I’m really excited to say that tomorrow, Friday 12th, I will be Jonathon Lampon’s guest on his BBC Radio Leicester ‘Foodie Friday’ show. As the Queen of Easy Green™, I will be cooking one of my specialities, a quick, easy, time and money saving dish. I’m not saying what my dish is yet, other than it uses locally sourced meat, homegrown vegetables, frozen leftovers and misshapen supermarket vegetables and it tastes delicious.

I’ve never cooked on air before, so I’m a little nervous, hopefully it’ll all go well and Jonathon will enjoy what I rustle up.

As the Queen of Easy Green™, my aim is to show other busy mums like me that cooking fresh, tasty food in the kitchen can be quick, convenient and save them time, money and waste, if they have the right tools and know a few tricks.

On the show tomorrow I’ll also be talking about how we can all reduce unnecessary waste by using our freezer more, storing food correctly and how Count On It® labels and other kitchen accessories can also help us get more value from our food – whilst saving us time, something we could all do with more.

To listen live, visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_leicester

After the show, I’ll pop up the recipe, so if you want to give it a try, everything you need to know will be here.

Speak soon

Lyndsey

Lisa Faulkner watching Tony sear his scallops!

Following on from my blog about Hotpoint’s Campaign for Cooking Confidence, here’s a short video of Lisa Faulkner explaining all about the campaign and how, since winning Masterchef 2010 she feels much more at home in the kitchen.

Masterchef 2010 winner, Lisa Faulkner interview

If you want to try the recipe yourself, like I did (and I can confirm, it’s delicious), here’s all you need to know:

Seared Scallops with spicy crab cakes and a hot & sweet syrup

Serves 4  – preparation time 30 minutes, 30 minutes resting time, 15 minutes cooking time – combined

12 large king scallops (roe off) –3 per person

100g white crab meat

500g potatoes

2cm piece of fresh ginger peeled

1 clove of garlic – peeled

1 tablespoon each of finely chopped fresh  – coriander, mint, basil

1 red chill  – deseeded

2 eggs whites

Zest of 1 lime

150g fresh bread crumbs

75g butter

4 tablespoons of olive oil.

Salt & ground black pepper – to season to taste

Method:

Crab cakes

1. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Peel potatoes and cut into even pieces. Place in the boiling water and cook until soft ( approximately 10/12 minutes, test with a sharp knife, if goes through easily, they are ready)

2. Drain potatoes in a colander, place in a large bowl and roughly mash.

3. Finely chop the fresh ginger, red chill and the garlic clove and add into the mashed potatoes. Also add the finely chopped fresh coriander, mint & basil, zest of the lime, a pinch of salt and ground black pepper and finally add the crab meat. Mix together by hand.

4. Whisk the egg whites until fluffy and fold into the mix, this adds moisture and helps to bind the mix.

5. On a work surface, roll out a length of cling film,  place the mixture in the centre and roll into a sausage shape. Put in the fridge for 30 minutes. This gives time for the ingredients to bind, so they hold together during the cooking process. (tip: these can also be frozen too for use at a later date)

6. After 30 minutes take out of the fridge, unwrap the cling and slice into about 2cm thick disks and lightly coat with breadcrumbs.

7. Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat, add 2 table spoons of olive oil ,cook the crab cakes for 2 minutes on each side until golden brown.

Scallops:

1. Pat the scallops dry with kitchen paper

2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a non stick frying pan, add 75g of butter and stir until foaming.

3. Add the scallops to the pan and cook for 3-4 minutes, turning once until lightly golden on both sides and tender to touch.

Hot & Sweet syrup

250mls white wine vinegar

1 clove garlic peeled

2 cm piece of fresh ginger peeled

1 red chilli

Zest of 1 lime

Method

1.Roughly chop the garlic, ginger and chilli.

2. Put all ingredients in a pan and bring to the boil for 8-10 minutes until slightly sticky.

3. Put in a liquidizer and blend.

4. Strain.

The sauce can be made in advance* ready to serve once crab cakes and scallops are cooked. *tip from Tony: freeze sauce portions in icecube tray – ready made sauce always to hand!

To serve:

Place the cooked scallops on the 2 crab cakes and drizzle over the sauce, garnish with flat leaf parsley.

