Making A Meal Of It

Much fuss this week about the rising price of Lurpak. If I want a buttery spread, I'm happy with Danpak from Lidl. That's just as good on my homegrown new potatoes. I've also enjoyed eating the tops of my runner bean plants. They cook up like spinach (just like Popeye's favourite veg, their volume decreases drastically when wilted) and my radish leaves make great pesto.

My kefir cheese worked well - I added a little salt, plus chopped mint and chives to serve with assorted salads for a summery lunch. The bulgur wheat salad has chopped carrots and pomegranate seeds. These seeds are usually expensive to buy fresh, and de-seeding a fruit is a bit messy. But Iceland sell large bags of frozen seeds. It takes minutes to defrost a spoonful for a garnish, and works out way cheaper than buying a whole fruit just to get a few seeds.

Thank you to my best friend Chris, for telling me that on Tuesdays,Iceland give a 10% discount to shoppers aged over sixty .

While on the subject of food efficiency, a quick book review. Zero Waste Cooking for DUMMIES. The clue is in the title! I think this 320 page book is designed for people who have never considered zero waste before. I'm afraid I found it incredibly disappointing. It is written by an American nutritionist, and very much designed for the US culture..

• Part One - Adopting a Food Waste Strategy
• Part Two - Waste no Want not in your kitchen
• Part Three - Zero Waste Recipes
• Part Four - The Part of Tens

The first two sections- the first third of the book - explain about sustainability, GM crops, the 'big picture' etc. The writing style is confusing- section headings have confusing titles like "technology and agriculture don't mix", then she explains that they do. Then she gets down to the specifics of your own kitchen. But really 'for dummies' [if you don't already realise single-use plastic is a bad idea, where have you been living? She says that 'best-by' and 'use-by' dates refer to food quality not food safety. I think the rules in the USA must be different. 

Section three, the greater part of the book contains the recipes [including a bizarre mocktails&cocktails section] I am not sure why these are labelled "zero-waste" - especially when she includes pre-prepared ingredients like "jar of premade tomato sauce" and "bagged of prepared coleslaw mix" - the former would be better made from scratch, using leftover veg trimmings, and the latter likely comes in a single use plastic bag! And recipes for Baked Apples, and Pimm's? really?!

Section four - ten ways to use up leftovers in these categories 

[a] eggs and produce [make hollandaise sauce with eggs, put veg into chutney]

[b] bread [make crumbs, croutons, or bread pudding - who would have thought of those ideas?] 

[c] dairy [use sour milk in scones or pancakes]

[d] restaurant 'doggie bags'. [use in jacket potatoes or as omelette fillings]

There could have been so much more stuff about 'use the whole veg - leaves and roots' and 'pad out the meat with oats, or lentils, or beans'. Or encouragement to buy goods from refill shops, or places where there is less plastic packaging.

Writing the review proved tricky, as the index is absolutely useless, and the illustrations look like they were hand-drawn as part of a pupil's exam project. 

This book gets a sad * ... I am sure she wrote it with good intentions so I give one star for that. But she tried to cover too much ground too thinly, instead of providing a few simple steps.

I must get back to today's kefir...