It's getting cold in here, so put on all your clothes

From earlier in the season:

After a lovely warm fall, winter is finally here with it's chilly, damp weather. Although our flat is newly insulated, we are scrooges with our electricity and haven't turned on our heat pump, which can make for some pretty chilly mornings typing away at the computer. I should mention at this point that although I am Canadian, I am definitely the biggest wimp in the flat when it comes to the cold. Show me a still, -30°C morning, and I'll tell you I want to go cross country skiing across a frozen lake, but sit me down on the couch inside, and I turn into a shivering wimp. I can only guess that it came from growing up in houses that are centrally heated, automatically ventillated, and very well insulated, so the entire house is kept at a comfortable 19°C. Even in student housing we were warm – the arrangement in Canada is that your landlord pays for your heating so that low income households don't go without heat in the winter. It's taken me a while to get used to the housing and heating here (where you won't die if your heating gets turned off), and after five years of living in (and loving) NZ, I still haven't quite gotten the hang of not feeling the cold like my Kiwi flatmates. So for everyone else who feels the cold, I dedicate this blog to you.

As you might imagine, not turning on the heat pump when things are frozen outside is a little chilly, so here is my “how to deal with the cold” checklist, inspired by Bugs Bunny cartoons and the ways Canadians deal with the cold. If I get through this checklist and still feel chilly, then I'll stage a revolution and reach for the heat pump remote.

1. Layer up right away. Don't wait until you're already cold to put on more clothes, put them on first thing in the morning. Warming your body back up takes far more energy than keeping it warm.

2. Break out those long undies. Do you remember watching Bugs Bunny cartoons as a kid? Remember when the characters lost their clothes how they would have long underwear underneath? You should too! You never know when a cross-dressing rabbit is going to trick you out of your clothing... If it's really cold I wear two pairs of long johns, a wool singlet and a long-sleeved wool top.

3. Liner socks, wooly socks AND slippers. Ning measured the air temperature of his bedroom at floor and desk level. Floor level was a full two degrees colder than desk height. Blood flows from your feet back through the rest of your body. If your tootsies are chilly, the rest of you will be too.

4. Fleecy goodness. I have a few pairs of fleece pants scored from an op-shop. Layered on top of long johns, they are so cosy and warm! Fleece sweaters are great too. Pick a large one with a hood) so you can fit a light woolen sweater underneat (two layers of fleece together will bunch), then put up that hood. Don't worry about looking like a hooligan in your own home.

5. Accessorise. You might be surprised at how much warmer you'll feel with fingerless gloves, a neck warmer and a touque (a beanie to the Kiwis). Fingerless gloves don't hamper your typing or your grip, so they're handy to wear around the house. If you can crochet, make a circle to fit loosely around your lower arm, and continue until you have a tube going up to your thumb. Drop sections of stitches so your tube gets narrower and you leave holes for your thumb and fingers to poke out. I'm sorry I can't explain better – I can bring my gloves to the prize-giving to show anyone who is interested. A neck warmer is a tube usually made of wool or fleece that you wear like a scarf. It's handy because it doesn't come undone and there are no floppy ends to dip in your tea. If you're like me and get a stiff neck and shoulders from the cold a neck warmer can really help relieve the tension. Even though you're wearing the hood from your sweater, adding a touque underneath can make a world of difference. Most of the heat lost from your body comes out from the top of your head, so put a lid on it.

6. A housecoat. My thanks to Elmer Fudd for the inspiration for this one. When he comes home from a busy day of wabbit hunting he doffs his jacket and puts on a housecoat. It occurred to me that I can do this too! So I went and bought a lovely, long, soft, snuggly housecoat. It's so big it fits over all my other layers and hangs down to my knees, so it covers my entire torsoe and makes me feel oh so snuggly.

7. If you're still chilly it's time to add some heat. Grab a hot water bottle or (better yet), a hard plastic drink bottle. This is a great use for that old Nalgene that leaks BPAs into the water because the cylinder shape makes it release the heat more slowly (and therefore longer) than a hot water bottle, they fit inside an old holey rugby sock, and you're not going to drink the BPAs. If you don't have a Nalgene, you can get a similar effect from a hot water bottle with a cosy. Fill the bottle with boiling water and sit on it. Dave worked out that it costs about 4 cents to boil a kettle, and the heat from the bottle will last for a couple hours, compared to about 60 cents to run a heat pump for two hours. The heat from the bottle is trasferred direclty to your skin and blood stream, making it a far more efficient use of energy.

   Another great heat source is hot drinks. The chilly air can be hard on your immune system so Natalie and I make drinks high in vitamin C with dried mandarin peel, lemon peel, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar and dried rose hips (now is the perfect time of year to cut, seed and dry them). Sage and oil of oregano are also good additions for fighting colds or nipping them in the bud. Add a little honey for sweetness and extra cold-fighting power.

8. Cuddle under a blanket. And if you're STILL cold, grab a blanket and a cat/flatmate/boyfriend/dog for a good warm cuddle.

9. Now you can turn on the heating.

My list might seem a bit excessive, and people with a less Scottish background might wonder why I haven't just turned on the heat pump, but I abhore waste in all its forms, including wasted energy and money. It is currently 7° outside and has been cloudy and rainy all day, so there was no sun to warm the house. It's probably about 10° in here. I am sitting on the couch typing away with everything on my list up to item 8 except the extra long john, gloves and neck warmer (because I got too warm). I am not the least bit tempted to turn on the heat pump.

