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In these tricky times, we're all looking for ways

to make the most of our weekly food shop.

So in this series, I'll be sharing the savvy recipes

I rely on day to day...

..to save me time, money, and do my bit to help the planet.

If we didn't throw anything away -

just think about that for a second.

I'll show you clever ways to transform food scraps

into fabulous dishes...

This started life as a sad bag of salad leaves.

..spin boring old leftovers into imaginative new meals...

It's magic, right?

This is what it looks like to love your leftovers.

..and bake batch-friendly treats to get ahead.

This is what cooking once and eating twice is all about.

Plus, I'm showcasing creative cooks from across the UK

who share my passion.

I love using stuff up.

I take great pride in not wasting anything.

It is like chocolate heaven in here.

Cook once, eat twice is my feel-good food philosophy.

Yum!

Convenient, cost-effective

and, I promise you, totally delicious.

This week, easy-peasy bakes for a faff-free life.

It is the source of happiness.

My batch of blissful beginner brownies...

You can have them for the rest of the week.

..a tasty savoury bake becomes a totally different meal...

Cook once, eat twice.

..and an epic trifle transforms leftover cake.

You can't cheat harder than that.

Bakes come in all different shapes and sizes,

and this one-pan wonder has everything you need

for an easy meal.

With succulent chunks of chicken and wholesome veg

smothered in the easiest of satay-style marinades,

my monster traybake will not only satisfy you now,

but spin into a whole new meal for later.

I'm going to show you guys how to make a chicken peanut traybake.

This is an absolute favourite in our house.

So when you hear the word "bake", often our head goes

sweet, desserts, kind of puddings.

No!

Baking for me is sweet and savoury,

and one of the best ways to get ahead in the kitchen

and feed my family - and fast - is by baking,

because I can put everything in one tray, one dish

and get it in and not think about it.

And this tasty traybake starts with

the simplest of store cupboard marinades.

I love that chicken satay flavour,

and I like to add my own spin on it, using stuff that I've got at home.

And first out of the cupboard,

it's smooth peanut butter for a deliciously creamy base.

I love the combination of peanut butter and chicken.

Then another two of my store cupboard saviours,

garlic and ginger paste...

By themselves they're great,

but together they are like superstars.

..followed by punchy chilli paste and apple cider vinegar.

It's going to give us that lovely tart flavour that this needs.

In with a glug of oil.

And then I've got soy, honey.

Mix it all together.

It's going to taste phenomenal.

When you're making things like marinades

that are really quick and easy, make a double batch.

Cook once, eat twice.

Make it now, have dinner,

and then you've got some marinade left over for your weekend barbecue.

It'll sit in the fridge for up to three days,

but this batch is ready to marinade my diced chicken.

When I'm baking in the oven,

I always naturally default to chicken thighs

because they are juicy and they don't dry out,

and they've got great flavour.

In with my delicious, fragrant marinade.

You've got that beautiful red colour from that chilli paste.

It's velvety.

This works perfectly as an instant marinade,

but the longer you leave it, the tastier it will get.

Now on to our veggies.

When I pick vegetables for a traybake,

I like to use vegetables that cook all at the same time.

And for me, you can't beat a bit of broccoli.

Do not get rid of this. You know we don't like to waste.

Grate this up and make a coleslaw.

Yes, so instead of the cabbage, put this in.

Add the broccoli to the marinade.

Then for a bit of crunch, green beans.

And now...

..a cucumber.

Yes, I know. You're shouting at the telly,

"What do you mean,

"you are putting a cucumber in your traybake?!"

How often do you buy a cucumber and then use it in a salad,

and then you kind of forget about it and it ends up being wasted?

If you have a cucumber in the fridge, like, cook with it.

When my parents couldn't find water gourds

when they came to this country, they found cucumber.

It absorbs flavour.

It is so good when it's roasted in the oven.

Scoop out the fleshy part and save.

It will make for a great dip

with a bit of yoghurt and some fresh herbs.

Look at that!

A huge pile of vegetables.

