Many home vegetable growers know that one vegetable that is pretty much guaranteed to produce a good crop is zucchini (also known as courgettes). If anything, they’re almost too prolific when they’re in season – in some circles, they’re a bit of a joke because if you grow them, you’ll have them coming out of your ears. If you live next door to a home gardener London, you may often receive some surplus zucchini by someone eager to get rid of them. I’ve even seen boxes turn up at church on summer Sundays by the door with a “help yourself!” sign attached.
What do you do with surplus zucchini short of inflicting them on every friend and neighbour you can find or sending them down to the nearest food bank or charity organization (which, come to think of it, isn’t a bad option)? Here are a few ideas that I’ve (or a friend has tried) tried successfully.
Make your own frozen stir-fries. All you need to do is to slice up your zucchini, then add a few other sliced vegetables that freeze well. Good choices include carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, snow peas and peppers, although I’ve also successfully frozen turnips and swedes in these stir-fry mixed. Some say that you should blanch the vegetables before freezing (either in a steamer, by dipping in boiling water or by light microwaving), but I have never found this necessary.
Put the chopped vegetables into plastic bags, squeeze out extra air and seal – zip-lock bags, twisty-ties and reused plastic bread bag seals all work well. Any sort of plastic bag will do. Freeze them, then make use of them over the winter months when your garden isn’t producing much.
As a variation, slice larger zucchini into large flat slices to freeze them. Use this as an extra layer in lasagne or as a substitute for eggplant in moussaka. You can use fresh zucchini like this as well, but fresh “steaks” can also be used on barbecues or can be brushed with olive oil and salt before grilling (top with grated cheese and basil).
Make pickles. This is very, very easy, especially if you have a microwave. Simply cut your zucchini into pickle-sized slices. As a hint, it’s best if each piece in the jar has a bit of the skin on it, as this will stop it turning into mush. If you have a microwave, put the slices into the jar you will preserve them in and microwave for a minute, then drain the liquid out. If you don’t have a microwave, then pop the slices into boiling water for a minute, then lift out with a slotted spoon and put into a jar. Top the jar up with any sort of vinegar and seal. Leave it in a cupboard for a few months. Other vegetables can be added – the ones listed in the paragraph on stir-fries work well, but so do nasturtium seeds, onions, garlic and ordinary peas. You can also simmer the vinegar with salt and spices to add some flavour – experiment to find your favourite combination, but pepper is a good start.
My neighbour – a frequent recipient of my surplus zucchini – likes to grate zucchini and use it to make a sweet loaf. Make plain cake batter and add the grated zucchini. These vegetables have a fairly neutral flavour that can complement sweeter foods without clashing. This method would probably also work well with muffins. Banana would also work well with this recipe.
Leave the zucchini on the vine until they are large and become marrows. As soon as the rind has hardened, pick them and store them in a dry, dark, airy cupboard (or in a net in a dark cool place) for colder months. Make sure the skin is free from nicks and scratches, wash any dirt off and dry well before storing. If you want to, you can wipe the surface down with a weak solution of chlorine bleach before storing to kill any bacteria. You can use the same storage method for pumpkins. Use these marrows in the same way as you would use pumpkins – in soups, roasted, boiled, mashed…. I haven’t tried making a sweet marrow pie along the lines of pumpkin pie yet, but my guess is that it would work.
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If you want to avoid getting sick, you need to protect yourself from germs by minimising your exposure to the little nasties. While you shouldn’t try to avoid germs completely – your immune system and other bodily defences are pretty good, unless you have AIDS or some other problem with weakened immunity – reducing your exposure to germs will reduce your chances of getting ill.
In these days when people are afraid that bird flu might combine with a variety of influenza that affects humans (it might happen), knowing how to protect yourself from possible exposure to viruses and bacteria that are likely to lay you low are a must.
