What I cooked with evaporated milk

A neighbour of Mum's friend is eligible for food parcels from AC Care. She gets tins of evaporated milk in them and with no idea what to use them for she hands the tins to mum's friend, who gives them to Mum, who in turn hands them to me.

I am sure my mum lives for giving away food. If it's not homegrown veggies from her abundant garden, it's packets and cans of stuff she wont use.

I am not one to knock back free food. So I happily brought them home with me and they sat in the pantry until I hit google up for some ideas.

One of my pet hates is when hubby stands at the pantry, fridge or freezer proclaiming to all who will listen that he thinks we are running out of food. It gives me the shits! 

To prove that no, I don't need to go to the shops, it gave me the perfect opportunity to use up the three cans of evaporated milk keeping the pantry shelves warm, for weeknight dinners. I did not hear any complaints, from hubby anyway. The kids are a whole other kettle of fish, that continue to make me want to throw my hands in the air and order takeaway every night.

Bacon and egg pasta.
I used this recipe for ham and egg pasta on the Taste website. Instead of ham I used bacon. It's cheaper and I had in the freezer. It's a quick and easy recipe, tasty too.

Bacon, broccoli and sweet potato quiche 
This was another Taste recipe which I changed to use up ingredients I already had. 

The broccoli was from the garden, I substituted ham for bacon again, and instead of using tinned corn, which I didn't have, I cut up sweet potato in small cubes, about a cup, and microwaved them until soft.

Pumpkin and pea risotto
When you have a particular brand of food stuff that you have no ideas for, a great tip and one that I didn't do myself at first, is to head to the brands website for recipes. I found this recipe on the Nestle website, for Pumpkin and broccoli risotto. 

Of course I'd used the broccoli in the garden in the quiche, so used a cup of peas instead. 

This makes a fair bit of risotto, so if you have lots of left overs, you can try making arancini balls! I didn't, I just ate risotto for lunch three days in a row!

Here's how I made my risotto. You will need -

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 onion, chopped
2 cups short grain rice 
4 cups water
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
600 grams cubed pumpkin (about 1-2 cm cubes)
375ml can evaporated milk
1 cup frozen peas
Parmesan cheese, for serving

Heat oil in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and garlic for a minute, add rice and stir to coat the rice with oil.

Pour in water, add thyme and pumpkin. Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add the can of evaporated milk and frozen peas, continue cooking for a further 5 minutes.

Serve with parmesan cheese.

An InLinkz Link-up