How To Save Petrol

I'M on a completely different tack this week. I have left the soggy tomatoes and wilting lettuce behind and have turned my attention to saving petrol.
There are several things motorists can do to cut fuel consumption, which not only saves money but helps save the environment too.
Here are the top tips. If you have any more, leave a comment and I’ll include them in my next blog.

Slow down: There’s no need to drive about as if you’re Lewis Hamilton on speed. That doesn’t mean you have to drive so slowly that elderly people on bicycles overtake you. If you cut your speed from a modest 70mph to 60 mph you will cut your petrol consumption by about 15 per cent. If you cut it from 70mph to 50mph, you will cut it by 38 per cent.

Drive smoothly: Accelerating and decelerating uses a lot of fuel. The smoother you drive, the less fuel you will use. Gently decelerate when approaching a junction, for example. Don’t pull away from traffic lights as if you’re life depended on you getting from 0 to 60 in five seconds. Don’t sit impatiently in a queue of traffic, revving the engine like some hormone-infused adoloscent who’s just passed his test. As well pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, you are using up fuel. Drive more like your maiden aunt than your boy-racer brother.

Watch your rev counter: Engines run most economically at revs between 1,500 and 2,500 so try to keep between these two figures unless more power is required. To maintain low revs while driving you should change gear as soon as is practical. So no crunching through the gears from fourth to second without passing third, throwing up exhaust fumes like a smoke screen in a magic show. The only thing that will disappear is your petrol – and your money.

Get pumped up: Keeping your tyres inflated at the correct pressure is one way of instantly improving your fuel consumption. Under-inflated tyres increase resistance, causing cars to use more fuel. If your tyres are under inflated by 20% this will result in a 3% fuel consumption increase and reduce the tyre life by 30%. Bald tyres also harm fuel economy – not to mention being illegal and dangerous. Still, if you’re in a hospital bed you won’t be driving about.

Get warmed up: A cold engine uses twice as much fuel as a warm engine. A catalytic converter takes six miles to become effective. To save petrol, you have two choices, either drive ultra carefully for the first few miles or – if it’s just a short journey – walk.

Shut up and turn off: If you are driving fast, keep your windows shut. Windows open when driving over 50mph cause significant drag, which increases fuel consumption. If it’s too hot, turn the heating to its coldest setting and turn the fans on. Bear in mind that air-conditioning increases petrol consumption up to 10%. If you feel you must use it, then turn it on in short bursts.

Unload: Every 50kg extra weight in your car will increase petrol consumption by 2%. You can, if you like, use it as a good excuse not to take the in-laws out for the day. It may be more practical, and cause fewer arguments, to remove the roof rack when you’re not using it and to unload the boot of all those items you think you can’t live without, like golf clubs or every map of Britain you have ever owned.

Check your oil: Clean oil reduces the wear caused by friction of moving engine parts and so helps fuel consumption. On a petrol car you should change the oil once a year or every 7,500 miles. For a diesel engine it is recommended you change the oil every 6 months or 3,000 miles.

Service with a smile: Regular servicing will also help to keep your car running as efficiently as possible and so save fuel.

Check your tyres: Make sure your wheels are correctly aligned. If your tyres are wearing unevenly, the alignment is almost certainly out. Improper alignment affects the handling of your car and increases fuel consumption.

Plan ahead: You can reduce car journeys if you are more organised. For example, do your shopping on the way to visit a friend rather than make two separate journeys. Try to get out of the habit of popping to the shops in the car when you need something. Surely you can do without that packet of chocolate digestives until it’s time for the weekly/monthly shop. Get a wartime mentality – “Is my journey really necessary?”

Do you have to drive there? You can walk short distances, or hop on a bus, or cadge a lift from a neighbour. You don’t have to get the car out for every single journey. You can park further away from work and walk. You can car-share. Here in Devon the county council organises a car share scheme. Click here for more details. I’m sure other counties do something similar.

Compare petrol prices: There is sometimes quite a bit of difference between petrol prices. Take a note as you drive around. It’s obviously madness driving five miles out of your way to get cheaper petrol but if it’s on, or just off, your regular route it can save you money. For example, if you can save say 2.3p a litre by visiting a petrol station two miles away, you can save 92p every time you fill up a 40 litre tank. If you fill up twice a month, this is equal to £1.84, or £22.08 a year. May not seem a lot, but it’s a few bottles of red wine if, like me, you tend to buy them from supermarkets.

Penny-pinching: I’m down to the penny-pinching now with a few tips to save you a groat or two. The best time to buy fuel is early morning or late evening when it is coolest. Petrol becomes denser in colder temperatures and as pumps measure the volume of fuel that you pump and not the actual density, you get more for your money. (Warning: this will work for the majority of garages but some may store petrol in a different way). Always give the nozzle a good shake and elevate the hose to squeeze out every last drop of petrol.

