Waste Watch

2009 started off well food waste increased in the middle of the year and went down towards the end of the year.

LEASONS LEARNED

• Plan meals for the week boring to do but nice to know what I am going to eat when I get home from work.
• Buy what I need as a Happily single person I need to adjust what I am buying to feed one person not 2 or 4.
• Frozen veg can be more useful than fresh, for example a cabbage will go off before I can eat all of it. But I can buy frozen chopped cabbage. This way I can use up all of the cabbage.
• Look in my cookery books for receipes using left overs.
• Look at websites.

FAVOURITE COOKERY WEBSITES
Allreceipes.com www.allrecipes.com 

• I like this site because it uses both U.S and Metric measurements for its recipes.
• You can alter the recipe to decrease or increase the number of people the meal serves. I t does give you a warning that the cooking times have not been changed which you have to alter yourself.
• You can look at recipes without joining.
• If you join you are able to save your recipies online to a cookery box on your account.
  
  Allrecipes.co.uk allrecipes.co.uk Is the UK version of the above site
   
• It has UK measurements some recipes use both Imperial and metric measures.
• It has special recipes for UK specific holidays.

Love Food hate Waste.com lovefoodhatewaste.com
This is a UK based website with useful hints and tips for reducing food waste

• It has recipes on using left overs.
• It has useful tips on buying what you need and food storage.

 

This week I am aiming to make my meals using the food in my store cupboards. The first thing I have to do is make a meal plan, Breakfasts are easy they are different types of cereal. It is lunches to take to work that are difficult so after this post I am going to write down lunches for the week and make tomorrow's lunch.

As last week I decided to check how much I was spending daily and I was shocked at the amount I spent on buying sandwiches for lunch time. The average price for a sandwich was £5approx$8.50 =£25approx $46 per week when I have a lot of food in the fridge/freezer and my cupboards.

At work on Wednesday I was in a team meeting. About 15 minutes into the meeting there was a tannoy announcement.
"All Staff please listen there is an emergency situation, all staff stay where they are, fire wardens please check your floor, and 3rd floor fire wardens please check the roof and then please report to the Incident Control Officer" This was repeated twice. Then one of the fire wardens came into the room where we were having the meeting and looked around. After this message our team leader told us that if we had to evacuate the building we were not to go back to our desks and collect our belongings our go in the cloakroom and collect our coats. About 5 minutes later there was another tannoy announcement. "Attention all staff please evacuate the building." ( ReadMore )

I had a strange dream at around 5am this morning. I was asleep and I heard a loud intermittently ringing fire alarm, the sound was that of work's fire alarm. I thought in my dream oh its the bomb alert and we've been told not to move(At work we have been told that as well as having fire drills we will have bomb drills and the sound for the bomb drill is the intermittent ringing of the fire alarm). I then pulled by quilt further up under my neck this action told me that I was not at work so I better get up. I woke up and tried to get up but it felt like I was stuck to the bed. I shook my self to get awake (thanks to itsjustC for telling me a method that works)I turned over on to my right hand side and got out of bed. I was on the opposite side of the room to the door. I put on my mules by this time the bell had stopped ringing.
( Read More )

Yesterday as I was waiting at the bus stop driving on the opposite side of the road was a young men in a red car, he tooted his horn and waved at me as if he knew me. As the only person at the bus stop was me, I knew it was meant for me.
I have no idea who he is! But he made me smile.

Also the bus I caught to work got into the city centre in an unbelievable 17 minutes. It normally takes 40 minutes,there was no traffic and all the traffic lights were at green. I don't think I have ever been in the city centre that early. LOL

My dustbin has just received a meal! LOL I have been decluttering my fridge/freezer. I have thrown away 1 300g packet of prawns, 1/2 pack of frozen winter berries, 250g tub of cheese and 4 150g tubs of yoghurt with suspiciously bulging lids.

Once I ignored a tub of yoghurt with a suspiciously bulging lid and got back from work to find that the lid had broken erupting stale yoghurt all over the fridge. I then had the unpleasant job of cleaning the fridge :-(

Sweet
My breakfasts alternate between porridge and dried fruit, unsugared cereal and fresh fruit, toast with honey or jam. Occasionally I will go to a cafe and have a traditional English breakfast. In Yorkshire ( text )

I was sent this clip which I rather liked.

At last I have worked out how to get my e-mails from Sky's g-mail service into Outlook 2003. I like to read my e-mails by topic and I was unable to find this facility on g-mail. I looked again at Sky e-mail help section and found where I had gone wrong setting up Outlook . Like most things that take a long time it was a small thing. At the request for a password I was inputting my e-mail address when it should have been the same password I use to access Sky e-mails on gmail. I now have 175 e-mails to read!

I'm writing this listening to the wind howling, today has been a day of contrasts between wind howling and rain bouncing on the windows. Hope its going to be better for next week as I am on holiday from work.

I visited my nephew last week and he told me the following two riddles.

Number 1
A brown house is made of brown bricks
A yellow house is made of yellow bricks
A red house is made of red bricks
A blue house is made of blue bricks
What colour is a greenhouse?

