Leftover Pie news and the APSRG on Food Waste

Blog posts have been a bit thin on the ground from me lately, with the work involved in publishing Leftover Pie, so I thought I ought to get back into the swing of things, while I have a short breathing space between publishing the ebook, and the next step which is to get the paperback ready for launch on 8th September.

Last week I went to the All Party Parliamentary Sustainable Resource Group's meeting,  Food waste: next steps for the new government.

I really don't think that I had appreciated how important an issue food waste is until I started researching Leftover Pie, so knowing this discussion was going on in parliament, I really felt I needed to find out what is being talked about at the parliamentary level.

By the way, this was my first visit to the Houses of Parliament and I managed to get told off for taking a photograph where I shouldn't! Oops. I then kept my camera firmly tucked away, which was a shame, as I missed a photo opportunity with Dean Pearce, one of my wonderful recipe contributors, who I had the great pleasure of meeting in person for the first time.  What a day of firsts! First visit to parliament, first telling off in parliament,  and first plastic free July failure in a cafe putting the world to rights with Dean. Anyway, back to the meeting...

There are great things going on all around us to help reduce the food waste mountain, examples of which I highlight in my book.  Baroness Jenkin of Kennington, who chaired the meeting, described this as '1000 flowers blooming',  but I can't help thinking that we are lacking some big legislative support for those 1000 flowers.

Image: WRAP


The food waste hierarchy, which it seems surprisingly few people even know exists,  is a legal thing, but it seems it isn't 'policed' very well, if at all. Councils and businesses are supposedly obliged to take the food waste hierarchy into consideration, but that doesn't always happen.  Not all councils have separate food waste collections.  I, personally,  think this causes huge confusion and also an excuse for people to ignore food waste collections when they do have them.  As I explain in my book, this causes huge financial issues, when people who are offered food waste collections don't make use of them.  We need to solve this problem.  It is something that I am plugging away at as much as I can when I do Love Food Hate Waste events and talks, explaining the importance of separate food waste and explaining the cost implications of not separating waste, but I can't help feeling that the message would get out there quicker and more efficiently if there was legislation that enforced this.   There would still be those that wouldn't bother -but at least if there was a clear message that legally we should be separating our food waste, more people, likely would do so.

It was good to hear from Mark Glover, CEO of WRAP, that they are working on a "set menu" of options for separate food waste collections for local council and they hope that all councils will then choose from this set menu.  But there are councils who have already tried food waste collections before and not had sufficient uptake to cover the costs, which would be covered by the savings if most people then used the service.  So ... we are back to the issue of legislation again.

Tim Smith, of Tesco, talked about the efforts they are making to reduce food waste and Tesco was praised by the APSRG for publishing their food waste figures, and it is hoped, of course, that other supermarkets will follow Tesco's lead and publish their own food waste statistics.  It was commented that recently the amount of food waste appeared to have risen, but Tim Smith explained that at the outset, they weren't very good at measuring their waste, and that in reality it is improvements in how they measure waste that lie behind the apparent increase rather than an actual increase in waste.

I was, however, very surprised to find that other supermarkets haven't yet started to publish their own figures.  Surely they will?

One of my concerns about all the recent wonderful awareness raising that has been going on and the mainstream media coverage of food waste as a problem, is that people often think that it is mainly the fault of the big supermarkets that there is so much waste.  In fact, we know that over half of all food waste in the UK is actually wasted in the home.

It is this home food waste that I concentrate on in Leftover Pie, looking it why and how it arises and giving practical solutions to help people reduce food waste at home.  With 101 recipes - some mine and some from my wonderful army of chefs, food writers, food waste campaigners and lifestyle bloggers, as well as some general practical tips, there is something for everyone.  From those who are struggling big time, with a regular mountain of rotting veg at the bottom of their fridge right through to chefs who are already running a resource efficient kitchen, there's a recipe for you.

