KIND + DYNAMIC WITH ETHICS = KIN'ETHICS

Welcome all! I hope you have had a nice (don't know about sunny) summer with some time off. With the coming of a new season, comes our BRAND NEW newsletter, you will hear from our new guest bloggers, hear about upcoming events, discounts and much more.

Have you ever dreamt of doing something special, something inspired but not sure who to join up with? Have you ever wanted to buy an absolutely gorgeous unique gift with a meaning behind it but not sure where to look?  Kin'ethics may be just the place for you!

KIND+ DYNAMIC WITH ETHICS =KIN'ETHICS

Our exciting vision is to have an online hangout  where businesses can introduce themselves and their fab products, even their aspirations and dreams. Where people can network with like-minded people and where you can browse eco-retailers whose ethos agrees with their yours.

You can let us know if you are looking for a particular gift or even if you need ideas for gifts. To make it even easier for you, we will be producing a categorised directory of all our retailers for you to browse through. I am soooo looking forward for this to be in full swing!

Just head over to Kin'ethics at www.facebook.com/Kinethicspage NOW!  I am sure your eyes will be opened at the number of great retailers who are giving back to their communities :)

Wishing you a great month ahead. I will leave you with this quote from Mother Theresa

 

"Spread love everywhere you go. Let noone ever come to you without leaving happier"

 

Love, Pam

x

Love at first random glance!

Recently, browsing through the net, I stumbled upon a necklace - a beautiful map of Africa in striking red acrylic with a heart carved out of the map. To say it struck a chord is an understatement! (You see, from a very young age I have had a strong love of Africa, from the rich colours and fabric to the music and people but the love is deeper than that!)  Anyway, I closed the page as it wasn't what I set out to look for and simply forgot about it...

I forgot about it for a day but then it kept coming back into my thoughts, A LOT.  I WANTED IT and as my birthday has just passed I thought it was the perfect reason to buy it! Trying to find it again proved difficult as I couldn't remember what site it was from, the designer or business. I finally found it with the help of Claire from The Girls Mean Business who prompted my memory. THANK YOU!

My most wanted object was created by Stevie K, a wonderful talented designer living in Chicago. She runs her business, tru.che, having quit her day job to pursue her "daydream" of making jewellery. She offers an array of gorgeous designs including a fab range of "country map" necklaces - CLICK HERE .  Everything means different things to different people but MY map of Africa necklace means so much to me, MUCH more than JUST a necklace!

Following my passion for Africa, Con-fused Arts stock a range of Fairtrade jewellery from Africa, to check these out, you can go to either my FaceBook page or website. 

Savour the Flavour Prt2 (Money saving tips)

So, our night of gorgeous food and chat continues!  We got to hear from a lovely lady called Karen from Love Food Hate Waste telling us about food wastage in Scotland. Did you know we throw away 566,000 tonnes of food in Scotland each year and this costs each household an average of £430 a year! The good news is there are things we can do to reduce this waste.

1) Portion size.  Love Food Hate Waste have a great spaghetti portion gadget to help you to cook the exact amount you need and not be left with loads to chuck in the bin. The same goes for other pasta and rice.

2) Love Food Hate Waste also show you how food date labels can be your friends getting the most out of your food.

3) Planning each meal for 2 weeks so when we do our food shopping, we buy ingredients for those meals and then write the meals out on a list and stick to the fridge. It's great! - it saves hubby or myself getting uninspired and lazy lulling around saying "WHAT'S FOR TEA????"

4)Checking your cupboards to see what you have in the house so that when you are in the supermarket you don't end up buying essentials that you still have in the house.

My favourite tip of the night - our chef who was cooking for us on the night only needed half a tin of Asian Kitchen coconut milk and someone suggested that she poured the rest into ice cube trays and pop them into the freezer until they were needed. BRILLIANT!

If you want to save yourself money and let's be honest you woudl be crazy NOT to want to save your money, please check out this page Love Food Hate waste at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com or www.scotland.lovefoodhatewaste.com !

Savour the Flavour

Alison E, Alison H, Janice W and I.

