Waste - Tristram Stuart

The world has a 'food problem' - rapidly rising prices, shortages, 100 million people starving, environmental depredation - or it thinks it does. This book shows that farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets and consumers in North America and Europe discard between 30 and 50 per cent of their fresh produce - enough to feed the starving in the world six times over. Additionally, while affluent nations throw away food through neglect, up to 40 per cent of some crops in the developing world are wasted because farmers lack the basic infrastructure to process and store them before they rot.
Waste is both a personal journey over the world's food waste mountain and an objective investigation of this environmental and social problem. During his travels from Yorkshire to western China, Pakistan to Japan, Tristram Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy, but also inspiring and innovative solutions. Terrible though it may seem, the global food waste problem is also a great opportunity - tackling it is easy. Unlike giving up air travel for the sake of the planet, avoiding food waste can be achieved without much sacrifice. Waste is essential reading for anyone who seeks to remedy the current global food crisis and how we live now.

Spring Watch 2011

Here is a quick update on the spring onion roots I planted a couple of weeks ago.

After using the onions in salads and sprinkled over stir-fries the root ends were planted in a flowerpot on the kitchen window.

Making sure that they were kept moist, within a few days green shoots started to appear.

Hopefully they will be ready to harvest again in a couple of weeks. Free food!

Watch out for the next Spring Watch Update.



BBQ Tips - Leftover Alcohol



In the unlikely event of leftover alcohol (that doesn’t have cigarette butts floating in it) it pays to have a contingency plan up your sleeve.

If wine is still fresh then you have a number of options:

Marinades

Wine can be used to both flavour and tenderise meat. Simply add crushed garlic, olive oil, ground pepper and herbs to red wine for a delicious marinade for red meat. Do not add salt before cooking as this can dry and toughen it.

White wine, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and oregano works well with chicken or pork.

Gravy/Sauces

Use the wine to deglaze the cooking pan, boil off the alcohol and use as the basis for your gravy or sauce.

Salad Dressing

Boil the wine and reduce to about 1/3 the original volume, cool and use to flavour a traditional vinaigrette.

Cider and Mustard Sauce

You will use this time and again. Add some English Mustard and reduce the cider in a pan to about 1/3. Stir in some double cream, warm and serve. Simple but very good.

Beer Batter

Use as part of the liquid in a classic coating batter recipe.

Beer Butt Chicken – Fire Up the Braii Once More

Sit a whole chicken over a half can of beer and BBQ in a kettle style BBQ, It is the stuff of legend.

Enjjoy the weather thsi weekend. Uses for left over BBQ food will follow shortly.



Haggis - Not Scottish Shock

Haggis, the Scottish ‘Great chieftain o' the puddin'-race,’ is a classic example of the need to utilize ingredients that has become a legend in its own right. It is made from a sheep’s pluck (the heart, liver and lungs) minced with onion, oatmeal, fat and spices, then boiled using the stomach as a container. This came about from the necessity of cooking the innards quickly after slaughter as these would soon go rotten. It also predates the use of cooking utensils.

Although traditionally of Scottish origin there are references to similar dishes in both Norse and Roman folklore. In fact in Homers Odyssey, Odysseus is compared to "a man before a great blazing fire turning swiftly this way and that a stomach full of fat and blood, very eager to have it roasted quickly".

The “hag” in haggis is probably derived from either the Old Norse “hoggva” or Old Icelandic “haggw,” both of which mean “to hew,” referring to the chopped up contents.

Haggis and Scotland are now synonymous and a Burns Night Supper would be unthinkable without one. All thanks to a certain Robert Burns who claimed this ancient foreign dish for his homeland.

Today, canned haggis is available, which is apparently best served deep-fried.

Leaving aside these fanciful tales, here is the REAL Haggis story.

Kitchen Tips - Dry, lumpy or stuck?

Another in an occasional series. Dry marshmallows, lumpy sauces, greasy gravy? Fear not and read on.

