Did you hear me on Jim Davies morning show on BBC Radio Leicester? I was invited to talk easy eco, green cooking tips with Jim and a listener, Judith, who only eats vegetables she has grown in her garden, to help keep her grocery bills down.

Talking about vegetables and getting the most out of our food, always brings us round to leftovers – something I absolutely love to talk about (and eat!). But as Jim pointed out, it’s not always easy to eat fresh produce in time, plus conjuring up a meal from leftovers can sometimes leave us scratching our heads.

So to help us all get the most out of our food, whilst saving time, money, waste and energy, I have put together my top 5 products, plus I’ve posted links to some fabulous websites that’ll get you out of those leftover menu dilemmas.

1. Whirlpool WBC 3546 A+ NFCW Frost Free Fridge Freezer 6th Sense White
- your food storage best friend. Perfect for lengthening food storage times and ideal when batch cooking

2. Lock & Lock Food Storage Set 7 Piece
- not only are these fantastic for bulk cooking, they are perfect for keeping the portions right – no need to over cook, or over eat!

3. 3 Tier Stainless Steel Multi Steamer Pan
- fantastic for keeping in the nutrients in your food, plus they use less energy (3 vegetables can be cooked simultaneously on one ring)

4. Storage labels – ideal for keeping track on how long your food has been stored, plus they also show you when it has to be eaten by. No guessing or waste

5. FOOD STORAGE BAGS-POTATO-VEGETABLES- KEEP FOOD FRESH
- fruit and vegetable storage bags keep food fresher for longer, ensuring you have plenty of time to eat them up.

For some brilliantly practical leftover recipes, visit:

www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Want to know what vegetables are in season, check out:

www.eatseasonably.co.uk

Have lots of ’spare’ land or want to find an allotment, visit:

www.landshare.net

I’d love to hear what your favourite easy eco cooking/storge saviours are, plus how do you get the most from your food. Do leave your comments below.

Sponsored post

After watching the fabulous Big Fish Fight week on Channel 4 recently, I, like the 500,000 people who are backing Hugh Fearnley-Whittinghstall’s campaign, have vowed to eat a wider range of fish.

The programme and campaign, if you didn’t see it, (to see a trailer, click through to my previous blog post Channel 4: Hugh’s Big Fish Fight – starts tonight) aimed to expose the devasting practice of fishing by quota, whereby vast quantities of fish get thrown overboard because they do not meet the criteria or quotas set by Europe’s common fisheries policy or because they have no market value. The campaign also aimed to encourage people to eat a wider range of fish to give our over-fished favourites a chance to be replenished.

But before we all rush out and buy a plethora of unsung heroes, it is vital that we give a little thought to how our fish is stored, processed and ultimately used at home. What we can’t afford to do, in my opinion, is to indiscriminately buy this wonderful fish, only to store it insufficiently, or prepare too much and end up throwing it away. And that’s why I say, for fresh fish buy frozen.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a myth that frozen food is inferior in quality to fresh, but this is often not the case. In fact with fish, it is the opposite. Frozen-at-sea fish are caught at the peak of their quality and frozen within 4 hours, meaning that it is at it’s freshest, tastiest and has all of it’s nutrients and goodness ‘locked in’.

Unless you live by a local harbour, any fresh fish that you buy from a supermarket or similar can be up to 14 days old. This is because fresh fish can spend a long time in the food distribution chain before it reaches your supermarket counter. In some cases it can be up to 10 days old before it’s even reached the harbour!

Another great advantage of buying frozen fish is that it is convenient – always a huge plus when you are a busy mum like me. Not only does frozen save you time, but because you only need to cook what you need when you need it, there is limited or no wastage at all too. With food prices continuing to rise, it is vital that we get the most from our food and again frozen fish ticks the box, it is less expensive than fresh (did you know that frozen fish and seafood can be up to 25% cheaper than fresh) plus it has a longer storage life – freezing, the most natural form of preserving – just add frozen water!

So taking all of the above on board (excuse the pun) I have decided to cast my net (there I go again) and introduce some new fishy flavours to my family.

As I am a NewIceAge mumbassador, I have been kindly sent a voucher from the wonderful people at TheNewIceAge.com and The Fish Society, to try a variety of whitefish, shellfish and crustaceans from their incredible online store www.thefishsociety.co.uk.

Over the next couple of blogs, I will be sharing with you my thoughts on the fantastic frozen fish treats that I have chosen, showing you how simple they are to cook and how delicious we all found them and why as the Queen of Easy Green™, I back frozen fish for saving time, money and waste.

I will also be giving you an opportunity to discover some new fish favourites yourself, as The Fish Society have kindly agreed to offer you, my readers, a £10 discount with orders over £65 (when visiting their website, just use the code ICEAGE).

