Locally, the following can be recycled: jars and bottles; cans and tins (including sweet and biscuit tins); clean aluminium foil and foil trays (Sainsbury’s car park, Beeston); plastic carrier bags (inside Sainsbury’s); Tetrapak milk and juice cartons (Sainsbury’s Beeston and Kimberley, Coop Stapleford, Chilwell Olympia and Leyton Crescent, Beeston Rylands); real Christmas trees and holly; wrapping paper, cards, envelopes and cardboard packaging.
If you do have leftover food, freeze it as soon as possible or turn it into exciting, tasty dishes. Stale bread can be frozen as crumbs for topping savoury and sweet dishes, vegetables can be turned into a healthy, warming soup, leftover Christmas dinner, including stuffing and gravy, can be wrapped in pastry and baked to make a tasty pastie.
Here’s an idea for using up spare sprouts. Why don’t you share your favourite leftover recipes?
Stir-fried Sprouts, Cantonese style
500g Brussels sprouts
1 or 2 cloves garlic
1 thumb-sized piece fresh ginger
1 dessertsp light soya sauce
1 dessertsp lemon juice or vinegar
1 heaped teasp sugar
1 rounded Tablespoon tomato puree
200ml (1/3 pt stock or water)
2 Tbsp bland veg oil.
1 Tbsp sesame oil
- Prepare the sprouts by removing damaged leaves and slicing thinly down towards stalk end.
- Crush the garlic then peel and chop it. Peel the ginger then slice very finely into matchsticks
- Heat the veg oil in a large frying pan or wok. When fairly hot but not smoking place the garlic and ginger in the oil and stir a few seconds to flavour the oil
- Add the sliced sprouts and stir to get everything coated thinly in oil and cook lightly for about 1 minute
- Push the sprouts to one side and add the tomato purée. Cook the purée stirring for a few seconds. Add sugar, soya sauce, lemon juice or vinegar and stock (it will hiss) and stir a minute longer. The sprouts will take up the colour of the tomato purée differently in different parts so you will end up with green yellow and orange. Check how tender the veg are. I like them still a bit crunchy but you can make them softer if liked. Adjust seasoning to your taste
- Sprinkle in the sesame oil and dish up.
The idea is to get a balance of Yin & Yang so there should be a mix of sweet, savoury and sour. If you want a more Thai flavour use lime juice instead of lemon, add some chopped chilli with the ginger & garlic, and sprinkle with fresh chopped coriander at the last minute.
Recipe contributed by Jill Burn