Developing an environmental conscience 2
As I said in an earlier post, I have been looking more closely at our footprint on the earth as I have been thinking about what sort of world I would like to leave for Baby and his descendants (if he decides to have any). Recently I have been looking at how to reuse things in the kitchen so as to minimise waste.
We buy a lot of things online and consequently have a lot of cardboard boxes. We recycle these via our local recycling scheme but we also reuse some of these for e.g. storage in the loft. Recently I have started to make cat activities out of cardboard containers for our cat, a bit like the one described here. Mine don't look anything as fancy but basically my imagination is my limit and the cat will never run out of new toys.
I have also been steadily ridding the family of disposable sandwich bags, cling film, etc. We do take lunch to school/work so we have switched to using reusable things. These beeswax wraps are fabulous, and we use them also for wrapping food to keep in the fridge. They do need a bit of looking after- wash in cold water, occasional warming to redistribute the wax- but none of these things are hard to do and there are good instructions here. We also take hot food to eat on the go. This is the best 500 ml food thermos I have tried so far: the food stays piping hot from 6 a.m. till 2p.m. Just remember to prewarm with boiling water for a few minutes before putting the hot food in.
I have also been trying to lower our food waste by making soups and stocks with vegetable trimmings and any vegetables about to go off, plus any bone from meat that we have in the grocery order in a particular week. I prepare the stock and soup in a slow cooker and then freeze in batches. It isn't something that takes much time to do at all, as we just put everything in the slow cooker and leave to cook while we do other things. I recently bought this slow cooker as the last one we had (which had served us well for 10+ years) broke, and we have been putting it to good use. Stewing larger joints of less popular cuts of meat is a really easy way to cook and keep, and we have also used this as a means to moderate our meat consumption. Essentially, we have cut meals with red meat or poultry down to roughly once a week (frequently less than that), plus one fish meal a week, and going veggie the rest of the time. That does mean a lot of vegetable trimmings which is great for stock, and we frequently use the stock and a joint of meat to cook enough for two meals- eating one portion freshly cooked and freezing one portion to eat another time. It's also great for busy households as it means there is always an emergency meal in the freezer, making us less reliant on take-aways. Here's an example of one of my recipes. We are currently trying to cook as much of our own food as possible- e.g. we make our own bread, pasta, noodles- so that we make what we need in an effort to reduce food waste. I have started planting my own lettuce in the garden because I really dislike buying lettuce in plastic packaging. I don't have green fingers at all but they seem to grow really easily from seeds using this potting compost in grow bags so this is something that I can ostensibly do all year round, with the lettuce growing indoors in the winter. I have also started preparing food for the cat which means no cat food packaging, and also means less food waste. If we are having e.g. chicken for dinner one day I can take meat from the chicken for the cat as well. I involve Baby where I can- he's naturally quite nosy and wants to know what's going on so it is not hard. I hope this will start him thinking about his own actions and how that impacts on the world around him.
This is an evolving thing for us and there was a certain amount of trial and error to find things that suit us. We found that some of the things we chose to do were not actually that impactful and have to find alternatives. I am sure this cycle of discovery will continue for a while. On the cooking front I have found that the above things have been manageable even with a busy schedule- I work full time. There is a certain amount of consciously deciding that I will do these things rather than sit and watch TV or read something on my tablet. It has meant that I have been more ruthless in separating my work life and home life- I used to work at home after hours almost every day- so that I have time to do these things. However, I have decided that this is a better split of my time- I focus on work when I am at work, and then I focus on those things that my family needs and do them in a way that is less impactful on the environment. It does feel good and frankly I find I don't miss the TV or my tablet.
We buy a lot of things online and consequently have a lot of cardboard boxes. We recycle these via our local recycling scheme but we also reuse some of these for e.g. storage in the loft. Recently I have started to make cat activities out of cardboard containers for our cat, a bit like the one described here. Mine don't look anything as fancy but basically my imagination is my limit and the cat will never run out of new toys.
I have also been steadily ridding the family of disposable sandwich bags, cling film, etc. We do take lunch to school/work so we have switched to using reusable things. These beeswax wraps are fabulous, and we use them also for wrapping food to keep in the fridge. They do need a bit of looking after- wash in cold water, occasional warming to redistribute the wax- but none of these things are hard to do and there are good instructions here. We also take hot food to eat on the go. This is the best 500 ml food thermos I have tried so far: the food stays piping hot from 6 a.m. till 2p.m. Just remember to prewarm with boiling water for a few minutes before putting the hot food in.
I have also been trying to lower our food waste by making soups and stocks with vegetable trimmings and any vegetables about to go off, plus any bone from meat that we have in the grocery order in a particular week. I prepare the stock and soup in a slow cooker and then freeze in batches. It isn't something that takes much time to do at all, as we just put everything in the slow cooker and leave to cook while we do other things. I recently bought this slow cooker as the last one we had (which had served us well for 10+ years) broke, and we have been putting it to good use. Stewing larger joints of less popular cuts of meat is a really easy way to cook and keep, and we have also used this as a means to moderate our meat consumption. Essentially, we have cut meals with red meat or poultry down to roughly once a week (frequently less than that), plus one fish meal a week, and going veggie the rest of the time. That does mean a lot of vegetable trimmings which is great for stock, and we frequently use the stock and a joint of meat to cook enough for two meals- eating one portion freshly cooked and freezing one portion to eat another time. It's also great for busy households as it means there is always an emergency meal in the freezer, making us less reliant on take-aways. Here's an example of one of my recipes. We are currently trying to cook as much of our own food as possible- e.g. we make our own bread, pasta, noodles- so that we make what we need in an effort to reduce food waste. I have started planting my own lettuce in the garden because I really dislike buying lettuce in plastic packaging. I don't have green fingers at all but they seem to grow really easily from seeds using this potting compost in grow bags so this is something that I can ostensibly do all year round, with the lettuce growing indoors in the winter. I have also started preparing food for the cat which means no cat food packaging, and also means less food waste. If we are having e.g. chicken for dinner one day I can take meat from the chicken for the cat as well. I involve Baby where I can- he's naturally quite nosy and wants to know what's going on so it is not hard. I hope this will start him thinking about his own actions and how that impacts on the world around him.
Our herb box
This is an evolving thing for us and there was a certain amount of trial and error to find things that suit us. We found that some of the things we chose to do were not actually that impactful and have to find alternatives. I am sure this cycle of discovery will continue for a while. On the cooking front I have found that the above things have been manageable even with a busy schedule- I work full time. There is a certain amount of consciously deciding that I will do these things rather than sit and watch TV or read something on my tablet. It has meant that I have been more ruthless in separating my work life and home life- I used to work at home after hours almost every day- so that I have time to do these things. However, I have decided that this is a better split of my time- I focus on work when I am at work, and then I focus on those things that my family needs and do them in a way that is less impactful on the environment. It does feel good and frankly I find I don't miss the TV or my tablet.
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