Cooking? Save time, save egergy.

I like this article about "Cooking for One or Two" by Food and Nutrition Specialist, Julie Garden-Robinson, Ph.D., LRD. She has included tips on reducing portions of ingredients required for a recipe and I like the links to websites that provide simple to cook recipes.

I have learned a new word from her and its “planned-overs” for people who do not like to use “leftovers”. I like the notion of cooking in excess so that your can create another dish with your “planned-overs”.

Recently I fried extra sausages for my children for breakfast. For dinner, I used my “planned-overs” sausages to decorate another mashed potato dish.



That way I saved on gas and time cleaning my frying pan.

Another way to save on time and energy is to find recipes that you can cook quickly. Just google "Cook It Quick .pdf" and you should be able to find many ideas and tips on recipes you are interested in.  By do that I found this website, Cook It Quick where you can find some useful kitchen tips. 

Try to figure out ways to use less utensils to cook. For example, I learn from Michael Smith that you can use vegetables, such as, carrots, potatoes and onions to replace the rack you need for roasting. Just place your meat on top of the vegetables. Now you do not have an oily rack to clean up.

Watch him on "Chef at Home" and you will be able to catch more tips and tricks that will help shorten your cooking time.

Keep the flies away! Need more covers?

When the children were younger, they tend to take a longer time to eat their food and more often than not they are not at the dinning table where they should be. What happened was the flies beat them to the food and that meant that the food had to be discarded.

So, does that mean that you need to buy a number of food covers when you have children eating at home?

Not if you are able to get your hands on these plastic covers that come with canned food product, such as, margarine or condensed milk.



Most of these are large enough to cover other canned food. So, if you have any leftover canned food,...



...look through your collection of covers to see if there is any around to fit its top.



They are also the right size to cover the top of the rice bowl we use here.

So, what about items that need a larger cover like this mortar and pestle that I have. The cover I bought is not even large enough for it. And I know for a fact that you can be called away mid chores to attend to the children's demands or to check out if the children have been up to any pranks. So, I should buy a bigger one after all, right?




No. Not if you can find a clean dish cloth that is large enough to cover it.



Cultivate a "1 more need less" mentality and you will have more to spend on what is really needed. A great tips for a Mummy with twins, don't you think so?

Dusting? Go find some socks?!!!

I usually buy at least 2 pairs of socks in the same design. That way if 1 of either pair is lost or stained, I will still end up with 1 wearable pair. And when I talk about getting some socks to dust with, I am not talking about buying new ones to start with.

Start collecting those that you or your children have:

1) outgrown
2) lost a side
3) stained too much to be worn without embarrassment



When you dust the conventional way, with a feather duster, the dust will fly up into the air and land else where. If you missed sweeping a speck away, there it stays. And you wouldn't want that happening if you have children at home who are sensitive to dust particles.

So, go find that 1 sided sock, moisten it up a bit and slip it over your hand and start wiping away the dust with it. Once it is stained, turn it around on your hand so that you have the other side of the surface to clean with.



If you have more areas to dust, don't wash that dirty sock yet! Turn it inside out and...



...you will have 2 more surfaces from the inside to work with.



All sides used? Now you can wash. Great job! You have just save time, save water and reduced waste.

When kids come visiting, be prepared!

I can imagine that a new mother with twins is bound to gain popularity overnight. Friends and relatives are most likely to visit with their children in tow to welcome the new babies. So, my idea today is to protect cushions from being stained by visiting children.

You should be interested in this tip too because it is going to help save cleaning time, water, make use of some treasured discards.

So, what do you need?

1) Lovely nice plastic bags you have been getting buying baby or adult clothings. Here is an example.



2) Lovely t-shirts that your children have outgrown. I love these souvenir t-shirts, bought by relatives while they were on holiday overseas. It is grand to think that they have thought about my children.



If you are expecting children to visit, slip your cushions...



...into the plastic bags.



