So after the chicken killing on Friday night, we spent Saturday playing with pig guts. It was an unusual weekend.

We were playing with hog parts because we were on a sausage making course at Old Sleningford Farm in North Yorkshire. It was a very interesting and fun course in a lovely location – I’d heartily recommend it to any sausage fans or just people wanting to try a new skill. Rachel & Martin, who run the course, are lovely – keeping us delightfully fed and watered the whole time we were mincing meat then squishing it into “casings”.

Rachel & Martin recently moved to using “ready spooled” casings for their sausages – they cost a little more but save a whole lot of time because they come “spooled” on narrow plastic tubes rather than in loose hanks (imagine how knotted hanks of yarn can get, how awkward it is to unravel them sometimes; now imagine that with pig guts instead of yarn). At one point during our group making 25kg of sausages, there were a number of the spools on the table – and Martin wondered aloud how they could be reused or recycled. Like a pork spattered recycling superhero, I suggested that I might know a friendly internet community who could come up with some ideas… :)

They’re about 30cm (1ft) and the hog casing ones are just over 1cm (half an inch) in diameter. I realise, like with chicken feathers, these aren’t something everyone will have to reuse/recycle – but any suggestions?

I guess suggestions of particularly relevance to small scale sausage producers/smallholders/foodies would be best as they’re the ones most likely to have the tubes in the first place.

We’ve had an email from Rowena asking about reuses for foam egg boxes:

I’ve seen all the ideas for paper egg boxes but I get plastic ones sometimes. I can’t even compost them!! What can I do?

The first suggestion I have is possibly a little unhelpful but “reduce” – don’t get the plastic ones any more. As I said, that’s probably a little unhelpful because I’m guessing that you wouldn’t get them if you had a choice but still, it’s always worth reducing if you can.

One advantage foam boxes have over cardboard ones is that they’re not so easily damaged when they get wet so they’re better for certain reuses – I remember using them as colour palette while painting as a kid. They can also be reused many times for their intended purpose – offer them to chicken-owning friends or take them with you to use when you buy eggs from somewhere that sells them loose (such as certain farmers’ market stalls or markets in general).

Any other suggestions specifically for foam ones?

Krystyna left a comment on the Suggestions page asking:

I’ve just had my first veg box delivery and was wondering if anyone had good re-use suggestions for the wooden veg boxes…?

First off, reduce – you should probably check with your veg box company to see if they have a scheme to take them back and reuse them as veg boxes. They might be able to collect old ones when they drop off new ones.

If that’s not possible, cute vintage apple boxes sell for a mint on eBay so if they’re nice, one idea might be to keep hold of them for 50 years then put them on eBay in 2060 ;)

More practically, my dad used to use those sort of boxes in the garden – as trays for holding pots of plants and for storage – and they’re great as veg storage boxes too funnily enough – people who grow their own root veg will probably be particularly interested in them (offer them on Freecycle/Freegle if you don’t grow yourself).

They’d be perfect for storage in general around the house – if they’re like the ones I’ve seen, the wood might be a little cheap/rough for fine/snaggable items but sanding & painting might take care of that.

And if all else fails, they’d make great kindling for anyone with an open fire/stove (assuming they’ve not been treated with anything to protect the wood).

Any other suggestions?

I randomly bought a cauliflower on Saturday – not something we eat that often because John has overboiled nightmares from childhood – and as I was stripping off the many, many leaves into the compost bin, I wondered if there were any other options for the leaves other than just letting them rot.

The first idea thing that came to mind – as happens a lot – is that when we FINALLY get chickens, they’ll like the green snack. (It’s been a year since we decided to get chickens, a year since I went on a course to learn all about keeping them but circumstances have conspired against us so far – we should have them soon though. A very frustrating wait!)

The next thing I wondered was if the leaves are edible – well, not just edible but enjoyable edible – by humans — and apparently they are. I found suggestions to use them instead of cabbage in bubble & squeak type dishes, a recipe for soup, and (my personal favourite) recipes for putting them in pakoras or bhajis. As an absolute minimum, I should be adding them to my stock box in the freezer instead of putting them in the compost. It’s brocolli stalks all over again – a versatile vegetable that we silly wasteful people throw away because we don’t know any better.

What do you do with your cauliflower leaves?

I hope everyone had a great Easter weekend – we don’t celebrate Easter but we do celebrate long weekends so had a great few days off ;)

On Sunday, we went to the Leeds Farmers Market (held on the 1st & 3rd Sundays of each month in the outside market bit) and amongst the other yummables, I got some dressed crabs one of the Whitby fish guys – mmm, meat in served its own carcass (or at least, the carcass of its prettiest unlucky fellow species-mate).

They’ve already been reused once already as a kooky serving dish but any ideas for reuses or recycling ideas now? I suspect there will be some overlap with mussel shells – and like with those, there will be different answers for people who only have them occasionally (like me) and people who have a lot to get rid of regularly (like restaurants).

So any suggestions?

(Photo by david.nikonvscanon)