Masterchef winner, Lisa Faulkner with Chef Tony Tobin

This week I was lucky enough to be invited along to the launch of Hotpoint’s Campaign for Cooking Confidence with Lisa Faulkner, which aims to encourage UK households to be more adventurous in the kitchen.

According to research carried out by Hotpoint, 90% of us stick to cooking the same meals over and over again because we lack confidence in the kitchen. Afraid to experiment and short of time, 1 in 4 of us cook what’s on offer in the supermarket and on average we spend only 1.6 hours in the kitchen every day.

Our busy lifestyles and great number of work commitments have lead to nine out of ten people being surveyed saying that they are thoroughly stuck in a creative rut, only cooking the same few meals over and over again. So, what are the top ten most cooked meals in the UK, well according to the survey, they include Jacket Potatoes, Roast Dinner and our number one favourite is Spaghetti Bolognaise.

But what can we do to get out of these culinary ‘ground-hog day’ scenarios? Well Lisa Faulkner, Hotpoint’s Campaign for Cooking Confidence Ambassador and Masterchef 2010 Champion, with her panel of experts, including top chef Tony Tobin, aim to equip us with all of the culinary skills and inspiration to be more confident in the kitchen and adventurous with ingredient and meal ideas.

Lisa said, “I’ve teamed up with Hotpoint and their Campaign for Cooking Confidence, to help give others a helping hand. I learnt the importance of planning ahead and have a grasp on what on flavour combinations work well. This has enabled me to take pride in my cooking and I feel much more at ease in the kitchen – it’s opened up a new world to me!”

Although many of us enjoy spending time in the kitchen, we sometimes struggle when deciding what meals to make and opt for the safest, easiest options – subsequently falling into a rut of repeatedly making the same dishes. At the event Tony showed how by mastering a few skills, going with (and trusting) our own taste combinations, not being afraid to try out new flavours and ingredients, we could open up a whole new world of taste sensations.

Talking leftovers with Chef Tony Tobin

During the demonstration, I asked Tony how practical the skills and recipes where for busy mums. To my delight, he confirmed that everything he was making could be made in batches and frozen, as well as being adaptable to be able to create several diverse dishes – from glitzy dinner party, to weekday family meals.

It was also great to learn that the red pepper sauces and garnishes he’d made could be made from mottled peppers and limp basil, then frozen ready for use whenever required. As both he and Lisa pointed out, absolutely everything in a professional kitchen is used up in stocks, soups and sauces, ensuring no food goes to waste unnecessarily and this was of equal importance to them in the home. Getting the most value from their food and minimizing food waste wherever possible.

As many people already know, not only does lack of confidence in the kitchen hinder our culinary repartee, it also has an adverse on the amount of edible food waste that goes in our bins. Unsure of what to do with leftovers, many people throw them away instead of making another meal from them. But as Lisa, who ‘absolutely hates’ throwing food away, has now found out, just by adding a little bit of creative flair you can rustle up another tasty, nutritious meal – saving not only time, but money and waste.

Tony sharing his passion for food

Tony Tobin, renowned restauranteur and Hotpoint Ambassador, summed it up by saying,

“By following a few simple mantras … planning, a bit of experimentation and a few effortless styling tricks we can all create restaurant quality food at home”

and at just a fraction of the price!

To find out more about the campaign and for more cooking tips from Lisa Faulkner and Hotpoint’s panel of experts, visit www.hotpoint.co.uk/vitalingredient.

With the summer gone (boo hoo!) and Autumn definitely upon us, Stewed! ’s cookbook couldn’t have come through my door at a better time. This beautiful book, by entrepreneur and passionate foodie Alan Rosenthal, gives a modern twist to my all-time favourite dish, stew. The 80 pages of one-pot recipes are from all over the world, categorised into the Americas, British Isles, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. These economical, tasty, comforting and simple to make at home recipes are perfect for all the family and what makes them even more fantastic is that they use less expensive cuts of meat and, as we found, make enough for two family meals (we’ve yet to enjoy our second serving which is labelled up  in our freezer as I type).

