NEVER. AGAIN.

[juliet]

OK, so, after asking about pans to cook up Finlayfood in, I thought "come on, get over yourself, the pressure cooker has had meat cooked in it before" (it used to belong to my parents).

So I defrosted the bones[0], gave one raw to Fin, and chucked the rest in the pan to stew for 3 hrs.

Turns out that whilst I can handle Finlay tackling a nice raw bone whilst lying on the (linoleum, washable) floor next to me, I cannot really handle 3 HOURS of SMELLY HORRIBLE bones stewing on the stove. Ew ew ew ew. I am starting to feel a little unwell. Plus then you have to dispose of them (hopefully in Marna's bokashi compost) whereas if you just give him them raw, then he disposes of them in his stomach. WHICH IS MUCH TIDIER, being as how it is *inside* of Finlay & thus pleasingly invisible.

(It was a smallish bone this time, but still. Crunch crunch crunch industriously for half an hr, then CRUNCH CRUNCH and a funny gulping sound, and no more bone. I was kind of impressed.)

So. This time, I have a big pan of rice, lentils, carrot, & marrow (well, we weren't going to eat the damn marrow) in bone stock. Next time, he can have the bones neat, and the rice & lentils will be veggie.

ew ew ew ew ew. there are still bones in the sink, cooling off. EW.

[0] free from the traceable-meat organic butcher at Borough Market.

Comments

[juliet]

For making Finlay-food! After 3 hrs I fished the bones out, put in rice, lentils, & a couple of diced carrots & a marrow cut into chunks, & cooked it all up for another 45 min or so. I now have 5 x Finlay-sized dinners in boxes in the freezer. (Another time I can use veggie stock & thus a bigger pan & make a week's worth.) He likes this much more than kibble.

Bokashi compost - basically it uses micro-organisms of some variety to pickle the waste & turn it into compost faster. You can put cooked food, meat, & dairy in as well as the standard compost-type stuff, & it doesn't smell/attract flies so can happen inside.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Wow, awesome, I didn't know about bokashi! Very interesting, thank you. I wonder - and perhaps M would know? - would the bokashi composting system work for otherwise uncompostable veg, like onions, chilis, citrus, etc?

Sorry, I misunderstood how the F-food was being made. Sounds like a really good way of using up leftovers and reducing waste, if you ask me. Does he like lentils then?

[juliet]

Onions & citrus are compostable! Just not good for worms & not good in large quantities. (We put them in the allotment compost with no bother.) Bokashi copes with everything AFAIK.

Finlay + lentils = Finlay + gromph gromph noises :)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Oh right. I avoid putting them in my compost cos I've read advice about not doing so, they mess up the ph balance, etc. That said, I only have a dalek bin, and I don't think it's composting very well even without such things :-(

Thanks for the advice, as always.