You may be wondering why I’m writing about cranberry sauce when Christmas is over! There reason is that I made some this year and it was a huge hit. I gave some away as a present too. The best thing is that it is very simple to make and uses very few ingredients. The only thing could be finding the fresh cranberries themselves but loads of grocery shops sell them as they are seasonal. You can also use frozen cranberries. If you find some on reduced price, buy them and make the sauce. It will keep in the freezer and I found it goes with a lot of foods, not just turkey. For instance, it goes well with cheese, Indian and Mexican foods- the tanginess sets off the spicy flavours.
So here it goes-
100g/3½oz light brown sugar (cost 46p)
100ml/3½fl oz orange juice ( I used the cheap carton of orange juice but you can also use freshly squeezed orange juice and use the rind, as below to make the zest) 86p
250g/9oz fresh or frozen cranberries (80p for 300gm)
1 clementine or small orange, finely grated zest only (optional)
Bring the sugar and orange juice to the boil in a large saucepan. Stir in the cranberries and simmer for 5 minutes or until tender but holding their shape. Frozen cranberries will take longer than fresh. Refrigerate until needed, it will thicken as it cools.
I also added ginger powder and a clove into the mix and took out the clove after I finished making the sauce. I added the zest later.
Total cost of homemade sauce £2.12, i.e £ 0.70 per 100 gm
Shop bought cranberry sauce cost: £0.68 per 100 gm
So you see there isn’t much difference in the cost but the difference in taste (and the colour) is enormous. And since it is so simple to make, why compromise? Plus it can be a zero waste gift. I’m now thinking of using this recipe for other seasonal berries.
My neighbours buy ‘real’ Christmas trees while I have a fake one.
First of all, why do we have fir trees inside our houses during winter festival? It is the most illogical thing to do!
Perhaps the concept of the Christmas tree came from the Paradise Tree, representing the tree in the garden of Paradise, which was used in medieval German Mystery or Miracle Plays that were acted out in front of Churches on Christmas Eve. Fir trees were first used as Christmas trees about 1000 years ago in Northern Europe.
The first person to bring a Christmas Tree into a house, in the way we know it today, may have been the 16th century German preacher, Martin Luther. In many parts of northern Europe, cherry or hawthorn plants (or even a branch) and brought inside in the hope that they would flower at Christmas time. People also made pyramids of woods which were decorated to look like a tree with paper, apples and candles. Sometimes they were carried around from house to house, rather than being displayed in a home. Early Christmas Trees could been hung upside down from the ceiling using chains. Anyway the custom has stayed and people love the seasonal decorations and especially the children love the spectacle of the Christmas tree. So there is no getting away from not having one- what ever form you decide.
It has been calculated that artificial Christmas trees are made of plastic and PVC, shipped over from China. So there is a carbon cost of manufacture and transportation plus the energy cost of the materials. Added to that, artificial Christmas trees aren’t recyclable, so if they’re thrown away, they will end up in landfill.
According to the Carbon Trust, a two metre artificial tree has a carbon footprint of around 40kg, more than ten times that of a real tree that’s burned after Christmas. In other words, you’d need to re-use an artificial tree 10 times to negate its carbon footprint, yet it’s estimated that fake trees are used only four times, regardless of improving quality.
But if you’ve used your fake Christmas tree more for more than ten Christmases, then you are ‘carbon neutral’. I’ve used my Christmas for 16 years now, and it still looks good. All the decorations also have been used for more than 16 and also were lent to someone when they didn’t have any.
While my fake tree is stored away for the year, my neighbours have to go and buy a tree- there is car use involved while the tree itself might have been transported from Scotland or somewhere even further. Most real trees also come wrapped in plastic which also has to be disposed off. Then there is the problem of the disposal of the actual tree especially if you haven’t got the space in your garden or even a garden (which is increasingly the case in city apartments). After the new Year, the streets are blocked by irresponsible people even though the Council offers collection for a small fee. So to avoid the fee, these people throw the trees anywhere.
This is where the fake tree is better in my opinion- the more you use it, the less it costs financially as well as ecologically. It stays in its cardboard box, handy for the next time it is needed.
This is what one of my neighbours decided to do with a fake fir- looks good and deters many bugs! Better than throwing a fake tree away.
Postscript: This was published last Christmas by BBC about a boy’s ‘Worst Christmas ever’
Ros Bruce, from Essex, said her 10-year-old son got an Xbox One for Christmas, and he and a friend had spent weeks planning what games they would play together online.
She said they had been downloading a game since 09:00 GMT – and by 23:40 it was still not ready.
