• Vegetable burger
• Shakshuka from leftovers
• Minestrone

Who remembers the days when stale bread was spread with egg and fried in a pan, yesterday's fried potatoes tasted best with kefir, or the egg schnitzels my mother made from hard-boiled eggs? Today, when everything is readily available, we don't necessarily think about how to use up leftovers or slightly overripe vegetables or fruit. It turns out that we waste tons of food; in Poland alone, the figure is about 9 million tons per year. This is not only bad from an environmental perspective, but along with the food we throw away, we're also wasting money. Fortunately, the time for change has come, and more and more of us are aware of this fact and trying to reduce the amount of wasted food. Shop with a list to buy only what you can really use. Here are some interesting recipes for a zero-waste dinner. Enjoy!

Vegetable burger

After preparing a clear broth or stock, we have all the cooked vegetables left. Drain the vegetables and mix them with your favorite groats—this could be millet, barley, or, for example, couscous— a can of red beans, possibly an onion, a clove of garlic, and your favorite spices. Form the resulting mixture into cutlets. If the mixture is too thin, you can add breadcrumbs. Cooked burgers are fried in a pan. You can serve them for dinner with potatoes or in a bun as vegan burgers.

Shakshuka from leftovers

This is an idea for using tomatoes and peppers. If they're no longer fresh, you don't have to throw them away. Simply dice them, toss them in the pan with the beans in brine, onion, season with salt , pepper, and cumin. When the vegetables are soft, make four wells in them to break the eggs into. Once they've set, you can sprinkle with parsley or cilantro, and you're done.

Minestrone

It was originally created as a poor man's soup because it doesn't contain meat, even though it's actually very healthy and rich in valuable nutrients. Interestingly, there's no single recipe for this Italian soup. The secret is to throw whatever seasonal vegetables you happen to have in the fridge into the pot. Depending on what you have on hand, you can complement them with a generous amount of pasta or rice. Any vegetables are suitable for minestrone: apart from traditional Italian ones, they can be spinach, cauliflower, celery, potatoes, zucchini, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, peas, or beans. Use only what's worth it, so it doesn't go to waste. First, heat the diced onion in oil or olive oil in a large pan. When they're translucent, add the rest of the chopped vegetables and cover with water. Add bay leaves, salt, and pepper to taste. Once the vegetables are soft and a significant amount of the water has evaporated (the soup should be thick), simply add the cooked pasta, whatever kind you have in your cupboard. You can also add stale bread. Once the soup is on the plate, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese, and you're done.

These are just a few suggestions, and there are many more. We can make pesto for pasta using parsley, coriander, or basil leaves that weren't used in the previous dish. Dice wilted pears and apples and bake them in a crumb topping for a delicious and simple dessert. Peel the broccoli stalk, cut it into sticks, and you have a healthy snack. Wasting food has become a habit, that much seems obvious. However, organizing leftovers in the kitchen, meal planning, and shopping isn't really that difficult, and it's worth learning the art of not wasting food for the benefit of our planet and our wallets.