Turning green waste into vegetable stock

It’s a new year and time to add some new perspectives to Bargainista. Welcome Kathryn Lagden, a regular contributor from Cooking with Kathryn, who’s focus will be primarily but not exclusively on food and cooking, you may remember her from our holiday wish list.

For many people, the New Year is a time for resolutions, new goals, or perhaps renewing commitment to previous goals. I’m not good at hard and fast rules (yep, I’m an Aquarius!) but I do use the changing of the year to think about where I want to focus my attention.

I’ve been thinking a lot about garbage so far this year. My new found interest in trash is probably a subconscious reaction to receiving two tags from the City of Toronto, each good for one extra bag of garbage above and beyond our allotment in 2011. And like many families at this time of year, we’ve made many trips to the bins with the cellophane, twist ties, and plastic wrap that keep all new toys impossibly difficult to access.

And then I read about how I can boil my garbage and create yummy goodness. Yep, you heard me right, I’m going to boil my garbage! I’ve often wondered why most recipes call for a few veggies like celery, onion, carrots etc. when we boil chicken bones to create stock but all the peelings and ends from these same veggies are tossed out. The folks at The Sweet Beet make it sound perfectly natural to boil up a whole bunch of food scraps into a delicious stock so I’m jumping in and giving it a try.

First step was getting my hubby on board. After all, collecting a bag of garbage in the freezer takes some commitment from everyone who is diving in looking for frozen treats and ice cubes for beverages. His only stipulation was that we don’t refer to it as “garbage”, we need a friendlier name. I’m thinking something along the lines of “Scrappy”, it would let me say things like, “please feed Scrappy those egg shells when you’re done cooking breakfast”.

I received a big soup pot from my sister for Christmas. I doubt that boiling garbage is what she had in mind when she gave it to me but with a bit of luck I’ll be serving up a delicious soup made with my own Scrappy Stock next time she visits.

I’ll be sure to report back and let you know if boiling garbage is a tasty way to reduce food waste! (And would love to hear suggestions and tips from anyone who has tried this.)

Note: Originally published as How I’m going to turn green waste into vegetable stock at Cooking with Kathryn.

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A new Christmas meal tradition

In keeping with the holiday theme, new regular contributor Kathryn Lagden, shares her 2010 Boxing Day cooking adventure.

This year I’m hosting one of our three family Christmas dinners on Boxing Day. I expect that by December 26 we’ll have had enough turkey and trimmings, so I figured I’d cook up something a little different this year. I decided tourtiere, a dish traditionally served on Christmas eve in Quebec, would be keeping with the festive season while offering my family something a little different.

The idea was the easy part. I’ve never actually made meat pie or pastry before so I was a little nervous about the execution. A trial run to work out the kinks was definitely in order. I settled on the recipe from the Canadian Living website for both the tourtiere and the pastry.

Preparing the filling was fairly straightforward. While I browned the pork I prepared the vegetables and measured out the seasonings. I was a little trepidacious about adding all 3 onions as the quantity seemed to overpower the other ingredients. Not to worry though, the onions cooked down and everything melded together nicely.

I did not add any “summer savory.” I have no idea what this is and I couldn’t find it in the grocery store so I just skipped it. The cloves and cinnamon give this dish a wonderful flavour but I’ll likely add a little rosemary next time as well.

A picture of the filling cooked and ready to pop in the fridge to chill is on the right.

Why was I so nervous about making pastry? Likely because pastry seems to have a reputation as “difficult” and truth be told I didn’t even know where to find lard in the grocery store. (Turns out it’s in the baking aisle, not with the butter in the refrigerated aisle!)

I followed the recipe *exactly* to minimize any risk of poorly turned out pastry. When I divided it into two round disks (pictured right) I thought it looked a bit dry (are those cracks supposed to be there?) but no way was I going to mess with it at this point!

One great thing about this dish is that both the filling and pastry need time to chill in the fridge. So I prepared everything in the morning and later that afternoon it was very easy to roll out the pastry and assemble the pie. Getting all the time consuming tasks done in the morning makes this a great choice for entertaining since you want to be with your guests, not in the kitchen.

