Cook It or Give It but Don’t Bin It!

Hello!

The end of the academic year is approaching, and many of you will be going back home after the exams .. but what about food leftovers in your cupboard?

We, the Transition UWS team, love food and hate haste and would like to collect any food leftovers you think you will not use, for example any extra pasta, rice, food tins, tea, coffee etc. but NO meat, fruit, or veg!

We will donate what we will collect to a food bank or keep it for students next year.

There re collection boxes in:
– the Common Room Paisley Storie street halls of residence
– the secrity Office and Laundry room in Hamilton Halls
– the Common Lounge in Ayr halls (from Thursday 16th May)
where you can put your food leftovers!
The food will be collected on a weekly basis.

If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact us.

Good luck with your exams!

FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD

 

UWS Student food festival.

 

Hi Folks,

Exciting developments with Transition UWS, Next Wednesday sees us presenting our food festival.

It will take place in Paisleys Student’s union from 11am-7pm, and will see us present cookery demonstrations and put on a small film screening.

all day long we will be serving free food and drink come along and get involved. If any Clubs and Socs want to come along please feel free to get in touch with us you could do some fund raising if you like or just come and tell us what your about.

Hope to see you all there.

If nothing else it will be a tasty experience.

 

Thanks.

From all of the Transition Team.

 

 

 

 

Meals for the start of spring, even if it’s cold and wet.

Hi guys,

Chris here, its been a while since we gave you lovely folks some cheap seasonal recipes. I have had two weeks away from the office and pretty much spent them in the kitchen, getting back to preparing the food I love. As a student food can become boring and bland. I have tried my best to come up with two crackers, that are simple to make but will impress your mates.

Wild mushroom Bruschetta.

Now is the time to go out with that mate that likes foraging, or just get yourself to the local veg store. Wild mushrooms are in season, morels are meaty and provide a wonderful flavour.

Have ago at this tasty seasonal snack.

• Morel mushrooms, 200g (any type of mushroom can be used).
• Two cloves of garlic.
• 150ml of ale, (any bitter type would do the job).
• 30g butter.
• Salt and pepper.
• Olive oil.
• One bunch parsley.
• Sliced Ciabatta or sourdough.

Method.

1. Toast the bread I would recommend drizzling with oil then lightly grilling it.
2. To prepare the main event roughly chop the mushrooms and dice the garlic.
3. Saute the garlic for a few minutes.
4. Add the butter and ale along with the mushrooms, turn up the heat and reduce the liquid until it starts to thicken.
5. To plate use two pieces of toast to each serving, cover each with the mushroom mixture and sprinkle with parsley.

Rhubarb Fool

Rhubarb fool is essentially poached or baked rhubarb with a whipped cream or custard. Now mine is slightly different, to serve I recommend you using tall glasses or martini glasses.

The fool should be layered and look similar to a trifle.

• 350g of rhubarb.
• 60g or sugar.
• 100ml of orange juice.
• Whipping cream 150ml.
• One tbsp Vanilla essence.
• 150g Nice biscuits.

Method

1. Poach the rhubarb in the orange juice over a medium heat until soft dont forget to add the sugar.
2. Add the Vanilla to the cream and whip until you obtain soft peaks.
3. Bash up your biscuits until you get a rough crumb.
4. To assemble your fool, start with a little of the syrup from the rhubarb mix, and the a small amount of crumb sprinkled on the glass.  Layer the cream inside then finally top with a heavier layer of crumb and the sticky rhubarb mix.

Thanks folks,

Transition Paisley.

Healthy veggie supper by students in Hamilton

Hey folks,

Hope this finds you well.

Last month in Hamilton students’ hall the Transition team organised a cooking event. It took place in one of the student flats, four participants created a three course vegetarian supper.

 These were the ingredients that we prepared for the dinner:

• Yogurt and Granola for Dessert.

For the Main.

• A can of Black Beans.
• A can of Sweetcorn.
• 400g can of tomatoes.
• Two green peppers.
• Olive oil.
• Tomato Puree
• Three cloves of garlic.
• Bag of potatoes.
• Spices to taste.
• Dark chocolate, One square.
• Freshly chopped Coriander.

