Think about it Dear Readers.
Do you throw away the outer leaves of green vegetables, potato, parsnip and carrot peeling, do you, God forbid, peel your Beetroots before you cook them?
Throw away bread, make your own bread?
I ask you this as she was privy to see such waste being exercised in a friend's kitchen recently.
I wrote in a previous post that she took vegetable peeling out to bury in the Bean and Pea trenches.. let me assure you, they were the very old, dried up leaves from a couple of Leeks!
Onion skins put into a pot of bones with a clove of garlic, vegetables leaves, some spices and herbs and water make for an tasty stock or soup.
Which freezes brilliantly in ice cube trays, ready to pop straight into a dish to add delicious flavour to your food and you have the added bonus of KNOWING there are no suspect additives of any kind in it.
Keep a plastic bag in your freezer, place the vegetable peelings or skins in and there they are, ready in a trice to add to a pot to make a tasty soup. Likewise with left-over mashed potatoes, they are great as a thickening agent. And any Bread which has gone dry can be added to pasta or to soup.
I know that you all know that she keeps a stock pot going most weeks of the year, at the moment it is a Fish Pot.
We, for I LOVE prawns, had some BIG prawns the other night, the heads, tails and skins went into the pot along with a couple of very savage looking Salmon heads, it smells very rich and unctuous (such a great word).
She cooks with very little salt, so makes her own mixture of 'Salt Free Mixed Herbs', of course, she is lucky enough to grow these herself.
There is nothing like knowing that these plants, which add so much flavour to our food, have never been sprayed or 'encouraged' to grow with any chemical!
It surely beats having to pay x amount of £, $, € etc to companies who bottle their Herbal products in those cute little plastic bottles with a shaker top.
She does not like storing any food in plastic. She trusts glass and an old jam jar is useful and will sit happily on a pantry / store cupboard shelf.
Even if you only have a window ledge you can grow your own Herbs, in the sitting room there are growing various varieties of Basil, Chervil, French Tarragon, two types of Parsley, Coriander.
The packets of seeds cost her about a £1.00 each, they will produce several plants, half of which she will pick and use fresh, they are 'cut and grow' again so the supply is pretty endless. A lot will be cut and dried in a warm place, then she crumbles them and places them in a glass jar.
She was extremely appreciative to receive these from a dear friend called Carla, who grew a huge amount of wonderful things in a tiny beach-side vegetable garden on the outskirts of Marbella in the '80's. Carla used to package her dried Herbs and send them to friends all over the world as / for Christmas presents.
Dill heads, Lovage and Poppy seeds are dried and truly delicious added to bread and soups.
Think about Dear Readers.. think about waste, for it is such a waste.
GeeGee Parrot.
March 28th, 2014.
Do you throw away the outer leaves of green vegetables, potato, parsnip and carrot peeling, do you, God forbid, peel your Beetroots before you cook them?
Throw away bread, make your own bread?
I ask you this as she was privy to see such waste being exercised in a friend's kitchen recently.
I wrote in a previous post that she took vegetable peeling out to bury in the Bean and Pea trenches.. let me assure you, they were the very old, dried up leaves from a couple of Leeks!
Onion skins put into a pot of bones with a clove of garlic, vegetables leaves, some spices and herbs and water make for an tasty stock or soup.
Which freezes brilliantly in ice cube trays, ready to pop straight into a dish to add delicious flavour to your food and you have the added bonus of KNOWING there are no suspect additives of any kind in it.
Keep a plastic bag in your freezer, place the vegetable peelings or skins in and there they are, ready in a trice to add to a pot to make a tasty soup. Likewise with left-over mashed potatoes, they are great as a thickening agent. And any Bread which has gone dry can be added to pasta or to soup.
I know that you all know that she keeps a stock pot going most weeks of the year, at the moment it is a Fish Pot.
We, for I LOVE prawns, had some BIG prawns the other night, the heads, tails and skins went into the pot along with a couple of very savage looking Salmon heads, it smells very rich and unctuous (such a great word).
She cooks with very little salt, so makes her own mixture of 'Salt Free Mixed Herbs', of course, she is lucky enough to grow these herself.
There is nothing like knowing that these plants, which add so much flavour to our food, have never been sprayed or 'encouraged' to grow with any chemical!
It surely beats having to pay x amount of £, $, € etc to companies who bottle their Herbal products in those cute little plastic bottles with a shaker top.
She does not like storing any food in plastic. She trusts glass and an old jam jar is useful and will sit happily on a pantry / store cupboard shelf.
Even if you only have a window ledge you can grow your own Herbs, in the sitting room there are growing various varieties of Basil, Chervil, French Tarragon, two types of Parsley, Coriander.
The packets of seeds cost her about a £1.00 each, they will produce several plants, half of which she will pick and use fresh, they are 'cut and grow' again so the supply is pretty endless. A lot will be cut and dried in a warm place, then she crumbles them and places them in a glass jar.
She was extremely appreciative to receive these from a dear friend called Carla, who grew a huge amount of wonderful things in a tiny beach-side vegetable garden on the outskirts of Marbella in the '80's. Carla used to package her dried Herbs and send them to friends all over the world as / for Christmas presents.
Dill heads, Lovage and Poppy seeds are dried and truly delicious added to bread and soups.
Think about Dear Readers.. think about waste, for it is such a waste.
GeeGee Parrot.
March 28th, 2014.
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