The final outcome was pretty darn delicious (if I may say so myself!) The meat was flavourful and the pastry was light so I’m considering the trial run a success! I hope my family enjoys our unique Christmas dinner.

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Bargainista and friends’ holiday wish list

Behind the scenes a team of us have been busy discussing ways we can improve Bargainista in 2011, especially returning to more frequent blog posts. Have you noticed we’ve been having a busy December? We’d like to kick things off by asking some regular contributors and friends of Bargainista to share one gift she wants most this season. As for me, Hanukkah is over and I’m not expecting any gifts unless I buy them for myself but I’m going to play along.

Eden Spodek
Yes, you already know I’m a bit of an Apple fan girl and not having an iPad – touted one of the biggest game changers not only in 2010 but for years to come – seems peculiar to many of my friends and family. But money doesn’t grow on trees and you can’t have everything. I love jewelry and other pretty things but I’m also practical and a bit of a geek so yes, if I was writing a letter to Santa, an iPad would be top of my list. If you’re wondering which app I’d download first, that’s easy: Flipboard, hands down!

Rebecca Atkinson
Living in New Brunswick, I really thought that in December my biggest concerns would be snow, but apparently Mother Nature has other plans this year. With seven inches of rain falling in 24 hours (yes seven inches), the one thing I really want for Christmas this year is rather low-tech. All I want is a good raincoat. Having to walk a dog, batten the hatches during rainstorms and run to and from the car to daycare or the house – makes one see umbrellas and down-filled jackets just aren’t quite cut out for that kind of task or weather. Since we are dealing with a flooded basement, I know I won't be spending this kind of money for an occasional rain jacket anytime soon, so if the Hydroil 3 from Mountain Equipment Co-op ended up under my tree, I’d be pretty happy. Plus it comes in all kinds of fun non-yellow colours.

Jenny Bullough
I am an ebook addict. I never go anywhere without either my Kindle, my Kobo, or my Sony – sometimes all three in case the battery fails! Oh, and I also have an iPad, which does other things although I primarily use it for reading books. While I am fully on board the ebook technology train, so help me I still like the feeling of opening a cover on something rather than just picking up a tablet, and my devices need protection from the sticky, curious fingers of my 2-year-old; so Incase Convertible Book Jacket for iPad is right up my alley!

Connie Crosby
It’s a little crazy, but the thing I want the most for Christmas is a Kobo wifi ereader from Chapters•Indigo (in mauve, please!). I am feeling a bit spoiled already because I am reading ebooks on the Kobo app with my iPad which was also a gift, but I have a vacation in the sun coming up in the new year and we all know you can't read the iPad screen in the sun. I use my iPad already a lot in my work, and I like the idea of having a separate device for vacation to make it easy to carry a selection of guilty pleasure reads. Plus, since I fell in love with ebooks, I have already spent money on a number which I hope to share them friends and family. What better way than to just lend out my Kobo?

Kathryn Lagden
All I want for Christmas is an Electrolux 36" Dual-Fuel Free Standing Range. Look at the SIX burners on this baby! With one of these ensconced in my kitchen I could make a roast, boil two pots of veggies, make a gravy, simmer apples for my toddler, fry up some potatoes, and have room to spare in case a friend dropped in and I needed to heat up milk for hot chocolate. OK, perhaps a slight exaggeration, but my current stove is so old that it does not have a light in the oven and regardless of where I put the dial it only really has two settings that – on and off. In fact, when a part broke I had to call four repair companies to find someone who had even heard of it!

So I would be delighted to find this shiny new beauty under the tree on Christmas morning. Although, to be honest, finding it already installed in the kitchen would earn Santa a double serving of shortbread and milk!

Michelle Tampoya

What I want for Christmas? A pair of Frye boots – in particular, the Veronica Slouch boots in dark brown size 8! Pre-baby and pre-mortgage days, I would of had this in an instant. But the days of throwing down green for yet another pair of brown boots just isn’t within financial scope. Although, I could argue that all of my brown boots have heels making is particularly difficult to walk during 3 degree weather when ice may be possible. I could also argue that I can’t really “dress-down” my current brown boots, meaning that I don’t make good use of my casual brown jackets. Come to think of it, there are more reasons why I should have the boots than not...hmmm.