If you are what you eat, then I don't want to live in a package

If you are what you eat, then I don't want to live in a package

I try to cook enough to have leftovers for lunch so we're eating healthy lunches and avoiding canned soups, beans and cheese toasties. Canned foods aren't terrible, they have their uses, but they are processed salty foods, not as healthy as fresh foods, and though their packaging is recyclable, our veges usually have no packaging at all. There is also some evidence to suggest that toxins from the plastic lining in cans leaches into the food (ick!). Cheese toasties also are not terrible, especially if you make them like us with home made wholemeal bread and fresh onion, garlic, basil, parsley and/or mushrooms (yum!), but they use a lot of cheese, and dairying is quite polluting, even in NZ where the cows are pasture fed and (by international standards) generally well cared-for.

We've also been on a mission to eat less chocolate and biscuits. Lets face it, they're tasty, but unhealthy and their origin and packaging usually isn't very eco. This has probably been our simplest change of all. We put a bowl of pre-washed and dried fruit on the coffee table in the lounge. Now, when we start to get peckish between meals, the closest, easiest thing to eat is a piece of fruit, and not the chocolate or biscuits that are all the way in the kitchen. I usually find that a piece of fruit will satisfy or delay most chocolate or biscuit cravings, and if I do still want some I usually eat less. Our chocolate and biscuit consumption has plummeted, and we're eating 3-6 pieces of healthy, fresh fruit per day. Incidentally, it's still winter, but our winter sniffles have gone...

Not everyone has the time or space for a large garden. If you're limited in either I recommend growing rocket, silverbeet, mint and italian parsley. These three will grow all winter with no fuss (mine didn't mind being snowed under), and can be made into salad, soup, frittata or pesto (see below). In the early autumn I sprinkled rocket, radish, lettuce mix and spring onion seeds on a patch of dirt, watered them, and left them alone. Don't weed your veggies unless the weeds are out-competing your food; the weeds act as a living mulch, keep the soil moist, and add organic matter when they die. I've only weeded my garden once this year, and it's been supplying us with fresh greens all winter. The plants are big enough now that they're shading out the weeds, though only the rocket and radishes survived the cold. I'll let them go to seed and replant themselves for next year since I see no need to interfere in the process. My garden may not look pretty, but I spend all of 20 minutes per week tending to it, and it keeps on feeding us. We are currently growing rocket, silverbeet, mint, italian parsley, garlic, aloe, feverfew, sage, beetroot, lettuce, lavender, thai basil, radishes, leeks, beans, micro-greens, and a few other seeds I planted but I can't remember and will figure them out when they sprout :). A few weeks ago we planted a garden for my mother-in-law with the easy-to-grow four above and lettuce. She says they're growing like mad and she hasn't had to water or weed them yet.

As you might have guessed, we have a glut of fresh produce, so now we're back to the point of this blog – waste not. We often buy cans of soup and beans for quick lunches, but last week they were $2 per can. I'd spent the past week trying to fit as many veges into our dinners as possible so we could eat them all before they went off, then it clicked that I could make large quantities of soups and freeze them for lunches. I'm not sure why I didn't do it before! I'll put the recipes in the next post for any who would like to follow-suit.

As promised, here the recipes we made in order to eat less canned food and more fresh produce (with ingredient origins in brackets). This project was inspired by an excellent book about eating local produce called Animal Vegetable Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver (www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/). I highly recommend it.

Soup broth

It's worth making a broth first to add richness to your soups. It seems such a waste to me to make broth with veges that could be used for another purpose, so I make mine with bits and pieces that have a nice flavour but are tough or stringy and normally discarded. While you're making dinner put the items below into a container. Store it in the freezer until you have enough to make a broth.

In a crock pot combine any of the following:

• dark, outer celery leaves

• dark tops of leeks

• inner onion peel (the layer that's partly juicy, partly brown – the brown bits add colour)

• broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage stalks

• parsley stems

• herbs from your garden or foraging missions

• carrot tops

• apple and pear cores (got this from a book about the middle ages-they add a nice sweetness)

• lemon rinds (wakes up the broth)

• pumpkin peel and seeds

• parsnip peel

• inner garlic peel with the oils on it

• capsicum seeds

• meat bones, cut open to expose the marrow if possible (butchers will do it, or (carefully!) cut well cooked chicken bones with a large, sharp knife)

• salt, pepper

Add just enough water to cover the veges, cook on low overnight, cool, strain through a colander, and save for future use. Congratulations, you've just made something useful (and tasty!) for free.

Pumpkin soup

Main ingredients

2 onions (foraged)

3 cloves garlic (co-op)

1 pumpkin (foraged)

2 stalks celery (foraged)

1 cup beans (soaked overnight) or lentils (Binn Inn)

minced ginger (foraged)

parsley (garden)

rosemary (community garden)

salt

pepper

nutmeg

enough broth to cover veges

Thai option

1 tbsp green curry paste (supermarket)

1 can coconut cream (supermarket)

Western option

1-2 cups something creamy (i.e. cream, sour cream, yoghurt, milk of any variety) (supermarket)

½ cup white wine (supermarket)

1. Fry onion until clear, add garlic for a minute, then dump in crock-pot.

2. Pour some broth into the frying pan and scrub with your spoon to de-glaze the pan. Dump broth into crock pot.

3. Add the rest of the main ingredients, pour in rest of broth, and cook until pumpkin is soft.

4. Cool, then blend until smooth

5. Add either the Thai or Western option ingredients, reheat and serve or freeze in portions

Carrot Ginger Soup

This is pretty much the same as my pumpkin soup, but with carrots instead of pumpkin. Add more ginger and use the “western” option.