The most important thing that anyone can do to maintain personal hygiene is to wash their hands properly. This doesn’t mean just a quick two-second rinse under a bit of water or in a basin of water but a proper hand washing with lots of soap and water or any other commercial cleaning product, and drying properly afterwards.
The next most important point is a harder one to follow. As most bacteria enter via the nose, mouth and eyes, you shouldn’t touch these places without washing your hands first. This means that you can’t rub your eyes, pick your nose, pick spinach out or your teeth or bite your fingernails in a tense moment. Some say that you shouldn’t even touch your face at all above the chin without washing your hands – but I can’t exactly see us all running off to wash hands or use hand sanitiser every time we want to scratch an itch or raise a hand to shade your eyes fro the sun (potential for a comedy sketch here involving soldiers frantically cracking out the hand sanitisers so they can salute – hand to forehead – hygienically).
And if you do have a cold or cough, or even if you start sneezing because of dust or sudden exposure to bright sunshine, you need to think of others and not spread germs. Now, common wisdom says that you should cover your mouth and nose with your hands when you cough or sneeze. However, your hands will then be laden with germs. It makes much better sense to cough/sneeze into the crook of your elbow – you aren’t going to shake hands or touch things with that. And it’s a very easy habit to acquire.
Avoid sharing spit. This doesn’t just mean toning down your enthusiasm when talking excitedly at close range to someone, but refers to not sharing drink bottles or anything else that goes in your mouth (toothbrushes, cutlery and the like). It also means not double-dipping if you’re dipping chips or crisps (or even carrot sticks) into a shared container of sauce or dip. The rule here is to dip once, coating your chip or whatever in as much sauce as you can and then biting. Don’t bite then dip. Strict hygiene gurus say that you should keep these rules even with the person you are on the most intimate terms with – although if you’re sharing a bed and some kisses with a person, you’re going to infect each other anyway, so what’s sharing a toothbrush or a cup?
Tissues are more hygienic than handkerchiefs – they can be flushed or thrown away after use rather than stuffed in your pocket. However, tissues are more expensive and use more resources, and whoever has to dispose of the rubbish can still get germs (mind you, all rubbish is pretty foul).
Viruses and bacteria can also enter the body through open wounds. While your body can do a pretty good job of fighting infection at the site of the wound, it’s best to keep open wounds and sores covered as much as possible – for one, thing, you will reduce your exposure to germs; secondly, you won’t be showing ugly pus-filled sores to the world (pus is made up of dead white blood cells that have killed bacteria on a kamikaze mission).
Face masks during flu season are a little on the silly side. You don’t need to go around the street wearing them. The only time they are really useful is if you are sick (in which case, you should be in bed) or if you are caring for a sick person.
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Permaculture is a term that is often mentioned by people who wish to live in a more sustainable and environmentally responsible way. But what exactly is permaculture and why is it considered to be environmentally responsible?
Permaculture is a lifestyle that is ages old but was not given this name until the 1970s, when two Australians, Bill Mollinson and David Holmgren, developed a “new” system of living and thinking. These two researchers disliked the intensive commercial methods of agriculture in use and realised that the typical method of farming crops was ultimately destructive to the environment on a local scale, reducing biodiversity, harming the natural systems and generally trying to work against nature rather than with it.
Permaculture is a holistic system that mimics the natural food web in its integrated relationships between elements in a permaculture system. However, permaculture goes beyond just agriculture and farming and looks at society as a whole. According to these thinkers, society and farming is rather disjointed – each element is trying to stand alone.
Permaculture, however, is integrated and, in theory, can be sustained indefinitely. Permaculture is, in effect, a sustainable lifestyle in operation. It is often tied in with the idea of self-sufficiency, as promoted by John Seymour.
If you remember the TV show The Good Life, you will have a pretty good idea of what permaculture or self-sufficiency looks like and how it can work in a suburban environment – more or less. For your average middle-class suburbanite, permaculture means growing your own vegetables, composting and (often) raising small livestock such as chickens – and tying these strands all together.