What’s on your holiday wish list this year?

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Baby Teresa – the gift that keeps on giving

In this week’s baby bargainista column, Rebecca Atkinson shares this gift idea courtesy of Kathryn Lagden (@klagden) who suggested the idea.

If you’re looking for a gift this holiday season for a baby in your life that keeps on giving, consider a Baby Teresa outfit. The brainchild (and passion) of Tasmanian entrepreneurs Sammie Appleyard and Kirsty Dunphey, Baby Teresa “gives you an opportunity to Buy Once, Share Twice.”

When you purchase a Baby Teresa onesie, not only does the baby you purchase it for get an outfit, but so does another baby in need. For every outfit you buy, a second one is donated! At a cost of just $29.95 for a short sleeved onesie and $34.95 for those with both long sleeves and those adorable covered feetsies (Prices are in Australian dollars, which are nearly equivalent to CDN dollars right now.) That’s one feel-good holiday gift you can get behind. It’s only $5 for International postage – a bargain when you consider the cost of shipping some items across the border or across town these days. 



These 100% cotton onesies currently come in two colours, Lan Orange and Hieu Blue, and in two sizes: 0-6 and 6-12 months. There are plans to expand (at least colour wise) in the coming months/year.

Having just launched three short months ago, the first donation site was for newborns and moms in need, in the home state of the organization’s founders. Eventually these two ladies made a goal of clothing babies in need around the world. So far they’ve managed to make a second set of donations in Uganda and are looking to continue from there.

They “are inspired by the Mother Teresa quote ‘If you can’t feed 1000 people, then feed one,’ and want to help people clothe one baby.”

You can also help by spreading the word and/or by becoming a Fan on Facebook.

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Weekly Wish - Women who rock!

This was a big week for After a Fashion. While having a virtual meet-up on Monday, we decided to have a real-life dinner gabfest at Fire on the East Side Wednesday night, along with the divine Jen Evans (centre).

As we shared insightful conversation and lots of laughs over good eats and pretty martinis, there was a lot of discussion about why women in the social media space aren’t getting as much recognition as they should.

From my Bargainista perspective, most of the people pitching me are either women with little blogger-relations know-how or straight men who just don’t have the requisite passion for products or services targeted to women.

I interviewed some young PRs on twitter (note: predominantly male) and asked them where the females were. They said there are just as many Canadian women PR students and/or recent grads embracing social media but the males are far more active and vocal.

PodCamp Toronto 2008 was an unconference for podcasters and social media enthusiasts held in February. I was a member of the organizing team. We had 7 members (3 women; 4 men). We treated each other respectfully every step of the way. When it came to the actual sessions and attendees however, women were definitely in the minority. What was even more disconcerting was the lack of young girls. There were a handful of teens in attendance: all male.

Taking stock of the marketing/PR/corporate communications professionals who blog and podcast (I belong to that community too), the content creators are predominantly male.

Although based in Connecticut, Joseph Jaffe who wields a pretty big stick in the social media community, put out a call for requests to join his blogroll. At last count, 33 men and only 3 women responded.

The men in this community are a tight-knit group and share a lot of link love, not that I’m saying that’s a bad thing. On a one-to-one basis, they seem to have a lot of respect for their female peers but many only shower their love on a couple. When it comes to blogrolls and conference speakers, women are also noticeably absent. Why?

Women who are active in the digital and social media space can’t blame it all on the men. We can and should do a far better job of promoting ourselves and sharing the love. It’s up to us to make our voices heard and get more involved in the community.

As a start, I’ve added a new blogroll - Women who rock! - it lists my female friends and those I admire in this space (with the exception of those on the original Bargainista blogroll). Stay tuned for more real-life initiatives supporting women from the After a Fashion gals this spring.

So this week, if you haven’t already figured it out, I’m wishing us gals will stand up and be counted. Have your voices heard and share the love!

Pictured (l-to-r) Michelle Tampoya, Connie Crosby, Kate Trgovac, Jen Evans, me, Kathryn Lagden and Jenny Bullough.