Beef Stew

The protein in this comes mostly from the beans. The beef is just there for flavour – omit for a vege option.

3 onions (foraged)

5 cloves garlic (co-op)

½ cabbage (foraged)

2 carrots (co-op)

1 parsnip (co-op)

rosemary (community garden)

parsley (garden)

sage (garden)

silverbeet (neighbour's garden)

1 head broccoli (co-op)

¼ pumpkin (co-op)

tomato (foraged)

2 potatoes (co-op)

2 cups beans (soaked overnight) (Binn Inn)

200 g beef mince (supermarket)

1 cup barley (normally from Binn Inn, but this was from the supermarket)

nutmeg, cloves, peppercorns, turmeric, oregano, salt, pepper (Binn Inn)

broth

1. Fry onion until clear, add garlic for a minute, then dump in crock-pot.

2. Pour some broth into the frying pan and scrub with your spoon to de-glaze the pan. Dump broth into crock pot.

3. Add the rest of the main ingredients, cover with broth, and cook until beans are tender.

4. Cool and freeze in portions.

frittata

1 onion (foraged)

3 cloves garlic (co-op)

parsley (garden)

rosemary (community garden)

silverbeet (neighbour's garden)

rocket (garden)

5 free range eggs (supermarket)

a bit of milk (supermarket)

a few slices feta cheese (optional; supermarket)

salt and pepper (Binn Inn)

1. chop onion, mince garlic, mince parsley, roughly chop silverbeet and rocket

2. In a cast iron frying pan fry onion until clear, add garlic for a minute.

3. Beat eggs and milk, add salt and pepper

4. Add parsley, rosemary, silverbeet and rocket to frying pan, pour in eggs.

5. Cook until edges set, then sprinkle with feta, remove handle (if necessary), and put pan in oven on grill until top turns golden.

6. We served it with a foraged and garden salad, and foraged oven chips.

Pesto

We loved Jan's pesto recipe, so we modified it to suit what we have available. The result is a yummy, super healthy raw pasta sauce rich in iron and vitamin C that we can whip up in less time than it takes to cook the pasta. This is now our favourite meal when we come home late.

1 handful silverbeet leaves (neighbour's garden)

1 handful rocket (garden)

1 handful parsley leaves (garden)

3 cloves garlic (co-op)

¼ cup olive oil (supermarket)

¼ cup mixes seeds and nuts (whatever we have on hand) (foraged or Binn Inn)

juice half a lemon (co-op or foraged)

1. Throw it in a food processor

2. turn it on...

3. serve over wholemeal pasta with a bit of cheese

Enjoy!

Laura

Things I wish I'd known at the start of winter

1. Closing the lounge door makes the lounge warm up a LOT. We have nice big North-facing windows in our lounge which warm the room up nicely (just not the entire house).

2. We're on night rates power. From 9 pm to 7 am we pay 19 cents per kw/h, but in the daytime we pay 29 cents per kw/h (!). The price difference is because during peak hours (day time) power generation companies often have to bring their coal plants online, which is expensive. So it's both cheaper (if you're on night rates) and better for the environment (regardless) to use power at night. We've started turning our hot water cylinder off during the day, and only turning it on every other night, which saves us a good chunk off our power bill. Contact energy has a nifty little graph thing on their website so you can see your hourly power usage. Our usage drops down to nearly nil during the daytime now, when it was pretty constant before. We're also using less power in total by turning the cylinder off. We have a moderately insulated cylinder with a sleeping bag wrapped around it, so it stays warm enough for 2-3 showers over the full two days We try to do our washing in the evening now too, even though all our loads are now done in cold water the washing machine will still use a reasonable amount of power. If we need to have the oven on for something other than dinner we try to do it either while the oven is already hot anyway, or after 9 pm.

3. We can use the heat pump and it won't cost a fortune. The heat pump is set to turn on for 15 minutes at 6:45 am to warm the lounge to 16 degrees while we're still on night rates. It normally takes .8 kw hours to do this, so it costs us about 15 cents per day, and it means that the lounge isn't freezing when we get up. It also dries the condensation on the windows and gives the sun a good kick start so that by noon the lounge is normally about 17-18 degrees.

4. Sew the curtain linings onto the lounge window first. I did the bedroom (also a large window) at the atart of winter, but we heat the lounge...

Waste Not

Something happened to our culture somewhere between my grandparents' generation and mine. I can remember cooking dinner with my grandmother watching her scrape the last bit of butter into the pan, parroting that timeless classic, “waste not, want not”. My grandfather too, used to save all sorts of bits and pieces so that when the plumbing broke he would have the piece he needed to fix it. This was normal to me growing up, and yet now anyone of my generation who dares to save things for future use is a hoarder. If you gather fruits and nuts from park trees you're cheap. And if you dry, pickle, can or extract every last bit of useful food, then you're “wasting your time”, because apparently, “time is money”. Well I hate to break it to you, but time is time, and money is money, and frankly, I think time is far more useful. I don't know about you, but I don't get $24 free every day. I do get 24 hours though, and I try not to waste them, just like I try not to waste my food.