We decided to opt for the classic Beef in Ale recipe and we wasn’t disappointed. All the family got involved, 5yo ‘chopped’ the carrots, 8yo fried the onions and OH sampled the Guinness! What I loved about it was that it introduced our family to beef chuck steak, which I must admit, I don’t normally buy. As Alan points out, stews and one-pot dishes are perfect for using cheaper cuts of meat as the slow cooking tenderises them beautifully and brings out their flavour.

What I also love about stews, is that they’re your classic ‘use up your leftovers’ kind of meals, those wrinkly carrots, bendy parsnips and mottled peppers (if only I could get some knobbly apples in, I’d be delighted – private joke!)

Alan has not only been busy working on this fabulous book, he has also launched Stewed! pots, ready to eat stews, which are available at Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Budgens, John Lewis’ food hall and Ocado.

I love the book and can’t wait to impress my foodie friend with the Pot Roast Pheasant with sausage, cabbage and ale – I am a Lincolnshire Lass after all and your can’t get more Lincolnshire than that – though possibly you could by adding a turnip!

So, if fancy some fabulous, wholesome, family dishes to serve up through our winter (ouch!), you’ll love Stewed! book, so what are you waiting for! (p.s. it’s on sale over there  ➜)

Cheers Alan and good luck with your fabulous ‘Circle Line’ inspired idea!

Thanks, Lyndsey

Today I went along to BBC Radio Nottingham to talk about easy ways to get more for your money with food and save time too.

As you will know there’s been a lot in the press lately about food waste, the price of food going up and how supermarket packaging isn’t decreasing. We’ve seen programmes on the BBC, ‘Great British Waste Menu’ and Channel 4 ‘Food’ highlighting the issues surrounding food production, preparation, storage and wastage – and this is all fantastic to know, but  not all of us have got the time or skills to make radical changes, so my mission was to give people some down-to-earth, practical tips to help us get more for our money, without having to completely overhaul how we shop, prepare our food and what we eat.

In case you didn’t catch the programme, here’s my top tip to give you more for your money and more time for you (and no, there isn’t any convenience food to be seen – so it’s healthier too)

Budget food swaps where the only difference is the cost
• use long grain rice instead of basmati; dried beans and chickpeas instead of canned
• swap large, perfect peppers for bags of mixed peppers when cooking chillies, curries
• use canned tomatoes instead of fresh when making soups, stews or sauces
• buy frozen peas instead of fresh, you can have them all year round and use only what you need
• go shopping at the end of the day, when supermarkets and markets are reducing the price of their perishable produce
The hidden hero in your kitchen, – your freezer
• frozen food keeps longer than fresh, is more convenient, frozen vegetables and fruit can be more nutritious and tastier than fresh as it’s flash-frozen within hours of harvest, they are also in season all year round.
• Frozen food can help you with portion control, only cook what you need – the rest goes back in the freezer.
• any foods that are nearing their use-by dates which you won’t get chance to eat, stick them in your freezer and have them when you’re ready
• Don’t buy pre-grated cheese, grate your own and pop it in the freezer, you’ll always have some at hand to go onto of lasagnes and shepherds pies.
• Buy frozen fish, it’s fresher than fresh as it’s flash-frozen on board the boat within 4 hours of catch, unlike fresh fish which can take up to 48 hours to get to your local shop.
• TheNewIceAge.com has some great ideas and tips for getting the most out of your freezer
How to get a night off cooking every week
• When cooking something like chilli, bolognase, stew – double up the portions, eat one that night and freezer the other for another night the following week – don’t forget to label when you made it
• Invite friends/neighbours round for one night and cook for them, then them for you

Enjoy your own personal breakfast blend at half the price
• Save money on expensive boxes of muesli by buying big bags of your favourite oats, flakes, nuts, seeds and dried fruit, then mixing them together in a big jar or cereal dispenser
• To add an extra boost, sprinkle on frozen fresh fruit, like blackberries, they’re fabulously juicy and you can taste the summer all year round.

How to get a free lunch
• Use leftover cooked pasta and mixed with the French dressing, pesto, cucumber and tomatoes for a packed lunch
• Use leftover chicken or beef from Sunday lunch, shred and mix with beansprouts, salad vegetables, sweet chilli sauce and French dressing
• Or just mix chicken with leftover stuffing and mayonnaise and pop in some crusty bread.

