The age of thrift!

Make do and mend! Use your leftovers!
Wisdom indeed from a bygone age - words that we often ignore in our modern/post modern world! But in a climate of recession and environmental disaster they are words we need to take on board again.
In the UK we waste about 1/3rd of the food we buy - that is a shameful statistic but it gets worse - it rises to 80% over the Christmas period! 80%! 80%! That is disgusting! How can we have the brass neck to waste so much food when many around the world go hungry? http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/
Anyway (puts soap box aside!) as mentioned in my Pressure Cooker post I made the annual turkey stock yesterday - another remnant of a bygone age it would seem. It is amazing how many folk look at you like you have 2 heads when you say you make your own stock. But what a waste of a carcass if you don't and once you taste home made stock shop bought stuff is never the same. So we made 7 pots of stock (about 500ml each which will need diluting before use as is very strong stuff!) and we eked out 8 meals from the meat (most are now frozen) so all in all this makes an organic free range turkey go a long long way and actually hugely economical.
We have made the conscious decision to only eat organic meat and the majority of this comes from a farm we support in the Scottish Borders (http://www.whitmuirorganics.co.uk/) and we feel that it is respectful to get the most out of each animal/cut of meat. It is amazing when you hear of people who only use the breast meat from a chicken and then throw the rest of the carcass in the bin! No wonder meat is too expensive then!!

The pressure is on!!

Went and bought a pressure cooker yesterday!! I had been planning this for a while and had been doing online research but the crunch came when it was time to make the annual stock from the turkey carcass. Suddenly the thought of boiling away for 4 hours seemed a silly idea when it would take a fraction of the time in a pressure cooker. Add to that the fact that our house does not like condensation at all (a wall was blistering on Christmas day despite having windows open and the dehumidifier on!) So an emergency trip to Argos later and one new pressure cooker was mine. A quick read of the instructions and hey presto the carcass was in and 1 hour later perfect stock resulted! The wife was/is a bit dubious re the new cooker - scared it will explode but having seen the stock and now boiled spuds in it today is coming around to it!
So why bother? For me it is all about reducing further our fossil fuel reliance - using the Pressure cooker reduces cooking times by about 2/3 so that is an amazing reduction in gas usage also and so less CO2 production. That can only be a good thing! And in an age of increasing fuel bills hopefully the savings will pay back the outlay on the pressure cooker pretty soon(ish!)
It's funny -having read lots over the last few years about reducing your carbon footprint I have no recollection of anyone recommending using a pressure cooker - but I think they are the way forwards. Many folks see them as a thing granny used to use - but that's not a good reason for not using them - we so often disparage traditional things but our ancestors knew a thing or two we need to get to grips with!! And modern pressure cookers are much safer than the ones granny used!! So get out and get one!!

Too little too late?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/09/poznan-copenhagen-global-warming-targets-climate-change

It seems that the science on climate change is moving fast and last years reports are already out of date - it may be that we are committed to run away climate change as we have debated and delayed too long!
I am sad - sad that my generation didn't do enough and yet we have a government who jump fast to save the banking sector and now it would seem the motor vehicle sector too but dillydallyed over climate change until it was too late. I am sad that my kids will grow up into a hugely different world and life will be harder, possibly much harder than when I grew up.
But, depressed and pessimistic as I feel I will keep on going in making my lifestyle as green as I can and in campaigning and educating - why? In 30 years time if and when my kids ask me if I did anything to help I want to say yes, I did my part, I tried!

Sad day for Santa

My 5 year old son started school in August and he is loving it and really thriving on it. We have seen many positives from his first term but one downside of having new friends (some of whom are in P7 - the joys of a small village primary) is that O announced last week that he didn't believe in Santa anymore. I was like 'hang on you've hardly begun believing in him don't stop yet!' I thought we would get to at least 7 before the man in the red suit died a death but it seems not!
Children grow up so fast these days - I see this daily with all the teenagers at school - so desperate to enter an adult world and yet so not ready! I just hoped that my kids would spend a little longer in the land of make believe and fairy tale :(