Down-size: Do you really need such a big gas-guzzler? Have you checked out the miles per gallon of similar cars? Do your homework and you can save money.

A final comment from the late, great Tommy Cooper: "You know, somebody actually complimented me on my driving today. They left a little note on the windscreen, it said 'Parking Fine'."

How To Use Up Leftovers

I AM proud to say that nearly all the veg that was languishing in the salad drawer of the fridge was this week used up. Not only did I buy more sensibly (see previous blog) but I also made a real effort to use up leftovers.

I’m indebted to Sandra, from Ilfracombe, who left a recipe for Bubble and Squeak (pictured) in the comment section. See bottom of the page for the recipe. I tried this on Monday evening using boiled potatoes, broccoli, carrots, peas and chopped fresh herbs. I even included that wilted half an onion she mentioned and I found a square of hard cheddar cheese which I grated into it. It was delicious.

I’ve started to look at food in a different way. I try not to have leftovers – with a little bit of imagination and ingenuity, they are the basis of another dish. No doubt, I will have some culinary disasters along the way (no change there then, my partner might say!) but by trial and error I’m aiming to slash my food bill.

Here are a few more tips:

Don’t throw away that chicken carcase. Break it up into pieces and boil it in water to make a stock. Strain and use as a base for soup using any leftover veg you have. Here’s a very basic recipe: three-quarters fill a medium saucepan with finely chopped veg. Use anything you have in the house, from potatoes and parsnips to cauliflower and carrots. If you haven’t got enough veg, open a tin of something – tomatoes, red kidney beans or peas, for example. Pour on the stock to cover. Stock made from a cube is fine you haven’t any home-made or other type of stock. Simmer for half an hour. Blitz up the veg to make a nice substantial soup. Add more stock if it’s looking too thick.

My sister told me that lettuce makes a great soup. I was dubious but had a go and it was lovely. If you’re a gardener, it’s an ideal way of using up lettuce that has bolted. Add mint or peas (tinned, fresh or frozen) if you want.


Other tips for leftovers:


(Refrigerate leftovers promptly and use within two or three days or freeze. Never re-freeze uncooked food, although you can freeze it again once it’s been cooked).

Dice leftover meat like roast beef, pork or turkey and use it in a casserole.


Leftover bread can be used to make bread pudding.

Bread can also be used to make croutons. Cut the bread into cubes. Toss with melted butter, seasoned salt and whatever other seasonings you like. Bake in a hot oven till the cubes are golden brown. Use these croutons to top salads or casseroles.

Cheese looking like it has seen better days? Grate it up and use it as a topping for all kinds of dishes, from tuna casserole to vegetable bake. Use it for a lasagne or any other dish that requires cheese sauce. Grate it, add a splash Worcestershire sauce; pile it onto bread (doesn’t matter if it’s getting a bit stale) and grill it for a delicious Welsh Rarebit.

Buy a very cheap pizza and liven it up with extra tomato, grated cheese, leftover ham, sausage or pepperoni. Even better, make your own base.

Leftover onions or peppers can be chopped, sealed in bags and frozen. It's economical and time-saving. Next time a recipe calls for chopped onions, just get them out of the freezer.

Leftover puff pastry? Roll in cheese and make into cheese straws.

Leftover yogurt? Try adding it to Indian dishes. Apricot yogurt goes well in chicken korma, for example. They can also be added to a marinade. Experiment. Try cherry yogurt in a marinade for duck, for example.

Tomatoes going soft? Use them up in a pasta sauce.

If you have any tips or recipes, leave a comment.
Here, as promised is Sandra's recipe.


Sandra’s Bubble and Squeak
A bubble and squeak type dish is one of my favourite ways of using up quite a few of those left over bits and pieces lying in the fridge and my kids love it. Use left over mash potato or mash up some cold boiled spuds. I have even mixed in some mashed up cold roast potatoes but if you do this, blot them first to get rid of as much oil as you can. Finely chop any leftover cooked veg you have – cabbage is traditional but I use anything I have left from Sunday lunch, like carrots, parsnips, cauliflower, broccoli or peas. I quite often have half a wilting onion lying in the bottom of the salad drawer so I finely chop that and cook it. In fact, you can use any odds of ends of raw veg as long as you finely chop or grate it and cook it first. It doesn’t matter if the veg has seen better days, it will all plump up in the cooking. You can also throw in any finely chopped cooked meat or cooked fish you have or you could fry off some bacon to go with it. If you have any dried cheese, grate it up and mix it in. I never worry about the proportions – sometimes it’s very veggie and sometimes very potatoey; sometimes very cheesy and sometimes with no cheese at all!! Form it into separate patties or one big round “cake” and fry in a little oil. With the addition of a poached egg and a nice salad or more veg, it makes a lovely Monday night meal.