Finally…
• Keep safe by storing food correctly,
• be aware of the ‘use-by’ labels,
• labeling how long food has been opened or stored in the fridge and freezer,
• keep yourself, your work surfaces and equipment clean

‘More for my money’ MMM (not for profit) campaign

Waste is growing problem in the UK and not only does it affect the environment, it affects our pockets too.

According the WRAP the average family with children throw up to £610 worth of edible food away each year.

Unfortunately, most of this waste occurs because people have lost touch with food, a lot of families today are used to eating pre-prepared food, perfect vegetables vac-packed and mass abundance.

The days of hunting and gathering are long gone, we don’t even need to forage at the supermarket ourselves these days, we can ‘virtually select’ our goods and they come delivered to our door.

As a consequence of this mass convenience, food is seen as a disposal resource, most people do not know, or even care, where our food has been grown, what’s in it and how much of an impact it’s production, transportation and packaging costs the environment – we just want it perfect, available and cheap and if we don’t use it all, or can’t be bothered to eat it, so what – there’s more where that came from.

This situation cannot go on forever and unfortunately one of the main reasons people are carrying on like this, is because they aren’t aware there is an alternative.

Fortunately there are people out there who do care and who have a long term view of what’s happening with our food and environment.

There are schemes, businesses, producers, manufacturers that are all doing their bit to help us get more value from our food – and that’s great. But, and it’s a big but, they are all ‘out there’, like buried treasure in the ground, without making a conscious effort to dig around and find them, they are buried from the mass.

That’s where MMM comes in. The idea for ‘More for our Money’ is to unearth all of these amazing businesses and put them in one, easy to find place – our MMM website.

So, wherever you sit within the fresh food and produce supply chain, grower, retailer, producer, household, if you want to find out how you can reduce your waste and save money, you can pop along to MMM click on the appropriate section and voila, a list of resources, tips, advice is there to help you.

Here’s an example, a busy mum wants to find out how she can reduce her weekly shopping trips

1 – she can click on retailers, and find out if there are local producers who can deliver to her door,
2 – click on kitchen gadgets to find out who provide tools to help you her get more out of her food, e.g. Count On It labels
3 – click on services and find Menu Planners who can devise her own personal shopping lists and email them across to her
4 – she wants to find out where she can buy British-grown, knobbly apples click on growers to find out if there any local to her

We want to help people get more for their money, reduce unnecessary waste, buy British whenever possible and help support local businesses and schemes.

If you’d like to find out more about MMM ‘More for My Money’ please drop me an email and we’ll put you on the mailing list and let you know when our site is live.

To hear the programme again it’s here Frances Finn’s programme

Thanks Lyndsey

Today’s Guest post is from Nicki Cawood , mum to a 4 year old, Kieran and pregnant with Cawood baby 2 and who’s blog is at www.curlyandcandid.co.uk A woman after my own heart when it comes to unnecessary waste in the kitchen, here’s her post with some great tips and ideas on how to get the most from the best room in the house:

My kitchen is very important to me, which is just as well seeing as I spend such a lot of time in there! It’s the hub of our family home, and we enjoy eating, cooking, baking and spending quality time together at the table. Being such an important place, it has to be organised, super-organised seeing as I work from home too and this organisation has a dual-importance – to not only save time but to save money and waste! It could be the Yorkshire in me but I suspect it’s more to do with being a Mum who is careful with her budget but I detest waste in all forms, so when thinking about what to right for this blog, my top tips for kitchen organisation seemed like a good place to start!
1. Menu plan!
There are three of us in the house (four in December!) so I’m not feeding the five thousand but still it makes sense to have a weekly menu I can refer to and use to plan and shop my meals. Consider seven breakfast, lunches and teas, a pack-up for the husband, snacks, drinks, kitchen (and bathroom) sundries such as kitchen roll, tin foil etc. That’s quite a lot to remember. Run up a basic menu and put in a prominent place and you will remember everything on your shopping list and it will serve as a reminder of what to get out of the freezer and when!
2. Do a weekly shop.
I do a shop every week, usually online. I find this so easy, no queues, no arguing over the last olive bagel, no “Can I have a cake/toy/sweet…” all the way around and besides, doing it online means you can see a running total of what you are spending. When shopping online you can usually change what items you have coming for delivery right up until late the night before so you can add / delete items as required. Some people worry about the cost of the delivery slot but nine times out of ten I save twice as much as I spend on the delivery by taking advance of special offers, promotions and avoiding on the spot impulse buys. I have made money on my shopping by collecting points which I save up and use towards Christmas.
3. Utilise your freezer.
For me a decent sized freezer is a must! I had a tiny one before I had Kieran but got another larger chest one from Freecycle which was a God send! After this perished we invested in a much needed fridge freezer with deep drawers and I can easily see what I have in there. I freeze my week’s worth of bread and milk, taking it out as required (it makes no difference to taste!); I split packets of chicken, turkey breasts, sausages, well most things into meal-worth portions so I only defrost what is needed and I keep track of everything I have in on a freezer list stuck to the side of my freezer which makes doing the next weeks menu plan and shopping list SO much easier!

