LFHW day 4 - stock it to 'em

An old favourite for tea tonight - chicken, chickpea and lemon casserole. When we bought the chicken from the butcher, rather than four ready-skinned and boned thighs we got two leg quarters. So not only do we have enough meat to make double quantities of the casserole, but I also chucked the bones in with an onion, celery and bay leaves to make yummy stock for the weekend's soup. As I am apparently quite useless at boning chicken, there was plenty of meat left on said bones! So, what might have done us for one meal if we had simply roasted the chicken, has stretched to 3 with the addition of a few extra, cheap ingredients (vegetables).


How about food waste today?

Breakfast: same as Monday, porridge/cereal and tea.
Food-related waste: a teabag.

Lunch: Salad again (but no more manky celery, hurrah), orange, cake. While ferreting in the fridge I found a very old jar of sauerkraut (a phase I went through...) sadly past its best.
Food-related waste: veg peelings and seeds, sauerkraut.
Packaging waste: glass jar and lid.

Snacks: apple, banana, nuts.
Food-related waste: banana peel, apple core.

Dinner: See above!
Food-related waste: leek and broccoli trimmings, lemon pips, onion and garlic skin, chicken bones, skin and fat.
Packaging waste: stock cube foil wrapper, thin plastic bag from chicken.

Compostable food waste: 380g (including 75g sauerkraut!).
Non-compostable food waste: 280g (all from the chicken).
Recyclable packaging: 540g - glass, metal lids, foil.
Non-recyclable packaging: 5g.

Fab winter warmer from the end of the veg drawer

This is almost turning into a food blog, but here's another delicious recipe that makes great use of leftover / slightly past-it veg. We had it for dinner yesterday and found it very filling and satisfying. Flippin' cheap, too. It works brilliantly with potato, carrot and parsnip as here, but why not try sweet potato, squash, celeriac, add a chilli, bit of ginger, some chick peas, spinach... use your imagination!

Winter warmer root vegetable and lentil casserole

Serves 4

A little sunflower or vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, smashed or chopped
2 med baking potatoes, diced (I scrub them and leave the skin on)
3-4 carrots, diced
2 parsnips, diced
2 tbsp curry paste
1.5 pints/800ml vegetable stock
100-150g red lentils
fresh coriander, roughly chopped

Fry the onion and garlic for a few minutes. Add the root veg, curry paste, and a splash of stock, stir well, and cook for 10 mins, stirring occasionally. Add the stock and lentils, stir, bring to the boil and then turn down to a simmer and cook (covered) for another 10-15 minutes. Take the lid off for the last few minutes to allow it to thicken, adding the coriander at this point to keep the fresh taste. Save some for sprinkling on top if you feel like being fancy pants.

Delicious with a dollop of natural yogurt, mango chutney, naan breads or chapattis (or pittas or tortillas...). It has a beautifully sweet-spicy taste with the freshness of coriander, and the comforting texture of root vegetables.

Healthy carrot or parsnip cake

This one's for Mrs Green and her Abel & Cole veg box parsnips :)

This cake is brilliant! For a start it is fat, egg and dairy free, so not only is it vegan, but it needs no fresh ingredients (apart from carrots!) and has fewer containers to dispose of afterwards. As you simmer and steep the carrots, old ones work fine. You can also substitute parsnips for a more golden-yellow colour and subtler taste (I tried this and gave it out to friends - they all loved it and couldn't guess the secret ingredient!). All the other ingredients are store cupboard favourites, with lots of scope for variation according to taste. It's dense and satisfying and keeps well. It also cooks well as cupcakes or muffins. What's not to like?!

The original recipe is in cups as it's from an American book, the Moosewood Book of Desserts (Moosewood is a famed vegetarian restaurant in Ithaca, NY). I have a set of measuring cups so I have never converted it to grams, but I recommend this website for ingredient-specific volume/weight conversions. I will try and make one of these and confirm the conversions soon!