Now slip the t-shirt over the plastic bag so that opening of the bag is at the side of the t-shirt.



The children will love it when they play with the cushions because of the sound the plastic bags will make. And if any of them, including yours, stained the cushion, just remove and replace the stained t-shirt with another.

It is easier to wash a t-shirt which you can throw into the washing machine than a cushion cover and the stain will not seep into the fillings of the cushions. It is more likely that you have to wash the whole set of cushion covers even if one has been stained. You do not want one piece to look obviously cleaner than the rest, do you?

It can also be a great conversation starter. Like, "Oh, you have been to Australia?" or "Check out this tactile cushion idea I created for my children".

Like this idea too? In that case you are going to like my next idea better. Just watch out for it in my next posting.

Did I throw the sauce? Of course not!

Did I throw away the sauce after removing that layer of oil? Of course not! Leave the bowl of sauce in room temperature for a while and...



...this is what you will get. A soup base.



I think leftover sauce is a very good way to wean my children off eating instant noodle. When I use it to cook 3 packets of instant noodle, I use only half of one packet of the flavouring sauce provided. I am sure you have heard that flavouring sauces supplied with instant noodles are high in sodium and MSG ( monosodium glutamate). These are food additives and preservatives that I do not want my children to overload themselves with.

Also, try to cook instant noodle the way I cook it, by first boiling the noodle in a pot of water. Remove the noodle once it has soften enough. Leave the pot of water to cool and you should be able to collect some oil and...



...according to Health2Know, wax off its surface. So, do not use this pot of water for soup. Discard it.



Boil the sauce and add whatever leftover meat you have from your leftover dish.



Once the sauce starts boiling add part of a packet of flavouring sauce to taste before you add the noodle. Let it boil first before adding an egg. Add greens if you have them and the noodle is ready to be served.



I can hear you asked, "Use half a packet of its flavouring sauce for 3 packets of noodle? Wouldn't it taste bland?"

I will leave it to Callie to answer that question.

Treasured discards? Thanks for the memory.

I have asked earlier if there are ways to make a living out of treasured discards that has no value to others to consider selling.

Shannon Batson has the answer when she made memory bears out of her grandfather’s favourite clothing after his death, for each of his children. That is how she started her business, Create Treasures.

See how she recycles fur coats that grandmothers loved so much.

Here is a Camo Bear she created.

These were created for the family of servicemen who have died protecting her country. Out of gratitude, she did not charge them for her creations. I cannot think of a better way for anyone to show appreciation or remember someone by.

Can you?

Green lifestyle? Calculate your way in!

So, you have heard, read and seen how global warming is affecting the world. Are you concern enough to do something about it?

Some tweaking to your lifestyle will help. But first you need to know your carbon footprint. Once you are aware about your impact on earth, you can calculate yourself into a green lifestyle.

You can also find more calculators posted by concerned being, Gil Friend, on Squidoo. You can add greening calculators you have discovered to Gil's list or you can discuss what you have been up to about carbon footprint on Wikipedia.

Now that you have heard, read and seen it; ACT!

Used cooking oil? You bet! Am saving!

Now that we are aware of the value of used cooking oil, let's look into ways to save it from our food.

If you are into boiling soup with meat, you will notice that the fat from the meat will rise above the surface of the soup. Since it is not healthy to take too much oily stuff, you can skim it off the soup with a fine mesh scoop.

Should you have any leftover soup in your pot, pour it into a bowl and wait till it is cold before storing it in the fridge. If you check it the next day, you will notice a film of opaque fat that you can easily remove with a spoon. If you do not want it to turn rancid, scoop that into a glass bottle and keep it frozen in the fridge.

The top layer that you see in this photo is actually chicken fat from a leftover dish I made for dinner yesterday.



My daughter helped me to scoop the fat out...



and put it into a cooking pot.



This is actually still good for cooking another dish with.

Don't believe me? Check out how my fried rice cooked with this fat and leftover rice turned out.



