Human Lifestyle: Nutloaf

Showing posts with label Nutloaf. Show all posts

Saturday 14th May 11

A mostly slow and relaxed day. I got up at about 9 and had breakfast and went on the computer. I had no appointments until 6pm.

Sometime before 11am, Mike R rang and asked if he could drop by and pick up his air rifle I asked for on Freecycle last Autumn. In the end, I never got to use it against the squirrels which were destroying my nut crop, as it wasn't really safe to use in the back garden, as stray pellets could end up going into a neighbour's property. I got my live trap soon after, which is much more controllable. So he collected it, and brought some unwanted and unused metal plant supports for us.

I planted more seeds... some tromboncino squash, and purple climbing beans, and watered the existing seedlings. Over lunch I researched several things for David on the internet... battery-operated LED picture lights, and whether his TV is digital or not.

Gill and I cooked tea together. We made a nutloaf with old bread, peanut butter, thrown away spring onions and red pepper plus a bought onion and mushroom. I also picked some nettle tops from the garden and chopped those up and put them in. Moistened with egg and red wine, seasoned with herbs and bouillon, and turned into a greased dish and lined with sesame seeds. This made a fab meal, the children loved it.

I went to work at 5.30, and took David to The Last Drop Inn where we met Carolyn and Geoff, and we had a good chat and laugh, but the pub was quite noisy for David who has hearing aids. I took him back home and we sorted out some lighting issues. I changed a fuse, tested light bulbs. David has a large collection of incandescent bulbs, but he uses CFLs too, and now, a picture light with LEDs. I made his tea and got away at 8.20.

Home to a nutloaf and cold pasta salad, and a quiet evening with some washing up, preparing apple for drying, watching some TV with Gill.

air rifle, David H, Nutloaf, planting seeds |

Friday 4th February 11

Up early, at about 8, in order to go round to Maria's with our eldest, as Maria had asked if I would help with emptying one of her 3 compost bins in return for teaching our boy science. Gill went to school in a taxi again, as getting our youngest on a bike first thing in the morning or on a bus even earlier is neigh on impossible. Gill stayed at school to learn how to run the shop. She came back after her 9 til 10 shift.

I spent 90 minutes digging out the compost heap, sorting out uncomposted sticks to put on the current pile, and uncomposted bits and bobs like twist-ties, nylon pyramidal tea bags and assorted other plastic, and a few stones, and some broken pottery too. I filled 13 sacks, but have another half of the cubic metre of compost to do, perhaps next week.

At 10.30 we walked back, talking about energy, today's subject. I cleaned up and at about 11.10 set off to go to town to meet James Houston in El Piano. He wanted to talk to me about two aspects of
The Galtres Festival... the possibilities re composting, and what Professor Fiddlesticks could add to the event. I heard what has happened about waste and recycling in the past, and then outlined four scenarios for what could happen. The Fiddlesticks chat was a lot simpler and shorter, but it looks like I'm going to be booked to do one or both roles. However, I've got to write an email summarising the compost options.

I cycled home via Alligator and picked up a trailer load of goodies... including a huge butternut squash which had a couple of small patches of rot, so later I washed it, cut those out and made a big pan of butternut squash soup. I was planning on attending a campaigning workshop with Adrian Ramsay, the deputy leader of The Green Party, but there was such a huge pile of washing up after my being away yesterday that I lit the stove, washed up, did the butternut soup, and made a nutloaf instead. I had that all done by 5.30, so I then went to the University to hear Adrian Ramsay give a talk on what the Greens would do instead of the awfully damaging ConDem cuts.

I was pleased to meet Adrian, who was just finishing off his evening meal in the canteen, and I told him about Jillian Creasy's comment about how Mozaz always challenged people, including her, and that this was a valuable role that gritty irritating people had. We then walked over to the lecture theatre and I was pleased to see Kate Lock, so I sat with her, but there were quite a few of my Green Party friends, and People and Planet friends, and the meeting was well attended.

Adrian was a good speaker, and presented a fairly short overview of what the Greens would do if they had the chance, and then there were a wide range of questions. This easily filled the hour allotted.

I came home and had a slice of nutloaf with baked beans and some slices of fried home-grown squash left over from a few days ago.

Later in the evening, I had a long phone call (one hour forty one minutes, according to our phone!) with Emily who was Mozaz' friend. We'd chatted a bit on facebook but the chat thing wasn't working too well so I said she could ring me if she wanted. What a lovely person, I think I've got another friend there.

