Do me a favour, leave your plastic wrapping at the supermarket!

Don't fret, this old softie hasn't suddenly turned into an an all-guns-ablazing activist overnight but I have come across some good news that will help householders across the country quietly join the move towards a more active zero waste lifestyle.

Reported in this week's LetsRecycle bulletin is the news that the UK's key supermarkets (Asda; The Co-operative Group; WM Morrison; J Sainsbury’s; Tesco; and Waitrose) are officially accepting thin plastic film packaging through their existing in-store bag recycling facilities.

This won't be a new idea to some as several supermarkets have been doing this already, but it is welcome news that this recycling facility is now officially being rolled out at more than 4500 stores across the UK, providing customers with a place to leave packaging such as cereal bags, toilet roll packaging and multi-can wrappers.

What really struck me about the value of collecting back these materials was that according to LetsRecycle, this type of plastic makes up 43% of all plastic household packaging, weighing in at 645,000 tonnes each year.   Plastic bottles make up only 32%, or 480,000 tonnes, by comparison.  Wowsers!  It just goes to show how much there is knocking around this planet of hours and that's a lot of plastic that would otherwise go to waste if it is simply dumped in the rubbish bin.

Of course, much of this packaging can be reduced at source or reused at home (e.g. bread bags being repurposed as sandwich wrappers, and loo roll bags doubling up as bin bags), but much of it can now go back to the supermarket to be reprocessed.  To find out more information about this scheme and the on-pack recycling label that underpins it, visit Caelia Quinault's article at LetsRecycle.com Supermarkets take back plastic film in-store.   Oh....and tell your friends.  Well there's no point in keeping news like this to ourselves is there.

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Recipe: Roasted Vegetable Stack, with Tomato Sauce and Feta Cheese

This is a really yummy vegetarian dish, and i think it looks very sophisticated. If I had to do a posh veggie starter for someone on Come Dine with Me, I would make this dish! With the tomato sauce, you can use your own homemade sauce or if you're in a bit of a rush you can use a pre-made one- the sacla ones are good. This time I made a basic tomato sauce with passata, dried basil, thyme, oregano, salt, sugar and pepper-easy peasy! A quick starter, that can easily be made into a main course when you serve it with crusty italian white bread and a rocket salad.

Roasted vegetable stack, with tomato sauce and feta cheese (serves 2)

8 round slices of aubergine (not too thin!)
1 large courgette, halved and then sliced into strips
1 yellow pepper, seeded and quartered
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

200ml tomato+ herb sauce (whether homemade or ready-made)
120g feta cheese
Chopped fresh parsley, for garnish

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. On two greaseproof lined baking trays, place all the prepared vegetables, drizzle with the olive oil, sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, and roast in the oven for 20 minutes.
2. A few minutes before the vegetables are ready, heat up the tomato sauce in a saucepan, until piping hot.
3. Remove the vegetables out of the oven, and begin to layer up onto two plates. Layer them up how you would like, but I like to put the pepper quarters and courgette slices in between the aubergine slices (making sure I end up with an aubergine slice on top, as it improves the presentation).
4. Pour over the tomato sauce, crumble over the feta cheese, sprinkle over some fresh parsley, and serve!

Recipe: Mushroom, Sausage and Bacon Spaghetti

This is a quick and lush recipe that I cut out from this month's issue of Good Food Magazine. Made a few tweaks: Changed the amounts about a bit(as I was just cooking for myself), used spaghetti instead of "pasta shapes" like they suggest, and used philly and a little milk instead of creme fraiche. This is a really tasty dish and perfect when you come in hungry and want to make a quick lunch or dinner. Infact I came in starving at 2:30 this afternoon, after a 6.7km run, and this went down very nicely! Although whilst making it, I did think...hmmm, sausages, bacon, egg, mushroom....just add a grilled tomato and youve got a full english! Haha lol!

Mushroom, sausage and bacon spaghetti (serves 1)

90g spaghetti
1 pork sausage, skin removed and meat squeezed out
70g sliced mushrooms
1 smoked thick-cut back bacon slice, diced
1 egg yolk
30g Philadelphia
50ml skimmed milk
1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley (plus a little extra for garnish)
5g finely grated parmesan
Salt and black pepper to taste

1. Bring a pan of water to the boil, add the spaghetti and cook it according to the packet instructions (making sure it comes out “al dente”- or “with a bite” to it).
2. Meanwhile, in another pan, cook the sausage meat in a hot pan, breaking it into pieces with a wooden spoon, for about 6 minutes (or until well browned).
3. Remove the sausage pieces with a slotted spoon, and in the remainder oil, fry the mushroom and bacon for five minutes. Mix together the Philadelphia, egg, milk and parsley until smooth.
4. Return the cooked sausage to the saucepan, drain the spaghetti and add to the pan, and then add the creamy mixture. Stir around for about a minute (sometimes even less!) until the spaghetti is well coated with all the ingredients and the sauce has thickened.
5. Season to taste (you probably wont need any salt - the bacon sausage and parmesan make the dish salt enough I’d say). Sprinkle with a little extra finely chopped parsley, and serve!