There is something you should know about me before we start – I'm Scottish. That means I enjoy porridge, don't mind sleet and snow, love a good misty night, have a fiery temper, and the clasp on my wallet is rusted shut. Living cheaply isn't about having piles of cash in the bank to roll around in once a year, it's about only using what you need, having something to fall back on in hard times, and leaving the rest for others. In hard economic times (and good), when you might lose your job at any time, it's comforting to know that you can live on 10 grand for a year, and that it's really not that bad.

There are 1001 ways to save money, but the topic I'll focus on today is food. You might be wondering why I'm writing about saving money on food for a blog about sustainability, but I've learned something this winter: cheap food = healthy food = eco food.

I sometimes hear people say they can't afford to be green, or they can't afford healthy food, and this puzzles me. The cheapest, healthiest food is that which is least processed: fruits and veges (local and in season are cheapest), wholegrains (barley, rice), and dried pulses. Even if you buy all these at a supermarket, you can still make a stew for under $1 per serving. Granted, organics are expensive, but non-organic produce is still far better than anything processed and packaged. We buy our staple items (grains, flours, beans, spices) at Binn Inn because they're cheaper and unpackaged. Our favourite source of fruits and veges is Christchurch itself. We get about half of our fresh food from our garden, the neighbour's garden, and foraging sites around city (google otautahi urban foraging). The other half comes from a local church's vege co-op. If you don't have access to a co-op, the local markets and fruit and vege shops usually have good prices too. Anything else we need comes from the supermarket, but as their products are usually processed, packaged and expensive we're trying to cut back on what we buy there.

When foraging we often get a large load of one type of food (e.g., apples). We either preserve the produce by bottling, pickling, drying, or freezing, or give it to our neighbour, who in turn gives us all the silverbeet we want and meat from her work (she brings home leftover cuts from work that would otherwise be thrown away). So far this fall and winter we've pickled ginger and cabbage, frozen roasted sliced capsicum, and frozen fruits as we find them for making jam at a later date.

In the developed world we waste enough food to feed every single person on the planet. This is not an exaggeration, if anything it's an understatement. With that in mind, I've been on a mission to use every last useful bit of the food we get. I've dried mint, sage, mandarin peel and lemon peel for teas, and parsley, basil, rosemary, garlic shoots (chive substitute), and celery leaves for use in cooking. Drying plants and peels is easy, I just string them up in a warm, dark, dry place with good air circulation. Our laundry room works well.

I've also started planning meals more carefully so we use up produce before it goes off. If our co-op bag of veggies has leafy greens in it, we use those first to avoid that floppy, limp bit of silverbeet sitting in the fridge on Sunday. Our favourite new uses for silverbeet (in order of preference) include saag (palak) curries, pesto, frittatas, Jan's silverbeet and filo pie, and spanakopitas (tasty, but a lot of work and dairy, so they're a “sometimes food” ;). Fresh inner celery leaves are lovely in salads, and cauliflower and broccoli leaves are great in stir fries within a few days of bringing them home. We don't throw away the dark tops of leeks either, they are full of flavour and can be used in soups if they're going to cook for a while. To keep track of what produce needs using up we've started using one crisper drawer for old produce, and one for new. We also rotate our bowl of roasting veggies so the new stuff goes at the bottom. This way we know exactly what needs using up and can cook appropriately.

Enjoy your dinner tonight!

Laura

Eco-cleaning and Eco-Peeves

Hello everybody,

Since we have a snow day today I thought I should find some time to write a blog.

Quite a few things have been happening here at the sign of the prancing pony, and I would like to share two of them.

The first instance was the eco bathroom clean! As most eco my flatters know, commercial cleaning products contain all sorts of chemicals which need to be trucked and shipped thousands of kilometres and aren’t very nice to the environment you live in when you do use them. So a few weeks ago when I was voluntold the task of cleaning the bathroom, the challenge was on to do the job using the eco tools of the trade.

A green scrubby,

Baking soda (negotiable eco – ness, but better than bleach),

Vinegar,

And Pine oil.

My mission included one toilet, one sink, one shower, and one bath (that hasn’t been used for bathing during our lease as baths use too much water. Nonetheless, it was quite dirty as we put the brewing carboy in the bathtub for when we have spillovers).

As everything was pretty grubby, my approach had two stages. First I scrubbed everything with a little bit of water, baking soda, and a green scrubby (he he, grubby and scrubby rhyme . . . anyway). As there was no way around the stains in the toilet bowl, I re-used some old plastic bags and a couple of rubber bands to make gloves. This was very effective, and my hands stayed dry while I scrubbed the toilet, but later on felt damp as I scrubbed the beer stains in the bath. I would like to think the dampness was due to my hands sweating, but I think the logical assumption that holes developed in my “gloves” is more likely.

Now step 2, decreasing the time between cleans. Now that I had scrubbed everything down, I used vinegar and pine oil (5 Litres of boiling hot water to about a cup of vinegar with a few drops of pine oil) to kill any remaining bugs and disinfect everything. This included the windowsill which was getting a bit mouldy due to the moisture buildup created by our steamy showers.

So how did it work out – well the bathroom looked really good. Everything that was supposed to be white was white, and there were no soapy scum lines on the walls of the shower. I thought it was so good in fact that I would not hesitate to let my mother use the bathroom. So to summarise the positives, overall quality was good and everything still looks good a month on.

