Reducing our food waste

There are some shocking stats being quoted again around food waste. Every year in the UK around 7 million tonnes of food end up in landfill, with about 5 million tonnes of that food still being edible. That’s roughly £8 billion worth of food! (ref)


2.3 billion people are joining the planet by 2050 - which will require a 60% to 70% increase in global food production, or we could just stop throwing food away. (ref)


Growing your own food is a great to start to saving money spent on buying food, but we’ll need to learn new ways of managing when and how we harvest and use our food, to ensure that we don’t add to the mountain of food waste that we generate as a nation.


At Acqua Tower we will be teaming up with nutritionists, chefs and you, our Acqua Tower community, to share recipes, harvesting ideas and storage ideas that will help us all make the most of our crops and add to the enjoyment of growing your own. 

Bumper Basil Harvest Expected

It is early days in the growing season but we’re already excited by how quickly our basil is growing in our Eco Tower 1’s.  And we're already looking forward to making our first home grown pot of pesto for the year. 


Below is our tried and tested recipe for using and storing lots of basil. Give it a go. And share your pesto recipes with us on Facebook or Instagram. We'd love to hear from you.

Pesto Recipe

Ingredients:
125g/4½oz toasted pine nuts (these only take a minute or two to toast in a dry frying pan) 
125g/4½oz parmesan cheese (or a similar vegetarian hard cheese), cut into small chunks 
1 large bunch fresh basil leaves 
1 clove garlic, crushed with the flat side of a knife
200ml/7fl oz extra virgin olive oil 
Salt and freshly ground black pepper 
Squeeze lemon juice

How to make it: 

Put the basil, parmesan, garlic and pine nuts into a food processor and season well. 

Whiz together and with the motor still running, pour the oil in until the pesto thickens. 

Taste and a squeeze of lemon juice if you like, we do! 

Store in a clean jar in the fridge covered with a slick of oil to prevent it drying out. Or you can put it into ice-cube trays and freeze.

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