Leftover Pie is available now as an ebook and from 8th September in Paperback.  I hope you enjoy reading it and reviews are greatly appreciated.

For more news of Leftover Pie and talks and events go to the Leftover Pie Facebook page.

A letter for contributors to #LeftoverPie

Hello lovely food-lovers and eco-warriors,

This blog post is for all the lovely people who will be contributing recipes to my forthcoming book...

Thank you so much for agreeing to contribute a recipe to Leftover Pie: 101 Ways to Reduce Your Food Waste. I hope in this blog post I can give you enough details in just a few short paragraphs so you can decide what recipe to contribute and so you can send it with the minimum time and effort on your part as, being one of the movers and shakers of the food waste revolution, I’m sure you are very busy.

Like my previous book, 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free, Leftover Pie is written for teens and their families. Its aim is to teach young people about the importance of food waste reduction, look at how we have arrived at food waste crisis point and share tips and recipes to help reduce the amount of food that is wasted.

Leftover Pie needs recipes that are not too prescriptive. The idea is to help people use up things they may often have left over, so a bung it all kind of recipe and a bit of flexibility saying you can use this, or this or this, will work well.

I'll be including ideas for using up gluts from the garden, seasonally abundant produce, things that are easy to grow in a garden or a pot on the windowsill, things that we can easily forage for without too much expert knowledge as well as meals we can make by going foraging in our fridge and freezer!

I also want to include recipes for simple stand-by meals entirely from store cupboard ingredients. For some people I have guided them towards specific things I’d like from them, and others I haven’t. You are very welcome to contact me to discuss your ideas before you decide what to send, but we would need to do that soon.  If I have mentioned something in particular, but you'd rather send something else, that's fine. I really want this book to be full of favourites, so that the passion shines through.  Our job is to inspire, just like with any cookery book, and just because we are using something up that might have been wasted, we want it to be delicious, because we know it can be and all food is precious and gorgeous even when it is past its prime.

I realise that by not being prescriptive about what people send in I may get 37 different recipes for banana bread, but I'll cross that bridge in a few weeks.  I have faith that all will be well.

There will also be an opportunity for people to read the text of the book and to chip in if they would like. I want to raise awareness about all the wonderful things going on to help cut down the amount of food we waste and to get people thinking differently about food in general so there will be opportunities to include text about all the wonderful organisations, causes, companies who are part of the sustainable food movement. A lot has changed since I wrote the main text of the book nearly two years ago, so I’ll be rapidly updating and adding. If you want to make sure that something you are passionate about is included, don’t wait for me to come to you, you can come to me and I will do my very best to spread the word accordingly. So, get in touch, ask questions, challenge me (let’s make sure I don’t miss too much important stuff, right?) and, oh yes, encouragement too, will be most gratefully received.

Thank you

Anna


How to contribute: Please email me at anna@dustbindiet.com
I will need your contribution by 30th June 2016. Thank you.

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Please include:
· Your Name
· Your Restaurant/Website/Company/Cause or any other information you would like me to show in the book alongside your name
· Name of Recipe
· Why you have chosen this recipe
· Recipe details

Talking Rubbish with That's Oxford TV

A few weeks ago I was invited to talk to Robin Shuckburgh about how to reduce waste and make better use of our resources.  Here's the Youtube video.

Zero Waste Week 2014 - Day 1

I've been looking forward to Zero Waste Week and seeing through my pledge.  I found that I've been thinking about it on and off for the last few weeks, making mental notes about what I'll need to tackle and wondering what I'm going to part with.

As you've probably guessed, I love this year's Zero Waste Week theme of 'One More Thing'.  I wrote a whole book of things we can all do to reduce waste, but there's always one more thing.  There's always room for improvement  and this week, I'm going to try to do just that.

My Zero Waste Week pledge - my 'One More Thing' to reduce waste -

…is to go through each room and pick out at least three things that we no longer use, but can't give away as they are because they need some kind of attention.  I'm pretty rubbish at mending stuff.  I have good intentions, and I never just throw something away.  But I do find that I procrastinate instead of just dealing with broken things straight away.  So, I'm going to use this week, to try to develop my mending skills and try to kick the habit of letting things build up in the hope that I'll sort them out one day!

