Christmas leftovers... some ideas

So, hands up who bought too much food for one? I manage this every year, always with the mindset that friends might drop by or I might have an unexpected dinner guest on Christmas Night who has nowhere else to go. At the moment I'm looking at a large slab of belly pork on a plate in my fridge - some of that will be simply reheated for dinner tonight, accompanied by some of a lovely savoy cabbage I have and the rest of yesterday's roast parsnips.

If you're stuck for ideas, here's a few.

The quick chicken supreme work well with other poultry such as turkey, if you bought a small crown, guinea fowl or duck. And so will my cheat's chicken cacciatore - just make the sauce without the uncooked chicken, then add the cooked meat 10 minutes before the end, so it's thoroughly reheated.

Pie and risotto will take almost any filling - both are a good way to use up whatever leftover meat and vegetables you have to hand. Try my chicken and vegetable pie or chicken risotto.

My recipe for lamb in date and lemon sauce says uncooked lamb, but cooked will be fine - you'll be basically reheating it in the sauce in the oven. You can do the same with my fruity goat tagine - it doesn't have to be goat meat: leftover lamb or chicken will both be fine. A couple of slices of cooked lamb can also substitute for fresh chops in my lamb chops baked in the oven.

Soup is a go-to for Christmas leftovers. My game soup is ideal for leftover partridge, pheasant or other roast birds. My quick winter minestrone is very adaptable - the tomatoes, greens and pasta are the backbone, then just throw whatever else you have to hand in it.

If you have too many root vegetables lurking in your fridge, the winter root veg casserole is tasty and also simple and light after the richer food of Christmas Day.

If you have leftover cheese, you could make yourself a thrifty cheesecake or use some up in a stilton, rosemary and walnut scone.

Don't forget, quite a few of these can also be frozen once made - handy for those days when you don't feel like cooking but can pull something home-cooked from the freezer!

Game soup

An excellent way to use up leftover pheasant or other game birds. This makes a very filling and hearty soup that is just the ticket in cold weather.

What you need:
Half a cooked pheasant
2 pints/1 litre of game stock
1 onion, finely diced
1 carrot, diced
About half a mugful of broth mix
A sprig of fresh thyme
Seasoning

What to do:
Strip the meat off the carcass and set aside. Make the stock.  

Sweat the onion in a little olive oil until it's translucent. Meantime, tip the broth mix into a sieve and rinse it well under the cold tap. Add the carrots to the pan and sweat for a couple of minutes then pour in the stock and add the broth mix plus the thyme. Simmer for an hour to an hour and a half until the grains and pulses are tender. Ten minutes before serving add the pheasant meat, chopped or torn into bite-sized pieces. Season to taste.

Cook's tips:
Broth mix, or soup mix, is a blend of pearl barley and dried pulses. The ingredients can vary but it usually contains red split lentils, yellow split peas and green split peas. Sometimes it contains marrowfat peas and other larger pulses too - if so, you will need to soak the mix overnight then drain and rinse well before cooking. Do not add salt until the end of the cooking process or the pulses will stay tough and hard.

Roast pheasant with roasted roots

The pheasant season runs from October to February, so now is the perfect time to buy one. Yes, I know they usually come in pairs (a brace) but a good butcher should sell you just the one (if not, stick the spare in the freezer). Most pheasant these days is farmed rather than shot in the wild, but you may still find a lump of lead or two embedded in the flesh so be careful with your teeth while eating. And it's not usually expensive - my local butcher usually sells a brace for a fiver, so a bird for £2.50 is very good value. I never plan to buy pheasant but if I see fresh birds being sold at a reasonable price, I'm in. Best of all, a pheasant feeds two so if you're not cooking for a friend that's two separate meals for you.

The meat is very lean and has a delicately gamey flavour. This makes a perfect Sunday dinner.

What you need: 
1 pheasant
A few strips of fatty bacon - streaky is best
A couple of parsnips
1 large beetroot
Redcurrant jelly
Half a glass of red wine
Juniper berries
1 bayleaf

What to do:
Scrub the beetroot, trim carefully and wrap it in foil before popping it on the top shelf of the oven at 180C. It needs 2 hours to cook through.

Prepare the pheasant. Pluck off any stray feathers and check inside the cavity - you probably won't find any fat but you may find some leftover liver from the gutting. Pull out any remaining innards and rinse the cavity carefully. Pat the bird dry with kitchen towel and put it in a roasting tin. Bruise a few juniper berries in a pestle and mortar and pop these inside the cavity, along with the bayleaf. You can add a sprig or two of thyme or a shallot but don't pack it out too much as you want to enhance the flavour, not overwhelm it. Oil the skin with a little olive oil and then cover the breasts completely with the bacon.

Peel and trim the parsnips, then quarter them. Toss in a little olive oil and put them in a ovenproof dish. Roast for an hour, turning halfway through.

Roast the pheasant for an hour to an hour and 20 minutes, depending on size. Check it every 20 minutes or so to check it's not drying out - a little water in the tin will help out here. Take the bacon off near the end so the skin has a chance to brown and crisp. Take the pheasant out of the oven 10 minutes before serving, cover it loosely with foil and let it rest.

While it's resting, making the jus. Put two dessert spoonfuls of redcurrant jelly in a small pan with the wine. Warm through on a moderate heat until it's just starting to simmer, stirring all the while to ensure the jelly is thoroughly dissolved.

To serve, unwrap the beetroot and quarter it, slice off one breast and leg from the pheasant, and arrange on a plate with the parsnips. Spoon the jus over the meat.

Cook's tips: 
You could halve the pheasant with a pair of poultry shears if you want to set half aside for another recipe. If you cook both halves together, adjust the cooking time as they will cook faster and you may need to cover the roasting tin with foil for at least some of the time as the bird will dry out more this way. Either way, do not skimp on the bacon as it keeps the flesh moist during cooking and the fat prevents the skin from becoming over-roasted.

Cranberry sauce is an excellent substitute for redcurrant jelly and is something most people have in the larder, as there always seems to be half a jar left over from Christmas.

Keep the other half of the pheasant, including the carcass, for soup.