Loof — tops, stalks, rinds

Roughly a fifth of every vegetable goes in the bin before it reaches the pan, and most of it is the part with the flavour in it. None of this is thrift for its own sake. It just tastes better than the bit you kept.

Mixed vegetables from a kitchen garden, tops still attached

Read this before the recipes

Not every green top is food. Four that come up every single time we are asked, and one rule that covers the rest: if you cannot name the plant, do not eat the leaf.

Rhubarb leaves: Never. The stalk is food, the leaf is not, and boiling does not change that. Cut them off in the garden and compost them there.

Potato and tomato greens: Same family as deadly nightshade and they behave like it. Green potato skin goes the same way. This is the one people get wrong most often.

Elder stems and seeds: The flowers and ripe berries are fine cooked. Stems, leaves and unripe berries are not, and they are hard to pick out once they are in the pan.

Anything from a verge: Not poison, just traffic. We pick from gardens and allotments set back from the road, and we wash everything twice.

Nine things we cooked this month

Every one of these started as something on its way out: a bag of beet tops, the stalks from a head of cauliflower, a watermelon rind. Cooked, photographed and eaten here first. Short lists, one pan where we can manage it.

14 September

Stock from tops, not bones

Leek greens, carrot tops, the outer leaves of a fennel. Forty minutes, no salt until the end, and it freezes flat in a bag.

11 September

Cauliflower stalks, roasted hard

The stalk takes longer than the florets, so it goes in ten minutes earlier. Sliced thin it crisps at the edges and tastes like the best part.

9 September

Salt the tomatoes, keep the water

That pink liquid in the bowl is the dressing. Pouring it away is the single most common thing we see people do.

6 September

Beet tops with feta

They come attached to the beetroot and go straight in the bin at the till. Wilted in the pan they are somewhere between chard and spinach.

2 September

Pesto from stalks

Basil stalks, parsley stalks, the woody end of a bunch of coriander. More pungent than the leaves and it does not go black overnight.

28 August

Cauliflower leaf dip

The big outer leaves, blackened under the grill, blitzed with yoghurt and a lot of lemon. Tastes smoked without any smoke.

24 August

Watermelon rind, pickled

Peel the green skin, keep the pale layer under it. Vinegar, sugar, a lot of black pepper, three days. It goes with everything grilled.

A person standing among tall plants with the sun low behind them

20 August

Where the tops come from

Four allotments and one market stall that saves us a crate on Fridays. Nobody is paid and nothing is collected from shops.

A full table seen from above at the end of a meal

17 August

Sunday, everything left over

One tray, whatever is in the drawer, forty minutes. The running order matters more than the list, so that is what this one is.

A dining room with an open kitchen along the back wall

Loof — the first fifty

£ 18.00 · 164 pages · paperback

Fifty of these written out properly, with the weights we actually used and the three that did not work. The safety pages from this site are in the front, not the back. Printed in an edition of six hundred; when they are gone we will see.

1

Add to basket

Loof — the first fifty First edition Book cover on a green surface

One letter, the first Friday of the month

What is being thrown out this month and what to do with it. No offers, no partners, and you can leave from any letter with one click.

Who cooks this: Two people and an oven that runs hot on the left. Nobody is paid and nothing on this page is sponsored.

Weights: Grams, because cups are useless for leaves. Where a weight is a guess we say so in the recipe.

What we keep: An email address for the letter, nothing else. No newsletter unless you ask, and nothing is counted on this page.

The book: Posted within a week, or collected on a Friday. Returns accepted unread for thirty days, postage on us if we sent the wrong one.

Loof is a fictional example. The allotments, the book and the prices do not exist. Photographs are stock images and do not show this kitchen. © Loof