Number 2
You have three apples
You take away two apples
How many apples do you have?

An old riddle I was taught as a child
Number 3
As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
Each wife had seven Cats
Each cat had seven Kits(old word for Kittens)
Kits, Cats and wives how many were going to St Ives?

Anyone want to guess the answers

I have enjoyed watching the Olympics it has been a very exciting two weeks. I can't believe how well Great Britain has done, the best place in the medal tables since 1928.

On the third floor of my employer's premises there is a place a sort of dinning room. There are tables, chairs, drinks and chocolate vending machines, kettle, microwave, sink and a TV. During my lunch hour I have been going up to the third floor to watch the Olympics, often I had to leave just at the most exciting parts of the coverage to go back to work.

On Saturday 16 August 2008 I watched the Mens Coxless fours rowing final. This was on at a good time for the UK, 10.30 am. It was a very exciting race for a long time it looked like Australia would win the race but then the British Team drew level the Australians fought back the British found some extra strength and won the race. Towards the end of the race I was shouting at the TV set, you could hear the excitement in the BBC commentator's voice during this race.
Also you could hear the words of the National Anthem sung by the crowd at the medal ceremony.

I am trying to improve my sleep pattern. At present I go to sleep when I come in from work, then awake later, find it difficult to get to sleep at night, then I am tired in the morning when I have to get up for work. I am trying to find a  way out of this cycle.
This week I have decided to record how many hours I sleep so that I have something to work on. In the past I have found that I am more effective if I have 8 hours sleep.

Monday, Wednesday and Thursday I did not go to sleep after work, I kept up, even though I felt very tired. Tuesday and Friday I fell asleep for a couple of hours after work.
Total Sleep figures for this week
Mon 6 hours 15
Tues 6hours 25
Wed 7hours
Thurs 6 hours
Fri 9 hours
I don't work Saturdays so I decided on Friday night to wake up when my body wanted to which explains the 9 hours.

It has helped that the Olympic Highlights have been on TV so I have been watching them instead of going to sleep.

On Wednesday I found a pedometer and decided to see how far and how many steps  I walked in a day. Thursday was unusual as it was the day I had a hospital appointment, which meant extra walking to the bus stops and to the hospital and around the hospital.
Steps
Wed 3328 or 0.893 mile
Thurs 4588 or 1.229 miles
Fri 3588 or 0.893 mile
I remember reading somewhere that The British Medical Association says that 10,000 steps is the ideal number of steps to walk each day for the average person. I did get a bit of a shock at how few steps I walked as I walk further than a lot of my colleagues on a daily basis.
So next week for 2 days in the week I am going to get off the bus one stop earlier and walk home from that stop. Hope it isn't very windy or rainy on the days I decide to do this, very unlikely in Britain!

These are my menus for the next week using food that is already in my store cupboard. This term includes food cupboard, fridge and freezer.

SUNDAY
Breakfast-Toast and honey with cup of tea.
Lunch- Ham salad with rice, tomatoes and celery.
Evening Meal-Home made chicken casserole in freezer with pancakes.

MONDAY
Breakfast-Porridge made with milk and 1 cup of tea with milk.
Lunch-Crisp breads, on which is cottage cheese with pineapple with  cherry tomatoes.
Evening Meal- Prawn stir fry using both stir fry and handful of frozen prawns in freezer.

TUESDAY
Breakfast -Puffed wheat cereal with 1 oz of raisins and milk.
Lunch-Pasta and red kidney bean salad, using a small tin of red kidney beans, 1 chopped green pepper, 2 sticks of celery and 4 cherry tomatoes.
Evening Meal-Small tin of Potato and leek soup after computer class followed by satsuma.

WEDNESDAY
Breakfast- Special K cereal with Milk.
Lunch-Tin of tuna in brine mixed with lemon juice blended to form a paste which is then spread on crispbreads, 1 stick of chopped celery and 1/2 chopped red pepper.
Evening Meal-Quorn Goulash using Macaroni, tin of tomatoes with herbs, tomato and garlic puree  4oz frozen quorn and mixed herbs on a bed of rice.

THURSDAY
Breakfast- Porridge made with milk.
Lunch-Pasta and ham salad with chopped cherry tomatoes celery and yellow pepper.
Evening Meal-Reminder of Quorn Goulash as recipe makes large portions.

FRIDAY
Breakfast- Puffed Wheat with 1 oz raisins and milk.
Lunch- tinned sardines hidden in a salad of red pepper, celery and tomatoes.
Evening Meal-Salmon marinated in lemon juice with 1/2 tin of potatoes and  green beans.

SATURDAY
Breakfast- Stewed winter berries with yoghurt, berries are to be taken from freezer Friday night and stewed for Saturday morning.
Lunch-Sweetcorn omelette using 1/2 tin of sweetcorn and whatever fresh vegetables are left,1 teaspoon of olive oil
Evening Meal-Grilled chicken with frozen mixed butternut squash and sweet potato.