4. Label, label, label!
There is nothing worse than going to the fridge/freezer/cupboard and going to grab something then being filled with doubt over whether it is really fresh enough, “Did I open that Monday or was it Tuesday?”, and sorry, but the sniff test isn’t accurate to say whether there is hidden bacteria in the food that we really don’t need to ingesting. I‘m ashamed to admit that I have run out of my Count On It® stickers (another trip to Lakeland is in the offing – hooray) so at the moment I’m using normal white stickers, which isn’t quite as effective as they tend to get damp etc in the fridge/freezer, but having a record of what is left to use up safely saves us a fortune in unnecessary throwing outs!

5. Keeping a running shopping list.
When we use the last bit of sauce, take the last apple, scrape the last morsel of jam out of the jar, we pop it down on a shopping list. This, along with the freezer list and menu plan makes doing the next week’s shop a dream and saves us overbuying. Some weeks I might have enough bits and pieces left over in the fridge/freezer/cupboards to do three or four use up meals which saves a fortune that week and the equivalent we save goes into a pot for treats, savings, whatever.

These aren’t difficult things to set up or do but will save you not only money but so much time which can be spent together relaxing, eating, laughing and enjoying each other’s company in the family kitchen, which is just as it should be.

Nicki Cawood, Mum to 1.5 kids, wife to a constantly hungry husband, keen cook and dedicated blogger!

When it comes to managing food, people tend to fall into one of two categories – they are either  a ‘chucker-outter’ or a ’sniff and hoper’. Which one are you, are you a…

‘Sniff & hoper’?

Many people pride themselves on being a ‘sniff & hoper’, but most don’t realize that although foods may look, smell and even taste fine, they still harbor bacteria such as E.coli and salmonella that can cause food poisoning.

According to the Mayo Clinic Women’s HealthSource, incorrect storage and the use of food past it’s use by date causes about 325,000 people in the USA to be hospitalized every year because of food poisoning and 5,000 people die. It is a similar story in the UK, with the number of cases of listeria in people over 60 years of age doubling in the past nine years. 95% of cases end up needing hospital treatment and one in three of the people getting food poisoning caused by listeria die as a result. (FSA)

Consider these food safety reminders:-

• Make sure your fridge is cold enough – If you fridge isn’t cold enough food poisoning bacteria will still be able to grow. Your fridge should be between 0ºC and 5ºC.
• Refrigerate perishable food straight away – All foods that are perishable (i.e. goes off quickly) or has a label which says ‘keep refrigerated’ should be stored in the fridge and eaten within two days.
• Follow storage instructions – some jars and bottles must be kept in the fridge once opened and eaten within a certain time. Always check the label and keep a track on how long they have been opened – Count On It® labels are just to job for this – just scratch off the date and you will have a permanent reminder as to how long they’ve been stored.
• Food should not be kept out of the fridge for more than four hours, so if you’ve prepared anything beforehand, keep it refrigerated until you’re ready to eat it.
• Leftovers – cool these as quickly as possible then store them in the fridge. Once stored, leftovers must be eaten within two days, except cooked rice which must be eaten within one day. Don’t forget to store them in a food container and label the date when first stored – again Count On It® labels are perfect as they stick on any surface and can easily and cleanly be removed after use.

or are you a ‘Chucker-outter’?