So pop back soon to find out how I got on and land yourself a treasure trove of frozen fish goodness.

I am so excited to announce, that after months of planning and anticipation, the Queen of Easy Green™ website  www.queenofeasygreen.co.uk is launching today.

As the Queen of Easy Green™ my mission is to help busy households save time, money and waste in the home, effortlessly.

Sharing my fun, practical, money-saving tips and advice, I will help you get the most value from your food, time and money, whilst also reducing unnecessary waste.

‘Rising food prices tops consumers worries, with 50% of consumers anticipating higher food bills in the coming year … with almost 70% of consumers searching for ways to save money when food shopping.’ (Mintel, 2010)

Rather than preach unrealistic, austere budgeting measures, the Queen of Easy Green™ is all about effortless, opportunistic money-saving tactics, savvy tips, ‘easy to be eco’ products all delivered in a down-to-earth practical manner from a fellow busy mum’s perspective.

To help us all live an easier, greener lifestyle, as the Queen of Easy Green™ my tips and advice include topics such as:

• Savvy food shopping, eating local, frozen food, eat seasonally
• Grow, make and pick your own
• Econvenient food preparation and storage
• New, innovative time and waste saving gadgets and gizmos
• Quick, easy family recipes – make once – love twice, loving your leftovers, storecupboard saviours
• Energy saving, ethical, environmentally-friendly products
• Simple ways to reduce, reuse and recycle

The Queen of Easy Green™ is not about being penny-pinching, it’s about being money wise. With any extra money saved, I believe we should treat ourselves – why not, life’s about having fun with our friends and family – now what could be a better incentive than that?

To keep up with the last eco-easy news, advice and hot products, pop over to www.queenofeasygreen.co.uk and join in the conversation, or just let me what you think about my new site. With a little bit of savvy saving and canny know-how, together we can make 2011 our easiest, greenest yet.

See you there,

Lyndsey

Fabulous news, as the Queen of Easy Green™ I have been invited to join the At Home magazine and every fortnight, commencing January 2011, I will be sharing my exclusive easy eco tips and advice, to help us all save time, money and waste and live a greener life.

Keeping it seasonal, my first guest blog post is all about trimming our waste. But I don’t just mean our food waste, I mean our waist-line too. I’ve got some fantastic ideas that’ll help you lose lbs but save £’s at the same time. To find out how, just pop over to www.athomemagazine.co.uk. And don’t forget to leave a comment, I’d love to hear what ideas you have for your new year – waste-watching!

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by Energyrethinking.com asking me if I’d like to guest blog for them.

energyrethinking is a joint initiative with Shell, The Energy Saving Trust, IoD, Michelin and Tomorrow’s Company and is all about finding ways to use energy better.

Sharing my love for easy eco ways to help us all save money, reduce waste and use less energy, of course, I jumped at the chance. Here is my first guest blog post for them,

http://www.energyrethinking.org/earth-mummy

Don’t forget to keep popping over in the New Year too,  you’ll find loads of great energy saving information, as well as some more tips from me.

TTFN

Lyndsey

p.s. I have an exciting announcement to make very soon – pop back shortly to find out what it is.

With Christmas nearly upon us, our focus more than ever is on food, as well as ways to make our money go further. To show us how we can all be more energy efficient and save money in the kitchen, please welcome our guest blogger Natalia Gameson editor of  the money and energy saving website, energyrethinking.org.

Seasonal Food

With food price rises on the horizon, going greener in the kitchen this winter could be a key way to take back control of your finances. There are three main methods of saving money in the kitchen: cutting down your food bills by eating produce that’s in season; cutting down on your food waste; and cutting down on your gas and electricity use. energyrethinking.org, the energy saving community, has put together the following tips to help you make a start.

Eating seasonally
Eating food that’s in season, is a well-known money saver – it’s cheaper to buy items that have been grown in the UK and are readily available, rather than forking out a small fortune for a punnet of strawberries in February, for example. Squashes, celeriac, apples, pears, coriander, mint and scallops are all currently in season. If you want to eat seasonally but are not sure where to begin, www.eattheseasons.co.uk, has lots of helpful advice and recipe ideas.

Our new seasonal food video featuring TV presenter, Vicki Butler-Henderson, also has plenty of easy-to-follow tips. The video follows Vicki as she visits a food exhibition to gather tips on cooking a low-cost meal for friends in an energy efficient way.

Food waste
Each year, we throw away an estimated 8.3 million tonnes of food, according to WRAP. A truly astonishing figure considering food costs are rising. But if you’re throwing away too much food, it’s easy to stop by making a few simple changes.

