Poppiin

Fendi's accessories mash up perfection.

Composting, improving the earth’s humus and using every bit of the food that we don’t eat to its full biodegradable potential has become Poppiin’s mission of late. 

Diverting suitable food waste from your household bin into compost is one of the easiest sustainable actions you can take every day.  Not only will you be helping to reduce the amount of methane gassing up our atmosphere, you’ll also be doing your bit to improve the soil of our earth.  Compost can actually clean contaminated soil by binding heavy metals so making them absorbable by plants and preventing them from entering waterways.  

Confused about how to get your compost on? Here are some of our tips…

What food you can compost:

-Vegetable and food scraps

-Tea leaves and tea bags

-Coffee grounds

-Soft stems

-Dead flowers

-Used vegetable cooking oil

-Egg shells

What food you shouldn’t compost:

-Meat and dairy products

-Diseased produce

-Fat

-Bones

Visit your local council’s website for more information on composting options in your area.

Short on space? For apartment dwellers there are Bokashi bins; these bins are small enough to fit underneath your sink and ferments your kitchen waste using special microbes making it perfect to mix straight into soil.  Now you just need to find a lucky green thumb to gift your Bokashi goodness to!

Poppiin has decided once and for all to do away with the salt laden and meh stock options at the supermarket and make our own. Herewith our own stock recipe...

Ingredients

3 x Celery stalks - medium diced

4 x Carrots - medium diced

2 x Onions - medium diced

5 x Thyme sprigs

1 x Parsley bunch - chopped coarsely (you can use stalks and all)

4 x Bay leaves

1 x Teaspoon of whole peppercorns - we put these into a tea-strainer so that we don't have to spend time fishing these out if we want to add the stock vegetables into another meal...winning at no food waste!

How to make

Pop all ingredients into a large pot.

Add water to fill the pot

Bring to a boil and then simmer for an hour

Strain the stock to separate the solids and liquids.

The stock will keep for 2-4 days in the fridge and is perfect for freezing.

No food waste tips

1. Start a freezer 'Stock Box.'  Save your onion ends, vegetable peelings and if you are a carnivore your chicken bones (either from a previous meal or fresh) and boil up into a stock brew once your stock box is full.

Chocolate covered mushrooms served on moss dessert perfection...sigh.

Poppiin wishes they were lucky enough to dine at Noma Japan.

What a nicey way to start the weekend with trip to Eveleigh Markets!  Here you will find the freshest of seasonal farmer and food artisan produce all neatly assembled at Carriageworks.  We got over-excited about organic garlic - stockpiling enough for the year, a beautiful bunch of greenery we just had to take home and all the vegetables our basket could hold. 

  Note: Eveleigh Markets is open every Saturday from 8am to 1pm and is pooch on a leash friendly.

On our journey to limit our waste, this little saying has become something of a mantra to Poppiin of late. Finding re-uses for jars, bottles, zip lock ingredient bags, styrofoam produce trays and paper coffee cups has become a personal challenge to see how many ways these packaging materials can be repurposed rather than re-cycled or (shudder) thrown out.

  So herewith a list of our re-use tips for the myriad of waste packaging encounters in daily life...

  Takeaway coffee cups. Fan of the odd long black Poppiin saves the second outer clean coffee cup and squirrels it away to re-use for their next coffee.

  Egg Cartons. We stash these and either donate to Alfalfa House for their customers to use or we take them back to our egg farmer at our farmers markets.

  Jars. We love jars! Possibly the easiest material to re-use: store food, use as a vase, tea-light holder, water bottle, donate to your local food co-op.

  Zip lock bags. Both the store bought and the ones that come containing dry ingredients can be re-used. Simply wash the inside and out air dry and use again!

  Styrofoam produce trays. When we can’t make it to the farmers market these seem to multiply in our kitchen. We save these up till we have a nice little bundle and drop them off at our local pre-school for their craft and painting days.

Sunday morning rose.

We love this place. We're relatively new to discovering its wonders but now that we have, everything we have been thinking inside our Poppiin minds can be found on the outside in this store! At 113 Enmore Rd, Enmore, you will find Alfalfa House, the most happening community food co-op around!

If you're new to the idea of a food co-op, according to Alfalfa House, it is a "not-for-profit cooperative that aims to provide, where possible, minimally packaged and minimally processed, affordable, wholesome, organic food to its members." More on their website here.

Poppiin's little heart fluttered at all the goodness, the wholesomeness, the deliciousness! And the jars! Everything in jars, with labels and no packaging! Sigh...

Here's what to expect if you've never been to a food co-op, or are planning to visit one soon:

- You walk in. You see wholesome, organic food. Everywhere. Win!

- Wash your mitts. It is a general rule to wash your hands before you begin shopping. Just so we don't share our germs all over the biodynamic broccoli.

- Get your jars ready. It's a cool thing to bring your own jars to Alfalfa House and you can weigh them on a scale and write the grams down on the side to be deducted at the till. Didn't bring any jars? That's ok! There are free donated clean used jars provided, or fresh new ones for sale in store. 

Our Alfalfa House stash! We got a little excited a decorated our jars for our Alfalfa visit. Makes food look like little gifts everytime we open the pantry door!

- Shop! Now you've got your little glasses sorted and weighed, it's time to fill them! Pantry goods can be found in dispenser bins or large labelled jars. Individual scoops are to be used once and then dropped in the 'dirty scoop bin' under the sink to prevent cross contamination. If you can't find what you are looking for, just ask. There is quite a large variety of stock, or a very good reason why it isn't there.

- Got everything? Then it's time to head to the till. Generally the shop coordinator will ask if you have a member's number. It's ok if you don't, but members do get 10% off their groceries (membership costs $20 and all people in your household can be covered by the one membership number: score!). Volunteers get a 25% discount. More on volunteering here.

It's a little different shopping at a food co op. Slower. Nicer. There are no loud beeps of scanners whizzing by or loud PA price checks overhead. Just friendly chatter. And nice music playing rather than a commercial repetitive jingle.