1.    If a loaf of un-sliced bread or baguette has gone a little stale and dry, moisten the crust with a little water and place in a hot oven for 2-3 minutes. Bread going stale is a chemical reaction (retrogradation) that occurs slowly at room temperature. Gentle heating reverses the process. Naturally stale bread still contains virtually the same water content as fresh.

2.    Is your sauce or gravy lumpy? Either smooth out the lumps against the side of the pan with a wooden spoon or pass it through a sieve. The quickest way is to use a hand blender.

3.    If you have a bag of marshmallows that have gone hard place a slice of fresh bread in the bag and leave for two days. The marshmallows will have returned to their original fluffy state.

4.    Always serve hot food on warm plates. Either put them in the oven for a couple of minutes or sprinkle with a few drops of water and put them in the microwave. Hot food tastes best while it is HOT.

5.    You are browning meat (or anything else in oil) and it sticks to the pan when you try to turn it.  Take the pan off the hob and allow it to sit for a minute or two.  The moisture in the food will loosen it from the pan and you can then turn it easily. Unless it is burned to a crisp, this will work every time.

6.    To remove excess fat/grease from soup or gravy, dip a slice of fresh bread gently into the liquid and this will absorb the fat. The bread can then be chopped and fried for croutons.

7.    Should a cake burn a little on the top, or rise unevenly, slice the top off which removes the burnt piece and levels the surface, turn the cake over using the bottom of the cake as the top.  Coat with icing as usual.

8.    To prevent the outside of the yolk of hard boiled eggs turning black plunge the egg into cold water immediately after cooking to cool it down rapidly. The discolouration is a harmless reaction where the yolk overcooks and iron reacts with hydrogen sulphide in the white. Eggs discoloured in this way are still safe to eat.

9.    When re-using cooking oil avoid cross contamination by cutting a ½ inch piece of ginger and frying it in the oil before hand. This removes any lingering odours & flavours. 

10.  To guarantee that dishes like terrines and jellies turn out intact simply line the bowl with cling film before you add the filling. If you are reading this with a stuck terrine in your hands, warm the outside of the container under a hot tap and loosen with a knife around the inside.

Are you 'avin a bubble?

Somebody is 'avin a laugh, surely?

Instead of making the delicious traditional dish of Bubble and Squeek from 'fresh' leftovers we are now able to pay over the odds for a ready meal alternative.

Cooked, chilled, packaged, sent to a distribution centre, picked, palleted, sent to a Supermarket, stored, sent out to the shop floor, carefully rotated to the back of the shelf, eventually bought by you, carried home, left in the fridge, until finally microwaved and served in a soggy heap.

Makes leftovers seem fresh by comparison.

And you've got all the extra packaging to dispose of.

Easter is coming, time to empty the freezer.

Easter can be a nightmare for the cook in the family. There is the pressure to produce a feast, unexpected guests and then a mountain of leftovers.  After the Easter Weekend tons of food worth millions of pounds are thrown away.

Preparation - In the weeks leading up to the big weekend start to run first the freezer and then the fridge down to a bare minimum. When it comes to festive food the one thing you are bound to be short of is storage space

Shop ahead - Don’t leave it until the last minute and miss losing out, but, check those use-by dates.

Examine fruit and vegetables before you buy. The spike in demand means that suppliers have to stock-pile in advance and it might not be as fresh as you would expect.

Some products, such as smoked salmon might have been pre-frozen to match demand so be extra careful to check freezing instructions as pre-frozen food should not be re-frozen later.

Make the most of offers in the run up to Easter and get it in the freezer.

If you plan to buy and then freeze food, buy it ready frozen, the supplier will have done a better job than you will.

Have a Happy Easter

 – Avoid the full fridge, full freezer, full stomach, full bin syndrome.

Hash and Stovies

Teaming up meat scraps with potatoes is a classic combination, so it is not surprising to find them as a basis for favourite dishes wherever the two are found together. Hash is a traditional, cheap and quick to make meal dating back centuries. The term probably originates from Norman times, being a derivative of the French ‘hachis’ meaning chopped. Today Hash is made with diced meat, browned onions and potato, and then either gravy, meat stock or tinned tomatoes are added. It is then fried until crispy or browned under a hot grill. When fresh meat was at a premium corned beef was used which produced a very popular and distinctive dish.