Thursday 23rd December 10

A late start, but woken by someone screaming as if there was a murder happening. In fact, it was just a lego piece going missing. Ah, the joys of parenthood!

The main thing I did today was to go to Sainsbury's with a shopping list from Gill and her Nectar Card which had accumulated about £30 worth of 'points'. So I did a £24 shop which therefore cost me nothing... pasta, baked beans, tinned tomatoes, bread, cereals, goats milk... I got myself a treat too, a bottle of Irish Cream stuff which is like Baileys but cheaper.

On the way home I picked up a load of stuff from Freshways and then spent a bit of time loading a compost heap with some of the accumulated and mostly frozen fruit and vegetables.

Oh, I made tea too... a nutloaf made with waste bread and tomatoes, plus some broccoli and new potatoes.

Enjoyed a science programme with my eldest son.

Got an early night as tired and headachey.

Wednesday 10th November 10

Quite a low mood day today. However I did get a lovely phone call from someone wanting to book me for a Christmas party in a nursery, and I explained how I could alter my usual show to fit the youthful audience. We chatted and it turned out she is on the Committee for the village Mayday celebrations, AND she's involved with a school.... so that conversation could lead to a number of gigs. Let's hope so!

As the weather was nice I did a good hour or so of chainsawing, chopping up all the chunky hazel and some of the recently rescued skipped logs. I enjoyed doing the chainsawing and splitting... I might do some stacking tomorrow, depending on how bad the weather is.

I made a nutloaf from bread, peanut butter, cooked quinoa, nuts, onions and some finely chopped pumpkin.

In the evening I cycled over to the station to buy my tickets for Cambridge on Friday, but there were no advance tickets left, so it will be a buy-it-on-the-day situation, at a cost of £66. But that's an off-peak return, so I don't have to get a certain train back... but I may not get a seat. I called in to see Dylan and did his recycling collection, and then on to Green Drinks at the Three Legged Mare. It was a fairly quiet meeting, but good to see my friend Tracy and one of her friends, Jenny and her partner, Katie and her partner, June Tranmer, both Green Councillors, a nice chap called Julian, Peter and Edward from Transition, JZ and others. Andy Chase showed up and asked me to sign the Election Expenses forms.

Towards the end of this jolly social, I noticed that there were four pumpkins/squashes, on a shelf, as decoration. One of them, the big pumpkin, was going soft and just beginning to leak. The other 3, winter squash, were sound and wholesome. I spoke to the bar staff and told the boss-lady that her pumpkin was about to leak all over the place, and would she like me to take it away for composting? She was happy with this offer... and gave me the 3 squashes too. Excellent! Apparently they had been props at the Theatre Royal and had been brought in a while ago. She'd intended to take the squashes home and cook with them, but hadn't had time to do that. I was surprised that she gave them to me.

So I cycled slowly home with a heavy load, and when inside, started to deal with the pineapples which I've had sitting outside the front door for a few days. Still feeling a bit grumpy.

Tuesday 4th May 10

Up early as lots of protests about school starting today. I wish children didn't have to go to school and could just play. Life might (or might not?) be simpler and more peaceful.

But both boys did go to school today, and I spent most of the day doing housework. Gill did some accounts. I washed up and tidied. I spent some time relaxing and playing Scrabble on facebook, but interspersed with chores.

In the afternoon, I made a nutloaf for tea, which all the family enjoyed. We had it with purple sprouting broccoli from the garden.

At teatime I did a bit of chainsawing, the pallet planks I prepared the other day. I did a bit of weeding too, the raised beds which I hope I'll get some crops into soon. I also did a layer or two of compost in the metal-sided bin, and riddled some leafmould.

In the evening I chatted to Lorna on the phone and found out that she managed to get an invite for both days of the Spencer Tunick event! Even she's not sure how she managed that!

A quiet evening, actually quite a boring evening. Tired.

Friday 9th April 10

A busy morning... got up soon after 9am to be ready to take the spare seeds from the York in Transition seed swap along to the YUMI Community Garden.

So, after breakfast and a shower I cycled along to the Danesgate Skills Centre on Fulford Cross and arrived on the dot of 10.30. Sasiki and her colleague Helen Hays, a garden designer, were there waiting, and Nick Haines, the organiser of the seed swap, had just arrived. The idea was to hand over the seeds and get some photos of the handover. A handful of users of the garden arrived; a Mexican woman who's been in York for just one week, to learn English and do her MSc, and two Chinese women and a small boy.

