Category Archives: zero waste

Perfect Baked Beans

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A couple of weeks ago I successfully made baked beans which GMan declared were better than the ones out of a can. Some years ago I had attempted to make them but they were really not that great. This time I was armed with more experience and a video I had chanced upon as a starting point. However, I did adapt it somewhat to suit myself.

I have made another batch and made notes of the quantities and method as well as taken several photos so that I can share the recipe with you.

BAKED BEANS

Ingredients

1kg dry white beans
Olive oil
3 medium onions, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 capsicum (pepper), diced
700ml tomato passata
250ml water
1 tablespoon treacle
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
3 – 4 teaspoons smoky paprika
1 – 2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Method

Place the beans in a large bowl and cover with boiling water (about 5cm above the level of the beans). Soak for several hours or overnight. The beans will swell but will still be quite hard. Transfer the beans and water to a slow cooker and add a bit more water. Cook on high for several hours until tender but not mushy.

Saute the diced onion in a little oil in a large pan. Cook gently on a low heat so that they soften but are barely coloured. Add the garlic and capsicum and continue cooking. Add the remaining ingredients and simmer gently until well-cooked and the desired flavour.

Add the drained beans to the sauce and combine thoroughly but do not break the beans up too much. Allow to stand and cool so that the beans absorb the flavour of the sauce.

Heat, eat and enjoy.

I choose to freeze the prepared beans which works really well. This is the results from the recipe above. The small dish will be my lunch today.

Notes

This is a large quantity – you can reduce the amounts.
I used Great Northern beans but you could use navy beans, canellini beans or whatever you prefer.
You could used canned beans if you wish. I prefer to use dried beans as they cost less and there is the added benefit of minimal packaging, especially if you buy them from bulk bins.
The tomato mixture could be pureed fresh or canned tomatoes or whatever you have on hand. You can also include some tomato paste for a more intense depth of flavour.
The original recipe used bacon but I choose to use smoky paprika to replicate the flavour and keep this recipe meat-free.
Add the seasonings gradually to account for your personal taste.
I used a couple of capsicums from the garden but regular red ones are fine, too.
I substituted rosemary salt for half of the salt.
I also added 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce and 1/4 cup of my homemade tomato sauce to make it a little spicier.

In other words, this is a basic recipe and you can adjust it to suit your personal taste.

Inching Slowly Forward

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My recent sewing has been doing some paid alterations to 3 skirts. Now that they are finished I have turned my attention to my ongoing patchwork project.

I completed 2 more blocks this afternoon.

That leaves just 7 more blocks to do to have enough for the QS quilt. I need about 6 more squares but I have exhausted my supply of suitable colour fabrics so I will check out the op shop tomorrow when we are out and about.

I hope to be able to have the quilt assembled as pass it on to a contact who has a long arm machine to quilt it.

I have other sewing to work on as well as a germ of an idea for my next patchwork project but more about that another day.

More Vegetables

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I want to share a recipe that has evolved in my kitchen since I first discovered that I could use cooked cauliflower as the base for a savoury white sauce rather than the traditional flour and butter roux.

The quantities listed are very flexible and only intended as a guide. The seasoning depends very much on your palate and should be adjusted accordingly.

INGREDIENTS

1/2 large cauliflower, cut into pieces (including stalks)
500ml milk, dairy or plant-based
1&1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon smoky paprika

Cook cauliflower until tender – microwave or steamed. Puree the cooked cauliflower, gradually adding milk to create the required consistency.

At this stage it should be smooth but will taste like milky cauliflower. Gradually add seasoning of your choice. Other options include powdered onion or garlic.

The mixture freezes really well and is super versatile. Here are 4 jars ready to go in the freezer.

It can be used in any way you would normally use white sauce. I sometimes add to vegetables or use for a pancake filling with mushrooms and chicken. Tonight I used it for the base of a tuna pasta bake.

Here it is almost ready to go in the airfryer.

I will add some topping of flaxseed meal, nutritional yeast and a little grated cheese and serve with some sliced carrots and zucchini.

Two For One

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When I decided to dress as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz in Easter Parade I was keen to not buy anything new so I started searching for some light blue gingham fabric in the op shops. GMan was with me and spotted a QS doona cover and 2 pillowcases which proved to be perfect. The linen had obviously been discarded as parts of it were significantly faded but I knew there would be plenty for what I needed. I made the pinafore dress and slightly adapted a blouse I had previously made.