For the permaculture enthusiast, the chickens and the vegetables, to take two examples, are not separated. While the chickens provide eggs and/or meat for the household, they also provide manure for the garden. The weeds in the garden, along with pests such as slugs and caterpillars, are eaten by the chickens. Chickens also eat table scraps. Everything multitasks in a permaculture lifestyle.
One real hallmark of the permaculture way of life that has found its way into many a suburban garden is the no-dig or raised garden. This is one way that the idea of “minimal impact for maximum effect” can be put into practice. Breaking in a new plot of garden in the conventional way means a lot of effort, and often requires the use of agrichemicals (weedkillers) as well as back-breaking labour. A no-dig garden eliminates all this, as weed mat is applied, then topsoil and compost added onto the weedmat. The weed mat, as you would expect, is usually something recycled, such as old newspapers or even old plastic bags or tatty scraps of worn-out carpet.
Permaculture often makes use of companion planting and “polyculture” in its gardening systems. Polyculture is a trend away from the old-fashione method of having one plot for beans, one for potatoes, one for cabbages and so forth. Instead, everything is placed together, not at random but in the right combination.
Permaculture also allows for biodiversity. Under this system, weed and pests aren’t considered a big nuisance. Instead, weeds are considered to be potential compost and chicken feed (not to mention the weeds that are edible and palatable to humans, such as chickweed and fathen). Insects are also chicken feed and possibly pollinators for your plants. Even insects considered to be pests, such as wasps and ants, are allowed to remain as part of the miniature ecosystem that your garden should be.
Permaculture requires a shift in thinking away from the norms of our culture. But it is a very satisfying and sustainable way to live.
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Some of us are night owls; others are early birds. But whether we bounce out of bed or whether we take a few minutes (and a cup of coffee or two) to feel fully awake, we all need a good night’s sleep.
A good night’s sleep usually constitutes more or less eight hours of sleep, more or less. Sleep is the time when our bodies repair themselves and the cells get a chance to replenish their energy without too many demands on them. If we don’t get enough sleep, doctors believe that we lower our immune systems and our ability to fight disease and blood pressure problems can be worsened. What’s more, the metabolism changes and slows down so we put on fat more readily… and lack of sleep also makes us crave starchy, sweet foods in an attempt to regain the energy that wasn’t restored while sleeping. These latter two aspects are a recipe for obesity, especially as nobody feels like exercising when they’re tired.
What is a good night’s sleep and how do you get one? The first aspect is regularity. You should always aim to go to bed at the same time each night and to get up at the same time each morning. Experts say that the getting up at the same time in the morning part is especially important, and if you need to catch up on sleep, an early night in is better for you than a sleep-in. If you fall into the very common trap of going to bed late over the weekend and sleeping in, there is a good reason why you feel so horrible and jet-lagged on Monday mornings: you are literally jet-lagged, as you’ve been in the “weekend time zone” for a few days.
Quality of sleep is important. If you sleep for four hours then get woken and then sleep for another four, you won’t be as refreshed as you would if you only had six hours straight sleep (even though four plus four makes eight). If you have a baby who doesn’t sleep through the night yet, there is nothing you can do except wait, unfortunately! And broken sleep is still better than no sleep.
Atmosphere is important. It is best if you keep the bedroom only for sleeping, relaxing and making love, so the body knows that when you’re in this room, it is for winding down and chilling out. Try to avoid exercising, watching TV or (worst of all) doing paperwork in your bedroom (exception – teenagers will probably want their own space in their room to do homework and the like – but still keep TVs and computers out). The exact atmosphere should be cosy, comfortable, quiet and dark. Some people like to have music or white noise (or even nature soundtracks) to help them unwind and drift off to sleep, and night-lights are also helpful for some people. Other low lights that can be part of your bedroom atmosphere include glow-in-the-dark stars and other decorations stuck on ceilings or walls. But avoid using candles – many fatal housefires are started by people falling asleep with a candle burning. Good curtains are important in summertime to block out the sun, especially if you live in Scotland.
