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| Trouble? Me? |
Firstly, apologies for being somewhat absent in the blogosphere for the first two months. In January, I talked about my intention to try and reduce our food waste. Then it all went quiet... So how did it go?
Well the intention was there. I went through my cupboard and made lists of things that needed eating up. I cleaned out the fridge and defrosted the freezer. I made soup with left overs. I organised my friend to come and put bait down for the rat that had invaded the compost heap. Then, well, stuff sort of happened.
The kids left the freezer door open and the freezer frosted up again. Daughter got stressed with college and needed lots of t.l.c. We thought we'd got rid of the rat, so we dug out the remains of the compost heap onto the veggie patch and the roses, but then the puppy managed to find some uneaten bait and thought she'd eat it instead. We had another expensive trip to the vet. (They made her throw up and eat charcoal biscuits and she was fine.) I got fed up with being overwhelmed with washing and started using the tumble dryer, which I hadn't for years.The rabbit got sick. More trips to the vet. The rabbit got worse. Another expensive trip to the vet to dispatch the rabbit to bunny heaven. Stressed out daughter got even more upset.
If trying to live a greener life is a game of snakes and ladders, I think I've slid down more snakes in the last two months than ladders that I climbed last year. So my resolve for March is to get back on those ladders, and to start blogging again.
On the other hand, it has been a good year so far for the vet...
Now that Christmas is over, I'm turning my attention to something that I've been meaning to do for a while - making an effort to reduce food waste in our household.
I've always felt that we weren't too bad - I never throw out fruit or vegetables just because of the 'best before' date when they are still perfectly fine to use, but I've been aware in the last couple of months that I've been throwing away decaying fruit or vegetables more often than I would like. I have been particularly aware of this because normally we compost any veggy peelings or tea bags, but due to the unwelcome signs of a rat burrowing in my compost heap, I've stopped putting anything on my compost heap until the rat is dealt with! (Luckily I have a friend who works in pest control, who is very helpful on the odd occasion that I have had this problem.) It's amazing how heavy the rubbish is now that we are adding tea bags, veggy peelings and the like - it has made me aware of how much stuff we normally compost and manage to keep out of the black bin.
Other problems we have is a child who regularly pours a huge bowl of Shreddies and then abandons them half eaten, and my tendency to stock up on useful foodstuffs and then forget what I've got in the back of the cupboard. So I'm sure that with a bit of organisation, we could do better!
Now that the children are back to school/college I can start to make progress, so my first task yesterday was to look in the fridge to see what was left over from the Christmas holidays that needed eating up. I have quite a bit of left over stilton and a head of broccoli - so yesterday's lunch was Broccoli and Stilton soup. I also found half a yellow pepper and a rather tired lettuce - so they went in too! I'd never thought of cooking lettuce before - but came across this suggestion for using up left over lettuce a while ago - it's a leafy green vegetable that goes well with the broccoli.
So here's my recipe for Stilton and Broccoli soup.
1 onion
1 head of broccoli
Optional lettuce, yellow pepper
About 2oz Stilton - a piece aboout 2" square
A glug of oil
2 veggy stock cubes
A couple of tablespoons of white wine, sherry or other left over alcohol.
Chop the onions and saute in the oil in a large saucepan over a low heat till softened. Chop the broccoli into chunks, including the stem (you can cut off any tough bits on the outside of the stem, but the centre of the stem is often nice & juicy.) Add the broccoli and then add water sufficient to cover the broccoli. Add other optional chopped veggies, the wine or sherry and crumble in the stock cubes. Bring it up to the boil, then turn down to a simmer with the lid on the pan for about 20 minutes so that the broccoli is soft and easy to liquidise. Cut the stilton into chunks and add to the soup, continue to simmer for another 5 -10 minutes until the stilton has melted, then I use a hand blender in the saucepan to blend the soup. Alternatively, you could use a liquidiser, or if you prefer a chunkier soup, use a potato masher to break up any large pieces of broccoli and mix up the soup. Taste the soup and check if it needs any more seasoning.
Serve and enjoy!