Ever since our girls left home we have had a queen size bed in the spare room. For a number of years it was used as an Air BnB so the bed was always made up and ready. Since then I continued to do the same as there was often a family member visiting.

However, the bed is used much less these days and I always have plenty of notice so I can make it up as required. This means that I do not have a full set of bed linen tied up but not really being used. I did not really want the bare mattress exposed so one possibility was to cover it with a spare doona cover. The downside of this is the potential for it to fade as this room enjoys the morning sun which is very welcome in the cooler months.

I realised that I still had all of the other side of the cover I had used for my costume. So, I simply hemmed the edge and now I have a pretty cover for the bed and it doesn’t matter if it fades over time.

Sheets and doona covers from op shops are a great source of fabric for a variety of projects. There are always lots to choose from and I have been lucky enough to find a very specific item on several occasions. As well as these creations I also found white cotton sheet sets that I used to make 8 tablecloths for the film society. You can read about that here. A mint green sheet from the op shop provided enough fabric for the backing of a quilt. You can see it in this post. The possibilities are endless if you view them as large pieces of fabric rather than bed linen.

Food Waste

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Food waste comes in many guises. It may be less than perfect produce being refused by supermarkets and ultimately being dumped. Excess produce being grown and discarded rather than being shared with those in need. Food that is bought and not used for a variety of reasons. Home leftovers that end up being thrown out rather than being used creatively. Large serving portions in cafes and restaurants which result in food wastage.

Food waste going to landfill produces methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. Additionally, it makes absolutely no sense to waste food at any time but especially at the moment, during a cost-of-living crisis when many people are struggling to provide enough food for their families.

Every little bit we do can make a difference and here are some examples.

When I was cooking over the past couple of days I made bulk quantities of chilli con carne, beef and onion casserole and leek and potato soup. It usually use a large soup ladle as a measuring guide when portioning these up but it is not effective at thoroughly scraping the pot. There can be as much as half a serve left in the pot.

That is where these silicon scrapers come in really handy. I bought them nearly 4 years ago and they are honestly worth their weight in gold.

Here are the results of using them to properly empty a large pot and the insert of the slow cooker.

Much better than washing food (and money) down the drain.

Refreshed and Ready

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You would think I would have had better things to do 3 days before we travel overseas but I decided to make new covers for some cushion pads to go on some stools for the kitchen.

When we first moved to this house I was unsure whether I actually wanted stools to sit at the breakfast bar at the island bench. I felt that they could make the space feel visually cluttered. In the meantime, we decided to utilise the space under the bench to store some of the buckets which hold bulk dry goods such as flours, nuts and dried fruit.

These will eventually be housed in the revamped and extended butler’s pantry but I am really not sure when that is likely to happen due the eternal dearth of tradesmen.

A few months ago I spotted a giveaway of 2 stools that turned out to be in the next street to us. They were in OK condition overall buy the cushions were covered in a faded yellow fabric that was rather grubby from having been stored in the shed. I picked them up and set them aside as a future project.

So, a few days ago I rearranged somethings in the wardrobe in the spare room, relocated the buckets of dry goods to the wardrobe and set about transforming the stools.

The first step was to remove the old covers. Deconstructing items carefully is a great way to create a pattern for their replacement and helps to understand how they are assembled.

Some strong calico from my stash created a neat, smooth base for the new covers.

I chose a lovely vintage cotton paisley print fabric which had been given to me some time ago.

I decided to adapt the design slightly to make the covers removable and the extension flap folds over to the underside of the cushion and fastens with velcro.

I am very happy with the end result.

The stools are exactly the right height for the bench and the backs are low enough that they do not create a significant interruption the the visual lines of the bench.

I also made a new set of tiebacks for the curtains in the family room to match the cushion covers. They replaced the ones that I made when we first moved in.

Saving Seeds

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My vegetable gardening efforts over the years have sometimes involved buying and sowing seeds but have mostly been a matter of buying a punnet of seedlings.

I know that this is not the most sustainable option for several reasons. The seedlings come in a plastic tray and they are often grown in quite different conditions to your location which does not always bode well for their success. Finally, many are hybrids which are not suitable for seed saving as they do not grow true to type.

At the beginning of October, I was fortunate enough to be given some lettuce seedlings by a fellow gardener who lives about 1km away from us. These were very successful for several months until the hot weather and then they bolted as lettuces tend to do in the warmer months. A couple of them grew to almost 1 metre tall with masses of flowers.