In addition to that I'm going to join in with the Zero Waste Week daily emails and find something more each day that I can be doing to reduce my use of resources.

So, what am I mending today?

I decided that I'd start in the spare bedroom as I know that there's lots of stuff in there, hidden in drawers and under the bed and there's at least one box that is full of stuff with bits missing, so I thought it would be easy to pick out three things we could part with and get off to a flying start.

First up, I decided to take the plunge and address these lovely ladies…

They have been long neglected atop the spare room wardrobe.  They get a very occasional dust, but they are really a bit sad and unloved.  I brought them down from their perch to investigate whether they could be cleaned up to be given away, and found that the clothes were removable and washable.   They've been through the wash, and are now out on the line and hopefully they haven't shrunk.  If I can dress them up again, then they will go to the charity shop, to see if they can find a new home.

Next up, hanging on some wall hooks I found a stash of unwanted jewellery, which I've add to my collection of broken beads, ribbons, single earrings and cufflinks, buttons, jewellery boxes and old watches, which I collect up for the charity, Against Breast Cancer.  A lovely lady, Laura Hounam, who I've blogged about before, takes these bits and pieces and turns them into wonderfully desirable and modern jewellery that she sells at craft fairs and exhibitions to raise money for the charity.

Third up is a dressing gown, that has somehow escaped the charity bag for all these years.  That's gone into the washing and will be added to the charity shop clothes bag that I've started up.

That wasn't so hard!  But I'm still left with the box of toys and games from last year's clear out.  I've decided to keep this, in the hope that as I go through each room, I might find the missing pieces.  If not, then I'll have to have a re-think at the end of the week!

Onto my Zero waste week daily email that awaited me this morning!  It's all about plastic, with lots of suggestions for how to reduce the amount of single use plastic we all use.  Plastic is one of those things that because there are so many different types, some local councils choose not to offer a collection service.  Pretty much all plastic can be recycled and the myth that it all gets shipped to China and landfilled is very far from the truth.  There are many companies who recycle plastic here in the UK.  I know that, because I've visited several of them!

But despite the fact that most plastics can be recycled and I live in area that does take almost all of it in the kerbside collection boxes, it is still something that I try to cut down on.

I always keep a few plastic bags in my various handbags and rucksacks.  We keep plastic bags in the boot of each car, so that we are not caught out shopping without a bag.  We buy most fruit and veg loose, and if not, then again we reuse the bags and put them back in with our shopping bags when we unpack the shopping.  We take our egg boxes to the butchers to refill with local eggs and we also take our own plastic containers for our meat purchases.  We use various tupperware pots for packed lunches.

So, I've I hopped over onto the blog post to see what 'One More Thing' we could do to reduce the amount of plastic recycling we end up with and here's the plan…

The plastic packaged thing we don't seem to be able to do without in our family is crisps.  The problem with crisp packets is that they are made from mixed materials which apparently makes them too difficult or costly to recycle.  So the only way to avoid this waste is to do without them or make our own.  I have a gadget that will cut slices of root vegetables very finely, so this evening I'm going to give it a whirl.  Anyone got any tips for DIY crisp making?

Day 7 of Zero Waste Week

Day 6 waste:

A big fat zero!

BUT...  I made a flask of tea, so I think the tea bag must be still in the flask.  Whoops.

We did eat, I promise!

At various times, Junior Daughter, Senior Daughter and I all had a portion of the reheated lasagne, which was a big success.  I'm so glad I wrote down what I put into it for this blog, as it is certainly going to be made again. Though, I'm told it could have more tomato and less cheese for JD's taste (despite being the best veggie lasagne she's ever eaten).

