I'm a great believer in frugal cooking and I hate wasting food. Now I don't mean living off beans and toast but finding a way of stretching one meal into two or more.

Last Sunday we had a roast dinner and I purposefully bought an extra-large chicken for two reasons. One is that Tom and Ethan adore chicken and would probably eat a whole bird between them but secondly I wanted to make a curry for Monday night's tea but I didn't want the added expense of buying more meat when I knew we would more than likely have a bit left over from Sunday's meal.

Once we had demolished dinner I could see that there was a reasonable amount of meat left on the bird - 2 wings, 1 thigh and leg, a little breast and other random bits stuck to the carcass. I left it to cool completely then stripped all of the meat off the bones and popped it in the fridge to use the following evening.

Now my curry recipe is totally made up so I'm not even sure what type of curry it is but you could easily use a jar of sauce or adapt your favourite curry recipe. It's all about stretching the meat to another meal so tweak it to suit your tastes.

I was impressed by this. With the addition of some veg and rice we both had a generous portion for tea (Ethan has his at nursery on a Monday) and I was even able to take the remaining curry into work for my lunch the next day. The curry itself would easily feed two adults and 2 children and I'm pretty sure if you weren't a total carnivore (Tom, I'm looking at you....) and ate a bit more veg then the meal we had on Sunday would have easily fed two adults and two children too. So, in effect, one extra large chicken could provide 6-8 meals!

Leftover Chicken Curry

1 onion

3 x bell peppers, chopped

200g closed cup mushrooms

1 x tin of chopped tomatoes

1 x bowl of leftover chicken

2 x cloves garlic

2tbsp plain flour

1tsp paprika

1tsp ground coriander

1tsp turmeric

1tsp cumin

1tsp garam massala

1tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp chilli powder

1 x bunch coriander, chopped

Heat some oil in a pan and gently fry the onion until soft

Add the veg and fry for 5 minutes over a medium heat

Add the spices, garlic and flour and gently cook for a couple of minutes

Stir in the tomatoes and chicken adding some water if needed

Bring to the boil then turn down to simmer for 15 minutes

A few minutes before the end stir in the chopped coriander setting some aside to garnish

Serve with rice or bread and enjoy!

Do you have any other recipes using leftovers?