Then get your hands in and coat everything

in that yummy marinade.

This is a huge traybake.

This will go a very, very long way.

You can just use vegetables that you've got in the fridge

or in the freezer. Of all the meals I make during the week,

this is the one that lasts the longest.

It's really cost-effective,

using ingredients that we've already got at home.

And it couldn't be easier.

For a moreish crunch, finish with a sprinkling of peanuts,

and my monster traybake is all ready to roast.

Look at that.

Baked to absolute perfection.

You have everything all in one.

It's no fuss.

Bake your cucumbers. Look at this.

So it gets kind of crispy on the top,

and then underneath it kind of, like, soaks up all of the flavours.

Rustle up my ridiculously easy traybake once

and you'll get a massive meal you can spin into a whole other dinner

later in the week.

Look at all these delicious things -

chicken, broccoli, green bean and cucumber,

all covered in that creamy, yummy, aromatic peanut sauce.

Yep.

That's the one.

The benefits of making such a huge traybake dinner

is that I'm guaranteed leftovers.

And wait till you see what I do with those.

One of my favourite things about cook once, eat twice

is getting creative.

So let's transform that delicious traybake

into a tantalisingly tasty chicken noodle soup.

Take some of that scrumptious satay traybake...

..add to a pan with rich chicken stock...

..then crush crunchy noodle nests straight in.

Bring to the boil.

Add a little water, cornflour mix to thicken...

..and all your scrummy satay chicken noodle soup needs

is a hit of fiery red chilli...

..fresh lime and fragrant coriander.

How's that for cook once, eat twice?

My next recipe effortlessly transforms one of the UK's

most wasted ingredients into a stunning savoury bake.

Of all the breads to make, soda bread is the easiest

and it's the perfect way to use up milk that's on the turn.

My pillowy-soft soda bread, loaded with luxurious chopped nuts,

will keep you in fresh bread for days,

with barely any effort at all.

Milk. It's one of the ingredients that we waste the most in the UK.

Because it's a liquid, I think we think,

"Ah, it's fine, just chuck it down the drain."

We don't even think about it.

And if, like me, you're on a mission to not waste as much as possible,

you are going to love this recipe.

We're going to turn it into buttermilk for our soda bread.

And for that, we need around 400ml,

and then to magically transform it into buttermilk,

four tablespoons of lemon juice.

And as soon as I add the lemon juice into the milk and give it a stir,

it will start to thicken and curdle the milk.

So that's it. Instant buttermilk.

See, how easy was that?

I'll just set that aside.

And now onto our dry ingredients.

To 700g of plain flour,

add two tablespoons of caster sugar and a pinch of salt.

There's moments where I'm like, "Oh, I really fancy fresh bread,

"but I can't be bothered to knead and to prove."

I'm like, "Ah, soda bread!"

It doesn't actually have any yeast in it,

and that is what makes it so quick.

Just one magic little teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.

But the thing is with bicarbonate of soda

is it needs something to activate it. It needs acid.

And we've got the lemon juice in our buttermilk,

so when the wet ingredients meet the dry ingredients,

the magic happens

and things get lovely and fluffy when we put them in the oven.

But before that, it's in with 50g of softened butter.

I do really enjoy rubbing that butter into the flour.

It's actually quite nice.

It's like messy play, but for grown-ups.

Soda bread is a flavour sponge

and I love a bit of nuttiness in mine,

so in with 110g of toasted hazelnuts and walnuts.

And then grab your buttermilk.

Pour that right into the centre.

And just get a knife and kind of bring that dough together.

And because that bicarb instantly reacts to the buttermilk,

there's no hours of proving. Plus...

..there's quite literally no kneading whatsoever.

Tip it out onto the surface

and then just slowly sort of bring it together, using my fingers.

Don't be tempted to go in with this part of your hand,

because that's the bit that wants to knead.

This bit doesn't want to knead, this bit does. Do not do it.

It's going to look scraggly and you're going to be like,

"What did she make me do?"

Don't worry, it's fine. It will come together.

