A chef who is passionate about limiting food waste is encouraging people to plan “messy meals” this Christmas.
Ellie Kirshen, known online as Ellie Pear, is a chef, columnist and producer who became aware of the issue while running The Pear Cafe in Bristol between 2006 and 2018.
She said the key to Christmas cooking was organization and encouraged people to audit their kitchen – just like a business owner would.
“Take a stock,” he said. “Try and do some fridge and freezer raids and make room for leftovers.”
He added: “Organize yourself and make a list of the things you already have that you can build on.”
The author, who has written three cookbooks, told BBC Radio Bristol that another piece of advice is to always have good quality eggs and bread in the house.
“Plan those days between Christmas and New Year’s,” she said. “Plan some random meals but if you’ve got eggs and you’ve got good bread, the world is your oyster.”
Ms Krishna’s Rollover Leftovers series on Instagram led to her nomination as a finalist at the BBC Food and Farming Awards for this year’s Digital Creator Award.
She said: “I didn’t win but to be nominated was absolutely amazing.
“My passion for creatively using leftovers and using things – I get a lot of inspiration from what needs to be used – I guess it was born from the cafe.
“When you have a small business, everything you bring in has to be maximized, so everything is wasted money, and that’s how it started.”
Ms. Krishna took to Instagram to share what she was making at home.
“I would literally share online, make a reel every single day, edit and share it myself every day,” she said.
“I showed how the cooking I made at home goes from one day to the next.”
Ultimately everything can make me a frittata, said the cookbook author, who now writes for BBC Food and Waitrose Weekend.
“Everything can be reused,” she said. “Even things that I think are really basic ideas are worth sharing.”