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Waste Not, Want Not – Our Top Larder Tips

Posted on April 20, 2015 by leroy watson

Beach House Maramalade (made en Espana)

Maintaining a decent larder/ store cupboard can be tough. The larder is really the backbone of any passionate cooks foodie arsenal. We need our dried goods, spices, grains, magic potions etc to be in special, pristine condition to produce wonderful food. It takes time and some amounts of dedication to get it right. It’s certainly not the most spontaneous, vibrant aspect of the joys of cooking, but its highly worthwhile, pretty much essential. We have just cleared ours out after returning from India and a few top tips came to mind:

It’s all about rotation – keeping new things at the back and ‘to use’ things near the front helps loads. Its a visual thing, you can’t remember everything that is lurking in the larder shadows. Spend a few minutes, regularly, opening jars and inspecting the contents. Sniff and occasional taste tests may be required. Ditch what looks like its past its best and if there is a whiff of mustiness, definitely escort it to the bin. Nuts especially should be cared for and used quickly. If they are in their shells, they keep for a long time. Otherwise, keep an eye on them. A rancid nut is no fun and can be quite bad for you.

Have a good stash jars handy – keep loads of empty, clean jars or plastic containers (ex-yoghurt pots etc) to decant spices, grains, sugar etc into. They keep better, we try not to leave anything in packets once opened. Unless they are those clever re-sealable ones. But…….

Keep some pegs handy – Pegs are great. They come in really handy sealing things when you inevitably run out of jars and platic pots.

Tea bags keep powders dry – If you pop a tea bag in with salt and sugar, this will help to keep them dry.

Buy spices as seeds or whole – and then grind them yourself using a pestle and mortar or coffee grinder. You can even make your own spice mixes. Buying whole spices seriously lengthens their longevity. Ground spices should really be used quickly, within weeks, even when stored in a air tight container.

Bardsey Island Apple and Plum Chutney

Buy local and in bulk – we buy most locally if we can, generally this means the produce is always in good condition and hasn’t been messed with on long journeys and in storage. We are lucky to be surrounded by some wonderful producers and suppliers, as I’m sure you are also. They are everywhere!

We also like to use the co-operative Suma for all larder items. They will deliver, but it needs to be over a certain amount. Get a load of friends together is our advice. A sack load of chickpeas keeps well and will make you feel wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.

Label Things – This may sound like a step towards librarian-hood, but having a few blank stickers handy means knowing you’re cumin from your coriander and importantly, your chilli from your paprika at a glance. It also means that you can be creative and decorate your jars and pots with imaginative doddles that make people smile. Labelling also means that you don’t double up on buying things.

Dry/pickle your own – This can be lots of fun, but a little hectic in the glut months of Autumn when piles of precious berries, fruits and veggies are filling the kitchen. Some late night jammin’ and picklin’ may be in order. A few pickling/ preserving techniques and basic chutney/ jam recipes up your sleeve can make this time of year a joy. Preserving the beauty of harvest time for later months when blooming nature seems very distant. Homemade raspberry jam (we make it sugar free) in January is one of life’s great treats!

Here are a few recipes for picklin’ and preservin’ from the B.H.K library:

Beachu Kimchi

Beetroot, Apple and Caraway Sauerkraut

Apple and Plum Chutney

Chilli Onion Marmalade

5 Minute Fig and Prune Compote

Simple Blackcurrant Compote

Categories: Recipes | Tags: dry stores, food waste, larder, organise, Plum Chutney, recycling, tips, vegan, vegetarian, wales, waste | 1 Comment

Raw Earth Month – Moving Back to Nature

Posted on June 2, 2013 by leroy watson

Raw Earth Month

RAW EARTH MONTH

at the Beach House

‘Raw June’ in 2012 was a whole month dedicated to eating raw food, with no caffeine, added sugar, or alcohol. It was an incredible month for me. The experience made me realise that I actually ENJOY eating raw food! After it had finished, it felt natural for us to continue with a big part of our diet raw from then on.

Not only did I develop quite a flair in the kitchen for whisking up quick, gorgeous salads, soups and sauces (I’m not a natural cook), we both became very at home with the basics of nutrition, combining foods, new foods, health foods – the days were long and light, the food was sunny, and bright, and so were we!

The other interesting thing for me was that I really connected a lot more with my body during that time. I listened to it more, and felt into my energy levels more often during the day. For the first time in my life, I was aware of the conditioning of my mind, telling me I was hungry just because I didn’t feel ‘full’ (despite eating bowls and bowls of the most nutritional food on the planet)! And my goodness, did I get a whopper lesson on the nature of cravings? Wheew! It was as if something happened in my brain and I suddenly over-night became an addict of chocolate, dairy, crisps and even fried chips! It was a great exercise of willpower for me, especially since my birthday also fell into the month of June….

The other day, while roaming Anglesey’s wild and beautiful coastal path on a gorgeous sunny afternoon, Lee and I started excitedly planning the next Raw Food month for this Summer.

Inspiration spiraled as we sparked off each other, and soon we were discussing not only how we could improve the way we eat, but also the way we live our lives in general. The way we impact our Mother Earth.

Mother Earth

I would say we live in a fairly environmentally conscious way; we are not huge consumers of material possessions, electricity, or water. We recycle and make compost for our veg patch, we don’t own a clothes dryer, microwave or TV, we make our own washing up liquid and toothpaste, I don’t wear make-up, I use cloth pads during my moon time…. But no way are we perfect! We still use some chemical cleaners around the house; we use laundry detergent, conventional soap, and I use conventional shampoo, conditioner, and deodorant. We both use our computers for hours each day, electrical appliances and lights are accidentally left on… that kind of thing.

So we have set an intention! For a whole month starting on the Summer Solstice Friday June 21st, we are going to be eating only raw vegan food and we are also going to live in a way that lowers our impact on nature and the climate.

This means we are going completely ‘chemical free’ in the home – we’ll be experimenting with home-made eco-cleaning products, laundry products and toiletries. We are cutting down our electricity usage by not using appliances or electric heating. We are also going to switch off our lights in the evening to become more in tune with nature’s circadian rhythms. We’ll reduce our petrol consumption to essential trips only, and limit ourselves to 2 hours of computer time per day. Our mobile phones will be off unless we’re working, and, last but not least we will not buy anything apart from food and essentials – so no shopping trips!

It was not easy for us to agree the finer points of this experience – because of course it does involve sacrifices to our normal way of living, and would not be a challenge otherwise. For example, there was a point in the conversation where I flatly refused to even do Raw Earth Month! It was when Lee brought up the topic of shampoo and conditioners. This was met by fiery resistance by me as my hair is unusually big, long, thick and DIFFICULT at the best of times, even with these wonderfully enriching chemically products in my life. The other thing I felt resistance about was hand-washing all our laundry, not using conventional laundry liquid, and disinfecting the loo. Other than that I’m excited to experiment and relishing the thought of no technology and evenings sat by candle light… Bliss!

Lee on the other hand had no qualms about giving up chemicals on his body and hair, but found the computer part challenging – and even managed to haggle me up from one hour (as initially suggested) to two per day! I do take his point that blog articles can take time to write…

I’m just hoping that we can learn some new life skills during this phase; hopefully lessons we will be able to integrate into the rest of our lifes forever. In our opinion, saving and conserving energy is something we will all have to do more in the future. We will have to turn back once more to Mother Nature, and work with her not against her. Lets get a head start!