In Scotland there is similar traditional fare known as ‘Stovies.’ This is derived from the leftovers of the Sunday Roast, using the ‘tatties’, meat and dripping, all thrown into one pot. The origin of Stovies comes from a time when masters would give their servants the remnants of the Sunday lunch. This they could take home or to their quarters and put together a meal that was easy to cook.

In Denmark they have ‘Biksemad’ which roughly translates as ‘tossed together food.’  Again, based on meat and potatoes, it is a usually served with pickled beetroot slices and tomato ketchup. The meat is usually pork and the constituents can either be combined or kept separate. In Sweden they have their own version known as ‘Pyttipanna’ which in Finland is called ‘Pyttipannu’ – ‘small pieces in a pan.’

‘Tiroler Gröstl’ is the Austrian version which is also very similar and traditionally based on leftovers. The Grostl is made from potatoes and pork which are cut into pieces. Together with chopped onion, the pork and potatoes are spiced with salt, pepper, marjoram, caraway seed and parsley, roasted in clarified butter and then served topped with a fried egg. You can still find this dish on many Austrian restaurant menus, sometimes with a choice of different meats.

Cold meat and how to disguise it - Hunter Davies

A light hearted look at scrimping and saving. Lots of hints and tips for hard times from history.

Credit has been crunched, banks hammered, the economy battered, prices up, hopes down. All classes are being urged to economise, make do and mend, spin things out, avoid waste. It has been ever thus. In times of War, General Strikes as well as Economic Disasters, Governments as well as agony aunts, do-gooders, magazines, books and manufacturers have always exhorted us to tighten the old belts.

Hunter Davies looks back at a hundred years of handy, and often hilarious, exhortations as they were applied to Food, Children, Health, Clothing, the Home, Money and Savings.

Some of the hints and advice are mystifying, but all are part of social history, and some could prove very useful in today's economic climate. For instance, you really might want to turn some cold scraps of meat into a succulent new dish or knit some old bits of string together in order to make a jolly useful dishcloth…

Sir Peter Percy's Pie

During my training as a pub manager I was taught how to run a profitable food business and part of that tutoring took place in Canterbury in Kent. The pub where I was placed played host to a large number of foreign tourists as well as the locals.

On Sunday lunchtimes there was always a traditional roast dinner on the menu with a choice of beef, turkey, pork or ham, with all the trimmings. On Monday the cold meats were sliced and went out on the salad bar. Then, on Tuesday, the remaining meat scraps, along with cheese crumbs and roasted vegetables were chopped up, mixed with a béchamel sauce, baked with a pastry lid and Sir Peter Percy Pie went on the menu.

To anyone who asked, the recipe for the pie had been handed down through the generations and was the Cook’s jealously guarded secret. Part of the tradition was that it was only ever served on a Tuesday in honour of Sir Percy, though why that was exactly; no-one was quite sure.

The tourists loved it and even some of the locals would make a point of coming in for the Tuesday treat. The only problem came when a busier than usual Sunday meant that the Pie had to be made from fresh, as it was never quite as good.

The Unpalatable Food Facts

• We are throwing money away. In Britain the average family bins upwards of £400 worth of food each year. Annually we dispose of the equivalent of £8 Billion of food, a third of all we consume, and this only applies to domestic use. We then have to pay our councils to get rid of it, adding to our tax bills.

• Food waste that goes into landfill decomposes anaerobically and creates tonnes of methane each year, a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Avoiding this waste would have the same effect as removing 1/5 of the cars currently driving on British Roads.

• 30-40% of food is wasted before it even reaches our homes, so you can add that on to your own individual quota.

• It takes resources to produce, package and transport our food; which are wasted when we throw it away. That is equal to 15 million tones of CO2 being produced, the equivalent of another fifth of our car use.

• The entire international food aid program amounts to only a fifth of what a single developed nation throws away in a single year.