“He has spent most of the day in tears,” she said.
It is autumn and pumpkins are readily available. Use them for your Halloween pumpkin and then make pumpkin soup from that. But don’t throw the seeds or the gooey stuff around the seeds. That gooey stuff attached to the seeds can be taken out easily using water as this Youtube video shows. The gooey stuff can be thrown into your compost and the water used for the plants (so don’t use running water to clean the seeds as the video shows but use a bowl of water instead) The cleaned seeds can be used for snacks. Many of the recipes use shelled seeds and some don’t- you can use what you prefer. Due to some health issues, I can’t have the shells so I have used bought pumpkin seeds for this recipe but you can do the same with your seeds with shells. I have also let go of the olive oil used in many recipes because it is not good in the heat but used coconut oil instead. You need much less oil this way.
Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade. Put your oven tray in for a few minutes to warm it, get it out and then put a tiny (I used a teaspoon) of coconut oil. It will melt. Spread the oil around the tray evenly and then put in a teaspoon of cajun spice or you can use garam masala. Mix the oil and the spice and blend in the seeds so that you have a even one layer of seeds on the tray. I also sprinkled some Himalayan sea salts on the mixture- again a small amount.
Stick the tray back in the oven for about 10 minutes or so until the seeds have turned crispy and become a lighter colour.
The finished seeds should have golden light colour- see the difference in the photos above and below. Then they are done. They are so yummy, low fat, free (if you have the pumpkin) and so simple to make! Its great party food plus very healthy-with nutrients ranging from magnesium and manganese to copper, protein and zinc. They also contain plant compounds known as phytosterols and free-radical scavenging antioxidants.
Because these are high-fibre seeds, they’re able to boost your fibre intake, helping you reach the ideal amount of 50 grams per 1,000 calories consumed and keep your bowels clear. You can also take them as snacks for work or to the park because pumpkin seeds are highly portable and require no refrigeration.
Having an Armenian link in my family, I decided this year to make traditional Armenian Easter eggs alongside a traditional meal. Making these Easter eggs involves using onion skins, turmeric and other natural dyes to colour eggs. Here are some of my efforts. I collected red onion skins- shopkeepers were happy to get rid of them. I also put in some chilli flakes that I was not using (these also make the water red). I boiled these for about twenty minutes and left it to cool overnight. In the morning, I pasted some leaves I found in the garden on the raw eggs using water. I used organic hens and duck eggs. Then I put the eggs inside cut up old stockings and boiled them further for about 20 minutes. After removing them from the stocking, I left them to cool. When they were cold to touch, I polished them with some olive oil to make them shine. Even though the duck eggs were less successful, the over all effect of mottled colour with silhouettes of leaves, was charming on both types of eggs.
What about waste? The skins were put in the compost and the leftover liquid was used to dye an old white silk blouse which is now a pretty pink colour. No waste- perfect!
I will be trying out more natural dyes made from vegetable waste or origins such as blueberry juice, coffee, tea, etc. I have already used such colours in creating a portrait of person who likes spicy food (turmeric and onion skins), tea and coffee and more mineral colours.
A funny spud (potato) teaches me that love is about loving someone with their wrinkles and warts. That love is about giving someone time- respecting them for who they are!
Winter is a time of hibernation, of sleep, of drawing back but also a time for rejuvenation and preparation for the glory of spring and summer. I have been busy but there is not much to show at present. These gorgeous holly branches with their vibrant green and reds show that winter still has power to dazzle as much as spring.
Britain has been hit by storms and rains and it has been very hard to do any useful gardening work. However, the warmer winter has meant that the plants which normally would have died down by this time are still thriving without any help- such as as the sweet peas and some of the flowering climbers. But soon, I will be back out again, to show you some of the ‘invisible’ work that nature has been doing without my help. In the meanwhile, hope you all have a lovely 2016!
Christmas has long gone but the streets are now piled up with discarded Christmas trees, some blocking the pavement, some blocking the roads, waiting to be taken away by the cleaners. How sorry they look!
Some people have been clever- they’ve used up the needles which drop out anyway for mulch or in their compost. So these trees look like this-
For the last seven years, I have been using the same tree, rather the same artificial tree. Agreed that perhaps it doesn’t smell the same, although a clever trick of putting some pine scented oil around does the trick. All I have to do is put it up, put up the decorations and then take them down again for next year. There is no waste and no nuisance. No needles to sweep away. And it doesn’t look too bad, I have to say! When I don’t use it anymore, I know that it will be good to go to a charity shop for someone else to use.
The Canny Gardener 