Carrot or parsnip cake

2 cups [~250g] (packed) finely grated carrots (or pasrnips)
1.5 cups [~330g] packed brown sugar*
1.75 cups [400ml] water
1 cup [150-200g] raisins or other dried fruit (chopped to raisin size) - apricots and ginger are good with carrots, cranberries go well with parsnips
1 tsp vanilla extract

3 cups [375g] plain flour
1 tsp cinnamon
0.25 tsp ground cloves
0.5 tsp ground nutmeg or fresh grated
0.5 tsp ground ginger (or grate a thumb size piece of fresh and put it in with the carrots)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder

*this is the original recipe amount of sugar, but it can be reduced (even halved!).

Combine carrots/parsnips, sugar, water, fruit and vanilla in a saucepan - bring to the boil, simmer for 5 mins, remove from heat, cover, sit for at least one hour or overnight.

Preheat oven to 300F / 150C / Gas 2. Oil and flour a 9-10" round pan or equivalent.

Sift flour, spices, salt, baking soda and powder together into a bowl. Stir carrot/parsnip mix into dry mix just until no dry traces are left.

Pour into pan, bake until firm and a skewer comes out clean - about 1 hr.

Cool in pan for 10 mins, then invert onto a plate. Dust with icing sugar.

Another winter soup from leftovers

This recipe came from a classmate in my German class, and when she served it to us at a get together we were all hooked. It just goes to show that keeping a few herbs and spices in the store cupboard can lift an ordinary use-it-up soup into something really special.

Potato soup with caraway seeds

2 medium potatoes (or equivalent of small ones), peeled and diced

1 medium onion, diced

2tbsp oil

1 pint vegetable stock

0.5 pints milk

1 tsp mixed herbs

1 tsp paprika

0.5 tsp caraway seeds (if you have the time to toast and lightly crush them, even better)

salt and pepper to taste

Heat the oil in a saucepan and saute the vegetables and spices until the onion is transparent, then add the remaining ingredients. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Blend to a smooth consistency, and thin with a little extra milk, if desired. Adjust seasoning to taste and reheat to serving temperature.

Recipe time! End of the week minestrone

Inspired by Mrs Green's yummy tomato and chickpea soup recipe the other week, here's what I had for lunch. It just so happens that we had done our weekly shop and so had all the ingredients fresh, but it's something that would work really well at the end of the week when there are only a few slightly wizened carrots and some floppy celery lurking in the salad drawer.

Tinned tomatoes (maybe with herbs), beans and stock cubes are top store cupboard items and to be honest you could add most sorts of veg to that and make a good soup! One of the best ever investments we made was a big cooking pot - I swear we use it 6 times a week for stew, soup, curry, chilli, spag bol.... you name it. You can probably tell we are of the "bung it in the pot" cooking school rather than nouvelle cuisine!

Minestrone soup - serves 4 hungry people or 6 polite ones :)

Basics:
1 onion, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic, well smashed
2-3 carrots, diced small
2-3 sticks of celery (including leaves if you like), chopped
8-10 outer leaves savoy cabbage, shredded
(of course, you can increase or decrease the quantities of all the veg according to what you have)
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 tin beans (cannellini, black eye, whatever you have)
600ml (ish) stock
salt, pepper, mixed herbs to taste

Optional additions:
2 rashers bacon, chopped - or any leftover cold meat e.g. chicken, ham
2 tsp pesto (really makes a difference to the flavour)
4 sun dried tomatoes, chopped
handful of pasta - small shapes are great - good use for broken spaghetti!
fresh herbs - we had some sage left over from another recipe
croutons made from stale bread

Method
Sweat off the onions and garlic with a little oil, the pesto, and a bit of water or stock if needed to keep things from sticking. Add bacon (if using) and cook through. Add carrots and celery and some more of the stock. When the carrots are starting to soften, add the rest of the stock, tomatoes, cabbage and beans, dried or fresh herbs, pasta and any other ingredients you're using. Simmer for 10 minutes or so, check the softness of the veg and the seasoning, and cook longer if needed.

Serve with fresh bread, croutons if you like, maybe save some fresh herbs (if using) or celery leaves to sprinkle on the top if you want to be posh! :)

See what happens...