Unfortunately there are a few negatives. The biggest was time. I think it took me at least 1 and a half hours from start to finish. Now, this is probably not bad for cleaning the entire bathroom (except floors), but I have better things to do that are not cleaning. The other downside was doing everything twice. Just when you think you have finished the job, you need to start over, and I really didn’t want to. A minor point is that I didn’t want to melt my second set of gloves in the boiling hot water, but I wanted to make sure as much fungus and bacteria were killed as possible. I can definitely see why people buy ridiculously strong 1 wipe cleaning products.

So, there are positives and negatives, so what impression has it left on me? Well, as a chemical engineer I am quite aware of the hazards of chemicals, so despite the negatives, I probably won’t succumb to bleach and toilet duck. But if I am completely honest, I am going to wait as long as possible before I clean the bathroom again.

Onto a more exciting topic! If you are still reading you probably like my writing style so you may enjoy the next paragraph, even if it is a bit of a rant.

Some people who know me might know what my two biggest NZ eco peeves are. They are a lack of 1) double glazing, and 2) catalytic converters (which decrease exhaust emissions > 99%) . Again, being a chemical engineer means I have had many lectures on heat transfer and downstream processing so I know what we are missing. The short explanation is this – significant decreases in heat loss are achieved by double glazing windows as air (or argon) insulates very well, and we can separate out almost all of the bad stuff that comes out of car exhaust pipes by using a bit of platinum. (I hope that some understanding was achieved without me boring you, if there wasn’t, and I did, my apologies)

 There is a further reason why these are my 2 big peeves – and that is that they are passive techniques. You pay a little bit of extra money to install them, but once you have, HUUUUGE benefits are realised, and next to no maintenance is required (as long as you don’t move out of your house, break your windows, or sell your car). So the only reason that these two things aren’t mainstream in NZ is that people are afraid to invest in their own well being.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to the crux of this topic – somewhere in my list of peeves is that cycling, which is an elegant solution to the transport dilemma, eventually produces holey rubber inner tubes that are nearly impossible to re-use. Now, throwing away an inner tube every other month is a lot better than burning fossil fuels and throwing away 4 car tyres so I have been wondering for a long time how to re-use holey inner tubes. The best solutions I have heard so far are 1) a string substitute (but string does the best job as string compared to anything else in my mind), and 2) waterproofing plastic cases for when you go tramping (stretch tight and wrap around gaps, really good for matches cases, but I prefer used medical containers).

So the best solutions are still crap. Now I have a solution that isn’t crap –

Crack filling! (The metaphor was purely unintentional – I promise)

As I stood by our back door which we use maybe once a week, I noticed the draft due to the large crack between the door and the doorframe. I went to the tool cupboard to get some tape to cover it which would mean we could not use the door at all, but instead found an inner tube. I then cut away the valve, and with Laura’s assistance (as she held the tube next to the doorframe), closed the door jamming the rubber in place, and blocking any drafts! I think it is revolutionary! Not only does this use up an otherwise disposed material, but now we can warm ourselves up by cycling, and stay warm using the by products of our sustainable habit!

Now, this technique has a fatal flaw, or “harmatia” for you Shakespeare buffs because when you want to open the door, the rubber falls away and needs to be refitted. Now, the obvious solution is to glue the rubber to the frame, but I don’t think it would aesthetically please our landlord. If your landlord has similar prejudices I recommend you do the same as us – bring your washing into the house via the front door and not use the back.

Ok, I think 1200 words is enough,

Sustainable Dave out

Sad Goodbyes

All good things come to an end. With the end of semester on our doorstep, I am (sadly) saying goodbye to the Uni and the Prancing Pony - though you might still see me around the community garden. I'll certainly be taking the awesome eco-ness with me, wherever I end up.

As I'm moving out, there will be an empty room at the Pony - so if you, or anyone you know, is keen to move in with awesome eco-minded people, in a cosy and exceptionally well insulated flat, then do get in touch.

I also am obliged to find a new home for my cat (above). Lola is the perfect eco-flatmate. She is not only very cute, but comes with her own insulating fluff. Her diet of cat food is very low in packaging. She does not require any batteries or toxic chemicals to run, and can provide hours of company and friendship. She is also perfectly sized to warm your lap on a cold winter's day. If you could offer her a home, please leave a message.

- Natalie

Summer's Bounty

There's something special about cracking open a jar of summer's pears and having delicious fruit with your breakfast. Last summer, I lived just over the road from Middleton Park. It's the remainder of an old orchard and still has four or five pear trees bearing hundreds of fruit. They're small, but if you beat the birds you can get a good haul. We also did a mission to some trees at a Cashmere park, which have masses of big pears. All in all, we canned about 40 big jars of pears. Then Laura and Dave did another seven or eight of black boy peaches. Somewhat to my surprise, none of them smashed in the February quake, and we're just starting to munch our way through them now.

You probably know how to do preserves. Its easy as. We lost one jar this year (it had a crack in it and didn't seal). So I'll leave you with a pretty picture and some advice: when there's fruit everywhere, take it and bottle it. But, while its still shakey, leave the jars on the bottom shelf of the pantry.

- Nat

Breaking Bread

I went gluten free in 2007, in an effort to put a stop to the migraines I'd suffered for years. Since then, it seems to have become highly fashionable to declare yourself 'Gluten Free', and it's one of those topics on which everyone has an opinion. Some people think that gluten intolerance is just a health hype, a new diet promoting expensive food that tastes like cardboard. Others think that it's all made up and that there's no such thing as gluten intolerance, and people should just harden up. A few see gluten as the root of all evil, and advocate gluten free diets as the first port of call for any health problem.

