Left Brainers – Leftovers Need Your Help

Date: January 2024
Author: Laura Dodwell-Groves

A single egg, some cold chicken, half a broccoli and some slightly mouldy cheese hardly sounds like a dinner of champions, but a creative mind knows that adding a couple fresh herbs of some rich spices can turn it into something exciting.

But we don’t think this spark of creativity should be relegated to the creative brainers! Indeed, analytical and orderly reasoning would actually come in useful. For starters if you are a left brainer, your fridge is probably a bit more organised. Perhaps even labelled, and those labels might even have dates on them. This means you already have the advantage of knowing where things are and what you have to play with You could take your analytical mind further: make a chart, separating out all your proteins in one column, all the veg in another column, all the carbs in a third column and then a selection of flavour enhancing options (chili, cheese, pesto etc). You could make and use fridge magnets too, and move objects in and out as the contents of your fridge or freezer fluctuate. Of course your left brain may not like it when other family members come along and move things about, but we know you will persevere.

Really, this is a post about food waste. The more you organise and know what is in your fridge, the more likely you are not to waste it. And if there is a creative cook in your family, you can help them by reminding them what’s there. Give them the structural support they need to surprise you with something delicious.

Chat GPT even has suggestions now about how to mix leftovers. It has yet to give me one that I like, but the technology is advancing quickly, so I am going to keep trying. This seems like a modern and sustainable way to keep playing with our food. We hope you enjoy the experiments.