It’s official, we are a shower of wasters and bread and butter pudding is making a comeback!

With great animation and common sense, celebrity chef Gillian Duff entertained and cooked for the audience at a Stop Food Waste demo in Co Kildare last weekend. With no fuss and minimal work, she cooked mushroom soup using vegetable or chicken stock, chestnut mushrooms, garlic, red onion and creme fraiche, she made a pot of soup which we all got to sample in compostable bowls. Delicious!

Mushrooms are one of the foods which have a high percentage of waste, purchased and often thrown out, but it is lettuce which has the highest waste - 50% bought from shops goes straight to the bin.

Next up was a lovely and simple chicken stir-fry: useful tips - don't dice the chicken, cut them in slices instead and the dish will go further; bring your Basmati or selected rice to the boil with a sprinkling of salt in the water but when it has come to the boil, leave it simmering for only a couple of minutes, then move the pot off the heat and just leave it where it will continue cooking itself

No need to worry about burning it or drying it out...by the time, you have your meat or veg stir fry done, the rice will be perfect.

With peppers and red onion added to the chicken, Gillian meanwhile beat some eggs, mixed them through the rice and then added rice and baby corn to the dish. Result, there was a very simple chicken and egg fried rice dish ready to serve from one large cooking wok. As always, Gillian favours adding fresh parsley to any dishes with garlic.

And then we got to the piece de resistence, a bread and butter pudding. Once a staple dessert in our household, now this dish has made something of a comeback but only in leading restaurants. Bread and butter puddings used up stale bread, left over mils and eggs.

I well remember buttering the bread, greasing the casserole dish as my mother used up stale bread, then sprinkling dried fruit across the layers of bread, even cherries if we were feeling frivolous. Chef Gillian added the grind of one large orange to give a 'tangy' zest to the flavours before egg yolks (no whites) were added, with milk and cream.

It was a very social but informative demonstration, Gillian is an engaging speaker, so there were no lulls or gaps in the demo and we were happy to keep tasting! Lorraine Kelly from VOICE (Voice of Irish Concern for the Environment) encouraged us to curb the food waste and reduce our dependability on plastic packaging. She warned that in a relatively short space of time, environmentalists predict that there will be more plastic in the sea, than fish... and that’s not so far away!

Gillian reminded the audience that Sell-by dates for consuming the products should be adhered to, albeit you’ll always have a day or two to spare. However, ‘Best Before’ is merely a recommended date and with most goods being properly stored in refrigerators, young people waste so much food by simply dumping it.

“You’ll know by the smell of something if it has gone off. If it is sweating or smelling, it is not good to eat but so many foods last way longer than the recommended dates”.