In this video she takes some keen young cooks through their paces as they use up bread that would otherwise go stale in a delicious bread and butter pudding:

Did you know we throw away 1m loaves of bread a day in the UK? That’s a lot of potential bread and butter puddings. Instead of throwing away bread away why not try storing sliced bread in the freezer?  Just toast slice by slice from frozen. Delicious.

And in another video she shows that, just like us, she’s a big fan of the shopping list. Our research shows that half of us have got the shopping list habit, but we don’t always stick to it… well, it is hard to resist a bargain and so provided I’ve got cupboard or freezer space for my special offer deal; it goes in the trolley with the things I have planned to buy.

For more on Oxfam’s Green Granny visit the Oxfam website, and if you’re reading this Barbara, we’d love to hear from you!

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We love Oxfam’s Green Granny

We’ve been invited to supper a few times recently – and asked to bring a dish. It’s a great way to keep down costs and share the load, and makes for a really relaxed evening.

Last week, all the guests were asked to bring a Spanish dish. Having a theme does mean you are likely to get complimentary dishes. However, the previous week, our hostess had only specified sweet or savoury to her guests, and ended up with a really interesting array of food and flavours! I quite like that element of risk, but you could be a little more conservative and tell your guests to bring a potato dish or a meat dish or a fruit dish… at least you’d know what you are getting.

The odds are that there’ll be at least one dish that you will really enjoy. But, if you are the hostess, don’t bank on eating the leftovers for lunch the next day. The thing about this kind of do-it-yourself entertaining is that there is never anything left. Some guests seem to think it is OK to ask for the remnants, in a way they just wouldn’t at a posh dinner party. (Sorry.)

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Do-It-Yourself Dinner Party?

101 Things Every Cook Should Cook
This blog is packed full of my favourite dishes. Recipes are really easy to follow, there are great cookery tips and even a bit of food news.

Souperior
Fahara is a fellow blogger living off her leftovers! She has just started studying at Leiths School of Food & Wine so has become a poor student again. I’m looking forward to her tales about Leiths.

A Slice of Cherry Pie
I like Julia’s idea of running a monthly ’In the Bag’ competition. This month it’s leeks, eggs and cheese. All you have to do is tell Julia what you would make with those ingredients.

The Foodie List
The Foodie List is a round up of foodie stuff from the UK. I keep up to date with it for food events and special offers.

My Zero Waste
I really enjoy reading about the Green family’s attempts to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill each week.

Hannah’s Country Kitchen
Hannah was a Masterchef finalist in 2007. Her recipes are imaginative and the photographs of her food are mouthwatering!

Allergycooks
This is a great website for coeliacs and allergy sufferers. All the featured recipes are free from wheat, egg and dairy products.

Eat the Seasons and Veg Box Recipes
Are the perfect sites for providing me with inspiration for using up my veg box.

Greedy Gourmet
A really good read. One woman’s journey to find new scintillating recipes containing the “oomph” factor. Check out her Caribbean Chickpea & Sweet Potato Casserole – perfect food for the cold British winter!

Coffee and vanilla
This blog is about simple family-friendly European & Caribbean cuisine and has an inspirational section on lunchboxes.

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What’s on the Web?

“The recession got you cooking more than usual but you’re not great at sizing up portions? The Portions Calculator measures perfect portions for unfamiliar and familiar foods, like pasta, that are notoriously difficult to portion correctly.

There’s not much you need to know beyond that. Just pick the type of food you’d like to measure, select how many adults and children you’re cooking for, and let the Portion Calculator tell you how much you should make. I’ve always found it really difficult to get the portions right when cooking for two, but this seems like the perfect compliment for home cookers looking to put together a meal for any sized crowd“

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lifehacker gets its portions perfect!

Once you’ve eaten your banana, check out their brilliant recipes to use up the rest of the bunch, including Banana Bread – a great favourite in this house and an excellent way to use up squishy bananas. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to give us mashed bananas with top-of-the-milk and a sprinkling of brown sugar. My children love it – use a dollop of natural yoghurt or a drizzle of cream. Mashed bananas work really well in sandwiches, or smear thickly on toast, sprinkle over sugar and pop under the grill for a minute or two for a golden caramelised finish. Amazing with ice-cream for a treat!

I’ve also discovered some interesting banana facts. Did you know that the banana is the most popular fruit in the world? And that people spend over £10 billion a year on banana’s globally? That’s an awful lot of bananas. But I’d be willing to bet that this house accounts for a generous proportion that consumption. We seem to get through tons of the things. But considering bananas contain tryptophan and vitamin B6, known to help make you feel happy, I want to know why aren’t my kids always sweetness and light…?

Banana Recipes…

Good for you banana ice cream
Banana and peanut milkshake
Mushy banana sour cream pancakes
Banana and walnut bread
Banana and yoghurt pancakes

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Go Bananas

Pancakes are easy to make, perfect for the hungry hordes when they come back from school. But while they are delicious for tea, spread with jam or golden syrup, or a squeeze of lemon and a spoonful of brown sugar, pancakes also make a great supper dish. You can add almost anything and roll them up, in much the same way as a wrap.

Leftover chicken with roasted vegetables, or sweet potato and goat’s cheese, or chopped up sausages and apple… the chances are, you’ve got a spoonful of something in the fridge that could make a really tasty meal.

The kids’ favourite savoury pancakes are a take on cannelloni. I stuff them with homemade bolognese sauce, roll them up, place them in an oven-proof dish, and cover with a cheese sauce. You could substitute the bolognese for any manner of cooked vegetables, for a great vegetarian supper. For a bit of crunch, add a topping made from breadcrumbs, crisps or cornflakes mixed with some extra grated cheese, and then just bake in the oven. Couldn’t be easier.