GMan was keen to clear out the garden bed where they were so today I checked them and found dozens of seed heads with literally hundreds of seeds. I collected them, rinsed the detritus from them and spread the seeds out on a scrap of calico fabric to dry.

Wish me luck with my first real foray into saving and replanting seed from my own garden. These lettuces have proven themselves very successful in our climate and soil conditions so I am hopeful of reasonable success.

Harvest Time

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When choosing this title I noticed that I had used it before in 2021 – except that it was in early November. It is now late summer here and everything seems to be ripening in abundance so we are fully occupied making sure that none of it goes to waste.

Here are a few of the things we have been doing in the past few days.

When we moved here we inherited two espaliered nashi pear trees which have borne prolifically. We did not net them so the parrots have enjoyed quite a feast but we have still managed to pick several hundred fruit. Once we discovered that we really like the fruit stewed, GMan has made it his mission to peel and slice the seemingly never-ending supply and the freezer is full of containers of stewed nashi which we will enjoy in the coming months.

It is now about 6 weeks since I picked the first of our zucchini and I been managing to use them at pretty much the same rate as we were picking them until the last few days. So, today I made zucchini slice. I have been trialling making them in individual serves in the airfryer for some time now and am happy that I have finally got the amended measurements and cooking times right. I will post an amended recipe in the next blog post.

I also grated several extra zucchini and have them packed in bags of 200g in the freezer for future zucchini slice making.

Meanwhile, the tomato sauce was simmering on the stove.

This was the result.

I made another of my experimental versions of basil pesto and am pretty happy with this one. Almonds instead of pine nuts. Some grated zucchini mixed with the basil makes it milder flavoured. Nutritional yeast rather than cheese makes it dairy-free, vegan and reduces the cholesterol. Yes, minimising the cholesterol intake is going to be more of a feature of my cooking in the future. I also add the juice of half a lemon as it makes it a bit less oily.

The bumper harvest has not been confined to just our garden and our neighbour’s. I picked up a bag of plums from a roadside giveaway earlier in the week. I stewed these and have some each morning on my cereal.

Processing gluts of home-grown, gifted or foraged produce can be time-consuming but it is a worthwhile activity which helps to minimise the amount of food going to waste.

Tomatoes – A Test Run

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I am always looking for ways to store the inevitable summer glut of home-grown tomatoes. I make tomato sauce (ketchup) but there is a limit to how much of that we need. The recipe is here if you are interested. I also used to freeze cherry tomatoes whole for use in casseroles and other cooking. I have dabbled in making tomato paste and tomato powder. These have all been reasonably successful but somewhat labour intensive.

Our tomatoes are not ready yet but the neighbours have generously shared their harvest.

I had these spread out to ripen and today I selected the reddest ones and cut them into quarters. I placed them into a round cake tin with 2 large cloves of garlic and a handful of basil leaves (all homegrown) and a drizzle of olive oil. I cooked them in the airfryer for 25 minutes at 170C then blitzed them in the high-speed blender.

I now have a couple of jars of delicious sauce which will be perfect for pizza bases, pasta dishes or adding to other dishes for a rich tomato flavour. This was super quick and easy and I will definitely be doing it again in the future. I choose not to process the sauce but simply store it in the freezer.

Scrolling Idly

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Many would say that idle scrolling through your social media feed is an appalling waste of time and a bad habit. Generally, I would agree with these sentiments but randomly checking Facebook has proved to be very worthwhile in the past week.

One evening I quickly checked and happened upon a small cupboard for sale on Marketplace. I showed GMan as he had been saying that he needed a stand for his BBQ (also sourced from Marketplace). He was also thinking that some storage underneath the stand would be useful. I checked the dimensions of the advertised cupboard and we decided that it would be perfect for this purpose.

A short drive and $20 later and we had a stand for the BBQ.

I could not believe my luck when I managed to follow up that win with another. Yesterday afternoon I spotted a sofa which looked perfect for our family room. We had a sofa bed there which we had brought from Queensland and although it is good for a spare bed it is not the most comfortable sofa in the world. This ‘new to us’ leather sofa is in excellent condition and is a welcome addition for $190. The sofa bed has been rehomed in the spare bedroom.

Of course, you can’t pick and choose exact colours when buying secondhand. This shows the colour of the sofa and that colour of the back of the sideboard which is quite close to it. 

I am planning to find some fabric which incorporates the taupe and indigo/navy colours to make a couple of cushions for the sofa which will tie it all together colourwise. Perhaps something like this.

With a bit of creativity I think I can make it all work really well together.