• What we throw away squanders resources. The irrigation water used by farmers to grow wasted food would be enough for the equivalent domestic water needs of 9 Billion people. Water shortages are already a source of increasing tension in numerous parts of the world.

• Global food production will need to increase by 70% to feed a world population of 9 Billion in 2050. This is a capacity that we are going to struggle to find.

• Water borne nitrates released as a result of intensive farming end up in the sea resulting in ‘dead zones’ due to algal blooms reducing available oxygen. These areas have been doubling in number every decade since the 1960s.

• And finally, our food is highly reliant on dwindling fossil fuel reserves for production, storage and transportation. Alternative power sources such as wind and nuclear may be able to account for some of our needs but what they cannot replace are the raw materials for fertilizers and pesticides which come from these same fossil fuels.

Makeovers for Leftovers - Toppings

Toppings are another great way to decorate a dish and have the added advantage of acting as a stretcher to make the food feed a couple more mouths if required. Crumbles are often overlooked yet they are simple to make for either sweets or savories. Savory crumbles are ideal for vegetarians and can be flavoured with cheese, or nuts, or herbs.

Cobblers, or scone toppings are another variation, similar to the favorite American dish of biscuits and gravy. Dumplings too are simple to prepare and who can resist them on a cold winters evening. They can be made in advance and frozen in balls ready to drop straight into a stew (just add an extra ten minutes to the overall cooking time.)

As well as adding toppings for appearance you can also use them to add a bit of texture and crunch, often lacking in leftovers recipes. Take some stale bread and cut it into cubes and spread over the top of a dish destined for the oven, sprinkle some grated cheese as well for extra flavour. Similarly, slightly stale breakfast cereals like cornflakes, oats or rice crispies can be used. One of my favorites is to slice day old roast potatoes and spread them over the surface with a little grated Parmesan cheese before baking - not one for people on diets.

Mashed potato (fresh or previously cooked) is another excellent topping, especially with a little something extra running through it. Adding wholegrain mustard works well with beef dishes as does a little horseradish. Root vegetables like carrots and swede can be mashed in to give a bit of colour and extra flavour. After you have added a potato topping, tease it into lots of small peaks with a fork and brush with melted butter. Finish under the grill for a few minutes to get those crispy bits that everyone loves. Yesterdays stuffing can also be crumbled into mash and then cooked, fried it is similar to a hash recipe. Adding the remains of a jar of pesto or chopped dried tomatoes makes an excellent side dish to go with chicken.

Coping with unexpected guests

You are all set for a meal with friends and extra guests suddenly pitch up. Don't panic, here are a few tips to make the meal stretch a bit further.

·         Add a drained can of beans to a casserole.

·         Throw a salad together to serve with the meal.

·         Is there any garlic bread in the freezer?

·         Put together a bread basket or rolls.

·         Add a starter or some nibbles? A tin of soup, a bowl of cheese cubes, some crisps, a few dips, crackers or bread sticks.

Waste Not, Want Not

Beautifully photographed book that uses leftovers as ingredients for fresh dishes.

The authors come up with a whole range of new incarnations for yesterday's food. Some are reasonably familiar, others more challenging and creative. Ideal as a source for inspiration.



I Love Fat Birds

Unwanted fat left over from cooking can be a bit of a problem. While a certain amount of fat is actually essential in your diet it is very calorific. I loved beef dripping on toast as an adolescent, when I stayed skinny as a rake while hoovering up any food that came my way. My metabolism is not quite up to the same speed these days.

For businesses that cook with fat it is even more of an issue

The worst thing that you can do with it is pour it down the sink. If it doesn’t block your drains then it will cause a problem further down the system.

Max McMurdo has a solution with his DIY fat cake making kit for feeding birds, details of which can be found at his very PC website I Love Fat Birds.

What you cannot use is Turkey fat.

Instead, use it as you would duck fat to roast potatoes or in a confit recipe.

 

The Family Meal Planner

All you need to know about planning ahead for your meals. A well thought out book that includes batch cooking, storecupboard meals and seasonal (and thus cheap) recipes. Thoroughly recommended.