In fact, this bread is so simple,

it's easy to whip up two at a time and pop one in the freezer.

Enjoy it. Don't let baking stress you out.

Baking can be really easy.

There's a time when I couldn't bake and now I bake every day,

and I have done for 20 years and I still love it.

So, you know, start off easy and who knows?

Who knows what showstoppers you'll be making?

Once I've got, like, a nice even round...

DULL TAPS

I love that sound.

..grab a tray lined with some baking paper.

So you want to kind of flatten it down,

so it's about kind of 5cm high.

And then divide into eight equal triangles,

cutting all the way through the dough.

It allows steam to escape so that the bread can really puff up.

And that's our faff-free fresh loaf done already.

OK, so I'm going to pop that straight into the oven.

Oh, the smell!

There is nothing quite like the smell of fresh bread.

Perfectly baked bread.

Crusty on the outside,

pillowy-soft in the middle.

My easy-peasy soda bread, packed with crunchy nuts,

will not only keep you in fresh bread for days,

but saves you from wasting that precious milk.

All it needs now is its best friend - butter.

That's like comfort in one mouthful.

Nothing gives me more pleasure than turning sad, surplus ingredients

into exciting eats, and I'm not alone.

In Leeds, innovative baker Sarah Lemanski

ensures her handcrafted bakes are produced from locally sourced

seasonal produce, and that not one crumb goes to waste.

We think about all our products that we make

and all the ingredients that we use as a never-ending cycle,

so there's never-ending opportunities to build flavour,

and we just absolutely love that.

With around one million loaves of bread wasted each day in the UK,

Sarah makes sure that every last morsel of her loaves is enjoyed.

We're really passionate about the life of the loaf.

We use the whole loaf, from one crust to the other crust,

every single slice.

We use the breadcrumbs to top pizza.

It adds a really great texture.

We even put breadcrumbs in cookies,

so there's always either a sweet or a savoury way

to make use of every single breadcrumb.

One of our most popular baked goods is rhubarb and blood orange bostock,

which is made using leftover brioche.

We make it into this completely new French fancy.

So easy and simple to put together.

This brioche is made with a by-product

of the flour-milling process,

which is semolina, which gives it this really beautiful golden hue.

It starts with this blood-orange syrup.

This is also a by-product.

When we make a blood-orange cake, we candy the orange slices,

which gives us this really, really beautiful syrup.

It's amazing.

So we're using this gorgeous rhubarb.

Typically you would use maybe a jam,

but we're going to use this because it's in season.

It's just a really simple fruit compote

made with rhubarb and a little bit of sugar.

So it adds a really nice tart layer of flavour.

This is a really classic almond frangipane -

equal amounts of butter, sugar and eggs and ground almonds -

with a little bit of a twist.

Any excess breadcrumbs that come from the end slices of the brioche

help stabilise the mixture.

Typically you'd use flour.

This is one of the most popular bakes that we do at the bakery,

which always makes me laugh because it's repurposing everything,

but people absolutely love it.

It'd be so easy to do at home.

If you've got strawberry jam, you can put strawberries on there.

Anything goes.

Final thing is some flaked almonds.

And Sarah's fabulous fruity fancies

bake to perfection in just 20 minutes.

I absolutely love my job.

It's the best job and I wouldn't want to do anything else.

From, like, sourcing the flour, starting to bake with it,

every single bit of the journey is, like, absolutely joy.

I love how Sarah's determination not to waste

can create something as stunningly simple

as this scrumptious rhubarb bostock.

My next recipe is not only a doddle to make,

but gives you a stock of sweet treats on standby.

We all need a brownie recipe in our lives,

and this one is a keeper.

Moreish, delicious and fudgy enough to last all week.

Crowned with creamy caramel, white chocolate and rock salt,

these batch-friendly brownies are an effortless treat

you'll make once and relish repeatedly.

If you want a really, really easy bake

and you want to start somewhere, I would go with a brownie.

You cannot go wrong with a brownie.

I have made brownies for every occasion.