Or for a fabulous pudding, stuff your pancakes with apples, pears, and plums, maybe a handful of sultanas, a sprinkling of sugar, and roll up in the same way. Cover with custard before baking. This is a great way to use up any soft fruits that are nearing the end of their life.

Why wait ‘till Tuesday?

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Perfect Pancakes

The snow is thick on the ground, you can’t get the car out of the drive and your local shop has sold out of bread and milk… what are you going to serve up for supper? It’s time to rifle through your storecupboard.

My top three storecupboard essentials all come in tins. If you’ve got tomatoes, fish and pulses in the larder, you can curl up by the fire, safe in the knowledge that your family won’t go hungry!

1) Tinned tomatoes
Snow or no snow, it is impossible to starve if you have tinned tomatoes in the house. Make soup or pasta sauce, add to curries and casseroles, throw into omelettes, spread over pizza bases… the meals are endless.

2) Tinned fish
Fish takes very well to being canned and is wonderfully versatile. Flake into cooked rice and hardboiled eggs for a kedgeree, stir into cheese sauce to serve over pasta or mix into mayo for a quick jacket topping.

3) Tinned Pulses
Lentils, chickpeas, borlotti or cannellini beans – tinned pulses have a multitude of uses. They are great for bulking out a stew, adding texture to soups, or throwing into a chilli.

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My top 3 Snowproof Storecupboard Ingredients!

Last week, historian Ruth Goodman mentioned that it was possible to buy leftover food in certain shops in Victorian times. Places like hotels and gentlemen’s clubs made their surplus available for the poor to buy. A neat way of addressing food waste!

However, it got me thinking. One of the ways we can reduce the amount of food we throw away at home is to give it away to someone who can use it. I’m not talking about charity necessarily, or offending anyone with my cast-offs, but the sharing of good food that might otherwise find its way into the bin. For instance, even with a hearty Sunday breakfast, it is sometimes difficult to get through the 21 eggs that our chickens lay each week! So when the childminder had the boys an extra hour, I gave her some fresh eggs as a thank you.

We were given a whole wheel of French Brie last week, so our neighbours got a huge wedge and were delighted. After Christmas, I was left with a box of chocolates that on my new healthy eating regime would only languish in the larder uneaten, so I wrapped them up for the people who invited us to lunch at the weekend. When the husband brings home another enormous box of fruit and veg, and we already have a mountain in the fridge, I’ll take it to the librarian who spends ages tracking down obscure books for me.

Pass it on!

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Pass it on…

Until I came up with a few ideas to make their lunch boxes more exciting and encourage them to eat everything.

1. Surprise pots
   Add a small lidded plastic container with a surprise in every day. Some fruit salad – just chopped up fruit with a splash of juice. Or a pick’n’mix with dried fruit, nuts and seeds. Or a few chunks of cheese and veggie sticks.

 

2. Bite-size
   Keeping things bite-sized can help. Cut sandwiches into little triangles, add a handful of grapes or cherry tomatoes, some mini crackers. Smaller items are much more tempting to the kids.

 

3. Breads
   Sandwiches can be pretty dull, day after day, particularly if your child only likes one or two different fillings. Try varying the bread – rolls, pitta pockets, wraps, bagels, or croissants will help keep things interesting.

 

4. Yoghurt alternatives
   Instead of the obligatory yoghurt, try tempting your kids with mini fromage frais, fruit jellies or custard pots.

 

5. Involve the kids!
   While we all want our kids to have a nutritious lunch, there is zero point adding broccoli spears or coleslaw if your child won’t eat it. Get them involved – give them a few options to choose from and let them help you pack it up so they feel their lunch box is really their own!

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5 Top Tips for Child-friendly Lunchboxes (Without Leftovers!)

It’s the same story every January – the excesses of the Christmas period seem to drift on for another month. I rarely make New Year’s Resolutions. I’ve learnt from experience that they require will power, something that – when it comes to cake – I just don’t have.

However, all good things must come to an end and by the time February swings around, I am starting to look at my food habits. I don’t really hold with diets. I do worry about my weight but I try not to buy into that whole cultural obsession with a woman’s size and shape. So I try to avoid the scales (not least because I don’t want to break them!) When my jeans get too tight, I know I need to lay off the cheese and chocolate and take on board more fresh veggies and fruit. Or at least that’s the theory.

We start with really good intentions – the fridge is crammed with salad and healthy snacks and the fruit bowl is overflowing. But a week later, most of it has gone off and we end up chucking it all out and calling up a pizza.

I’ve found the most effective way to address my expanding waistline – or should that be waste-line? – is to tackle the healthy eating issue as a family. Instead of buying extra produce for me to eat on a lonely diet, (which relies on my non-existent will-power to prevent it going in the bin), I change the way I cook for the whole family. It doesn’t take too much doing and they don’t even notice. Eating fish & chicken more often and leaving out cream, butter & cheese. Grilling and baking, rather than frying. Instead of steamed puddings I’ll make bowls of fruit salad, instead of mash we’ll eat baked potatoes.

I’ve found that keeping an eye on portions not only helps save waste, it also helps save your waist! If you’ve cooked too much, you’ll either serve it up or throw it out. And because we’ve been taught to finish what’s on our plates, we tend to eat what’s put before us. Measuring things more accurately, especially carbs like pasta and rice, really helps to control portion sizes.

More than ever I plan ahead and stick to my list when shopping, so that I’m not tempted by naughty things in the supermarket. Otherwise I bring them home to be struck by a pang of dietary conscience, and end up throwing them out in order to remove the temptation. It’s not rocket science really, is it? 

So if I had to make a New Year Resolution it would be simple. Don’t buy it if you’re not going to eat it. And if you’re going to eat it, remember some things will just stick to your hips.

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Waste not, waist not!