Breathing problems are a major cause of sleeping difficulties. Asthma is a common culprit. Keep the bedroom well aired and change bedding frequently to remove dust mite droppings – the most common asthma trigger – and also vacuum to remove dust. If you do not have the time for those, hire a domestic cleaning London lady to help you out. Some people like to keep a window open slightly.
Take care with what you do before bed. It’s best not to eat a heavy meal within two hours of going to bed, as you can have problems with sleeping with a full meal – and indigestion is a trigger for wakefulness and nightmares. A light snack is fine, and if you have something that contains plenty of magnesium and which helps the body release the brain chemical serotonin, it will help you sleep. Bananas, a drink of milk or cheese and crackers are all good bedtime snacks – but watch out for cracker crumbs in bed. Alcohol isn’t as good as you might think – it may relax you at first, but then it acts as a stimulant later on. The quality of sleep produced by large quantities of alcohol is pretty poor.
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Computers and the internet are wonderful for children. Children can research things for homework, join fun and obscure clubs with people from around the world, play games that stretch the mind and imagination and produce great school projects that make what today’s adults did at school look like junk.
However, computers and the internet can also be dangerous for children. Children can access obscene or otherwise offensive sites containing things that children just don’t need to know about or see, they can be targeted and groomed by creeps, and they can miss out on exercise or proper face-to-face friendships while spending time sitting down in front of a screen.
So what’s to be done? How do you get the advantages of computers without any of the nasties? Here’s a few quick and easy ideas that anyone can do to make children’s computer use safer.
Limit daily “computer time” or even screen time. Half an hour of computer games done for fun, plus any time needed for homework.
Keep the computer in a high-visibility area of the house (i.e. not in the bedroom). Children (and adults) are less likely to sneak onto forbidden sites if anyone can wander past and see what’s going on. This can also make games a bit more social – spectators can cheer, commiserate and offer advice.
Search engines are wonderful but they can sometimes throw up unsuitable sites. It’s all too easy for a child to try to hunt for something innocent and get something ghastly (examples of things that little girls have run searches for with unwanted consequences include “beauty and the beast”, “rainbow fairies” “sleeping beauty” and “I love horses” – need I say more?). Some engines, such as Google, allow you to filter the sites the engine will suggest.
The policy in this writer’s household is that children have to be able to give the URL of the site they are visiting to their parents or to their London housekeeper. They should explain where they got it from – before visiting it. This avoids the potential problems of accidentally stumbling onto an unsuitable site.
Don’t allow children to give out personal information over the internet. Definitely, phone numbers and addresses should not be given, although nationality and name are OK. Whether age should be given is debateable. Remind children that not everyone on a forum or chat room is who they say they are. Having said that, the idea of using a fake name and filling out sign-up forms with daft information appeals to some children’s sense of humour. Make it a policy for children to ask for permission first before signing up to anything.
The software packages that blocks sites with certain words in the content aren’t all that good and can be a downright pain. For example, heavy-handed programs that block anything with the word “sex” will block perfectly good sites about biological research and even tourist sites about Sussex, while things blocking “rape” will block sites about canola and the use of rapeseed oil in producing biodiesel.
If you’re unsure, check the “history” of your browser to find out where people have been.
Use common sense when buying games for children to use. The ratings on the front can be helpful, but occasionally you get lunatic ratings where a “duck shooter” type program gets the same rating as a war game (it happens). To be certain, test drive any games rated higher than G yourself in private to make sure that you’re happy with what’s on it (the perfect excuse to spend the night playing Age of Empires or Midtown Madness…).
Get good antivirus and antispyware protection – it’s only too easy to pick up tracking cookies and similar, even from “nice” sites.
Talk about what’s going on online, whether you’re suspicious or not. This keeps communication lines open so if your child does stumble on something awful or have someone in a chatroom or forum send them unsettling messages, you can talk about it (and know how to deal with it).