You name it - birthdays, picnics, lunchboxes,

midnight snacks, breakfast - brownies.

Bake them once and stash them in the fridge or freezer

to make them last even longer.

First thing I'm going to do

is melt my butter and my chocolate together in a pan.

So onto a low heat goes 250g of salted butter

and 250g of dark chocolate chips.

I usually make brownies

when I've got lots of bits of chocolate lying around,

and you might have chocolate lying around at Easter,

you know, when you've got tonnes of bitty bits of chocolate everywhere.

Why not collect it up and turn it into a delicious base

for a brownie batter?

You want something that is smooth and melted with no lumps.

Look at that.

Then into a bowl goes four eggs and 280g of caster sugar, and whisk.

We just want to make sure the sugar and the egg is mixed in really well.

We're not incorporating any air in here

because brownies are meant to be fudgy and dense.

They're not meant to be light and airy.

So in with the cooled velvety chocolate.

Ever since my kids have been little, like, I've been making

these brownies, from the moment they came...

In fact, I lie. My biggest baby is my husband.

And the second we got married and had our own oven,

he was like, "I don't really like brownies."

I was like, "Who is this man and how do we fix this?"

But he's only been eating shop-bought brownies.

So I went and got all the ingredients,

made him some brownies, and he said,

"Oh! I don't like shop-bought brownies."

I was like, "All right, here we go." And that's it.

I have made brownies ever since.

OK, so now we've done all of our wet ingredients.

Now let's go in with our dry ingredients.

That's 130g of sifted plain flour

and 20g of cocoa powder

for double chocolate deliciousness.

Normally, when you're making a cake,

you kind of have to be a little bit more delicate

and make sure you're not breaking up

any of those air bubbles. But nope, not with this.

It's that easy.

Look at this batter.

Lovely and thick...

..and chocolatey and rich.

It is the source of happiness.

Simply pour that decadent chocolatey goodness into a lined tin.

Beautifully basic brownie batter complete.

But who isn't tempted to decorate a brownie?

And I'm going to show you one of my kids' favourite toppings.

Really quick, really easy.

Starting with 100g of moreish white chocolate.

I know everyone says, "It's not real chocolate."

I know, but I think it's really tasty.

I love it, it's so milky and creamy and sweet.

Love it, and I think it works really nice in brownies.

Then one of my absolute store cupboard saviours.

Ready-made caramel, straight out of a can,

so you don't have to make it yourself.

It's buttery and creamy and delicious,

and it is just going to make your brownie even more yummy.

Finally, to balance the sweetness, a sprinkling of sharp rock salt.

Oh, look!

Looks good enough to eat and it's not even baked.

and it's coming on

Once our heavenly brownies have cooled,

a few hours in the fridge will maximise their fudgy-ness.

OK, let's get in there. Look.

You know it's good when it will not let go of the knife.

Yeah. Fudgy and delicious.

Beautifully topped with that caramel and that white chocolate.

Just perfection. The best thing about these,

you can pop them in the fridge and have them for the rest of the week.

But even better still, you can wrap them up individually,

pop them in the freezer, and then just take them out

whenever you want, let them thaw out and enjoy them.

But if you're like my husband, you can pop them in the microwave

for 30 seconds and a big dollop of ice cream.

Yeah.

Topped with sticky, sweet caramel and creamy white chocolate,

my blissfully simple brownies will keep you stocked up

on sweet treats for days.

That is pretty special for an easy bake.

Shall I tell you what the sign of a really good brownie is?

It should weld your mouth shut.

Finally, a show-stopping dessert that gives stale cake a second life.

Every party needs an attention-grabbing dessert,

and my strawberry and lemonade trifle will steal the show.

My zingy strawberry lemonade trifle,

with lashings of sweet custard and pillowy-soft vanilla cream,

is a simple way to transform leftover cake into a centrepiece pud.

The best thing about making a trifle is that it's easy,

and for me, it's all about the cheating.

It's about using what I've already got.

I've got leftover cake, I've got some strawberries,

custard out of a can, cream.

You can't cheat harder than that.

