Does your pantry need a spring clean?

Time for a clearout: use up leftover fridge-lurkers, pulses and grains with recipes you haven’t tried before

Got a culinary dilemma? Email feast@theguardian.com

What’s the secret to clearing out your food cupboards and getting inspired about cooking again?
Ben, Exeter

With spring here – picnics! People! Pubs! – it’s time to blow away the cobwebs of the past 12 months and start afresh. And the best way to give those cupboards a clearout is, of course, with a handful of recipes.

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Yotam Ottolenghi’s Boxing Day recipes for using up Christmas leftovers

Boxing Day BLT, veg samosas with cranberry sauce, and Christmas pudding eccles cakes with marzipan – stylish ways to use up excess food

The thing about Christmas day, as no one’s stomach needs reminding, is that there is always so much food. It is, however, a truth universally acknowledged that the whole point of cooking a great big bird – not to mention enough vegetables to feed twice as many people as are actually eating them – is to be able to enjoy the leftovers the day after. For all the ceremony, and the focus on the food served at the right time in the right place at the right temperature on Christmas Day, does anything, truly, beat the likes of a soft-bun sandwich filled with all the good bits? Gravy sauce for dipping into (and a sofa for sinking into) optional.

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