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Candles were the main form of illumination for centuries, if not millennia. From the humble tallow-dipped rushlight to the impressive beeswax church candles, candles in all shapes and sizes lit the world until they were replaced by gas and electricity.
However, possibly because of this long history with humanity, candlelight continues to be popular and trigger an emotional response from people. While we don’t usually rely on candles for our main form of lighting (except in power cuts or if you live “off the grid” for electricity and the solar or wind power is limited and needed for other things), no home should be without candles. They are essential for lighting during crises, such as natural disasters or power cuts. And they also have a lot of style and sophistication for candlelight dinners or in a bedroom.
These days, we are spoilt for choice when it comes to candles. Beeswax still remains the most popular choice as it smells nice when burned and doesn’t have any environmental unpleasantness associated with it at all. Here, it should be mentioned that beeswax was the type used for church candles in the Middle Ages and may have a link with the image of the jolly, friendly monk: the monasteries needed a lot of beehives to keep them in beeswax, which meant that they had a lot of honey, which may well have been made into mead… Paraffin wax is much cheaper but is a by-product of fossil fuels, so may not be the most environmentally friendly choice (but still, it isn’t too bad). Candles made from animal fats (tallow and whale oil) are, thankfully, not widely available. But we can find paraffin and beeswax candles in a huge range of colours, sizes, shapes and scents. Take your pick!
Safety should come first with candles, as with everything else. A candle does involve a naked flame that burns, so always make sure that you keep a candle in a place where it can’t fall over while it is alight. This is why candle holders were invented. If you need to find a cheap candleholder in a hurry, then old bottles work well if you stick a candle down the neck as far as you can. Glass jars (right way up) also work well. Fat candles may not need holders, as their wide base in proportion to their height should prevent them toppling. This includes the little tealight or votary candles. Check what is around when placing candles about a room – don’t put a lighted candle near a curtain or underneath anything flammable. Also be careful about location if you are putting candles around a bedroom for a romantic tryst. If things get… um… vigorous, you don’t want a candle within reach where it can get knocked over and/or singe your hair. Never go to sleep with a lit candle still burning – this is a very common cause of house fires. Even the old-fashioned night-light can be a hazard unless it is properly contained so it can’t fall over and set fire. The same applies to aromatherapy burners. Never go out of the house and leave a candle burning.
Candles spill wax, so candleholders aren’t just for safety. They also catch the drips of wax so they don’t get all over the furniture, as wax is a real pain to clean off things. Sometimes even professional carpet cleaning London doesn’t help for removing wax of carpet. Long, thin, tall candlesticks can still allow drips to trickle down onto what’s below them. Stand them on a nice saucer or in a bowl to catch drips.
For something different as a centrepiece or to set the scene in a bedroom, try floating candles in a bowl of water along with flowers – either petals or whole blooms. Roses work a treat. Don’t over-fill the bowl but allow some water to be seen so it can reflect the light of the candle.
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If you have a blender, its easy to make meals or snacks that are healthy, easy and help you work towards your daily quota of fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet. Smoothies and “juicies” are real winners – kids and adults love them and they’re a great meal on the run. They are easy to be prepared and even your housekeeper London can do a smoothy for your kids in seconds.
What is the difference between a smoothie and a “juicie”? While both contain fruit and liquid, a smoothie usually contains a dairy (or soy) product and sometimes a cereal product for extra fibre, while “juicies” (which you might just call plain old “juices”) contain fruits, vegetables and water (and maybe a few other odds and ends) – in other words, it’s dairy-free.
Smoothies tend to be thicker and more substantial than a juice and can be used as a whole meal in themselves.
Why should you drink smoothies and juices? As mentioned above, they’re quick and they are a great way to increase the amount of fruit and vegetables in your diet. They are also very good if you want to manage your weight, as a smoothie or juice will fill you up and make you feel satisfied but doesn’t contain too many calories – unless you have loaded it with cream and calorie-dense foods.