But that doesn't mean compromising on wow factor.

When you've got something as magnificent as this,

you've got an opportunity to show off lots of layers.

And all those layers require is a teeny bit of prep,

starting with a joyful jelly.

So trifles are fun to eat,

but they should be just as fun to make.

So I like to make my jelly with lemonade,

just good old lemonade.

Yeah, of course, as per instructions, you can make

the jelly with hot water, but why not have a little bit of fun

and add a little bit of extra flavour?

So bring 600ml to the boil.

I want this to be a strawberry lemonade trifle.

I've got my strawberry crystals.

You can use jelly blocks.

I've made so many variations,

and this is definitely one of the kids' favourites.

My dad loves trifle any which way,

which makes him my favourite person to feed

because I can make my trifle anyhow and he will always love it.

So if I need an ego boost, I turn up with trifle for my dad.

And then pour the hot lemonade over the crystals.

Once all those fruity crystals have dissolved,

add 600ml of cool lemonade, leaving a touch for later.

I'm just going to go in with a ladle.

When I'm making a trifle, it's usually for lots of people,

so this is a really, really good get-ahead recipe.

And look, the difference between using water and lemonade

is not only does this jelly taste like strawberry lemonade,

but you get the little bubbles and they all set in the jelly.

You can tell instantly there's something different about that.

And while our fizzy jelly sets, it's on to our next easy layer.

I always have cake left over - in the fridge, in the freezer or out,

and this trifle actually works really well with stale cake.

So I'm slicing 280g of scrummy leftover Madeira cake into cubes.

It absorbs those juices and any of those flavours,

so it's perfect for trifle.

But easy on effort doesn't mean being frugal on flavour.

I want to make a really simple kind of lemonade drizzle

to go onto the cake.

So take the leftover lemonade

and zhoosh up with the zest and the juice of a lemon.

And that's going to really give us a really kind of

intense lemon flavour.

Finally, for the creamy crown, I'm amping up 600ml of double cream

with four tablespoons of icing sugar

and one teaspoon of sweet vanilla bean paste.

So whip the cream...

..till it's sort of soft, but just holds its shape.

That's kind of what you want. You want billowy, soft...

You should be able to kind of leave peaks at the top.

Prep complete, we're ready to build our tremendous trifle.

Look at that. Look at that wobble.

I love a wobble on a jelly.

This is the bit where you can really go to town on

making it look spectacular.

And to emphasise the jelly's fruity lemonade flavour,

I'm adorning it with fresh sweet strawberries.

Layer these around the outside.

We know it's going to taste great, but we want it to look great.

When you've got lots of people coming round,

it doesn't have to cost you tonnes of time and money.

You can do simple things like this

and make something really impressive.

I'm going to add, like, cake chunks.

And this is the most brain power you will need, I promise.

It's an easy trifle. We've hardly done anything.

Simply soak the cake chunks in that zingy lemon drizzle...

..then top with more sweet strawberries.

We haven't even finished yet.

Isn't that going to be a delight to present,

to set in the middle of the table?

So now custard. My favourite layer.

That's always going to be my biggest layer.

I love custard straight out of a can, ready to go.

Then to finish - our crowning glory,

clouds of soft, sweet vanilla cream.

So simple, easy strawberry lemonade trifle.

You've got your jelly, you've got your strawberries,

you've got your lemonade-flavoured cake in the middle,

huge layer of custard and lots of pillowy-soft cream.

A trifle should be epic,

and that is exactly what this is.

My zingy strawberry lemonade trifle

is not only a joyfully simple way to create a party centrepiece,

but a great excuse to give your leftover cake

a whole new lease of life.

I mean, to think we've just used

some bits and bobs that we've got in the house.

We've got some jelly crystals, some custard out of a can

and some leftover cake, and we've got the most spectacular trifle.

It looks too good to eat, but you've got to go in.

Oh, yeah.

A little bit of everything.

Delicious.

That strawberry lemonade is just really refreshing.

And that cake, leftover cake,

so easy and absolutely delicious.