HOME cooks are being urged to beat the recession and create delicious dishes — by using more kitchen leftovers.

Oxfordshire Waste Partnership, which represents Oxfordshire County Council, Oxford City Council and the county’s four district councils, is hosting a series of live cookery demonstrations across the county.

It says the average family can save about £50 a month on their shopping bill by cutting food waste.

The two-week scheme is part of the national Love Food Hate Waste campaign, which aims to reduce the £10bn worth of food wasted in the UK each year.

It also coincides with British Food Fortnight, which runs until October 4.

OWP spokesman Paul Mocroft said: “We wanted to run fun and interactive events to show how easy it is to use up some of those foods that may normally get thrown away.

“We cook or prepare too much food, which costs the UK around £4bn per year.

“We hope our events will inspire people with some new recipes — they can come and taste the end results too.”

The average family wastes £610 worth of food every year, according to the partnership. It also estimates 6.7m tonnes of food waste is produced nationally every year.

Experts blame ‘buy one, get one free’ offers in supermarkets for encouraging people to get more than they need and say there is confusion among consumers about the differences between ‘use by’, ‘best before’ and ‘sell by’ dates.