For the starter we used.

• Couscous.
• Cucumber.
• Mixed seeds.

We cut the potatoes, peppers, 3 cloves of garlic and the onion. Then shallow fried them with olive oil until soft.

The beans were then added, and left to cook for 5 -10 minutes.

The sweetcorn was added next along with one tablespoon of tomato puree and a can of chopped tomato, leaving them to simmer for 10 minutes.

After that, we added a small piece of dark chocolate letting it melt in. The dried spices were added at this point along with additional seasoning.

For the  salad, we added one cup of couscous to one cup of boiling water leaving the mixture to merry for ten minutes. Meanwhile, we cut the cucumber and the other vegetables adding them to the couscous once ready. The salad was finished off with fresher herbs and mixed seeds.

As a simple dessert we topped Yogurt with mixed granola.

Above you can see our scrummy chili bean main dish with pitta bread, fresh couscous salad and yogurt and granola dessert.

Organising dinner parties for your friends is a great way to share your cooking skills, socialise with your friends  and  helps motivate you to cook healthy meals.

What about organising a dinner party for your flatmates or friends every week and then encourage them to have ago ? Maybe at the end you all can vote for the best dinner party ?

If you would like to arrange a dinner party, The Transition Team can offer support and ideas to help you . Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us!

Happy cooking !

Transition UWS Team

Easy Peasy Cycle powered sauces.

Last week saw the Transition team ride out to each campus, promoting healthy easy dip recipes.We made some tasty treats with some new friends, who provided the cycle power we needed to smoosh out hummus and guacamole mixtures. Both getting served with heap fulls of tortilla chips and pitta. We rocked up to Hmailton, Ayr and Pasiley with our smoothie making butchers bike and as ever we got a few funny looks. As ever we provided free healthy low carbon snacks with a smile and a splash of fun.

Guacamole recipy

 Ingredients

•  2 mild chillies, finely chopped
•  bunch coriander, chopped
•  2 tomatoes, finely chopped
•  salt, to taste
•  1 onion, finely chopped
•  ½ lime, juice only
•  3 ripe avocados

Preparation method

• In a pestle and mortar, pound the chillies, coriander, tomatoes, salt and onion to a fine paste.
• Add a little water and lime juice to make a looser mixture. Mash in the avocados. Serve.

We also used a humus recipe which can be found in a previous post and flavoured with anything you fancy.

Thanks Folks

Chris

transitionpaisley@sauws.org.uk

 

Reducing Food Waste one student meal at a time

Hi all,

Continuing on a zero food waste note. We are pleased to present to you UWS’s first and only TV channel dedicated to all things cooking in UWS.

At http://www.studentcooking.tv/uws you can watch videos for and by students from across the UK, share healthy affordable easy-peasy recipes and create and monitor your own food diary.

Here is a video we took of UWS’s first Zero Waste Cook-off. Much to learn hey?
You will never look at those odd bits and bobs in your food cupboard and fridge in the same way.

If you are not quite ready to show off your cooking skills come along to one of our free cookery workshops and activities.

And here are some photos from food related fun in UWS during Trimester one (2012).

Waste Me Not

Our friends are Zero Waste Scotland are very big on saving on food waste which in the long term will save you little rascals money! Which let’s be honest is a great thing when you change that saving into real world options. Every year each household in Scotland chucks out around 430 quid worth of food that is perfectly good to eat.

Just to give you a measure of what else you could do with this £430 this equates to 150 pints of beer, now that’s a hell of a thing to waste.

As it’s Go Green week next week we just wanted to lend a hand and show you some ideas for using your left over food and saving you some cash at the same time. Below are my top five money saving tips.