The Iceberg lettuce is still keeping it's colour.  There's not much left now but it is 8 days since I first cut into it.  Each time I've used a bit, I've changed the water - I'm treating it better than I treat my cut flowers!  It seems to work.

The best 'use it up' last night was three quarters of a bottle of rosé wine.  I was on my own, so I needed a plan, because I wouldn't have drunk it own my own! But a quick text, found me a willing helper, and I trekked off down the lane with bottle of wine and a torch.  It is Zero Waste Week, after all.

We are out to dinner tonight with family, so we offered to bring pudding.  I've got a jar of mincemeat to use up.  It is still in date, but I always think uncooked mincemeat looks a bit iffy, so I'm going to make the pastry, cook one mincemeat tart and then if it doesn't taste nice, I'll use the pastry for jam tarts.

Lunch was a cooking experiment: omelette and salad.  Senior Daughter is investigating cheap, fast, healthy meals for her forthcoming second year at uni, so she made a cheese and spring onion omelette for the two of us. We finished up the iceberg lettuce with hardly any waste, thanks to our new @myzerowaste way of storing salad in water like cut flowers.  We added cucumber and grated carrot. JD slept.

Food waste from lunch

*** Later ***

As it was the day of reckoning for my collection of jars and the weather was a bit iffy, we had a cook-in this afternoon, to use up what we could before the big chuck out.

JD joined us after her sleep catch-up and made a ham omelette with an interesting addition of paprika.

The tester mince pie was a success, so we made a mince and apple tart to take for tonight's dinner.  We tried the remaining jar of unidentified chutney and concluded it had a bit of excess vinegar which I poured off.  It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great.  That's probably why it didn't get eaten.  SD came up with a plan.  I made more pastry, SD caramelised some onions  and I grated cheese.  JD did maths.  The caramelised onion and cheese tart is now sliced up into a tupperware for lunches and snacks.

Green tomato chutney (we think), cheddar cheese and caramelised onion tart

Tart recipe: short crust pastry (100g butter, 200g flour and around three table spoons of water - if you want to make it yourself), one nearly full jar of unidentified chutney, 125g grated cheese, 3 small onions (and a bit of brown sugar to caramelise them).

Roll out the pastry into a rough rectangle, spread over the chutney, sprinkle on the grated cheese and then sprinkle the caramelised onion over that.  Cook at around 200°C for about 20 minutes.


While I was puzzling over some kind of sweet and sour mustardy chutney looking thing, JD came up with the idea of using it with some chicken and rice.  So we put that to one side for tomorrow night.

Senior Daughter also made some flapjack, using up a packet of dates and some seeds.  When rummaging for the dates and seeds we found a packet of mixed seeds had spilled and there was a spillage of couscous in the drawer too.

We took everything out of the drawer and went through what was there and then tipped out the spillage to the birds.  I didn't think to weigh it, but it was about a handful.

I already knew I needed better storage for dry goods such as pasta, couscous, rice, seeds and dried fruit,  so I've been gradually collecting up glass storage jars.  I keep these on the kitchen window sill where I can see them, and that means I always know what I've got in stock and what I need to replace when I shop, as I get a daily visual reminder.  And I think it looks nice too!

Improving storage has helped me reduce food waste

We made a cherry and coconut loaf cake to use up the last of a packet of coconut which still hadn't made it to a storage jar.

Cherry and coconut loaf cake

The remaining jars amount to a salad dressing, which we've realised my dad might use up, a jar of mint sauce, so we'll put some lamb chops on the menu for when Mr Pitt returns and a jar of red current sauce, which we're going to have with baked camembert to account for the one that's on the use it up shelf.

Oh, and there's the guacamole.  Sorry, but that's going in the (food waste) bin!

Food waste day 7.