Last Friday evening, us ladies set off down to Stonehaven to attend the last date of the "Savour the Flavour" cooking show. It was put on by The Co-operative and in conjunction with Just Trading Scotland. What a great informative evening we had!

The cooking itself was done by Fi Bird and a cheery assistant who volunteered from the audience. Our menu was designed by Fi and a restaurant in Glasgow called Calabash.

We got to taste ALL the gorgeous food prepared in front of us. I would say the food wasn't pure "African" but more precisely a wonderful fusion of European and African ingredients and flavours demonstrating wonderful ways to use Fairtrade ingredients!

Coconut Kilombero Rice and Elmwood Chicken
Serves 6
What to find:
300g Malawi Kitchen Kilombero rice (2.5 cups)
410g Elmwood Chicken Breasts (pack)
2 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 large red onion, peeled and chopped
1 teaspoon garlic paste
3-4 pieces Lazy Ginger, rinsed and finely chopped
1 small chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped
400g can chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons coriander, chopped (plus extra to decorate)
3 peppers, mixed colours, finely chopped
½ 400ml can coconut milk (Asian Kitchen if available)
Freshly ground pepper
What to do:
1. Rinse the rice and follow the cooking directions on the packet.
2. Put the chicken breasts in a pan and just cover them with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes until the chicken juices run clear when tested with a knife. Allow to cool and cut into small slices or cubes.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a wok or large frying pan and cook the chopped onion with the garlic, ginger and chilli until the onion is soft.
4. Add the tomatoes, bring to the boil and simmer to reduce until thick. Add the chopped coriander and cook briefly. Remove the sauce from the heat and put it in a bowl.
5. Add the rest of the oil to the washed frying pan and stir fry the peppers for 2-3 minutes. Add the coconut milk. Stir well and then add the prepared tomato sauce, cooked rice and chicken.
6. Return to the hob briefly to heat thoroughly, stirring continuously. Add the extra coriander and serve immediately.

This event was in support of Scotland's bid for Fair trade Nation status!

To find out about the other wonderful recipes used that night and what else we got up to, check back for my next blog post very soon.

Soap with a conscience!

How delighted was I when I found out I had won a shopping spree with The Visionary Soap Company? That's not all I am excited about. I really want to tell you a bit about this great pioneering and thriving business. 

Visionary Soap is the UK’s leading fair trade body care company whose whole range carries the FAIRTRADE Mark. Their company has been entirely dedicated to fair trade since it was created in  2005. Their products are handcrafted in the UK and abroad using ingredients from producers in Palestine, India, Ghana, Nicaragua, The Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and South Africa. 

Visionary Soap say "When others do the bare minimum, we strive instead for the maximum. As more ingredients are certified, we are committed to incorporating them into our products, thus boosting these percentages and supporting our Fairtrade producers even more! " GREAT TO HEAR!

I promptly received my order and was delighted with all of it. The gift sets were packaged in beautiful boxes which are all recycable and compostable - BONUS POINTS FOR THEM! To find out more about Visionary Soap - click HERE

To be in with a chance of winning some of these great goodies, make sure you have "LIKED" our Facebook page to find out about offers and competitions!
                                                                                                                                    

 

Just in!

Hi,
We hope everyone is keeping well and having fun with the Jubilee Celebrations!! That may be the case if you are living in the UK or are British and living abroad but may NOT be the case in other countries, ha ha. We would love to hear what you all have been up to over the last weekend.

We are very excited to introduce this vibrant range of handmade Fairtrade grass baskets! Having one of these baskets gives YOU the chance to have a piece of AFRICA (Rwanda to be precise!) in your house. YOU can have a piece of history as someone has lovingly handmade this basket. No mass production or factories here!

Buying one of these baskets helps us help those in disadvantaged communities in Rwanda.  Its the least we can do! These baskets are exclusively being showcased on our Facebook page  to see how  we get on with them. We hope you love them as much as us! Just go to www.facebook.com/ConfusedArt to check them out and let us know if you are interested purchasing one.

Just for your interest these grass baskets are sourced through Kigali Crafts. Kigali Crafts trades fairly with Rwandan genocide survivors to help relieve this amazing countries poverty.