The Press didn't turn up, so we took our own photos and will submit these with some extra copy and hope the Press will run a story next week about our two organisations working together.

I came back via Country Fresh, St Nicks and Freshways, getting home at about 12.30, to find a peaceful household.

I spent the afternoon in the garden, taking stuff down from the conservatory which Gill is tidying, and then I got stuck down there, digging out a compost heap. But halfway through the afternoon, our youngest came down and said we had a visitor... it was Alan Leach, who used to live next door to us in Emerald St, with his three children. I spoke to him on facebook yesterday... he asked if he could drop off a bag of kitchen biodegradables. So it was really good to see him, as haven't seen him for a while.

So they all had a wander down the garden, but didn't stay long. I got on with my rearranging my heaps... I dug out one pallet heap and turned it into a 1 cubic metre builders bag which fits into a wooden holder, and dug out both my Compostumbler bins. All the tumbled material needs to sit in a 'New Zealand Bin' (pallets lined with cardboard) for quite a while before it's ready to use as compost. The adverts saying 'makes compost in 14 days' are complete nonsense. Also, I'm going to have to retire the largest Compostumbler as the metal sheet sides have corroded and now flex so much that the door catches bulge out and prevent the cylinder revolving all the way round. I might be able to purchase new metal bits... the plastic end pieces are fine, it's the sheet metal which is rusting. This is a disappointment as it cost a lot and I'd have hoped it would last a decade or so, but it's only lasted about 6 years I think.

Gill had made a nutloaf mix for tea, and using a plastic tub, formed it into rounds and fried them, making home-made burgers, which we had in bread rolls, with baked beans and mushrooms.

Later in the evening I blanched some grapes to make raisins, and chopped up more pears to dry them.

I got a message from the journalist at The Press saying that the story about YiT and YUMI would probably be in the paper early next week.

Tuesday 9th June 09

Up early as one child was cold so Gill woke me and asked me to light the stove. I cuddled my son before lighting the stove, and 10 minutes later he was happily eating his breakfast in front of it...

I seemed to spend most of the day on the computer, although I also washed up, dealt with several phone calls, switched our gas bill to Good Energy and became a Good Energy Pioneer which means I might earn some money promoting the company! I made up my next couple of week's muesli, which is excellent with lychee and apple fruit leather. No-one else seems to like it but I do...

I made a nutloaf for tea... the top half was the basic mix plus spinach, the bottom half was with sweetcorn. I then went out to a site meeting at Rowntree Park for York Green Festival; Rand, Rob, Bob, Rich, Baz and Tom turned up, and we decided where the various sections of the event would go. Rand and I went back to Baz's house and Rand agreed to be the Event Coordinator... hooray!!!

Got back towards 9pm and had nutloaf, potatoes and peas for tea.

Saturday 16th May 09

Heaved myself out of bed at 9 after going to bed after 3am... I'd have liked a bit of a lie-in, but had arranged to go and visit Andrew, a Freecycler who offered an unwanted train-set layout, ie a board with some track on it. It was raining so I took a load of paper sacks to cover it up. I helped him get it down from his loft... and there was a bag of bits and pieces with it too! This had been well loved when his children were children... but they are my age now, so it was probably 30 years old or thereabouts! The track was rusty... old oo gauge track was made of simple steel and rusted when moisture condensed onto it, and it needed rubbing with sandpaper to ensure the contacts with the electrics in the engine. Modern track is stainless steel or nickel steel or something... and it doesn't corrode, so we'll replace the track.

It wasn't raining as I came home so it didn't need covering up, and I picked up a sack of compostables from Country Fresh, which went on my pannier rack. Home to find that Will, my friend from LETS, was going to visit, as he wanted to see how our boys worked the Wii. It was good to see him, and he enjoyed making a Mii and having a go at conducting and a few other things. Then he felt tired and Gill asked him if he wanted to have a nap on the sofabed in the front room. So he had half an hour before heading into town to participate in an arts event, not sure what.

After lunch, I spent some time washing up, made a nutloaf.. a bi-colour nutloaf, one half with carrot soup in, the other with chopped and lightly steamed spinach-beet from the garden. I lined the baking dish with slices of a spherical courgette... one of the shops had thrown out about half a dozen of them, don't know why as there is nothing wrong with them. The result, microwaved and then turned out onto a metal tray and baked in the oven for 20 minutes to crisp it off, was awesome! We all loved it! Gill put some salad together, and olives and pickles... it was delicious. Gill made a banana cake with some thrown out bananas, with chopped Brazil nuts and home-made sultanas too. We eat like, well, like it's a restaurant! A five star restaurant! But Gill and I have both worked in catering... Gill ran pubs (cooking for 200 every Sunday) and I was a Pizzaland person for two years , and had a season at Gillygate Wholefood Bakery and Cafe Co-operative in the late 1980s, cooking good veggie nosh.