I couldn't tell you which is right. For me, my quality of life and health have been greatly improved by cutting gluten out. Regardless of the whys and wherefores, my belief is that anything that makes me feel sick is something to avoid. However, I think there's more to it than that.  You see, not being able to eat gluten has made me acutely conscious of what I choose to use to fuel my body. I can't just live off white bread and butter (seriously, I used to do this). I had to learn to read ingredients lists, and think about where my food came from and how it and been processed before it got to the table.

I also learned that in the eyes of many food companies, 'gluten free' is synonymous with 'cardboard'. Most commercial GF products are reasonably tasteless, and scarily expensive to boot.  Instead, we started making our own GF bread alongside Laura and Dave's regular, glutinated bread. A bit of experimentation and we had chocolate cookies, cakes and puddings too - all Natalie-friendly.

So when my friends laugh and say that they're sorry for the restrictions in my diet, I have to laugh. Stopping eating gluten has made mealtimes a little more challenging, but infinitely tastier. I have a stack of containers, filled regularly at Bin Inn, with various gluten free flours. I don't rely on supermarket-bought loaves, and (most importantly) I eat more real food, and less artificial flavours and colours.

Here's the recipe I use for GF bread - I picked it up at Outward Bound last year.

1 1/2 cups rice flour

1/2 cup corn flour

1/2 cup potato flour

1/4 cup other GF flour (eg sorghum, soy)

2 tsp yeast

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/8 cup oil

1/2 tsp xantham gum

Mix with warm water until it looks like pancake mix. You should be able to use a whisk to mix it.

Pour into greased oven container (loaf tin/pyrex bowl/etc)

Leave in warm place 40 mins… or until you get around to retrieving it.

Bake until done. Try 150o for 45 minutes but I never really know how long mine will take.

Extract from tin; eat. Very good with butter and/or toasted.

- Nat

A Cup Half Full

Menstruation might not be considered the best topic of conversation at the dinner-table (from Laura: we do discuss it at our dinner table though, Dave doesn't mind). It is, however, a hugely important subject from an ecological point of view. Think about how many people there are in the world. Now think that half of them are women. Now think about how many ‘sanitary products’ one woman needs per month. That’s a lot of waste that we don’t like to consider.

Fortunately, there’s an opportunity to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Menstrual cups are silicone or rubber cups that can be used instead of tampons. They hold upwards of 15 mL of liquid and have a lifespan of 10 years. Both us girls at the Prancing Pony are full-time converts to the cup.

Natalie

I bought a diva cup from (the now earthquaked) Piko in the middle of last year. From memory it was around $50, but definitely has paid its way since then. It took a few goes to get the hang of getting it in/out but, like most things, practice makes perfect.

One of the best things about using a cup (as opposed to more conventional products) is that you never have to carry round a box of tampons, and you never have to dispose of the used ones. Not only is this much nicer for the environment (just imagine a mountain of used sanitary products sitting in a landfill – eww!) but it’s a lot better for your wallet too. Paying a lot of money for something you use for a few hours and throw out never seemed logical to me.

They’re also amazing for camping, tramping and other outdoors adventures. When space is at a premium in your backpack, it’s ideal not to have to carry loads of pads/tampons in (and then carry the used ones out).

I also use home-made pads/pantyliners. These are really easy to make, and give you a bit more protection when you feel you need it. I sourced some old nappy flannel from my mum (I think they were from when I was a baby!), but any kind of soft material works well. You can also use polar fleece, for extra absorbency, and a waterproof material to keep things contained.

There are heaps of designs on the net – some super easy, some more complicated. If you’re at all interested, my advice would be to make a few different types and see what you like. Develop your own patterns and don’t be afraid to experiment – after all, it’s your body. And, just for fun, find some funky bright coloured fabrics that make you smile.

Pads are super easy to wash. I usually leave a bucket in the sink with cold water and a bit of soap, and throw the used pads in every day. Then at the end of the week, its easy to drain the water (or throw it on the garden) and chuck the pads into a cold wash. Be warned though – hot water will set the stains (but you shouldn’t be using a hot wash anyway).

Interested? Information a-plenty at http://menstrual-cups.livejournal.com/. Click and surf – there seems to be no end to this particular forum. And there’s a retailer in Chch too – check out  http://www.environmenstruals.co.nz.

Laura

I ordered my diva cup online, and silly me, was too shy to ask anyone about it, so I thought I should probably have a spare and forked out the extra dough for a second one. Don't. I now have a superfluous piece of medical-grade silicone sitting in my undie drawer that I don't need and can't give away to anyone because it's been used...Warning, you cannot use menstrual cups with an IUD. The suction you create pulling out the cup can also pull out the IUD (ouch!).

I assume that if you're feeling squeamish you've stopped reading by now, so you will get no further content warning.

It does take a bit of getting used to, and I must admit that while I like it, I'm not as excited by it as some people who shall remain Sharon (I promise, it's a pseudonym, really!). I find it uncomfortable to wear when I'm sore, but it's great for the rest of the days. The best part though, is you won't get any yeast infections because some genius decided to put chlorine in your tampon which killed your good bacteria and allowed yeast to colonise the area. It does take a bit of practice to get it in the right spot, so make sure you have a pantyliner.

