Ratatouille

Cheap and easy. very tasty. I made this because we found a large aubergine lurking at the back of the greenhouse!

Ingredients

• 1 large aubergine
• 2 courgettes
• 1 onion chopped
• 2 cloves garlic chopped
• 1 red pepper
• 1 tin tomatoes
• some chopped fresh basil if you have it

Preparation

Wash and slice the aubergines and courgettes into 1cm slices. Quarter the aubergine slices. Put the aubergines and courgettes into a colander over a bowl. Add about a tablespoon salt and place a plate on the top plus something to weigh it down. Leave for about an hour and you should get some brown bitter juice coming out of the bottom. Wash in cold water before cooking.

In a saucepan, heat some olive oil and gently fry the onion and garlic for about 5 mins. Add some chopped pepper and the aubergine and courgettes. Add basil and some salt and pepper. Put the lid on and turn the heat to low and cook for 20 mins. Add the chopped tomatoes and heat gently for 10-15 mins. Tastes even better if left to cool and then reheated!

Wormery problems

We don’t have any pets.  This is probably a very good idea because we’ve had trouble keeping our worms alive and are already on our second batch, after only owning the wormery for a year.

My latest problem with the wormery has been fruit flies.  Thousands and thousands of them swarming out when you take the lid off – yuck.  I didn’t dare go back for 2 whole weeks. I have however found a really good website called:  www.wormcity.co.uk which has given me hope.  The problem was that we have one of those layered wormeries which makes compost in each layer and the worms should travel up through it.  I filled the second layer and started on the third.  But the 2nd layer started to go down as it decomposed and the worms couldn’t reach the top layer.  So after taking advice from wormcity I bravely emptied the top layer into the next layer down and then covered it with soil (the fruit flies breed on the exposed food apparently).  I am now less scared of going near the wormery and the bottom layer actually looks like compost now.

Maybe i could be trusted with a goldfish soon!

Brilliant energy saving lights

Been looking for some lights and came across this site:

http://www.directlight.co.uk/energy_saving_lighting

There’s a really big collection of every sort of light.  I’m really impressed.

Make and Do for grown-ups

This is so cool.

http://www.ponoko.com/make-and-sell/how-to-make

Design a product (either using a basic design program or by taking a photo of a pencil and paper design). Upload your design. Choose your materials. And then have it made.

http://www.ponoko.com/make-and-sell/materials

Free electricity meter

With my latest (still huge) bill last week my electricity supplier (e.on) offered an energy saver deal which fixed my electricity costs until 2010 and gave me a free electricity meter.  I’m not actually that impressed by the deal.  I know that I should have signed up to one of these 6 months ago if I wanted to get cheaper prices but hey ho I was just being optimistic.  But what really clinched it for me was the free meter.

Now I wanted this because i can use it to test with www.tryingtobegreen.com but I wonder how many people now are getting these free meters.  It means that a lot more people out there are taking an interest in their energy use.  I think that most of them, like me, resented spending £40+ on a gadgety thing.  Well making a sweeping generalisation I’d say that men like gadgets but are not so interested in tracking their electricity and saving money and women might be trying to cut costs but would seem stupid to waste £40 on a gadget like that.  So I wonder if we’ll see a lot more of them in use now.  They do seem to be taking hold and most people I speak to have heard of them and a couple have bought them.

Mine has yet to arrive, so I must be patient.