According to WRAP’s Lovefoodhatewaste research, the main reasons people throw away food is because of either ‘cooking or preparing too much’, e.g. cooking too much pasta and it gets either left in the saucepan or on the plate’. Another reason is because food ‘is not used up in time’, good examples being fruit and vegetables go off in storage, or not eating food before it goes past its use-by date in the fridge. This can be because of a number of reasons, sometimes because of our increasingly busy lifestyles we change our plans, or we just forget what we’ve got in our cupboards, or we forget to fridge or freeze leftovers, which could be used later. Another common reason is that we just forget how long we’ve had food stored in our fridge and freezer, so rather than risk it we throw it away.

The problem with this is two-fold, not only are we needlessly wasting perfectly edible food, we are wasting our money too.

Consider these money saving tips to help you love your food more:-

• Regularly check what’s in your fridge and freezer – How often have you looked in your fridge to see an opened packet of ham or mayonnaise and you’ve no idea how long it’s been in there. Keep an eye on the use-by dates and also the storage instructions on jarred or bottled products. By tracking how long things have been opened or stored, you can be sure it is still safe to eat. To save you from having to remember all of the dates, Count On It® labels will show you exactly the date of opening each product.
• Buy one, get one to freeze – rather than leave both items in your fridge and hope you’ll get round to using them. Split the pack, store one in the fridge and the other in a labelled food container – this way you will know exactly when you first froze it.
• Leftovers – Get storing all of your leftovers, be it leftover vegetables from Sunday lunch or the last portion of a midweek chilli con carne. Just pop them in a food container, label them and either fridge them for the next day or freeze them for a ‘ready meal’ at a later date. Not only do leftovers save you food waste and money, they save you time, what could be simpler and nicer than heating up a homecooked meal in minutes.
• Plan your meals – Rather than guessing your way around the supermarket, simply check your fridge, freezer and cupboards before you go and then write a list of what you actually need. Another good idea is to forward plan your week’s meals – it may sound like a long job, but at least during the week it will save you time as you will know for sure you have the food in and won’t need to make any extra trips out for ingredients or take-outs!

Not only do Count On It® labels help to reduce food waste – it is estimated that the average family throws away up to £610 worth of edible food each year – but customers are also finding them useful for labelling things such as medicines, contact lenses, cooker hood filters or anything where a reminder of an expiry date is needed.

Count On It® labels are on sale here at www.countonit.co.uk, at Lakeland Ltd, Betterware and a selection of cookshops, farmshops, online baby product retailers and deli’s across the region. These scratch-off labels are made of a sustainable material and come in boxes of 25 labels with a rrp of £1.99.

Yesterday we had a wonderful afternoon with our young boys, we went pyo-ing raspberries and strawberries. The sun was beating down, the fields were full of families loading up their little cardboard baskets with medal handles (I love the fact these haven’t changed design since when I was little!) and we had lots of fun picking the juicy fruits from the bushes. It was not only great fun, but the boys got to experience the delights of fresh fruit eaten straight from the bush – fabulous.

To get the most out of our bounty, as soon as we got back we blitzed the fruit in our smoothie maker and we all had fruit smoothies (or super power juice, as my 5yo called it), we then had some fruit and icecream for tea. Then this morning, I’ve frozen some raspberries so I can sprinkle them as and when on my cereal in the morning (much better than sugar) and the rest, well I surpassed myself and made raspberry jam.

Jarred and labelled, I look forward to raspberry jam sandwiches and toast in the forthcoming weeks. So for a lovely afternoon with the kids, I’ve now got a freezer and cupboard full of summery loveliness.

Here’s somebody else who enjoys getting the most out of nature’s goodness, Sarah Dawnay from Mothers of Innovation www.moixx.com a website dedicated to finding innovative products made by parents for parents ( Count On It® labels are here!). Here she shares her lovely summer time recipe

Hedgerow Recipe: Elderflower Cordial

30 – 40 elderflower heads
2 unwaxed lemons, scrubbed and sliced
1 X 50 pack of citric acid (from a chemist)
Up to 1.8kg / 4lb golden caster / granulated sugar
Muslin
3 or 4 empty screw top white wine / rose bottles

First drink the wine – sorry, I lie but screw top wine bottles are ideal to keep this in. Just soak off the labels and sterilise in the dishwasher / wash and drip dry in a warm oven about 1/2 hour before bottling.

