When we moved away form Manchester we put our compost bin plus all it's contents on freecycle and it was snapped up in seconds. In fact loads of people wanted it. The guy that we chose to give it to arrived with a big smile on his face, an estate car, 4 bins and a shovel. It was a smelly job, hard work too, but obviously the he knew it was worth it. An estimated 6.7 million tonnes of household food waste is thrown away each year to rot in landfill. This creates a toxic sludge and gives off greenhouse gases which contribute to climate change. As well as looking at how to avoid wasting food by your shopping behaviour and meal planning the harm caused by any unavoidable food waste (eg peelings, cores etc) could be reduced or even eliminated by composting. If you have a compost bin, or wormery your food scraps are converted into a valuable resource. The food breaks down and the nutrients they contained are put back into the soil as part of a natural cycle renewing the earth. It is a potent natural fertiliser that in large scale non-organic farming is replaced by polluting oil ...

Blimey I've been eating a lot of pumpkin! Since the Hallowe'en party last week which left me with about 10kg of pumpkin to use I've made it a bit of a mission to try use the pumpkin in as many different ways as possible and have come up with this list of ten things to do with your Hallowe'en pumpkin. I've tried to make them all quite different, so there should be something to suit everyone so you'll have no excuse to throw your pumpkin away to rot. If you got a bit giddy like I did and bought the biggest pumpkin you could find you should have enough to make all these things. You'd also probably need to be a little bit insane to want to make them all, well at least all within the space of a week, so you might want to freeze some. You can just peel and chop the pumpkin as normal and then bag the bits and pop them in the freezer. I did this last year and they were fine to chuck into soups and things. No reason they shouldn't be good for anything else too. I can't quite believe how much we managed to ...

My new student is flying! Last week we made this amazing roast vegetable lasagne. I'd never made a roast vegetable lasagne so I was a little nervous about how it would turn out, but all went to plan and it was very tasty indeed. I'm a little worried I could be out of a job soon though, apart from putting together the recipe and a bit of advice on making sure the cheese sauce was smooth, she did the whole thing. Gonna have to do something really tricky next time or I'll be out! It could probably do with a bit more cheese, there wasn't quite enough saved for over the top, I like it  when you get a nice crispy cheesy topping. It still got 8 out of 10 Andy points, so a potential 9 I recon with this adjustment. Roast Vegetable Lasagne 4 cloves garlic, chopped Olive oil 1 red onion, cut into chunks and separated 1 aubergine, cut in half and sliced 3 courgettes, sliced 1 red and 1 yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced 15 mushrooms, sliced 2 x 400g tinned tomatoes, chopped 2tsp paprika 3 tbsp oregano Salt and freshly ground black pepper 8 lasagne sheets 8oz cheddar cheese, grated 2 oz butter 2 oz plain flour 1 pt milk nutmeg Pre-heat oven to 190°C, ...

Since leaving university Andy and his friends have met up once or twice a year in a gathering that has come to be known as "Harcourt" (named after the house/street they shared). Each year they take it in turns to organise the weekend, and this year it was Andy's turn, which meant I had the task of feeding this gruesome looking crew. Originally a strictly lads only affair the arrival of various small people has led to the invite being extended to wives, girlfriends and children. I'm pretty happy about this as although I've only known them for about 2 years rather than the 10 or more years they've known each other, it's a brilliant get together, always loads of fun, really nice to see how much of an effort they've made to stay in touch for all this time. Harcourt has become a definite highlight of the year for me. As we've not been working over the summer we've had a lot of time on our hands to organise things and after a brainstorming session at the pub we got a little over excited (drunk) and decided it should be a Hallowe'en themed fancy dress weekend, hired a clown and set ...

This is my favourite soup of the year so far! It has a really particular flavour, definite Asian influence, a bit sweet and tangy. YUM! It got given a 9 out of 10 from Andy! Woop! You have HAVE to try it. Let me know what you think. Squash, carrot and cardamon soup 1 oz butter 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped 400g carrots peeled and chopped 400g squash peeled and chopped, I used a turban squash tabasco sauce 1 tbsp plain flour 1 1/4 pints of vegetable stock 1 tin of creamed coconut juice of one lime 8 cardamon pods Put the prepared squash into a roasting dish with a splash of olive oil to coat and shake over some tabasco to taste. Roast in the oven at 200C until you add to the soup later, but obviously if you're being a bit slow don't let it burn. You'll need to check about half way through and move it around a bit so it browns evenly. Melt the butter in a large soup pan, then add the onions. Cook gently for around 15 minutes or until the onions are soft, but not browned. Add the garlic and cook for a minute , then add the flour and cook for ...