...when you don't plan ahead and end up doing chunks of your shopping in random bursts? Our bin weights is 1.2kg for the past two weeks. In mitigation I will say it contains a completely stripped chicken carcass, and we have not eaten out as much this fortnight as we have before! There are several meat trays in there, and a bit of ham that hid at the back of the fridge until it was unusable, plus other unrecyclable plastics from pasta, spinach, celery and other things it seems impossible to buy any other way.

Tonight I will knuckle down, make a list, check out the freezer, and see how well I can plan out the week. I have to try and convince Mark that he can shop at the market (all of 200m from his office)! I'll also use up some of the many bananas I brought home from the half marathon leftovers, and turn them into my new favourite banana cake recipe, so there'll be no need to buy cereal bars etc.


Wholesome Banana Chocolate Breakfast Bars
(from 101 Cookbooks via Chocolate and Zucchini)

• 200 grams (2 cups) rolled oats or mixed rolled grains
• 60 grams (2/3 cup) ground almonds, a.k.a. almond meal
• 30 grams (1/3 cup) dried, unsweetened grated coconut
• 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 120 grams (4 1/4 ounces) good-quality bittersweet chocolate
• 4 very ripe, medium bananas, about 400 grams (14 ounces) when peeled
• 1/2 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
• 60 ml (1/4 cup) whole almond butter (can substitute olive oil, or slightly warmed coconut oil)

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) and grease a 9" square tin (or equivalent) with vegetable oil.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the oats, ground almonds, coconut, and salt. Set aside. Chop the chocolate so the largest pieces are about the size of a chocolate chip. Set aside.

In another medium mixing bowl, combine the bananas, vanilla, and almond butter, and mash thoroughly using a potato masher. Add the oats mixture and mix well. Fold the chocolate in gently.

Pour into the prepared baking dish, level the surface, and slip into the oven. Bake for 25 minutes, until the top is set and golden-brown. Let cool completely before slicing into bars.

The recipe happens to be vegan, gluten-free, and no added sugar, but primarily the bars are just yummy! Oats, bananas, nuts, a little dark chocolate - all good stuff. A couple of notes on the ingredients: you can get almond butter in health/whole food shops if not in the supermarket. I haven't seen unsweetened shredded coconut (desiccated is too fine I think) so I substituted chopped pecans, but seeds would work well too. I guess you could put good old soaked fruit instead of chocolate.

Day 5 - halloween goodies

What I neglected to add yesterday was the day's waste total: one of those annoying plastic seal thingies from a new jar of honey, one plastic bottle top, and two crisp packets and two small chocolate wrappers which were on the snacks we were given while helping out at the running club, stuffing 3,000 race packs for the upcoming half marathon. Also the wrapper from a greetings card as it was Mark's birthday - and he got given a box of chocs by his workmates, but that's not empty yet :)

On to today - it's Halloween of course. We don't usually get trick or treaters, but I knew some neighbours' kids would be dropping by. Not wanting to buy packaging-heavy sweeties, I decided to get baking again (any excuse!), and quickly put together some banana cupcakes. It's another favourite recipe of mine, and a great way of using up very ripe bananas (that you might not want to eat on their own) as all the other ingredients are store cupboard staples.

Banana cake/cupcakes
50g margarine or butter
75g light muscovado sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 ripe bananas, mashed well - riper = more banana-y!
few drops vanilla extract
175g self raising flour (or plain flour + 3tsp baking powder)
pinch of salt

Grease a 1lb loaf tin, 9" round or square tin, or 12-muffin pan. Preheat oven to 180C.

Beat the butter/marg and sugar together until light and fluffy (this is the key to light cake!). Add in the eggs a bit at a time. Mix in the mashed banana and vanilla. Sift in the flour and salt, and combine well. Pour into tin and bake for around 25 mins for cupcakes, or 45 mins for large cakes. Check with a skewer to see when it's done (see Delia if unsure).

Optional additions: dates, nuts, Werther's chewy toffees (packaging red alert though - they're all individually wrapped in two layers). For Halloween, add a liberal blob of orange icing (icing sugar, water, red and yellow food colouring).