I did manage some time in the garden, and also did some work in the conservatory, pruning the Kiwi tree (hope it fruits this year!) and sorting out little yams to plant up. One of the yams from a couple of years ago is already several metres long and snaking its way all over the kiwi and up to the roof... an amazing plant. And each year the tuber triples in size. At the leaf nodes, little balls develop and fall off... these grow into yams if allowed to, and it was handfuls of these I was collecting from around the back of the Kiwi pot and other big planters. I expect I'll sell some or give them out at the St Nicks junk-swap event.

A quiet evening, chatting to load of different people on the computer and watching the telly.

Monday 27th April 09

A relatively quiet day... did my Community Care blog first thing about the morsbag people I saw at Kirkbymoorside. This took til nearly lunchtime, what with emails and the addictive Scrabble.

Although it was raining, I did some logsplitting, some of the big rounds of sticky pine from my neighbour, and then stacking it in the back garden under the logstore cover. This is one of the only places there's space at the moment.

Mid afternoon I made the first part of a nutloaf with breadcrumbs, peanut butter, chopped nuts, onion, leek... and then Gill finished it off.

I also did some work in the composting area, and got a load of purple sprouting broccoli up to the house just before tea... so that's what we all had, nutloaf, lightly steamed broccoli and a few other bits and pieces. Fruit and ice cream followed. Delicious!

The boys did their homework with minimum of fuss and we had a quiet evening.

Wednesday 7th January 09

A good day but where did it go? Still feel as if we're recovering from the holidays, and the morning went by very quickly... after taking our youngest into school, and picking up some branches on the way home and prepared them into kindling, bought bread and brain flakes and bingo, it was lunchtime! After lunch we had a visitor, and bingo it was time for me to go to school and pick him up again!

Did a little bit more in the garden and popped down to Freshways... Gill made a nutloaf with some extra spaghetti from yesterday.

So, not much to report today, but survived it... just. Probably the highlight was a heated discussion on one of the email lists I'm on, or possibly the new series of 'It's Not Easy Being Green' on BBC2, with the irrepressible Dick Strawbridge and just a quick flash of his lovely wife Brigit. I might try the carbon calculator they used, or rather the very wasteful flash cricketer whose name I cannot remember...

Having done that calculator, I'm not that impressed, as it wasn't as detailed as some I've used, but it's a start. I was rated as 1.61 planets/year, which is more than most of the more detailed calculators which take more lifestyle choices into account. A reasonable introduction to carbon calculators for novices though!

Tuesday 23rd December 08

Another relaxed day... woke after 9 and soon went into town to pay in a cheque and get a cheque out to pay Cozmic Balloons for a recent delivery of 1500 modelling balloons.

Also visited Pauline who had her usual festive gift for me... a bottle of Port, which is a kind of swap for several potato sacks of logs for her Clearview Pioneer smokefree woodstove. We had a good chat about her volunteering with the St Clement's Hall project and various other subjects over a coffee. Always lovely to spend time with her, and put the World to rights!

Then headed for Barnitts which has got to be York's best shop, and got several items which I will give as gifts at Christmas... including 5 litres of chainsaw lubricating oil which I hope someone will give to me! Hahahaha, always good to receive useful stuff!

Home via Country Fresh where Richard was in a jolly mood and was happy to help load me up with lots more compostables... and some stuff to dry including six bags of red seedless grapes... And then to Freshways where Raj was jolly too. Everybody's happy today!

A late lunch. After lunch I took the compostables down to the Compostumbler and then at about 4 came in to make a nutloaf for tea. I made two lots of nutloaf mix... one with grated raw beetroot in, and the resultant loaf was in two layers, one a lovely red colour.

Jonathan arrived at 6.30 and we all ate together, Jonathan very impressed by the nutloaf, and happy with his present of dried bananas too! He had to scoot off fairly quickly as he was meeting his girlfriend to go and see a film.

Gill had spent some of the afternoon learning how to make something on Spore and I was curious to see some of the assorted creatures and buildings the rest of the family had made, although I have no desire to join in... I'd rather play Scrabble or build a carefully constructed logpile! Spore is clever, though, and I can see how much fun it is!