How To Save £1,500 A Year

ONE-THIRD of all food bought in the UK ends up being thrown away. So if you spend £90 a week on food for your family, that’s £30 you are throwing in the bin… or £1,500 a year… or the price of new small car in four years.
When I heard that statistic my first reaction was to start making a list of all the things I could do with an extra £1,500 year, from the sensible, like paying off part of the mortgage, to the frivolous. Think how many pairs of shoes I could buy with £1,500 or, even better, how many bottles of red wine.
My second reaction was horror. Surely, I don’t throw away that much food. But then I took a look in my fridge and saw there were several things in there we were never going to eat – half a limp lettuce, soft and wrinkled carrots and peppers, some prawns in a Tupperware box, a chicken carcase with meat left on it and quarter of a jar of pasta sauce – all destined for the bin. In the fruit bowl were a couple of wrinkled apples and a dried up orange.

Another statistic: If we stopped wasting food it would have the same effect on carbon emissions as taking one in five cars off the road in the UK - because all that food has been treated, packaged and transported.

I have now taken a long, hard look at my shopping habits and I’m ashamed to say that I’m totally disorganised. I rush around the supermarket in my lunch hour, grabbing whatever takes my fancy, snapping up the Buy One Get One Free or Three for the Price of Two bargains and throwing fruit and veg in the trolley as if we were on the verge of a famine.

Another statistic: 40% (by weight) of the food thrown away is fruit and vegetables, which means we are either buying far too much to begin with and/or we are not storing it properly. In the UK we throw away 179,000 tonnes of apples every year.

I don’t know about you but I like to keep several pieces of fruit in a bowl in the kitchen. But I have now discovered that you shouldn’t store apples at room temperature. It’s far better to keep them in the fridge in a loosely tied plastic bag. This will help stop them shriveling up. You can take them out and put them in the fruit bowl to bring them to room temperature prior to eating.
My discovery about apples led me to do some more research and come up with some tips for storing fruit and veg so you don’t have to throw so much away.

Carrots should be kept in the fridge in a closed plastic bag with air perforations or peeled and submerged in water.
Putting tomatoes in the fridge makes the inside watery and shortens their shelf life. Keep them in a cool, dark place.
All leafy greens have high water content so they wilt easily. To ensure they stay fresh as long as possible, wash and dry them thoroughly. Rip the leaves into bite-sized pieces and put them in the fridge in a sealed plastic container with a tea towel or some paper towel to absorb excess moisture.
Broccoli will keep for up to a couple of weeks if you store it like a bouquet of flowers in the fridge. Cut about an inch off the stem right away and plunk it down in container filled with water - only submerging the stem. Change the water every couple of days and if the base of the stem seems a little slimy, just give it a new cut. Broccoli can also be kept in a plastic bag.
Store your potatoes in a cool, dark place. If you leave them exposed to light, they will turn a greenish colour. This greenish colour is called selenium and is toxic. Do not refrigerate, instead store in a cool, dark place with good air circulation. Potatoes can stay for a week or two at room temperature with good results.
Onions should be kept just below room temperature in a very dry place. Yellow and white onions tend to have a longer storage life than red onions. Never put onions in plastic bags. You can cut off a leg of an old pair of tights, put your onions in there and hang them in the garden shed.
Mushrooms should be kept in paper bags in the refrigerator. Plastic bags cause them to go mushy.
When storing celery, wrap it in aluminum foil and place in the refrigerator. It will keep for weeks.
Store cauliflower in a plastic bag in the refrigerator with the stem portion down.
Trim asparagus (I know they’re not the cheapest vegetable, but someone may give you some!) and stand upright in one inch of water.
Bananas should be kept separately from other fruit as they make surrounding fruit ripen faster and possibly spoil. However, if you need to ripen fruit such as hard peaches, store them with bananas. They are best at room temperature and shouldn’t be kept in the fridge.

Warning: Do not put ripe fruits together with vegetables in the salad compartment. Many ripe fruits produce ethylene gas, which causes yellowing of green vegetables, brown patches on lettuce, toughening of asparagus and a bitter taste in carrots.
Here are a few general tips to cut wastage.

• Line the bottom of the salad drawer in the fridge with newspaper or paper towels to help keep vegetables fresh for longer.


• Always look at the “best before” date on produce. A lot of food is wasted because it goes off before we have time to eat it.


• When shopping, take items from the back of the shelf; they often have a longer expiry date. On the other hand some food items may be on special offer because the expiry date is soon. As long as you are eating it soon, it can be another way to save money.
  

I’m sure many of you will have your own tips for storing food and avoiding waste. If you do, I’d love to hear them. Just leave a comment on this blog.
In my next blog I will look at some ideas for using up left-overs. If you have any good recipes or tips, let me know.

Final statistic: 6.7 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year.

When so many people in the world are starving, this is obscene.