Recipe: Roasted Vegetables with Smoked Bacon

Questions: How do you make vegetables better? Roast em! And how do you make roast vegetables better? Add bacon! This is such a delicious side dish. Infact, i can get through a whole bowl of this as a main course, with a little yoghurt and a rocket salad on the side. It's such a beautiful combination of vegetables, made even better with the little nuggets of smoky bacon. I love roasted fennel as well, it makes me realise I ought to eat fennel more often!

Roasted vegetables with smoked bacon (serves 2 as a side dish)

1 carrot, peeled and diced
1 fennel, halved and sliced
1 red onion, diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
2 beetroot, peeled and diced
1 smoked thick-cut back bacon slice, diced
½ tsp dried dill
1 tsp sugar
Salt and pepper
4 tbsp of olive oil
Handful fresh parsley, roughly chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Add all of the ingredients (except the fresh parsley) into a roasting pan and mix this around a bit to coat in the oil. Put in the oven for 20 minutes.
2. Take the roasting pan out, stir the ingredients around a bit, then put back in the oven for 15 minutes. Top with some freshly chopped parsley, and serve!

Recipe: Basil and Feta Cous Cous Stuffed Peppers

This recipe is one of the first recipes I ever wrote, when I started getting into cooking at eight years old. Ok, so obviously i've re-written it with proper amounts of things and written the recipe instructions in a more adult and professional way (originally it was like: "Add salt and pepper and taste to see if it is scrummy enough!" Awwwww!) but I honestly came up with this recipe when i was eight years old. When i started learning how to cook, I first started off with dips and salads and things, and chucking things under the grill, but then it fairly quickly progressed to more complex dishes such as this dish. It didnt take me long to start getting inventive with food, and experimenting with new flavours. I remember at that age i was mental about the flavour of basil- it was a new thing for me and it was like my favourite thing in the world, so delicious! I serve these roasted peppers with salad, or just by themselves. They are also very nice cold packed into a lunchbox!

Basil and Feta Cous Cous Stuffed Peppers (serves 2)

2 red peppers, diced
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp sugar
180g couscous
220ml boiling water
1 yellow pepper, halved and seeded
1 orange pepper, halved and seeded
1 large handful fresh basil leaves, roughly chopped
6 tbsp basil extra virgin olive oil
200g diced feta cheese
Salt and pepper
Drizzle of sweet balsamic vinegar (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 200C. In a roasting pan, add the diced red peppers, olive oil, dried basil, sugar and a sprinkling of salt and pepper, and roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Remove and set aside.
2. Put the couscous and boiled water in a bowl and cover. Meanwhile, boil the halved peppers for 10 minutes, remove from the water and set aside.
3. Increase the oven temperature to 220C. Mix the roasted red pepper, basil olive oil, feta cheese and fresh basil into the couscous. Season to taste.
4. Put the four pepper halves onto the roasting pan, and spoon the couscous mixture into them. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes, remove, and serve, with a drizzle of sweet balsamic vinegar.

Recipe: Chicken Cacciatore

This is scrumptious! "Cacciatore" is an Italian dish, which means "hunter" or a dish prepared in a "hunter style". So i suppose by this they kinda mean rustic! A traditional cacciatore is most commonly made with chicken or rabbit. You know i'm not really a traditional girl, so I kinda see this dish really as a nice chicken casserole with a tasty smoky bacon and tomato sauce! It does seem like when it comes out of the oven that there is a lot of sauce- but this is vital to make sure the chicken stays moist, and i think the best part of the dish is serving it with something to mop up all that delicious sauce! Again, traditionally in Italy they would serve this with big hunks of bread, but i've gone for a pile of creamy mash. By the way don't you just love this plate? My mum bought it decades ago, rather pricy at the time she told me! It really looks so fabulously eighties!

Chicken Cacciatore (serves 2)

2 chicken breasts with skin
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small white onion, diced finely
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 smoked thick-cut back bacon slice, diced finely
1 stalk fresh rosemary, destalked and finely chopped
100ml white wine
350g tomato passata
2 tsp sugar
1 vegetable stock cube
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper
Handful fresh parsley, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. Put the two chicken breasts on an oven tray with a little salt and pepper, for 25 minutes. Remove and set aside.
2. In a casserole, sauté the onion, bacon, garlic and rosemary in the oil for 10 minutes. Add white wine, and cook for another 5 minutes.
3. Add the passata, sugar, stock cube, and bay leaf, and simmer for a further 5 minutes. Put the reserved chicken breasts into the casserole pot, cover with the tomato sauce, cover with the casserole lid, and cook for 30 minutes.
4. Garnish with some freshly chopped parsley, and serve!

PS: After cooking this recipe a few more times, I have found it is also very nice to add a handful of halved button mushrooms in at stage 2 (before adding the wine).

Mothers for other mothers: please help all you can this Mothers Day

Natasha Kaplinksy, one of the supporters of the Missing Midwives campaign

I really wish you could have been in the room with me yesterday.