1. That left over bread you have, well don’t let it sit in plastic it will just go mouldy wrap it in wax paper and let it go stale. Chop it up into small chunks drizzle it with a touch of oil and sprinkle with salt, with that done bung it in the oven till golden brown. Some tasty homemade croutons perfect in soups and salads.
2. That left over bit of chicken pull it off the bone and slice it really think it will go perfectly in quesadillas. What to use the whole bird? Crack up the carcass and boil in a pan after around and hours of gentle simmering filter off the bones and place the liquid in a sealable container. This chicken stock if freeze able and ready to use when needed.
3. You may have a bit of veg here and there which doesn’t quite make a meal but trust me dice in all up and whack it in a pot with some stock, and in no time you will have a quirky although lovely vegetable soup.
4. Made too much pasta sauce last night or is there just not enough in the jar for a full pasta bake, make your own pizzas pasta sauce is perfect for it. Even with a cheese sauce you can still make a white pizza. Bases can be bought at any good food store or be adventurous and make your own.
5. Everyone likes a milk shake or smoothie, over ripe bananas are perfect for this with a bit of milk maybe some chocolate sauce you will be sipping on a straw on your way to flavour town.

For more information on how to save your leftovers see our friends @

http://www.zerowastescotland.org.uk/lovefoodhatewaste

Hope to see you all next week,

Enjoy

Chris

Unexpected Allies

Hi there,

Came across this useful advice from Sainsbury’s.

Supermarkets have a lot of responsibility in the food waste issue and it is great to see something is being done.

http://www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/meal-planning/makeyourroastgofurther/how-to-store-leftovers/

http://www.sainsburys-live-well-for-less.co.uk/meal-planning/makeyourroastgofurther/meal-planning-made-easy/

Though they still need to rethink and redesign much of their operations! We will keep a close eye on how they get on.
Looking forward to other supermarket chains to follow on the food waste reduction awareness raising  so consumers can make the informed choices they decide on!

Sustainable International Christmas potluck dinner -Hamilton campus-

Hi guys Sara here,

Hope you all had a great time over the festive season. And you are keeping up all those healthy low-carbon, zero waste, low-cost food resolutions.

During the first term in 2012 the Transition team has organised and delivered several events across Ayr, Hamilton and Paisley campuses such as cookery workshops, demonstrations and lower carbon living courses.

Before the holiday break, we hosted an international dinner party in Hamilton Students’ Union; the event included a cooking competition. Students were asked to team up to present a dish from their country. The dishes had to be vegetarian and the category for the winning dishes were, the most economic dish and the second category was, best meat alternative to Christmas tradition.

The Christmas dinner table was set and the dishes started to arrive, all the dishes looked very tasty and were made from scratch using ingredients as local  as possible.

Here are some pictures of the competing dishes:

Mediterranean Couscous salad and home-made Humous by Katja

French courgette muffins made by Maud and Margot

German potato salad made by Julia

French Tapanade made by Florent

Each team was given a limit of £6 to prepare a dish; the total cost of the whole dinner was about £35. For this amount 11 people enjoyed a 3 course dinner, for example one winning dish the apple crumble, cost only £5 to prepare and made two large trays.

This shows how cooking from scratch not only has great health benefits, but can also save you money and make sharing food much more fun!

During the events that Transition team held, we had the opportunity to learn some great healthy recipes from other cultures, such as a fruit ice cream which is only made from frozen fruit, mixed together with added syrup. Also the French Tapande which is made very simply of  3 ingredients, garlic, olives, olive oil and served on toasted bread, it’s a dish that you can prepare very fast and costs only £2.5, and you can enjoy it as delicious snack or a starter.

Cooking is fun and will save you a lot of money, if you would like to learn how to cook fast and tasty recipes, get in touch with us and we will let you know when our next cooking workshop is. You can also arrange to prepare your own dinner party or cooking competition and the Transition team will provide you with great ideas and recipes that will save you money, reduce your carbon footprint and let you share amazing meal with your friends or flatmates.

More details and pictures from Transition events can be found on our Facebook page Transition UWS https://www.facebook.com/#!/UWS.Transition

P.s. Here are a couple more photos from the event in Hamilton. More on our Facebook page!

Carbon conversations training

 

Hey Folks

Sorry its been a while just thought I would share how our carbon conversation facilitator training  went, over the last two weeks. Well I am now an official facilitator which is a pretty good feeling to have. Our group got on well and I met some amazing people and shared a brilliant experience, still a tad nervous about starting up my own group and facilitating it.

If anyone wants to know more about carbon conversations and when our next batch are going to be drop me a email at transitionpaisley@sauws.org.uk

thanks guys

 

Chris