Thursday 27th November 08

A late start to the morning... but I did feel a bit better than yesterday. Gill went out and I made a nutloaf for tonight's tea.

At midday I cycled round to Steve with the logs... he'd got the tree out and I chopped off the top trunks and trimmed off the roots and loaded it all up into my trailer and brought it home.

Gill got in just after me and we had lunch together. I finished the nutloaf and started cooking it before following Gill to school... she was going to collect our youngest and I was doing the Green Thumbs Gang. The Green Thumbs were finishing off their creative stuff for the Christmas fair and I went to find a branch to hang the tree-decorations onto, to allow them to be seen 'at their best' at the stall. Came back with two willow branches which will do very well. Towards the end, a musical mum who does an activity called 'Songbox' came in, as her daughter had written a song to perform at the assembly in January, to advertise the Mission Nutrition Bring and Buy Sale. Kerry explained that her daughter, who is only 6 years old, had written the melody and together they'd worked up a song about Mission Nutrition, about the numbers of hungry children and how the sale would raise money to help. Kerry sang the song to a backing tape she'd prepared... it was so pertinent that it brought tears to my eyes. I promised to try to write the basics of the assembly... Julia said that my letter to Blue Peter was really good and I should include some bits from that.

Home to a quiet house and Gill getting tea ready. I ate with everyone else and at 7ish got myself ready to go to yet another York in Transition core group works out what it's doing meeting... at the Stables project, ably chaired for a fourth time in a row by Jennie. We looked at our core values and what we should do with the list, and our structure... based on our application to become a Company Limited by Guarantee and a Charity, and on the next steps... a quite difficult meeting. I was feeling a bit unwell and left as soon as I could to go home, where I crashed out til midnight.. Then came down for a hot drink and finish this off....

Friday 5th September 08

A very wet day which I spent mostly inside the house... Gill took care of getting the kids ready for school, although asked me to come downstairs to sit next to one of them to encourage him to get ready. This seemed to work but I do wish they would respect their mum enough to just do as she tells them, first time, without getting me to be her back-up or 'heavy threat'.

But I had a good day, spent quite a lot of time researching various issues and preparing stuff, answering the phone, washing up, dealing with dried fruit and more.

Made a nutloaf for the children to have for tea, picked beans in the garden and admired a pumpkin which is growing well. However, was HORRIFIED to see that all the remaining walnuts on our expensive tree have been removed... Gill saw a squirrel this morning. I think I'll have to invest in a squirrel trap, the little non-natives are so destructive... I don't enjoy killing animals but I do kill rats and I think squirrels are just as bad, although haven't resorted to destroying them yet.

A quiet evening... my eye which got a shredded thingy into it yesterday seems to have developed conjunctivitis so I took it easy and just chilled out (well, got over-warm in front of the stove!) and had a skype chat followed by a game of Scrabble with Gill. I managed to get two 7 letter words, Wallies and Venously and I won.

Saturday 31st May 08

What a day! Woke early but the boys left us alone (are they getting the hang of a lie-in at the weekend?) and we eventually got up soon after 9. The boys and Gill headed off to Scarborough and I went down the garden to plant some courgettes and climbing beans.

So I had the whole day to myself... lots of sorting in the garden, and at about 11.30 came in to do emails and at 12 watched part 3 of the either rubbish or excellent (can't decide!) Kyle XY on BBC2 whilst having lunch and preparing a nutloaf for the family to have when they come home. Had to do it by hand as out liquidiser is broken. So it took an hour to grate bread into crumbs and hand cut nuts... however it was eventually ready for the microwave. I also did a lot of apples, making them into rings and laying them on racks on the stove, which I have lit to get plenty of hot water and heat for drying fruit, despite the warm weather.

So a very productive day... family came back at 7ish, ravenous and ready for nutloaf and cauliflower with tomato sauce. They loved it!

Watched Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall on C4 whilst doing more emails and blog, getting ready to go out tonight.

Cycled down to City Screen to an event called the Fuzz Club, a psychedelic night with my favourite band playing, 'The Falling Spikes'. I met up with Dave T which was really good, we spent the whole night together chatting and enjoying the music. The support band was called 'Apply The Brakes', they were a bit American and a bit pretentious, and I was very glad when Spikes came on. They are loud and have a certain sound which they stick to... lots of stuff going on, a bank of guitars and my buddy Richard on drums. I really REALLY enjoyed them. They take me to amazing places, soundscapes, beautiful.

Came home after midnight and went to bed very soon after.

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