Making a smoothie or juicy is easy. All you do is put in your selection of fruits, vegetables, liquid and any flavourings you like and blend until the mixture is smooth. Then drink it. Obviously, the more liquid you put in, the runnier the finished product will be. A seven-year-old could make one safely and easily.
However, some combinations work better than others. Some are absolute flops. For example, acidic fruits (e.g. kiwifruit, blackcurrants, orange, lemon, etc) should never be put in a smoothie with milk, as they will cause the milk to curdle. If you want to make a milk-based smoothie, stick to non-acidic fruits and vegetables like bananas and carrots. However, yoghurt doesn’t curdle, so if you want the calcium from a dairy product plus the nutrients in the fruits, yoghurt plus acidic fruits is a better option.
Put a bit of thought into your selection of fruit and vegetables regarding both the colour and the flavour. While it may seem that a blend of blackcurrants, kiwifruit, lemon juice and orange juice will be extremely good for you with all that vitamin C and all those antioxidants, the result of putting these and only these in together will be mouth-puckeringly sour – adding honey will help, and so will adding a blander, sweeter fruit.
For aesthetics rather than taste, it’s best to make sure that the fruits and vegetables you select are similar in colour (e.g. all reds, purples and oranges, or all greens and yellows). If you blend red fruit with green fruit, you end up with a khaki or brown colour that looks really unappetizing. White or pale fruit works with everything, and strong-coloured fruits/vegetables (e.g. blackcurrants and beetroot) dominate and drown out everything else.
Don’t forget herbs and spices as additions to your smoothies and juices. They work really well. Some, such as ginger and cinnamon, are warming and comforting, while mint (regular or peppermint) is cooling and refreshing. Salt and pepper can also be added to vegetable juices, too.
While you will probably want to experiment and find your own favourites, here are a few combinations that work well:
* Banana, vanilla, yoghurt and weetabix: a good filling smoothie that is a great way to start your day. Weetabix will stick to the sides of the blender and be hard to remove if it dries on, so rinse the blender out straight away, or else soak it to prevent a washing up nightmare.
* Kiwifruit, apple, ginger, mint and honey: very refreshing
* Apple, blackcurrants, blackberries and cinnamon: an apple and blackberry pie you can drink!
* Tomato, celery, carrots, salt and chilli/Tabasco sauce: A “virgin Mary” mocktail. Cut the celery into small pieces to prevent the strings tangling around the blades and shaft of the blender.
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Pasta is quick, easy and feeds the masses at short notice. A novice cook can learn to cook pasta to perfection without any bother, and with the wide range of shapes (fusilli, penne, farfalle, orecchiette, etc.,) and colours, it’s very easy to make a meal that’s attractive. And fussy children are often delighted with the shaped pasta, such as wagon-wheels and shells.
But pasta by itself with no sauce is bland, to say the least. Alone and sauceless, pasta tastes like congealed wallpaper glue – in fact, as glue is often made from flour and water, this is almost exactly what it is. Naked pasta sticks together in a sodden soggy lump. Pasta needs sauce!
Here are five easy pasta sauces that are no-fail favourites:
1. Spaghetti alla Puttanseca: This one needs the name explained, but it’s a bit naughty. Literally, this means “whore’s spaghetti” and was developed in the days when ladies of easy virtue went out in public (they weren’t streetwalkers) as little a possible. This meant that they couldn’t buy fresh ingredients every day like a respectable Italian housewife or housekeeping London lady would, so they had to use store-cupboard ingredients most days and shop once a week. You need salt (which goes in the water to cook the pasta), olive oil, 3 cloves garlic, 3 anchovy fillets, a tin of tomatoes, a cup of pitted black olives (but I dare say green ones will do), 4 T of capers and parsley. Start making the sauce while the pasta is cooking by heating the olive oil in a frying pan. First, fry the garlic and anchovies, then add in the tin of tomatoes, the olives and the capers. Cook for five minutes. Then pour it over the drained pasta when it’s cooked, and top with chopped parsley.
