Change the World Wednesday – 1st Feb

Back into the swing of things. It’s good to have our CTWW back to fill our Wednesday mornings. But right now, I need more coffee. BRB

Back

Now, where was I?

Ah yes, here we go, this week’s Change the World Wednesday.

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This week (and throughout the month), experiment with left over fruits and veggies by either blending them into smoothies or making soups. Fruits and veggies are very heart-healthy and finding creative uses for them instead of tossing them out is very earth-friendly (especially the ones which are slightly tired – check your refrigerators for these culprits). Be sure to come back and tell us about your efforts … and offer recipes if you wish.

Vitamina banana com aveia

I very rarely have leftover fruit. I love juice and vitaminas (smoothies in Portuguese), one of my favourite vitaminas is banana com aveia (banana, milk and porridge flakes). Last year, as I have mentioned, I had a bumper crop of passionfruit. I had passionfruit juice coming out of my ears. What fruit I didn’t manage to drink, I gave away to neighbours. This year, I had one lousy passionfruit growing above my front door. Last week I noticed it had begun to yellow; I felt it to see if it was ripening and it fell off in my hand. It duly ripened fully in the fruit bowl and has since met its fate in the blender.

Veges…

Vegetables are another story. Now that I live alone, it is not practical to have a stockpot. But when I was with my family, there was always a stockpot on the stove.

Vege offcuts and peelings, raw bones, chicken carcass & skin and cooking water all went into the stockpot for a boil up and reduction.

It’s all very well having a stockpot, but what to do with it.

Fat was scooped off the top and used for cooking, de-meated bones went to the dogs, stock went into dishes or became soup or made gravy, meat and suitable vege pieces became soup. The leftovers went on the compost; I was able to do this because I had a big compost heap away from the house, although it isn’t generally recommended that you throw cooked food in the compost. The stockpot was the only cooked stuff we threw out there.

So, nothing was wasted.

The only veges that didn’t go in the stockpot were cabbagey things (because they tended to make you fart a lot) and lettucey stuff because it turns slimy.

So now, practicality dictates that all goes on the compost. Bones go to the neighbours’ dogs; they love them. Now that I have my Lixo (rubbish in Portuguese) he gets bits and pieces too. Oh, I haven’t mentioned here; last week a little ginger tabby about 3 or 4 months old followed me home from the botequim (neighbourhood bar). I named him Lixo because he was dumped from a sack like rubbish in the park late at night. You can read about him on Life is a Labyrinth.

There you are, until next week. Don’t forget Make you Fink n Friday, already planned, this week it’s a doozy!

NB: ‘doozy’ for our American cousins is Aussie & NZ slang for really good; I could have used ‘bottler’ which means really, really good.

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