Speaking of pantyliners, they are really simple to make. Like Natalie said, get some flannel. Your Mom might have some, or your Grannie, or you might find some flannel sheets at an op-shop, if all else fails go buy some at a fabric store. Even non-organic cotton is better than throwing away all those pads every month.
1. Fold your piece of fabric in half, then cut out as many 16 cm diameter circles as you can. Each circle should be two layers of fabric thick.
2. Put your sewing machine on a zigzag stitch and sew around the edge of the circle to stop the fabric from fraying. If sewing by hand use a blanket stitch, but I recommend a machine for better fray-stopping power.
3. Snaps are easiest for the next step, but a button and a bit of string will work too.

a. If using snaps, punch half the snap into the front of the circle near the edge of the fabric, and the other half into the back of the circle at the edge directly opposite the first snap half. If you lay the circle down it should look kinda like this ( . ). Use your immagination to connect the parentheses into a circle; the period is a snap. The other snap is on the opposite face, about here: ( ' ). When you close the snaps together you should get a tube shape (not a tear drop), try it, you'll see what I mean.
b. If (like me) you're too lazy to go out and get snaps, then find some soft string and a button for each circle. Sew a button on each circle in the same place as you would a snap (see above). Fold the end of your string in half  so it makes a loop like a U with the upright parts touching. Put the loop on the opposide side and face from the button (same place as the second snap above),  with the loop bit towards the edge of the fabric. Sew the string to the fabric. If using a machine, sew across both strands a few times near the fabric edge, but leaving a big enough loop to get the button through. Then sew an hourglass shape over the straight (not looped) ends by sewing back across the string at a 45 degree angle, straight across a couple times, then back to where you started with another 45 degree line of stitching. Trim the ends of string and you're done.

I could go on and on about how much more comfortable cloth liners are (I'll NEVER go back!), but someone else has already written it all here http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/11/make_your_own_pad.php

So there you go - Hopefully the Prancing Pony-esses have convinced you to give cups a try, or even just consider the alternatives. 

Act like a hippie (but don't smell like one)

I really like knowing what I'm putting on my body. Cancer scares me, and most of the products we so blithely use every day contain possible (sometimes even probable) carcinogens. I won't go into detail, but check out the excellent video at storyofstuff.org/cosmetics. Suffice it to say, I want out of this chemical consumerism, but what's a girl to do? My boyfriend is content to wash his entire body (hair included! Eeek!) with a bar of Eco Store soap, but I'm a little higher maintenance. I like having soft, clean hair (not straw), clear skin and a distinct lack of body odour. The natural products are expensive, but I figure I can make my own for a fraction of the price. Not only are home made products easier on the wallet, but the money you do spend supports green(er) industries, not the synthetic, polluting, unnecessary and possibly cancer-causing cosmetics industry. Making things yourself inevitably means less processing, and less energy spent shipping water all over the place. So off I go to the all-powerful Google, and start looking up recipes. It takes just a few minutes to whip up each recipe, and I find they are just as effective as the store-bought chemical variety. Here they are below with my notes and modifications.

For your hair

Shampoo

What: a small handful of baking soda (really!).

Why it works: The basic baking soda mixes with the oils in your hair to make a crude but gentle and effective soap.

How: The googlenet says to mix it with water, but it works just as well dry. This couldn't be easier; spread it over your wet roots and scrub away. It will take a little longer to work in than shampoo, but stick with it. It will feel slippery – that's the soap being created. I use 2-3 tablespoons for my longer-than-shoulder-length hair; adjust your amount accordingly. I find after a few weeks/months of just baking soda my hair gets a little heavy. If this happens, add a few drops of shampoo to the handful of baking soda for super-duper clean hair.

Conditioner

What: Beer hair rinse (scummy pub smell not included)

Why it works: The hair rinse works as a mild cleanser and conditioner. The rosemary and mint stimulate the hair follicles to help it grow (and smell nice). The vinegar moisturises, dissolves any leftover baking soda, and helps kill the bacteria that cause dandruff. The sage acts as a preservative, and the beer makes your hair light and shiny.

How: Steep a tea of whatever herbs you have available. I use peppermint, rosemary and sage.

When the tea is cool, strain it and mix:

3 parts tea

1 part apple cider vinegar

3 parts flat beer (best is the yeasty stuff from home-brew that is normally thrown out while bottling. Email us or the brewing club to get a hold of some)

Pour the beer mixture into a drink bottle with a squirt top and keep any leftovers in your fridge. To save shower time and water squirt the beer mixture on your hair before rinsing out the baking soda.

Leave-in conditioner

What: Olive oil

Why it works: it coats the strands, reflects light, and moisturises

How: rub a small drop of olive oil (no larger than the nail on your pinky finger) into your hands, then run your hands over the ends of your hair. Brush through.

Split-end preventer/shine serum

What: a hair brush with lots of bristles (natural or synthetic, as long as they're stiff)

Why it works: your natural oils work wonders to protect and shine your hair, but only if they're distributed throughout. Brushing also helps clean dust out of your hair.

How: 100 strokes per night. It doesn't actually take as long as you'd think, and I find it relaxing. Do 50 strokes with your head hanging upside down, and 50 upright, making sure you get at all the roots. Works especially well after the leave-in conditioner above.

For your skin

Toner

What: Ummm, well, toner. Natalie uses equal parts apple cider vinegar and water, but I find it stings, so I mix it up a little more.

Why it works: The acidity in apple cider vinegar helps kill acne-causing bacteria, moisturises, and restores the slight acidic balance of your skin after washing or showering. The chamomile is soothing, the mint and sage are refreshing, and the sage is a preservative. The aloe vera is antibacterial and moisturising.