2. Devilled spaghetti. Use 6 cloves of garlic, 2 small hot chilli peppers (jalapeños), salt, olive oil, lots of Parmesan cheese and parsley. Blend the garlic and chillis, then boil the mixture in enough salted water to cook the pasta. Strain the solids out (although you could leave them in if you wanted) and cook the pasta in the garlic-and-chilli infused water. Strain, then add olive oil, Parmesan and chopped parsley.
3. Vesuvius spaghetti (or any other long pasta). You need olive oil, 2 tins of tomatoes, 1 tsp dried oregano, salt, Parmesan cheese and 7 oz mozzarella. Heat the oil in a pan, then add the tomatoes, the oregano and the salt and boil for 20 mins. Cut the mozzarella into cubes. When the pasta and the sauce are cooked, drain the pasta then add the sauce to the pasta, plus the Parmesan and mozzarella. Stir together thoroughly and let the mozzarella melt slightly. Serve in a mound so it looks like an erupting volcano with molten mozzarella/lava streaming down the sides.
4. Spaghetti Bolognese – the real thing. Most people know a basic version of this involving mince and tinned tomatoes topped with grated cheese. The real thing has the following in the mince mixture (which should contain pork and beef mince plus sausage meat): onion, carrot, celery, bacon, white wine, tomato paste, stock and double cream. Begin by lightly browning the vegetables and the bacon(not the tomato paste) in olive oil, then adding the meat and wine and letting it cook thoroughly. Then the tomato paste and the stock go in, and the cream at the last minute. The cream is optional! To serve, put the sauce in the middle of a nest of pasta topped with grated Parmesan before being stirred in.
5. Tuna sauce. Quick and easy, and if eaten with a salad, makes a complete meal. Use a 200g tin of tuna, ½ a cup of walnuts, the grated rind of 1 lemon, 1 t Worcestershire sauce, 4 t chopped parsley, 4 basil leaves, salt, pepper and olive oil. Put everything except the oil, the salt and the pepper into a blender and process until smooth. Add the oil bit by bit to make a nice, smooth paste, then add the seasoning to taste. Stir thoroughly over the cooked pasta.
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When computers and the internet began to gain public acceptance, people began to rave about the potential of having a paperless office. We wouldn’t need to buy newspapers – the internet would give us our daily updates on what’s happening everywhere in the world! We wouldn’t need to write letters – emails and faxes would do it all! We wouldn’t need to have paper documents, notes to self, diaries, etc – everything would be done on the screen! Even books would be replaced by e-books!
Fast forward to 2008 and a quick reality check. Most of us have the computers and excellent internet access, and get our emails daily, but we still have homes and offices overflowing with paper of all shapes, colours, sizes and ages. Because we still get newspapers (electronic crosswords and puzzles just aren’t the same), magazines and letters, and we often print out hard (paper) copies of documents. It’s easier on the eyes to read things on paper rather than on screen. And we have homes and offices dominated by paper clutter and you need to sort them out before your domestic cleaning London lady has visited your property.
According to British clutter expert Sue Kay, six factors contribute to the paper mountain:
1. The habit of piling all papers up in one place (usually “just for now until I deal with it”) and leaving them there.
2. Inefficient, overly complex (and off-putting) or non-existent filing systems. This doesn’t necessarily reflect an untidy mind, in spite of the “untidy desk; untidy mind” mantra. Two of the most chaotic offices I have ever seen belonged to mathematics professors – one of them (who specialised in statistics and randomness) claimed that his method of finding any misplaced documents was to shuffle the various piles of paper in his office at random, and the odds of finding what he wanted was pretty good.