52g eggs shells
8g stub of the lettuce
16g onion peel
22g remains of half a lemon
44g tea bags
a bit of stringy skin from the outside of the spring onions (too light for the scales)

also... going to the garden for the wildlife
20g carrot peel and an apple core
a handful of seeds and couscous

and...
240g guacamole

That brings us to a weekly total of an almost full food caddy.  My food waste goes on my compost heap so, the food caddy has been topped up along the way with kitchen roll, the packet from some sugar, bits of dust/cat hair swept up from the floor etc.  These bits make up the 'brown' material needed along with the 'green' material for the compost.

So, it's still food waste, but it isn't really being wasted.  By this time next year it will be well on the way to being usable compost and might be growing the following year's veg.

Coping with the Dry Spell

How is your garden faring in the hot weather?

I've just got back from holiday.   When I left we'd had a couple of days of warm weather already, but everywhere was looking green and healthy. I came back this weekend to find my grass looking very brown - not something I've seen for a few years I think.

My Dad came to tell me this morning that he's got all his water saving methods going.  He was heading for the garden carrying his washing up bowl to water the pots on his patio.

"And I've got my shower water to empty for later," he said.


The great thing about grass is that it will always come back green again as soon as the rain returns, so there's no need to water your lawn.  Containers will need watering, but that doesn't always mean you need to use water from the tap.  In dry weather, plants in the ground will fare much better, than in containers.  For the last few years since Frank told us his tomato plant tip, we've planted our tomatoes in the ground so their roots can roam to find their own water.  This is cheaper, greener and way less labour intensive than 'grow bags' which dry out so quickly.

From 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free

In May and June this year, I ran the first pilot of my Dustbin Diet workshops in a local secondary school.  These workshops aim  to raise awareness of how much we waste and to encourage students to think about simple ways in which we can all reduce waste. The students then put together their own version of my book, 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free, which the school can then sell to students, families and friends in order to encourage the waste reduction message.

Several of the students suggested ways of putting waste water to good use and here's a selection of their tips from the first school edition of 101 Ways to Live Cleaner and Greener for Free.

Swishing

New Year's Eve 2012 - As I sipped my champagne cocktail, awaiting the midnight fireworks, wearing my new favourite dress bought for me, as a birthday present, by my two lovely daughters,  I wondered what my New Year's Resolution would be.

All the usual things came to mind - you know the ones... eat less, exercise more, reduce the alcohol intake!

But I had another idea, inspired by two tips sent in for my book which I thought would be fitting with my mission to get the waste reduction message across.

I decided that I would buy no new clothes (nor shoes, nor any other accessories) for a whole year. I outlined my plan in a blog post in February - in brief, I would buy only second-hand, repurposed or up-cycled items in an attempt to reduce my carbon footprint and save money too.

Fast forward to May 2013: I decided that I would try to wear only second-hand, repurposed or up-cycled items when I piloted my Dustbin Diet workshops and gave talks in schools, and so I took a look at my wardrobe, had a good mooch around my local charity shops and put together a few outfits to fulfil that goal.

Photo: My Eco Activities Day at the wonderful Octavia's Bookshop in Cirencester,
 wearing purchases from my local Oxfam shop accessorised with upcycled necklace by Laura Hounam.

I also came across this fantastic website called swishing.co.uk which will be a great help when I get my workshops in full swing later this year.  With Swishing.co.uk you get to trade in clothes and accessories you don't wear for virtual money credits which you can use to buy clothes from the website that you will wear.

Here's how it works:

Click on the picture to open it fully 

I spoke to the team at Swishing.co.uk and they have set up a special offer code of rosie306 which will get you £1 of virtual swishing money to start you off. They will also give £1 of virtual money to my Dustbin Diet project for each person who registers with the rosie306 code by 30th June this year.  This will be a great help towards being able to encourage some of the young people to think about a more environmentally friendly approach to fashion, so I will be very grateful for your support if you sign up.

I'm now in my 5th swishing month and I've probably bought more clothes than I do normally, but I have certainly reduced my overall spend. In these tough economic times, I'm sure lots of us are trying to do just that.  There couldn't be a better time to take up some new green living money-saving resolutions, don't you think?