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.

 

Speaking of spuds 1: road testing the Russet for chips (not fries. Le's speak Oz!)

Further to the post below about the Bridge Mall Market last Saturday, 

I want to speak about spuds.

Picture from here.

Please go to Poh's Kitchen on the link above to discover

the range of potatoes available in Australia

I purchased some Russet potatoes from a family stall - mum, dad and all the kids enthusiastically explaining the virtues of the great variety of spuds on sale.  The Russet is not on Poh's list linked above. I usually purchase an unwashed general type of potato such as the Sebago. The recommendation from the potato stall was that the Russet was excellent for chips.  So I tried them out and found them rather especially good for chips.

 I don't usually peel potatoes.

I scrub them.

Above are the scrubbed and sliced russets, ready for cooking.

The russet chips frying in virgin olive oil.

 

Here is some of the finished product.

The russet chips came up wonderfully good.

Crisp on the outside but neither too soft nor too mushie on the inside.

I highly recommend the russet.

Perhaps Poh might find some and see if she can confirm my judgment.

Buying local at Bridge Mall Ballarat

 

Click on collage and open in new tab or window for a larger view.

Yesterday I did my vege shopping at Bridge Mall in the CBD of Ballarat.

Lovely stuff.

As well as colourful stalls and kids activities,

the animal farm was there.

What did they do in Paraburdoo (it's in The Pilbara)?

Picture from here

As Cyclone Rusty bore down on Port Hedland and The Pilbara this week, reports came that residents were stocking up on alcohol as well as food.  A bit of a no-no really because if the worst befalls, it could be best to be sober and, besides, alcohol cannot be taken into the cyclone shelters.

I wonder if over there in The West they gave any thought to what they consumed in that boring time waiting for the cyclone to come and to go.

Tucker Lovers will recall that the eastern seaboard of the USA experienced Sandy in late October 2012.  A post-storm phenomenon occurred dubbed by the media as "Sandy Five".  Sandy Five is a reference to the poundage put on by New Yorkers as they chomped their way through the cyclone.

Not only did they chomp, they cooked, and they drank.  Read about that experience here.

...on the day of the storm, I obsessively followed food blogs, Twitter and Facebook where my food loving friends reported how they poured themselves into preparing elaborate meals, from boeuf wellington to home made pasta to Brasilianquindin. Even more interesting was to hear about the indulgence in alcoholic drinks, ranging from the obscure mid-nineteenth century cocktails to cheap wine, a phenomenon that was evidenced in the empty shelves at wine and liquor stores across post-Sandy Brooklyn. As the storm descended upon the city, our kitchen counter too became a non-stop food assembly line, churning out new dishes every hour or so. When the winds calmed down and left behind a devastated landscape, interrupted lives and severed power lines, many shared stories of rushing to the fast food chains to eat “fast” and “bad” foods in search of comfort.

In spite of photographs of empty shelves in Port Hedland, somehow this cookfest does not seem to me to relate as well to The Pilbara as to New York.  However, foodie Pilbarans might let me know if I am wrong and they might like to recount their culinary and alcoholic achievements for The Network.  

And, by the way, Pilbarans, what was your Cyclone Rusty weight gain or loss?

Food to fertiliser in New York? Is it happening anywhere in Oz?

Mayor Bloomberg announces compost program for Staten Island during State of the City speech

In a pilot program starting in Staten Island, homeowners will receive two sealed-top bins, a large one for curbside collection and a smaller one for their kitchens, and New York will pick up the scraps once a week, using composting to turn them into fertilizer for parks. The plan could be expanded to the rest of New York City.

Comments (12)

The way New Yorkers clean up after dinner would change forever if Mayor Bloomberg gets his way.
Instead of slopping their leftovers into the trash, homeowners will be tossing eggshells, chicken bones and other scraps into compost bins in the city’s first food recycling program, which was formally announced in Bloomberg’s State of the City address Thursday.

Starting with a pilot program on Staten Island, homeowners will receive sealed-top bins — large ones for curbside collection and smaller ones that can be kept in their kitchens — and the city will pick up the scraps once a week and use composting to turn them into fertilizer for parks, said city recycling czar Ron Gonen.
The city picked Staten Island for the pilot because it has so many single-family homes, but hopes to eventually expand the program citywide — where tiny kitchens and apartment buildings faced with sorting waste into a fourth category could be a tougher sell.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bloomberg-pushes-food-recycling-article-1.1264917#ixzz2MJUp2dY2

Read about Fresh Kills Landfill once largest landfill - as well as man-made structure - in the world!

For more about Food Waste, please go here.

Bacchus Marsh fruit & veg shopping - and the yummiest vegetable pies

Tripping back from Melbourne to Ballarat on Sunday

I did a detour through beautiful little Bacchus Marsh

and I couldn't resist pulling up at this fruit stall and doing some shopping.

 

I purchased some of Grandpa's huge tomatoes -

they originated in Macedonia just like Grandpa!

I bought lots of fruit and veges
which became a huge bowl of fruit salad and two vegetable pies.
The vegetable pies are just chocka with veges and herbs
and are absolutely scrummy!

Below is a picture of the pies - please note the retro Chef Starfire stove.
What is not clearly visible are the Flying Kangaroo motifs on the pie lids.

Inspiration for the pies in my lovely brown enamel pie dishes
came from seeing a recent River Cottage program
where Hugh made pies in enamel (blue and white) pie dishes for some mums.
Hugh's pies were not vegetarian.

Marmalade's testing time at Buninyong

Doesn't Janet look glowing?
I am sure her marmalade glows as well.
Her triumph occurred yesterday at Buninyong on the outskirts of Ballarat.
Read all about it, in The Courier - Ballarat's own daily newspaper.

And if you want to know how to make my favourite marmalade,
you will find the recipe here in my blog.