Pick the elder flowers when they are in full bloom – ideally on a lovely walk! When you get home gently turn them out onto the work top / draining board to allow any hidden insects to escape. Cut off the stems and pop them into a large bowl. Add the lemon, citric acid and sugar and 1.5 litres / 2 1/2 pints boiling water. You can experiment with adding other flavours such as ginger or mint. Stir to dissolve the sugar then cover – stirring daily. Recipes vary on the steeping time, it varies between one and five days, but each day that you leave it make sure that you stir the mixture.

Rinse your muslin in boiling water then line a colander with the muslin and strain the mixture.

Chill and serve with water / sparkling water or tonic and a slice of lemon.

It’s a fact every month the average family throws away £50’s worth of edible food. That’s £600 of food which has been purchased but forgotten about or just wasted. Wouldn’t it be better – and more fun to spend this money on Christmas presents or in the January sales?

Most food at Christmas is wasted because we buy too much, over prepare food and fill our fridges fit to bursting, whilst forgetting our freezers. One solution to help you get the most out of your food is Count On It® food labels. These easy to use, stick on labels feature a scratch off panel which show at a glance when a product was first opened, stored or frozen – meaning you can keep track on what needs eating first, reducing the amount of food which gets thrown in the bin whilst also helping keep a few extra pounds in your pocket.

As well as keeping the costs down by getting the most out of our food, there are other ways in which Christmas can be affordable. Saving money does not mean cutting down on luxuries and fun, if anything, having a well planned, affordable Christmas will make it even more enjoyable.

Here are a few tips:-

Save money by getting the portions right
Be realistic about how much you can and will eat on the day – don’t spoil the day with indigestion and wasted food.
Rather than a whole turkey, why not a have fresh turkey crown, chicken or duck
If you do get carried away with your preparation and have leftovers – don’t worry, just freeze (if made from fresh) or store them for later in the fridge- using a Count On It® label of course. These prepared meals will be especially handy if you have unexpected guests arrive later or for eating on the days following Christmas Day.
Keep it fresh and save yourself time
Don’t spend all your holiday in the kitchen cooking and preparing food – use your freezer.
Sausage rolls, mince pies, vegetables and fruit can all be prepared days or even weeks earlier and stored in the freezer, just pop them in a food container or bag, stick on a Count On It® label and they are ready to be cooked if and when you need them – leaving you free to enjoy time with friends and family.
Love your leftovers and save waste
So good, you could eat it all again – well, store it as leftovers and you can. Bubble and squeak, soups, curries are all possible with leftovers and a bit of imagination. Cheeses, chutneys, deli goods are perfect for storing in the fridge, just stick on a Count On It® label and use at a later date to liven up a sandwich or jacket potato.
And finally …. Count On each other – it’s Christmas
Invite some friends or family over for dinner. It doesn’t have to be a formal affair- just an occasion to enjoy each other’s company. Suggest everyone brings along a dish (even perhaps leftovers), that way you keep your grocery bills, cooking and leftovers to a minimum – never mind the washing up.!

I have just been reading another article from ‘Plastics-make it possible’ blog, about how many Americans ’sniff’ their stored food to see if it is still safe to eat. This is something we are all familiar with, but what a lot of people don’t realise is that not all bacteria on food smells. In fact many bacteria are odourless and tasteless – and these can be potentially harmful if eaten, particularly for vunerable adults and children. It seems that many people lack confidence in understanding how long food can safely be stored and two thirds of people which were interviewed, wished their food could tell them when they should be thrown out. This is where Count On It labels can help, whilst they may not speak, they do let you know at a glance when you food was first opened, letting you be sure that you’re eating stored food within it’s safe limits.

Here’s the article…

THE NOSE KNOWS: MOST AMERICANS RELY ON “SNIFF TEST” « Plastics Make It Possible