To add more flavour to it, I added eggs with salt, leftover meat, soya sauce and some garlic oil. If you have enough fat from the chicken, your fried rice will taste a little like chicken rice.

I used to buy only lean meat and request my chicken supplier to skin and remove fat from the white meat. If you are a regular customer, I am sure that your supplier will not mind giving you extra portions of fat that his customers had requested him to remove from the meat.

Here are other ways you can extract oil from your red or white meat.

Method 1
1) Remove fat and skin from your red or white meat.
2) Dice the fat and skin.
3) Heat up a pan and add a little water to it before you place your fat and skin into the pan.
4) Keep heating this till you see oil melting into the water.
5) You can keep adding a little water if it dries up. This way, your fat will not burn black.
6) It is done once you noticed that the fat and skin don't shrink any further.

Don't worry if you have added too much water into the pan. Just cool the liquid down before pouring it into a bowl. Put it into the fridge and skim the fat off the next day.

Method 2
Follow steps 1 to 4 but this time do not keep adding water to the pan. The idea is to fry it till the fat and skin is crispy brown. Strain the oil to store and use the crispy fat to add flavour to your fried noodle or rice.

If you think that is not healthy for you, than mix it into your pet food. Your pets will love it.

Remember to make use of the sauce that is still on the pan before you wash your pan. Less oil on your pan means less detergent = less water used.

Another golden rule is not to wash your plastic wares with oily pans or you will have to wash your wares many times over to get rid of the fat.

If you think you are able to collect enough used cooking oil to start your recovered cooking oil business, check out these links:

Set up a business? You need calculators.

Setting up business in Malaysia

Ministries in Malaysia handling grants, licences and permits? Found at one spot.

Need other sources of green funds? Look for "birds of a feather" and possibly a chance to win a green award along the way.

This is it for the moment till I get my hands on more useful links to start this business.

Useful wares. Save time and money.

Here is another "1 More Need Less" kitchen ware to look out for.

This is a grating tool that came with a cook pot my husband bought me.



It is also supplied with a ring that is large enough to sit on top of the cooking pot.



Place the grating tool onto the ring and you have incorporated a steaming function for the pot.



This is great for steaming, fish or meat or heating up leftover rice or dishes when I am stewing a dish or brewing my soup in the pot. I also like to use it to boil my eggs. To do that, place the eggs in an empty bowl and put that on top of the steaming rack. And no, you do not pour water into the bowl. Steaming the eggs this way, they will not crack and you do not have to worry about water boiling out of the pot.



This is one of the covers for this pot. It has a suction handle for its top that can be removed. With the handle removed, I can use it as a mixing bowl. It is also large enough for me to use it as a container for washing my vegetables or serve food in it.



I am able to keep my food warm by placing it on top of the cover. Of course, your food must be in a covered container to prevent flies from getting to them before you do.



So, the next time my friends ask me how I managed to find time to write blogs, I think I will send this link to them. That way, we can do the "1 More Need Less" together.

Give me a plastic makeover

I am so miserable. All I get is bad publicity. So, I take a very long time to disintegrate but, hey, who has to tolerate that stench in the landfill? I am not looking forward to that! I wish you can perk me up.



That is exactly what I need. A breath of life. Fresh air. I wish you can do the same for my pals.



Right on! You put me in the mood for a Samba.



I wish I can have someone to Samba with.



Have you realised that we have cheered you up just as much while you work in your kitchen?



I wish you can put all my friends to use and tell your friends about it.



Do you know that there is a process to make plastic lumbar product out of us which is 10 times harder? Cambridge Resource Recovery Centre is working on the process. In fact, a Professor Alka Zadgaonkar has managed to make cheap fuel out of us.

We could make you rich one day. Just hang on to us. The time will come when we will be more sought after than our paper friends.

