I was amused to watch a recent Masterchef episode recently where contestants were given a mystery box of vegetarian ingredients including lentils. Contestants failed to exert themselves beyond the traditional Dhal and Lentil soup. Don’t get me wrong, Dhal is a cheap easy, tasty dish to prepare but hardly a challenge!

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In our garden we have an over abundance of zucchinis growing! They’re easy to grow and great for swapping, baking and making into soups and fritters. Here’s one of my favourite ways of using them:

Ingredients

Preparation method

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
2. In a medium bowl, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Stir in the egg and vanilla, mix well, then stir in the grated zucchini. Sift together the flour, baking soda and cinnamon, stir into the zucchini mixture. Finally, stir in the oats, muesli and chocolate chips.
3. Drop dough from a teaspoon onto an ungreased baking sheet. Leave about 5cm between biscuits. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes in the preheated oven

Recipe sourced from All Recipes with changes by Cate

Last night we had our first vegan dinner party! It was great fun. Four keen friends joined us to enjoy an entirely vegan meal.

On the menu was:

Entree:

-Moroccan spiced Olives

-Semi Dried Tomatoes

-Turkish Bread

-Hummus Dip

-Beetroot Dip

Main:

-Dahl

-Garden salad (from our garden) with avocado and tomato

-Falafels

-Quinoa Tabouli

-Broad beans

-Oven desiree and sweet roast potatoes with nutritional yeast and cajun spices

Dessert: Chocolate Beetroot cake with soy icecream.

We drunk cider, Chris’ homebrew beer and some local wines including a lovely cherry wine. Great fun, can’t wait to do another one!

I’ve decided to participate in Animal Liberation Victoria’s 30 Day Vegan Challenge. From November 1, I shall be animal product free for 30 days (and maybe more)!. That’s no cheese, no milk in my morning tea, no free range chicken…

A bit about why I’m doing this:

Reduce my carbon footprint

I doubt there’s many people out there who need convincing of the environmental impacts of meat consumption, but for an easy read this article is very informative.

Health

Like many Australians, I am overweight. Obese actually.That said, I don’t believe that veganisms is the path to all things thin (you can read my take on PETA’s “Lose the Blubber, Go Vegetarian” here).

I think cutting out some of the higher fat foods like cheese and meats is a good way towards good health in general, with the added advantage of assisting weight loss. I have a significantly under-active thyroid which I receive treatment for and anything which boosts my energy is a definite plus!

I also believe veganism is a great way to deliberately eat lots of fresh whole foods, without too much processing. Of course there are loads of heavily processed mock meats and the like with all kinds of number additives, but these aren’t really my thing. I’m intending to eat lots of wholegrains, pulses and fruit and veggies.

I like to know what I’m eating

I’ve read a few books on prion diseases such as CJD and I think it’s really scary how poorly the meat industry is regulated. I would like to eat food that not full of hormones, antibiotics the like.

Animal Cruelty

Goes without saying really.

I start on November 1st. I’ve been making lists of recipes and stocking the pantry. Every day or so I’ll be telling you how I’m going, what the challenges are, what I’m cooking and eating (recipes included)! Tomorrow I’ll show you some of the foods I’ll be eating ….

From Lamby Loves Cake

She writes: After making up my own batch of washing powder (thanks to greenrenters.org) to save on dollars at the supermarket, I turned my attention to delicious but pricey Carmans muesli bars we love so much.

This recipe makes the equivalent of two boxes for the price of one – the only thing tricky about this is spelling muesli!!!

Get:

1. Five cups of your favourite cereal – I use organic oat, fruit and nut breakfast mix
2. Half a cup of butter
3. Half a cup of honey
4. One third of a cup of brown sugar
5. One teaspoon of Arabic all spice or cinnamon
6. One teaspoon of vanilla extract

(We make own own muesli)

Make:

1. Put your cereal on a baking tray and toast it in the oven until its slightly golden – the longer you do it for the crunchier it will be
2. In a small pot, melt the butter, honey, brown sugar and vanilla – bring to a simmer
3. Chuck your toasted cereal in a bowl and add your all spice or cinnamon
4. Add your hot gooey honey butter mixture and stir through until properly combined
5. Press the mix into a shallow dish, making sure its packed in tight
6. Cover with foil and leave in the fridge for 2 hours
7. Take it out, cut it into bars and you have yourself a snack for half the price!!!!

I enjoyed follow the series on the Ready Made blog about going a week without various environmental harms (they’ve done plastic previously and this week attention was turned to processed foods.

The writer, Amy Palanjian plans a week without “anything that is made in a factory/comes in packaging” with some interesting results. Her account provides lovely photographs of each meal served, recipes and a interesting commentary on the experience. I was particularly interested in the issue of time as Palanjian spends a lot of time making initial meals (lessened with the use of leftovers on later days), with a considered response to a right wing newspaper article equating the lack of ‘women in the kitchen’ to women at work.

Palanjian also does quite a bit of detective work, even managing to find several sources of unprocessed chocolate! She also reveals several health benefits she has experienced as a consequence of the new way of eating. She also comments it also turned out to be a week of me deciding to recommit to supporting my local sustainable growers and saving money by cooking everything myself. Inspiration for anyone’s kitchen…

We’re having people over for lunch today so I have been baking some root vegetables. When I use the oven I always try to cook a few things at once to maximise the gas usage. So I decided to make these for breakfast/morning tea muffins.

Ingredients:
2 cups Chris’ muesli*
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 cup flour
2 mashed bananas (from the freezer)
1 whisked egg
nutmeg
milk

Mix ingredients together and bake for about 20 mins.
Serve with yummy home made jam!

*Chris makes his own muesli. It’s extremely cost effective (about $6 for a big nine litre container full) and it gives you a lot of control of what ingredients you choose. Chris’ muesli typically includes rolled oats, bran, wheat germ, dates, sultanas, cashews and almonds. He buys all the ingredients in bulk at a local wholesaler.