Hey presto - happy trick or treaters, and no immediate waste. I just hope my two takeaway containers come back when they are empty :) Sorry there are no photos this time, but I had to leap into action to ice the cakes while still warm when some witches and skeletons turned up on the doorstep!

Today's waste: the plastic lid from the apple juice bottle I opened on Monday, and the bottle cap from a bottle of beer. Er, and we also received our new laptop. However, the packaging is not actually too bad - one soft plastic/foam bag, two expanded foam inserts, two cardboard boxes, and four poly bags holding discs, cables etc. We are going to hang on to it all for now in case anything has to go back (!) but eventually it will all be reused or recycled. The "problem" items are the foamy bits, but they can be used for padding, packing, insulation, plant pot drainage, etc. I think we might have just about got away with that one ;)

Day 1 - baking and beer

Okay, Waste Free Week here we come!

It dawned on me as I got breakfast that I had already fallen behind my plans - I had meant to bake some cake bars on Sunday for packed lunches in the week, but I was catching up on Freecycle moderating and forgot (a moderator's work is never done ;). But, to prove that you CAN fit this sort of thing in with "normal life", I made them in the morning, before I went to work. Eat your heart out Nigella. So today you lovely readers get a waste blog and a recipe!

Here are my ingredients, measured out while my porridge was microwaving:

180g oats
180g Grape Nuts
60g light brown sugar
60g butter or margarine, room temperature
240g dried fruit/nuts (this time - apricots, dates, sultanas, stem ginger in syrup, lemon zest)
2 medium eggs
220ml fruit juice (local pressed apple) or cold tea
spices to taste (1tsp ground ginger)


The only thing I used up was the Grape Nuts; everything else went back in the cupboard. The Grape Nuts inner bag was my First Bit Of Waste, quickly joined by the plastic seal from the glass juice bottle, but the other "waste" was recyclable or compostable. I know the store cupboard's plastic packets (sugar, sultanas, margarine) will have to go in the bin in the end, but there are good things too like jumbo oats (local mill via farm shop) in a paper sack. We also buy large amounts of things like oats and sultanas where practical, to get more stuff for less packaging.

The recipe method is very quick and easy, and I was just about able to mix it and get it in the oven just about by the time my porridge was done (3 minutes) and cool enough to eat! Basically:

Mix all the dry stuff together (chopping any large fruit like dates and apricots), then whisk the eggs up with the juice and stir that into the dry ingredients. Stir in the butter (chop it into little bits if it helps). Quickly grease a 9" square cake tin (or similar) and press the mixture down into it. Baking time is about 25 mins at 180C in my fan oven. Allow to cool, and cut (9" pan nicely makes 4x4 squares).

While it was cooking I ate breakfast and had a shower; the cake needs to cool but by the time I had made my lunch and got my stuff together for work, it was just about ready to cut.

So this is the waste I generated in the process: one plastic inner bag and one bottle seal. Next to it is the sort of thing I would usually buy. However, it's not a fair comparison. The boxed cereal bars last me a week, but the recipe above makes 16 individual bars/squares, so you have to think of 3 boxes and 15 wrappers as a comparison. I think even if you count the bars as responsible for the eventual binning of part of a sugar bag and a margarine tub etc., it's reasonable. And I like to think they are tastier and healthier too! Ta-daaa:



So, breakfast done, lunch and cake done, what about dinner? A group of us went out to the Norwich Beer Festival, stopping off at Wagamama on the way. Is eating out cheating? Hmm. Only as I write this do I realise that I could (should?) have kept the disposable chopsticks to reuse as plant supports or something! However, the beer festival itself has to be one of the lowest-waste nights out you can have - one glass, re-used all night, and most of the beer out of barrels (only exotic imports come in bottles). I will try and ask if they recycle the paper tokens (used to avoid cash at the bars) but I suspect the organisers may be busy this week!

So, can it really be true? One poly bag and a bottle seal for the day? Okay, I admit to a few tissues and two bits of chewing gum at work. And I haven't fully interrogated Mark as to his day either. But that's it! Tomorrow may be a truer test as we'll be eating at home...