How: Brew a tea with some sweet-smelling and soothing herbs. I use chamomile, peppermint, rosemary and a little sage.

Mix:

1 part apple cider vinegar,

3 parts tea

juice from an aloe vera plant (optional)

Bottle.

To use, invert the bottle a few times over a thin cloth (not disposable cotton balls!), and wipe your face. If you find this recipe too mild, use two parts tea to one part vinegar.

Moisturiser

What: beeswax skin and lip balm

Why it works: The olive oil moisturises, the pine or tea tree oil kills acne bacteria, and the beeswax moisturises and protects.

How: In a double boiler (or metal bowl in a pot of water), melt 1 part beeswax and 3 parts olive oil. Add a few drops of essential oil (I use pine), stir and pour into a muffin tin or other mold to cool. Quickly pour the boiling water into the pot that had the wax, and scrub briskly to clean before the wax sets. The cakes *should* pop easily out of the muffin tin in a few hours when they're set. Rub over dry skin like you would a bar of soap.

Deodorant

What: nothing fancy, just deodorant

Why it works: The idea with deodorant is to make something antibacterial and long-lasting enough that you won't stink when you sweat. The natural versions don't stop you from sweating so they don't block your body from getting rid of toxins in your underarm lymph nodes via sweat. They also don't contain aluminums which have been linked many times to Alzheimers (far scarier than cancer in my too-knowledgable opinion).

How: This one didn't go so well. It made an ok deodorant, but the baking soda we have in NZ is coarser than the North American variety where the recipe was written (great if you want to wash your hair, scratchy if you want to rub it under your arms). The original recipe is here http://www.electroherbalism.com/Naturopathy/Recipes_and_Formulas/Stick_Deodorant_recipe.htm. Below is my suggestion based on my alterations and their results.

2 tbsp beeswax

3 tbsp olive oil (possibly more, we kept having to add extra because it when it cooled it was too hard to spread)

2 tsp zinc oxide powder (available online. I didn't use any in my recipe, and have to reapply during the day to avoid smells)

1 tbsp corn flour or arrowroot/tapioca flour

15-20 drops each of lavender oil, rosemary oil and pine oil

Melt the beeswax in a double boiler (or a metal bowl in a pot of boiling water), then add the rest of the ingredients in the order given. Go easy on the essential oils at first, and build up slowly so you don't over-scent it. To test the texture dip the back of a cool spoon into the mixture and let it fully cool and harden. You want a solid that is easy to spread. If it seems to soft add a (little!) more beeswax, if it is too hard, add another tbsp of olive oil. Pour the hot mixture into a clean deodorant container and let set. As with the balm above, quickly wash the pot out with the boiling water before the wax sets.

For a stronger option you might replace some of the olive oil with vodka, but I don't know how well water-based vodka will mix with the wax and oil. My store-bought natural (super-effective) deodorant contains vodka, beeswax and cocoa butter though, so it should mix ok. If you try it, let me know how it goes!

- Laura

Say Cheese

Here at the Prancing Pony, we eat a lot of cheese. When I say a lot of cheese, I mean that we run out of cheese almost as frequently as we run out of chocolate. The thing is, cheese is not exactly the most eco product. Large scale dairying in New Zealand means that farmers increasingly put marginal land under pressure, using fertilizers irrigation to boost grass growth in dry areas. This pulls water out of streams and aquifers, beyond sustainable levels. The grass, having gone through the cow, gets turned into nitrogen-rich poop, which flows into streams (along with the fertilizer runoff) and causes lots of ecological problems.

The net result of this is that while we like cheese, we don’t much like the problems that go along with the milk production. I decided that it’d be an idea to try and make my own cheese – after all, it’s only milk and enzymes. Now, this doesn’t solve the problems of the dairy industry, but it does help promote an awareness of where the food we eat actually comes from.  So, from the powers of Google, here is the

Soft Cheesy Cheese

You need:           1 X 2L bottle of milk (dark blue top)

Buttermilk – you can buy this from the supermarket, make sure it says ‘Cultured’.

‘Renco’ Rennet – also from the supermarket, probably near the jams/jellies section

Pour milk into big, extremely clean saucepan, add ¼ cup buttermilk. Heat to 20°C – when you drop some on your wrist it should feel on the warm side of cool, but not cold. Mix 5 drops liquid rennet in 1/8 cup cold water. Add to milk and stir well.

This is the hard part. Put a lid on it, put it aside and don’t mess with it. You’re waiting until the curd gets a clean break – this can take 12 – 24 hours (or more). A clean break is when you dip a really clean finger in, and you get a clean hole in the curd that fills with whey (milky white liquid) but that holds its shape reasonably well.

When you have a clean break, take a long knife and cut the curd into cubes. Take a colander and line it with a clean & sterilised handkerchief, tea towel or cheesecloth. Ladle the curds into it and suspend the cloth, preferably in the fridge, and definitely with a large container underneath to collect the whey. Leave overnight or longer. Then take the curds and put a few tablespoons of salt on them, and rub in thoroughly. At this point you can also add herbs, garlic, etc for flavor. The cheese looks like cream cheese, and is soft and rich. It will keep for a few days in the fridge (probably longer… but ours got eaten in gluten free vegetarian lasagne).

PS: Keep the whey. We used it to cook rice – it makes brown rice much nicer.

- Nat