3. Unopened mail. Unlike pimples, unopened and unpaid bills do not get better if you leave them alone.
4. The habit of jotting important things down on scraps of paper. This doesn’t mean shopping lists, but important phone messages, addresses and phone numbers. This habit gets worse if you then stuff these bits of paper into your pocket, wallet, handbag or on top of your desk. They get lost.
5. Magazine cuttings. The real problem here is not so much that you cut out interesting articles with useful bits of information, but that you don’t file them. However, you can go paperless here – you can probably find the same information online just as easily.
6. Keeping old magazines and newspapers. While keeping one or two marking really significant events makes sense(my grandmother kept magazines for the Queen’s coronation and a newspaper marking the first Apollo moon landing, and I don’t blame her). But don’t keep every issue. You won’t read them all, and you won’t read those old magazines again, especially if you have new ones coming through.
So grab something for recycled papers and some sort of filing system (one of those concertina boxes works well for a start, or else a set of labelled manila folders or a ringbinder and holepunch) and begin.
Obviously, you want to keep important documents, especially if you need them for tax returns or accounts. But you don’t need to keep every single old cheque book butt from the last ten years. Usually, once all the cheques have cleared and have turned up on your bank statements, you can get rid of the cheque butts. They also say you should hang onto tax returns for seven years. File these important things AND LABEL THEM.
Chuck out old newspapers, junk mail and ancient, tatty magazines. Some glossy mags can be kept if you have kids, as they’re good for collage. Into the recycling with them. DO NOT STOP TO READ THEM.
Get a small in-tray and out-tray to store letters to be answered and bills to be paid. Make sure it’s small so it gets full quickly, thus reminding you to deal with them promptly. Always open bills and do not put them off – you could end up in court or having the power cut off if you don’t pay up. Deal with it as soon as possible – that letter from the tax department might let you know you’ve got a refund.
Get a handy notebook for writing addresses, etc. If you are caught short with only an old envelope and lipstick to write the name of a potential client on (at a party, say), then make it a habit to transfer this information into your notebook as soon as possible.
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Keeping glass clean is important to the image of your home or office which is why window cleaning London services have become so popular. But what happens if the glass, on your windows or anywhere else in your home or office gets scratched? No amount of cleaning the glass will help. Glass is hard, but it does get scratched surprisingly easily. If the scratch is deep enough for your fingernail to be inserted into it, it usually means that nothing can be done about it. However, for scratches that are less deep, it may be possible to either remove or reduce them.
Removing scratches from glass requires the use of chemicals and motorized equipment, so please ensure you take all safety precautions.
You will need Jeweler’s Rouge (cerium oxide), an electric buffer with a polishing pad, household liquid ammonia, a spray bottle, rubber gloves, safety goggles, a dust mask and lint free paper towels or cloth.
* Apply a small amount of the Jeweler’s Rouge to the polishing pad- lamb’s wool pads are considered the best for this purpose.
* Put on your goggles and dust mask. Turn on the buffer and set it to not more than medium speed. Place the pad on the scratched area. While a small amount of pressure should be applied, be careful not to press too hard. The scratch may have weakened the glass and pressing too hard may cause it to crack. Hold the pad over the scratch for about a minute or so.
* If the scratch is in a spot where the buffer will not reach, you can rub the pad on the glass by hand, but be warned this is a slow and tiring process.
* Fill the spray bottle with ammonia and water in the ratio of 1 part of ammonia to 4 parts of water. Remember that even household ammonia can be dangerous and always wear gloves, goggles and the mask when working with it, even in a diluted state.
* Spray the ammonia and water solution on to the area that has been buffed and wipe it off with a lint free piece of cloth or a paper towel.
* If the scratch is still visible, repeat the process again.
* If after three attempts to remove the scratch it is still present, that means that it is too deep to remove and you should stop trying. Any further buffing of the area may weaken to glass to the point it may break later, on even a light touch.
Although removing of scratch is not part of standard window cleaning services, the agency you use should be able to tell you where you can get all the equipment you need, in case you donÕt have it.
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