Restefest!
I’m making leftovers a part of The From Scratch Body - some of my favourite meals these days are random leftovers combined, and now I hope to be able to inspire you to cook fun things with yours!
My kind of party!
The Norwegian term Restefest translates as “leftover party”. And yes, this is widely known and used and nothing new, even Ibsen used it in one of his journals!
The most common definition of restefest would be in terms of actually hosting a party or gathering for family and friends where you serve leftovers (think using up all your leftover Christmas food at a Boxing Day gathering for example, although this would be on Christmas Day in Norway, as we celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve. Are you keeping up so far?). But it can also simply be a fun way of referring to a meal at home for yourself and/or others in your household that is made up by various leftovers that need using.
As you can imagine, I am a huge fan of a restefest. It combines zero waste, low stakes cooking (you can’t really do it “wrong”!) and variation, as it will be slightly different every time depending on what you’ve got!
So wherever you see my videos (YouTube, Instagram, Facebook or TikTok) you will be able to see me share some of my restefest meals in my new video series (you guessed it): Restefest.
The point of sharing these videos are certainly not to make you try to follow exactly the steps that I’m taking, because the likelihood of you having exactly the same leftovers as me is maybe not great. (Well, I say that, but if you’re cooking a lot of TFSB recipes, maybe it will be pretty similar!) But doing what I do is not at all the point. It’s more to give you some ideas of how things that you may not have thought go together, definitely do go together, if you combine them in a certain way.
Cooking with leftovers is something which has got a lot easier for me as my confidence as a home cook has grown, so if you feel a bit unsure about how to go about it or where to begin, I would just encourage more and more cooking from scratch, keeping track of what you have in your fridge and cupboards, and not being afraid to make something that’s less than perfect! It’s certainly better to experiment and “fail” with your leftovers than giving up on them, as it will give you experience for the next opportunity.
Have fun and make stuff that works for you!
Let me know what you think, and if you made a really successful (or horrible, for that matter!) leftover meal, please do share in the comments below!
