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!

Published Date: 17 December 2008
By Staff Copy
Thursday, 3.45pm – TV STAR Amanda Holden and a host of other famous mums are backing the waste saving innovation of a former Boston woman.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge is one of many famous faces endorsing Count On It freshness labels, the brainchild of former Boston High School pupil Lyndsey Young.

The stick-on labels feature scratch-off panels which show when a product was first opened, stored or frozen, helping to avoid unnecessary wastage.

“They are simple to use but so effective. I’m beginning to wonder how I ever managed without them,” said Amanda Holden, mother to a two-year-old.

TV actresses and young mums Sarah Parish, Angela Griffin and Jane Wall are also behind the product.

Mrs Young, 40, a mother of two, says she is ‘thrilled’ to have their support.

“I have a picture of them all holding one of the boxes on my fridge. It’s a bit surreal. I’m so used to seeing them on television.”

Mrs Young came up with the idea for the labels at the start of this year. Now, at its end, the product is ready to go on sale in Lakeland stores nationwide from January, after being all ready stocked in Boston.

For an economy in recession, it’s a defiant success.

“Sales are going really well,” said Mrs Young, who now lives in Bottesford, near Grantham. “People are picking up that food prices are still increasing and conscious how much food they are throwing away. I am now getting a lot more interest than at the start of the year.”

l Count On It labels will be available in the new Lakeland brochure and online at www.lakeland.co.uk from January. They are also available from www.count-on-it.co.uk and at Johnson’s Garden Centre, Wainfleet Road, Boston.

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Last Updated: 18 December 2008 3:41 PM
Source: Boston Standard
Location: Boston

As part of our continuing promotion of Count On It, it’s imminent launch into Lakeland and our celebrity endorsement from Amanda Holden, I was invited to be be a guest on two radio shows in the Midlands this week – the Frances Finn show on BBC Radio Nottingham and the Rupal Rajani show on BBC Radio Leicester.

Frances’ focus was from an entrepreneurial angle – how I came up with the idea and how I got it into the market place, whereas Rupal’s interview was more informal and gave me the opportunity to further explain how Count On It could help save time, money and food waste. In addition to this I gave some tips on how to get the most out of Christmas, for example preparing food and freezing, reusing leftovers etc.

Both were enjoyable, in different ways and both translated into further online sales. To hear the interviews click on these links

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p001jxcg/The_Morning_Show_01_12_2008/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p001lqk3/Rupal_Rajani_03_12_2008/

Count On It’s website has now been fully revamp and relaunched ready for Count On It hitting the press and Lakeland’s shelves in the new year. Thanks to Gary at Netronyx, the site is slicker and more user friendly and clearly shows the features and versatility of the product. The press campaign is well underway and with our new celebrity endorsement (more about this shortly), we are hopeful that Count On It will go from strength to strength. Feedback on site always welcome.

Spent the day with photographer, John Hancock, taking photos of Count On It labels being used on a variety of products. Got some really nice shots, staged with fresh fruit, herbs, bread etc – all shot on Jenny’s (PR lady’s) black granite kitchen worktop. The photos are to be used in the press releases that Jenny is compiling and will be sent to all the regional press to let people know that Count On It is going to be at the East Midlands Food Festival. She has also been in touch with some consumer magazines to spread the news that Count On It is going to be launched in Lakeland in the New Year – so hopefully with the professional shots accompanying her releases, we will get some exposure – can’t wait. Feels like the quiet before the storm!

Count On It food freshness labels, are to be on sale nationwide, online and in their Kitchen Ideas catalogue from January 2009. With such a great platform, the PR campaign is being developed to ensure that as many lifestyle and parenting press get to know all about Count On It and how it can help save food, time, waste and most importantly in our current climate – money. We are also taking a stand at the East Midlands Food and Drink festival on 4th and 5th October at Brooksby Hall, Melton Mowbray to ensure we keep up the local profile and benefit from the promotion from Teresa Bovey, local home economist, who is presenting at the event. October should be a busy time and I can’t wait.