We’ve had an email from Aimee:

Do you know if there is any use for out of date chocolate?

I guess it depends quite how out of date it is. Chocolate tends to have a “best before” date (rather than a “use by”) and it is often fine to eat for a good while after that. In my experience, cheap chocolate goes off – tastes funny and gets white spots – far quicker than better quality stuff, so if it was nice chocolate to start with, I would definitely try eating it.

If it is past the enjoyably-edible stage though, I’m not sure what I’d do with it. Chocolate-scented soaps or candles aren’t usually made with chocolate – they either use cocoa butter or a chocolate fragrance – so that’s not an option.

I personally wouldn’t want to compost it – it would compost but I’d worry about it attracting undesirable vermin to the heap in the meantime or would be snaffled by our dog who likes routing around in there (and smells delightful after doing so). Other people may compost it though – especially people with sealed bins and less greedy/nosey dogs.

Can you think of any reuses?

We’ve had an email from Miranda:

Can I recycle an old plastic chopping board? It’s stained and scarred and we don’t want to use it any more.

As far as I can tell, most plastic chopping boards are made from HDPE (resin code 2), which can be recycled and is quite widely collected – but many places that do collect it will only collect it in certain formats (for example, plastic bottles). If HDPE is collected in your area, you could phone the recycling authority to see what they think.

If it was us, I’d probably keep it to reuse in some way – as a cutting mat for crafts or as a surface protector when glueing or something like that.

Any other reusing ideas? Or recycling advice?

“Overripe” is a bit of a euphemism – I mean fruit that’s past its raw eating prime. Fruit that’s going off a bit, frankly. I don’t mean mouldy or otherwise rank fruit, just fruit that’s just not as fresh as it once was.

Bake fruity breads, cakes and muffins

I’m pretty sure everyone knows that overripe bananas make THE BEST banana bread, right? When they’re brown and soft, they are easier to mush, sweeter and more banana-y. There are thousands of banana bread recipes out there from the simple to the … well, not complex but slightly less simple.

Other verging-on-too-soft fruit can used for baking too – orange muffins, summer berries including strawberries can be used for an oat-topped “crisp” pudding, and of course apples can be crumbled, pie-d or stewed.

Freeze citrus fruit juice

Citrus fruits don’t follow the same sliding scale of ripeness as other fruit – they’re either good or they’re bad, no real inbetween.

If you’ve had some oranges, lemons or limes in your fruit bowl for a while and don’t think they’ll last much longer – act now! Squeeze the juice out of them and freeze it in ice cube trays for use in future cooking.

Or if that’s too much, cut them into wedges or slices and freeze them separated out on a cookie sheet (once they’re frozen, you can put them in a bag or box – but freezing them separately prevents them from sticking together so much). They can them be used in drinks – working as both fruit and ice cubes.
Continue Reading →

It’s been a while since I did a round-up of some of my favourite reducing, reusing and recycling links so without further ado…

• I’m often amazed what fab things people can make from old toilet roll tubes and these are no exception – fake wrought iron artwork. A great idea – I’m going to make some for our porch, reflecting the curled wrought iron railings we’ve got at the front of the house. They’d make fun picture frames too if you left out the centre sections.
• Speaking of which, I love this idea for making custom photo frames from old board game boards.
• It’s a lot warmer now than it was this time last month, but we’re still all about blankets & quilts here – and this is a great how-to from Daisy Janie on how to make a quick quilt from an old fitted sheet and some contrasting thread.
• Started spring cleaning early? Turn a plastic bottle into a drain declogger to clean the bits you can’t normally reach!
• Move away from home stuff onto clothes, I love this idea from Hester Jane – patching holey knees in jeans using back pockets from another pair. So cute! (I also love Hester’s idea from the weekend for decorating plastic plant pots with strips of tree bark – I heart the centrepiece one.)
• Want to learn how to make jewellery from recycled materials and are in the north-west of the UK? I’d heartily recommend Alison Bailey Smith’s workshop on the Wirral next month.
• I love this guide to adding better shaping to a too-big/unisex t-shirt – I’ve got about half a dozen shirts that I’d wear more if they fitted better. Definitely something for my project file.
• And finally, in case you haven’t seen it, I’m restricting the amount of clothes I buy this year – no more than 12 items over the year. You want to join in the fun too?

Have you spotted any great reducing, reusing or recycling how-tos recently?

We’ve had an email from Andi:

The last people who lived in our house installed MDF (i think) radiator covers everywhere which we don’t want any more. Do you have any idea what we can do with them? They’ve been painted and have cute cut out panels but block all the heat!

There still seem to be plenty of dedicated companies selling them so some people must still want them – perhaps offer yours on your local Freecycle/Freegle, to see if anyone wants them?

Both the MDF and paint mean that the wood can’t be burned or composted and is very hard to recycle, so aside from passing them on, we’re looking for reuses.

After realising how many types of vegetables I want to grow this year, my first thought would be to reuse the wood to make trough planters – the cut out bits could be used to make pretty fronts. Or similarly, they could be used to make blanket/storage boxes – the cuts outs would let the contents breath.

Any other suggestions?