Firstly, plan your meals at the beginning of each week, so that when you go to the supermarket, you’ll know exactly what you need to buy, and exactly what you already have in your fridge at home.

If you’ve cooked too much food, put it in a Tupperware box and take it into work the next day as your lunch. For more advice on using up leftovers, see www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/recipes. (don’t forget your Count On It labels to help you keep track – Lyndsey)

Cut your energy use
Make sure your appliances are in good working order. If the rubber seals around your oven door are broken, for example, your oven may not be as well insulated, and could be using up to 50% more energy than usual to maintain the oven’s temperature.

When cooking food in the oven, avoid the temptation to keep checking on it– every time you open the oven door, precious heat escapes.

Similarly, when you are using the hob make sure the ring matches the size of the pan you’re using – heating a tiny pan on the biggest ring will waste energy you don’t need to use.

Defrost food overnight in your fridge rather than using the microwave. This will help your food to stay at the right temperature – without costing you anything.

For more tips on saving energy in the kitchen, check out our tips at www.energyrethinking.org/cooking.

Do you have any money or energy saving tips in the kitchen? We’d love to hear them at energyrethinking.org/user-tips

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

Lunch box waste

Half term is nearly over and soon your little chaps and chapesses will be tootling off to school with their hearty lunchboxes in hand. Making sure they eat a healthy lunch is a subject close to all parent’s hearts and fortunately there is lots of great advice out there to give us a helping hand. But how many of us are aware of how much an average school throws away in packaging waste, leftover drinks cartons, bottles, crisp packets, yoghurt pots etc, which then gets sent to landfill?

Many schools, thankfully, are introducing Waste-free lunch days with the support of WRAP’s Recycle Now campaign, their message, that it can be very easy to reduce waste, just by making a few simple changes.

Here are some ideas they recommend:

• Try using a reusable flask or bottle for school drinks instead of a carton or plastic bottle;
• Avoid using foil, cling film or storage bags to wrap sandwiches and use a re-usable lunchbox instead;
• Swap individually wrapped biscuits and crisps for packaging-free fruit and vegetables;
• If you do put fruit in lunchboxes remember any fruit peelings or cores can be composted at home;
• Use metal spoons instead of disposable plastic cutlery.

The good news is there are already products out there that can help us reduce our waste, reusable bottles (BPA-free is best), food storage containers, metal spoons and cloth napkins, but is this enough?

On Twitter the other day I asked the question ‘What is your biggest lunch box waste nuisance’ – the answers that came back included yoghurt pots and mini jaffa cake packaging, and now I’d like to know what are your child’s lunchbox worst offender? I’d also like to find out what you use to combat this waste issue, also does your school run a ‘waste-free’ scheme and do you think it’s a good idea?

I personally think ‘waste-free’ lunches are a great idea, however although there are a lot of reusable products out there on the market, I am not convinced that they fully address all of the issues we have AND that they really appeal to children.

This is where I am hoping to fill this gap, we are currently working on two products that we believe both parents and children alike will love using. Not only will they create a waste-free lunch, they are fun to use, free of any chemical nasties and are convenient. They are currently in the development stage and we can’t wait to show you when they will be launched.

In the meantime, I’d love to know what waste packaging you would like to see the end of in your child’s lunchbox – crisp packets, biscuit wrappers, yoghurt pots? Also, I’d love to hear what your child’s current favourite lunch box accessory is, my boys love their reusable ‘Power Ranger’ lunch boxes – but I have certain issues with those (more on that at a later date).

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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.

According to WRAP, chilled foods and ready to eat products also attribute to a quarter of the cost of all avoidable food waste thrown away each year in the UK (WRAP 2008)

We would really like to show our packaging manufacturer friends how many people, like you, believe this would add value to their chilled food products, that is why I am asking for your input. By showing our contact how much support this idea has, they in turn, will be able to sell the idea to the supermarkets themselves – making it a reality.

To help me with my quest and to have your say, just click on this link below & then highlight one of the options. If you also want to add a comment as some people have, that would be fantastic.

If-you-could-know-at-a-glance-when-your-chilled-food-was-first-opened-or-stored-would-you-use-it-in-time–throw-away-less

Thank you for your support, I believe there is huge potential for Count On It® labels and if I can achieve this with your help, that would be phenomenal.

Thanks, Lyndsey

Please RT and forward, etc. The more responses I get the better. x

Count On It labels, the easy peel label, freezer label. These removable labels are perfect for jars, freezing leftovers and baby food storage, freezing baby food. No need for Sharpies, Count On It labels self adhesive labels can be used on freezer bags, food storage tubs and glass storage containers. Ideal for safe food storage, they make First In First Out – they are an easy to use food storage calculator. Count On It food storage labels for safe food storage.