The Good Food Family Meal Planner will help you to save time and money and reduce waste - three of our biggest and most timely concerns.

Most cookbooks are arranged around type of dish or ingredient, but this book is structured around 5 types of meal which will give you 7 days' worth of dishes. The first chapter covers batch meals, which will provide you with enough food for another day. Chapter 2 is full of speedy weekday supper recipes - quick-and-easy meals that can be made in under 20 minutes, but also include a significant leftover ingredient that will form the basis of the next day's meal.

Budget suppers use a smaller number of ingredients, while storecupboard and freezer meals are based on ingredients that you should have handy - meals you can create on short notice. Weekend feasts are more leisurely recipes, including ideas for entertaining, while the final chapter will offer over 25 seven-day meal plans based on the recipes in this book. And even if you don't follow a meal planner in its entirety, you can choose which meal is most appropriate for your needs.

Also included within each chapter are handy features on freezing and defrosting, creating a storecupboard of essential ingredients, making the most of seasonal flavours and recipes for breads, stocks and sauces.

This is the cookbook that every family needs, one that you will turn to week after week.

Saucy Secrets

How many half full jars of sauce are cluttering up your fridge or cupboards, going claggy and ‘orrible before being disposed of?

Cut down the number that you need and enjoy fresher sauces by making your own using mayonnaise as a base. Once you taste the fresh versions you may never go back, especially the Tartar Sauce.

Seafood/Thousand Island

Mayonnaise, tomato ketchup, lemon juice and a dash of Worcestershire Sauce.

Tartar Sauce

Mayonnaise with chopped sweet gherkins, capers and spring onions

Raita

Mayonnaise, chopped fresh mint (or mint sauce) and diced cucumber

Aioli

Mayonnaise and crushed garlic.

Blue Cheese Sauce

Mayonnaise, crumbled blue cheese, white wine vinegar, ground black pepper.

Make up your own

Mayonnaise carries all sorts of flavours such as mustard, chilli and fresh herbs.

So before you reach for yet another new jar think about making it yourself.

So why do we waste food?

Who in their right mind would set out to waste food?  So why does so much of it end up in the dustbin?

A physical survey of domestic food waste by WRAP (the Waste & Resources Action Programme) in 2007 found that on average every household in Britain was throwing away a third of the food that they bought. Some of this was inedible, such as animal bones & egg shells, but not included were drinks and anything else that could be disposed of via the drains.

At the same time, surveys based on questionnaires supplied to households similar to those in the physical study found that they were seriously underestimating what was actually being discarded. The conclusion was that as a Nation we are excessively wasteful and that we are living in denial.

Interestingly, households that have never composted food refuse will waste on average 50% more food than those that have. This is good news as it shows that we are capable of starting to address the problem if we are simply made aware of its scale.

Waste food is the result but what are the causes?

Each household is different and there are combinations of factors that result in a common problem.  However, there are also patterns that distinguish certain groups.

The highest waste levels tend to come from the 18-34 age range who have not yet settled down with families. As well as frequently lacking simple cooking skills their lifestyles are more chaotic, making meal planning more difficult.

Parents with young children give the main reason for their food waste as being fussy eating. As well as wasting food as their children go through ‘ phases’ they will also be shopping for and preparing separate meals for different age groups.

Well educated, affluent, professionals may find themselves shopping for one lifestyle but actually living a different one that features more snacking and takeaways than they would like to envisage.

Shopping desserts can occur in underprivileged areas, sometimes within major cities.  Without their own transport and often with mobility problems, the locals find their shopping opportunities limited to expensive corner shops and budget fast food outlets.

It is the over-65s, many of whom will have memories of rationing during and immediately after the Second World War, who take most care to avoid wasting food. As time passes there will be fewer people who will have had this experience.

Across these groups, the main factor that affects how much food we waste is our ability to manage food as a resource. Some people are lucky to have been taught or to have learned these skills while there are others who have virtually no knowledge at all. These skills include shopping, nutrition, food storage, cooking, portion control and food hygiene.