Note: Place your bottle of sauces in cut off bottoms of mineral water bottle or unwanted covers. This way, when the sauces dripped out, it will not stain your kitchen table. Less cleaning = save time and water.

Hey! Did you throw this?

I found 6 steel hangers in the recycling bins of a kindergarten in my neighbourhood a few years back. They were a little tarnished from use. As I was on a recycling project with the school, I decided to bring them back to see what I can do with them. Here is a picture of one of them.



I took a plastic bag and cut it into strips. I then wrapped the strips around the hanger and hold them in place with the help of double sided tape. This is how it turned out after I have added a little bow to it.



I have showcased them during exhibitions and I always get a good response for the idea.

If you go to AllFreeCrafts Blog, you can learn how to braid your hangers or incorporate lacy material to them so that they can hold some potpourri. At Free Craft Unlimited you can even learn to crochet a hanger cover.

Other than that, you can also use clothes hangers for arts & crafts projects for children. Debbie Noah who wrote about her hanger arts & crafts idea calls her creations "Happy Hangers".

You do not have to be arty to be able to save things from landing in the trash can. For example, you can turn a broken wineglass into a cheap phone alarm amplifier. So, before you throw anything, take a look at it again to see if you can do something about it.

Now, what can I do with this broken toy? Maybe my husband should take a look at it first. After all, he was able to convert a broken garden lamp into a night lamp for our children's room.

You don't see, you don't use. What a waste!

I have to admit that reducing food wastage with waste is not going work if you cannot see what you have stored in your refrigerator.



Imagine if you have to open up every package to locate the vegetable you need in your recipe. It is time and energy consuming if you left the refrigerator door opened too long in the process. No worries, I have found a solution with more waste materials.


What you need to collect are some catalogues from supermarkets in your area, clear plastic bags and rubberbands.



I cut out pictures of vegetables I have and place them in the clear plastic bags, that were used to store my VCDs. Then I tied them around my vegetables with rubberbands. That way I am able to locate my vegetables with ease.



This bag holds two ingredients I need for a soup recipe.



For vegetables, I could not find a picture for, I write the name on a small piece of paper.



It is not a hassle to cut out these pictures as it can be a very useful communication aid if you have a maid who cannot read or communicate well in English and you cannot speak her lingo.

This is my lettuce after more than a week. Still looking fresh.



Rework your storage if you want to maximize things that you have at home.

1 More Need Less

Of functions and gadgets, one more of the former means that you will need less of the later. Working on this, here are some ideas to play with.

Instead of buying one more ingredient for the recipe you are working on, consider finding substitutes already in your kitchen.

What do you do with microwaveable wares that you rarely use? Here is what I did to my collection when I was advised that microwaving is not a healthy solution to quick cooking.

This used to be for microwaving fish. Now it helps me keep my mugs neat and clean.



I used to put them on a tray without a cover and it's gross when you can see traces that a lizard had visited.



This is meant for steaming buns but it holds my tea cups perfectly.



Both these cookwares come with draining trays. So, you can also use them to store your vegetables you have washed up and put them in the refrigerator. The water will drip out of the vegetables through the trays.

Do you need to buy more egg trays for your refrigerator? I cut the egg carton from my supplier in half and...



... stack one on top of the other in the refrigerator. I am able to hold three stacks of eggs that way.



I love the packaging boxes for storing A4 size paper from Xerox. They are so solid that I kept them for storing my stuff.



Just wrapped them nicely with wrapping paper and they look as good as the ones selling at Ikea. If I use them to keep my children's toy, I will cut out a picture of the toy and stick it to the side of the box. That way, the children will not rummaged through all the neatly stacked boxes of toys.



I am glad I kept this bag for packaging some herbal product I bought.



It is useful for storing my utility bills. I segregated the bills with cardboard cut out from boxes. That way, I do not have to staple each month's bill together or punch holes on them to file. It makes looking for a bill easy.

And don't discard that old pair of slippers. They make great door stopper, at least for your back door, if style is an issue with you.