Passions: It’s obscene to throw away food when eating leftovers is such a culinary joy

What to choose? Foraging for leftovers is one of life’s pleasures. Picture: Getty

An acquaintance once commented, idly, that she didn’t save leftover food, instead she tips all untouched portions of a dish straight in the bin.

I was shocked to my frugal core.

It isn’t just the waste involved, although when you consider the ever-rising price of groceries, the transport costs, the carbon footprint of food production and the energy used in preparation and cooking, retaining unconsidered trifles for snapping up later always makes sense.

It’s a moral argument too – we are fortunate to have enough when others don’t.

But it is also the thought that in jettisoning leftovers you are deliberately depriving yourself of one of the greatest pleasures in life. Each retained morsel is all gain with very little pain.

To me, my fridge is a smorgasbord of character-actor snacks which have previously starred in other roles.

A single cold sausage is a thrilling find mid-afternoon, when you are just too hungry to wait till dinner, but don’t want to spoil your appetite.

Equally there is little that cannot be put between slices of bread and transformed into a new culinary highlight. Show me someone who works from home who has never had a lasagne butty and I’ll show you a liar, or a fool.

Boxing Day spoils can be better than Christmas dinner. There can be few meals to beat the annual competition to use turkey, beef or ham in ever more imaginative ways.

But if you are partial to a Sunday roast, this can happen each week. Bubble and squeak, shepherds pie or just cold meat and pickles are time-honoured traditions, but these days – with access to a cupboard of spices – you can add chicken curry, pork fried rice and all manner of pho or stir fries to see you through the week.

Even better, add the meat scraps, gravy and veg to a blender and whizz it up for a soup to stand your spoon in.

For more long term planning, there is always the freezer. But I’ve found, to my cost, that here a strict labelling system is crucial.

When my chest freezer broke down recently we tried to eat as many of the unidentified contents of the myriad of tupperwares as possible, in a week.

Dinner became quite the gamble - place your bets on risotto or rice pudding, mashed potato or cheese sauce, borscht or blackcurrant sorbet?

Who cares? It’s just another spin at the leftover roulette wheel, where you are always the winner.

Kirsty McLuckie is Property Editor of The Scotsman