Forum Topic

Larder App for Mobile Phone

Has anyone discovered an app that helps you plan meals by allowing you to enter the available food in your stores (cupboards, fridge, freezer) along with sell by dates? The aim would be to totally eradicate any waste and reduce the need to go out to shop to the absolute minimum.

Mark Evans ● 2409d4 Comments

Loads of apps mentioned on link below. https://www.escoffieronline.com/top-apps-for-finding-recipes-for-ingredients-you-already-have/#

Sean Wales ● 2409d

That's really helpful thanks. I'll work through them. Is anybody using any of these already or an alternative they could recommend?

Mark Evans ● 2409d

Try Plant Jammer, it is for Android but I am sure there is an Iphone equivalent.

Dominika Szulc ● 2408d

Sell by dates no longer exist as they were creating too much waste.We have Use By dates and Best Before dates that we need to be aware of.  Use By being the one to take particular note of as eating food beyond this is definitely not recommended.  Best Before is a quality issue rather than a safety one.  The eggseption is eggs.  Although they can be used a little past their date if they are thoroughly cooked eg baked in a cake or hard-boiled.  https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/best-before-and-use-by-datesThe only vegetables I have seen with a Use By date is cut and washed lettuce ie prepared veg and fruit.  All vegetables are better fresh and you learn which keeps well and which doesn't so you need to eat it first eg broccoli but fruit is often not ripe for quite a while afterwards and that can include tomatoes and avocadoes.  You can't just go by date on these.  The best mangoes are those that you have watched and felt ripen in the fruit bowl and not the ones cut up in a ready-made fruit salad.www.lovefoodhatewaste.com has an app.  They will also give you info on best ways to store food and the temp that your fridge should be at etc together with essential store cupboard ingredients and portion sizes. As for what to do with the ingredients you have in the past I've found Sainsbury's had a good website where you can enter the ingredients you have.  I haven't used one for ages but I think more of the supermarkets do this.  Sam's Brasserie once had a competition and the winner's recommendation for reducing waste was to know three things that you could make with whatever you are buying. You get to know what you can make in a hurry and what you can make if you have more time; what you can make if you are tired and what you can make if you have more energy.  There are recipes that you can simplify and modify.You can eat the stalk of the broccoli - if it is a bit tough on the outside then peel with peeler or knife to remove the tough bit.  When I cook a cauliflower for cauliflower cheese then I cook it as if it is a large brussel sprout by cutting a cross in the bottom of it - ie stalk leaves and florets. I cook it in a lidded pan so that the stalk is in water and the florets in steam.  You get the knack of not burning it.I recently found a friend had cut off half of the leeks in order to cook only the whiter part of them.  All of the green is edible.  It just needs to be washed really well.  You can slice it very thinly and use it in a soup.  Stock, onion and vegetables or make your own leek potato and onion.  It is easy and definitely better than tinned.  Remember that if you make it too salty (stock cubes are horribly salty even when low salt) then adding potatoes is a good way to lower that as well as adding more water.I guess when we buy packaged vegetables we often only buy part of them eg florets but that doesn't mean that we can't eat more of them.  There is a bit on www.lovefoodhatewaste.com about eating things compleatly.  If you had grown these yourself you would definitely not waste as much.Oh and I reckon life is too short to peel potatoes.  I had some lovely 'crushed potatoes' (new potatoes in their skins crushed not mashed) at Sam's Brasserie at which point I made this decision.  Gratin dauphinois I make without peeling the potatoes and baked potatoes we eat the skins too and the same with roast ones.  We just make sure that we scrub the potatoes well before baking - and for roast drizzle with olive oil and a little sprinkling of salt.

Philippa Bond ● 2408d