Meat Free Week 18-24 March: put yum in your tum with fruit and veg!

Just want to let you know that next week is Meat Free Week 

and Sustainable Table has a free booklet for download 

that will really help you out!

Hi there,

Hold on to your broccoli stems kids, next week is officially Meat Free Week, 18 - 24th March! It's a week in which we can celebrate a culinary world sans animal flesh. "Lamb chop move aside, it's MY time to shine," (said Mr Beetroot).

In all seriousness, Meat Free Week is an opportunity to think about how much we consume. In case you're wondering, we need to think about this because as a nation, we're consuming way too much. Even the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare agrees - the latest Australian Dietary Guidelines stress that we need to halve our meat consumption immediately. The amount of meat we are eating annually - 120kg per person or 190,000 tonnes nationally - is putting pressure on our environment and our farmers. Carbon, nitrogen and methane emissions, water use and ethically-questionable intensive farming practices result.

What to do and what to cook

The good news is that contributing to a brighter future for our environment, animals and farmers isn't that hard. It simply involves eating less meat (purchased from small, local and ethical farmers) and more vegetables and stuff. By stuff we mean highly nutritious yet super cheap protein sources like beans, lentils, quinoa and other seeds and grains. 

To help you prepare and enjoy Meat Free Week, we have developed  absurdly useful FREE recipe booklet that we've designed to cover ALL your meals anfor the week. That's 21 meat free recipes at your fingertips - 7 breakfasts, 7 lunches and 7 dinners. It's a trifecta! The booklet also includes a handy shopping list. 

Share your photos & win

Of course we have a competition! Share your photos of the meat free recipes you cook from our booklet and be in with a chance to win a copy of our award-winning book The Sustainable Table, valued at $40.  Here's what you need to know:

Take snaps of your pretty meat free dishes and share with us either on Facebook or Twitter. Be sure to tag us on Facebook using @TheSustainableTable or on Twitter using @SustainTable. At the end of the week we'll select the top 3 prettiest pics and draw a winner! Entries close COB 10pm Sunday 24th March 2013 EST.

You can fundraise for Voiceless too

Get your friends, family and workmates to sponsor you for the week and the money will go towards supporting the work of Voiceless. 

If you're vegetarian or vegan

You can still get involved by encouraging others around you to take up the challenge of a meat free week. Here's a few ideas.

For more information and 

to download your FREE copy of A Meat Free Week, 

visit our website here.

 

Vintage Baking Skills, Vintage Cookbooks and Barbara Russell at Kallista Community House

 Picture from here

The season is creeping up on us again.  Advent Sunday is almost here.  This is when the excitement starts. At church, the Advent wreath comes out and with it the first candle...and each Sunday a candle is lit for four Sundays and then....

But before then the cooks and the crafty ones are about their business. Barbara Russell will be at Kallista Community House in the Dandenong Ranges just east of Melbourne on 27 November to impart wonderful Vintage Baking Skills.

For those who aren't familiar with Barbara, you may recall that I posted recently about the wonderful Vintage Cookbooks.  Barbara is the person responsible for those shelves of cookbooks of yesteryear, so who better to impart the traditions of Christmases past to those who want to enhance their Christmas celebrations. Enrol now and starting putting on your apron!

Vintage Cookbooks and Miss Schauer

I have recently discovered the wonderful Vintage Cookbooks at Kallista in the Dandenong Ranges just east of Melbourne.  Now, Vintage Cookbooks are open only three days a week - so you can't always take advantage of those bookshelves jam-packed with cookery treasures.  However, you can shop at their site on line any time you like.  Books have pictures and extensive descriptions.  However, remember that you are entering the world of collectibles and items are priced accordingly.

The standard of the treasure impressed me because - guess what? - they have an old, old, copy of Miss Schauer's Cookery Book looking nothing like the photograph on this blog. 

 

Click to enlarge