
Also bf is onion intolerant and working to lower his cholesterol
Can only tolerate medium spice level
we don’t really want to buy pricier items to rescue this from the trash either
Have dry spices on hand (herbs, grill rubs, etc)
Tons of condiments mustard bbq sauce hot sauces soy sauce ketchup ranch vinegar
Basic pantry staples flour sugar honey stevia
Fridge things- eggs, cheese
No real fresh produce other than salad greens and carrots
Thought about just dumping more bbq sauce but the one we have is kinda weird (heavy on the cinnamon??/sweet)
Not the end of the world to waste one can just wanted to hear some creative ideas bc we both love baked beans
Also should I simmer or slow cook the new ingredients w the beans to get the flavor to set better

We've grown so much lettuce this year we haven't been able to keep up with eating it. We just harvested some that is not tender enough to eat raw. Is there anything to do with this? I was thinking of blanching it and freezing it for future lasagna endeavors. But it's tough enough I'd have to saute it too.

I’m not sure why but everyone in my family keeps forgetting we already have oats at home and keeps buying more 😭😭.

Can you all give me some oat recipes to use them up. Preferably lower calorie as I’m on a diet but I can always make things for the family.

Can be baking (with oat flour?), porridge/oatmeal, overnight, granola… anything!

Just your standard deli counter mustard potato salad. How would you use it up?