Warwickshire News Mine

Christmas is the time of year when friends and family get together, diets go out of the window and everyone stocks up on their yuletide favourites. 

As most hosts know, planning the perfect Christmas party can be a little daunting. There is the age old question of how much food and drink to buy per guest for instance and we still end up with a surplus of food and an unnecessary dent in our pockets!

This Christmas, Warwickshire’s Love Food Hate Waste Campaign is encouraging us to take advantage of a new range of its ‘Glamour from nothing’ recipes for entertaining.  These clever nibbles create the perfect festive party at home, without the need to go shopping for special ingredients, helping us make best use of the food we have in stock.  No bad thing when you consider that research suggests 38 per cent of us expect food waste to increase this festive season Christmas Food Behaviour Omnibus Study, October 2009. Simply go to http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for inspiration.

Cllr Alan Cockburn, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for Environment and Economy said: “We want everyone to have an enjoyable Christmas this year, and these recipes are designed to help households stick to a budget while being able to create a festive feast for friends and family.

“Warwickshire’s Love Food Hate Waste campaign has made sure that all the ingredients are simple and straightforward, so that anyone can do it. There are some brand new recipe suggestions for homemade ready meals which can be re-heated from frozen – meaning none of us have to trek out in the cold to the shops when it’s cold outside. Look on http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com for details.”

If there is still food left over, Love Food Hate Waste has a number of great tips to help us avoid unnecessary waste and save money, including:
· Potato wedges are always a favourite of kids and adults alike so why not keep some prepared in the freezer, all the hard work is done for you- just scatter the wedges with leftover cheese and strips of bacon, salami or ham. Try a drizzle of pesto or chilli sauce and serve them with a platter of cold meats, salad and any pickles from the cupboard.
· If you have cooked too much of a meal such as Love Food Hate Waste’s beef, Guinness and mushroom stew, simply pop it in an airtight box and store in the freezer as a homemade ‘ready meal’.  This will be a welcome treat on a cold January evening when there’s no time to cook.
· Leftover Christmas cheese is perfect for freezing.  Freeze stilton in pieces and use later in a quiche or soup.  Cheddar can be grated and frozen in bags to use straight from the freezer for topping pizzas and cheese on toast.
· If you are making your own mince pies, freeze them uncooked.  They make a great treat to have on standby during the festive season - just bake a few at a time when visitors pop in. 
· Delight guests by making a bowl of punch or jug of Christmas cocktail – using up the fruit you’ve been meaning to eat!  Follow a recipe or invent your own by using different spirits or wine, diluting them with fruit juice or lemonade.  Try adding any fruit you’ve stored in the freezer too to add flavour.
· If you still have lots of turkey left over from Christmas Day, why not turn it into an exotic turkey and chickpea curry?  You’ll find that most of the ingredients will already be in your store cupboard and you can freeze the leftovers to make a perfect winter warming meal.
· Soup has to be the ultimate winter leftover dish and will be a welcome light meal after the indulgence of Christmas.  Just gently fry an onion, blend with leftover cooked veg and stock, add seasoning and re-heat thoroughly.  See http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/recipes for a tasty turkey noodle soup recipe.

For more festive food facts, tips and advice, why not visit http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
ENDS
Notes to editors:

For full recipe details of the beef and Guinness stew, party pizzas, turkey and chickpea curry and mini falafels and many more new Love Food Hate Waste recipes created for the party & festive season, please visit http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com. 
Recipes and their images are available to download from the partner’s site http://www.wrap.org.uk/love_food_hate_waste/partners

Key facts from the Love Food Hate Waste campaign:

· £12 billion worth of food is thrown out every year in UK homes. Householders are throwing out on average £480/year. This increases to £680/year for families with children – or £50 per month.

· We throw food out for two main reasons: 1) we let food go off, either completely untouched, or opened/started but not finished, costing £6.7 billion per year.; 2) we cook or prepare too much, costing us £4.8 billion per year

· In terms of weight: 5.3 million tonnes of good food is thrown out every year in the UK – such as cheese, meat and fish, fruit and vegetables and bread. This figure does not include anything we wouldn’t normally eat, like peelings, bones, or crusts.

· Wasting food has a huge environmental impact – if we stopped throwing food away, it would save the equivalent of at least 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide.  That’s like taking 1 in every 4 cars off our roads. 

· Food waste is damaging to the environment because producing, storing and getting the food to our homes uses a lot of energy and resources – all of which are wasted when food gets binned. And most of this food reaches landfill sites where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

· Since the Love Food Hate Waste campaign launched, 2 million homes are feeling the benefits of cutting back on the food they waste, saving £400 million overall – or around £200 each every year.

Footnote:
· For more information on the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, visit: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
· Key findings of our recent research on the nature, scale and causes of household food waste can be found at: http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/food_waste/index.html
· WRAP helps individuals, businesses and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.
· Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
· Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.

More information on all of WRAP’s programmes can be found on http://www.wrap.org.uk

Ends

For more information or interview please contact Caroline Faulkner, Waste Project Officer on 01926 418088.

Link to WCC