Wednesday 17 December 2014

Cooking with Expired Items from the Fridge.

The following is a set of instructions to make the worst possible thing ever. I call it Expired Soup, and it's really easy to make. Here's what you do:

1. Systematically look at every item in your fridge and separate out anything that's expired, or things that you just can't eat anymore. Sauces, condiments, relishes, preserves, etc. All are welcome. Assemble these items on the bench.

 Here's my collected ingredients. Quite a healthy selection of dressings, pickled items, and leftover weeks-old baking.

2. Now that you've collected all of your ingredients together, you now need to find a bowl of a suitable size to hold all of it. Lastly, you need something to stir it all together with.  A wooden spoon, or something of similar physical attributes will do. I actually used a soup spoon.

 Pro tip: Get yourself one of these handy fume masks from your local hardware store. You might find that it helps you to keep your gag reflex under control while you are assembling your Expired Soup.

3. Be sure to stir as you go to ensure you don't get a build-up of solid things such as prunes, olives, and old bits of vegan brownie. Mine looked a lot like a delicious Indian curry, but yours may look different, depending on your ingredients.

 Mine looked like a nice creamy curry, though looks can deceive. It smelled like someone had opened up the gates of hell. Even now as I write this, the memory of the smell is enough to make my stomach turn.

4. Now that your concoction is thoroughly mixed, for the last step you are only limited by your imagination. You can cook it into a loaf, microwave it into a kind of cake, freeze it as popsicles, or simply garnish with some parsley and serve it up as a cold soup. I went with the latter option, and it was a real success as far as ensuring I'll never ever have dinner guests around again.

Here's a close up of mine. I think the capers really added a certain je ne sais quoi to both the colour and texture.

I'd love to see the results of your Expired Soup, so send in those pictures and stories. Let me know what ingredients really worked for you!