The Use-It-All Cookbook: review

THE trouble with oranges is that there is no way of knowing how sweet or juicy they are until after you have bought them.

So, there I was last week with two lovely looking oranges which, when I peeled them, were fairly dry inside. Normally I might have eaten them anyway, not liking to waste food, or hidden the segments in a fruit salad, hoping a good soaking in fruit juice would plump them up.

Then I remembered I had a book to review, The Use-It-All Cookbook. It had the tagline, “with an A-Z of leftover ingredients and how to use them”. I turned inside for advice on how to use leftover orange and found a recipe for Caramelised Oranges.

It told me the recipe was an excellent way of using up any slightly dried-out oranges. I’m not the best cook in the world but the recipe worked perfectly.

Author Bish Muir lives near Barnstaple in “an increasingly self-sufficient and eco-friendly farmhouse”. Her cookbook includes more than 100 recipes and ideas for using up leftovers. But it is not just a cookbook. There is a wealth of other information, including facts about how wasteful the western world is. There is also a section on planning your shopping and others on “must have” ingredients and kitchen tools and how to store leftovers.

The A to Z of leftover ingredients, mentioned above, is a clever concept. Each item gives suggestions for recipes; something “quick and easy” you can do with the leftover; and general tips.

I looked up bread, having half a loaf that was no longer beautifully soft and fresh. The suggested recipes included fish pie, rissoles, summer pudding and bread and butter pudding. Something “quick and easy” was bread sauce and the tips included making and freezing breadcrumbs and making croutons.

In these credit crunch times, this is an excellent book, packed full of information, hints and recipes. Now, instead of throwing away those wrinkly apples, I’m going to have a go at making an apple and onion confit to accompany roast pork.

• The Use-It-All Cookbook is published by Green Books and is available at £12.95.