I attended Save the Children's press conference for the launch of its Missing Midwives report, a report that highlights the discrepancies around the world in something so natural as childbirth and the deaths that occur, simply by not having the necessary healthcare or education available.

I know this subject is "off topic" for a blog that normally discusses waste, but poverty is another issue about which I am very passonate and I believe that in many ways the subjects are connected simply through the imbalances that exist between the wealth of developed countries and the poverty of the under-developed world.  Yesterday's event certainly highlighted these contrasts.

Just before the press conference started, I had an unexpected opportunity to interview broadcast journalist Natasha Kaplinksy, who is one of the high profile supporters adding their voice to the campaign.  I asked her to tell me more about the issues and what ordinary people like me can do.

Natasha began by introducing the most appalliing statistic that around the word 1000 women and 2000 babies die every single day, for what she describes as "for just the want of a bit of extra bit help".  She went on to highlight the fact that at birth, there exists the greatest contrast between the developed and under-developed world in that just 1% of women in the uk give birth alone compared to 94% in countries such as Ethiopia.  Perhaps the most startling statistic of all was that in Rwanda 400,000 babies born every year yet there are only 46 midwives across the whole country.  By contrast in the UK there are 26,825 working midwives helping to support 749,000 births per annum. Now that's a statistic that makes me feel lucky.



As a mother of  two children delivered safely by health professionals in the UK, of which one was a very long and complex birth, I can't even imagine what it must be like facing childbirth without any medical support.  However, having attended yesterday's conference, I can now see how something that is such a joyous occasion for many women and their families could easily be described as a death sentence for many more.  And experts such as the Royal College of Midwives' Frances Day-Stirk, are calling for action and education to make more midwives and healthcare professionals available worldwide and to tackle the Millennium Development Goals that are committed to reducing both child and maternal mortality

Frances Day-Stirk, Vice-President of the International Confederation of Midwives

and Director of Learning, Royal College of Midwives.

 
The message that came through yesterday, which was really loud and clear, was that the solutions that need to be put in place aren't complex and as a global society we can make a difference.

Justin Forsyth, Chief Executive of Save the Children UK said,

“We are calling on rich and poor country governments to put health workers at the heart of their plans. World leaders pledged to do just that last year, but now they need to deliver the funds and political will to support this pledge. Without it, mums and babies will continue to die needlessly every day.”

As I listened to the tales of those who had visited some of the countries that need help, I could understand how such action could make a real impact, whether it's training more midwives to help with births or providing mothers with home-birth kits that include something simple as a sterilised razor blade to cut their own umbilical chord without risk of infection.  Yes, many new mothers really have to do such a thing and a clean blade can make a huge difference to reducing the child and maternal mortality rates.

Justin Forsyth, CEO Save the Children, Natasha Kaplinsky, Dervla Kirwan and Midwife Suzanne 

describe their visits to affected countries that need better healthcare provision.

Returning to my initial interview with Natasha Kaplinksy, as our family puts in place arrangements to celebrate Mothers Day tomorrow, its her words that strike a real chord with how that fits into our global society. And that's "That we remember how lucky we are and that we can make a difference. We can all make a difference, by making small changes to our lives we can save other people's lives.  It's such a small thing they need."


She also added, "The statistics blur the reality because they are so huge, but if we think about helping one person at a time, that really does make a difference. We just need to remember that a mother in any of those countries loves their child as much as we do and every mother wants the best for their child".

And that's what really caught in my throat. I can't speak for anyone else, but when I see those awful images on TV, I just see tragic pictures of suffering that's so immense it seems beyond our control and so far away.  However if it were our friends or family that suffered the same lack of care, we'd be able to kick up much more of a fuss.

But I do feel optimistic that as individuals we can enable change and I'm saying this not to just readers from the UK but to visitors I know who come from across the world too.

Of course, Save the Children offices around the globe will always value any fundraising initiatives and donations that can support urgent causes like this, especially as for every £100 raised it means a midwife can be trained.  However, they would also value any part you can play in raising the issue with your own government representatives too. With the United Nations summit taking place this September, your voice can help world leaders to pledge their political will and the funds to go with it, raising the profile of this issue when it comes to money that might already be ringfenced for development aid.  Emailing your MP, Senator or whatever their official title may be, is a simple action that most of us can do, as well as sharing relevant links on Facebook and Twitter to spread awareness amongst our friends online.

But I've only been able to share a tiny glimpse here.  For more details, you really should take a look at the Save the Children website, where there is much more information about the Mothers for Other Mothers campaign as well as a full copy of the Missing Midwives report.

And to see the inspirational impact that Save the Children has, please do watch this video. In a world so large, investment in 350,000 midwives shouldn't be beyond our international capabilities, should it?

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Missing Midwives is part of Save the Children's No Child Born to Die campaign.  Save the Children helps tackle child poverty in the UK and in over 120 other countries. More information about the charity's achievements and how you can support its work can be found at www.savethechildren.org.uk.
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