The Festival raises awareness and provides tools for change by showcasing tangible solutions to the ecological and social challenges we face.

In 2009 the Festival at Federation Square attracted over 124,000 visits and engaged more than 450 community volunteers.

In its eleventh year, the Festival is getting even bigger!

The 2010 Festival will include 2 programs, the Main Event at Federation Square (19-21 February 2010) and the Local Events Program (6-21 February 2010). The new 2-week format will enable individuals and communities across Australia to host and promote their own sustainability event, extending the reach of the sustainability message even further.

The Main Event at Federation Square in the heart of Melbourne will continue to celebrate the very best examples of ecological and social sustainability. The event will fuse interactive workshops, talks, demonstrations, artworks, exhibits, films and live performances. In recognition of the climate situation, the Main Event will be inspired by the theme: Get Ready for the Safe Climate Decade!

Our pics (most relevant/interesting to Renters)

Top 10 Reasons to Grow Your Own

How Car Dependence is Turning the Suburban Dream into a Nightmare

Sustaining Fashion? An Open Forum Exploring The Darker Side Of Fashion

GM Free is the way to be

Living Zero Waste

Life Time Affordable Sustainable Housing

Consumer Power-Making the Change

Sharehood Communities

And of course… How to Live Sustainably in a Rental Property yep, we are presenting a talk. It’ll be lots of fun with pictures, samples and demonstrations of things you can make yourself, so please come along . You can also chat to us as part of the Sustainable Living Library

I’ve been enjoying the vegan challenge a lot more than I felt I would. I was hoping my energy would improve substantially but I think my thyroid dysfunctioning is perhaps strnger than what I eat! I’ve beenmaking medication for a couple of months and my levels have improved which is encouraging.

Last night I bought some Torfutti Cream Cheese:

pic from here.

I really enjoyed it. It tasted just like french onion dip. It still frustrates me that the range of such products made in Australia is so limited. There is one soy cheese which is Australian made but it contains rennet, an animal product which doesn’t make alot of sense!  But I guess the only way to change this is to eat lots of non-dairy alternatives and demonstrate the demand. I had some of the ‘cream cheese’ on the cheese free vegetarian pizza I had for dinner, very nice and it stopped the veggies from falling off!

Today I did a Polka Dot Rabbit stall at the Northcote Uniting Church. I was pleased to find a stall holder with yummy vegan biscuits (I had one in the shape of a camel!) and I went to a kebab shop for a felafel wrap for lunch which was yummy as  I didn’t have alot of time to choose a meal from the various shops, needing to get back to my stall.

For dinner I enjoyed a yummy meal with some ginger beer:

Tofu sausage roll, salad, avocado and chickpeas

I guess a lot of my posts have been about eating out, probably because this is more of challenge than cooking at home where you can control what you like to eat. On saturday we went to Docklands for a look. It was rather like an empty CBD with lots of chainstores which we managed to avoid.

We decided the have some lunch and were pleased to find a Morroccan restaurant with lots of veggie and vegan options. There were plenty of tapas type dishes but I decided to have the veggie couscous hotpot with a rather lovely cocktail. Great stuff!

60 Minutes was on tonight with a big story on Australian pig farming. Very distressing, and it certainly made me happy to be following a vegan diet. You can watch the video here

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!

To be honest, so far it’s not been as hard as I thought it would be. I’ve been enjoying eating lots of fresh healthy fruit and veggies and feeling the benefit.

Most days I’ve been having quite a lot of variety with my food actually. Breakfast is either fruit and yogurt, a veggie wrap, baked beans and veggies, a smoothie or porridge.

For lunch I either bring a salad with beans in it or have some kind of stir fry out. Grill’d near my office has nice vegan burgers but I kind of got sick of eating their after i first started work in the area!

Snacks are usually fruit, yogurt or crackers or frosty fruit icy poles as it’s been so hot!

For dinner I usually have potato or rice, lots of salad from the garden and perhaps some  veggies in a stir fry or curry with lentils or some such. We had vegan schnitzel last night which I bought at Radical Grocery. It was delicious but I was not impressed that it came all the way from South Africa, not sure if the carbon miles would be any worse than eating organic beef in terms of emissions and such?

I’ve a few photos here from my camera of meals I’ve had out.

The first is my most favourite meal in Chapel St, Grandma Po tofu. Since it was a friday a had a glass of wine to boot.

I’ve not been paying too much attention to vegan alcohol, I think it will perhaps be another challenge for another day!

I work near a thai restaurant who do a lovely chilli and basil tofu stir fry. It’s a great lunch if you need a change from a salad or sandwich.

On sunday Chris and I went to Como House. It was very hot and amidst some arguing we decided to wait until we got there for lunch. I was pleasantly surprised to find a salad complete with roast pumpkin and walnuts ( I asked for no cheese) and some lovely elderflower soft drink which I love.

The cons so far:
A lot of people seem to have a very limited idea of what vegan cooking entails and just can’t get their heads around it. I’ve three events this week where rissotto is on the menu. It’s like people think of a plate of vegetables, then think no, it needs to be better than that, then they get stuck!

Yesterday for work we went to a conference centre. Vegan food was requested ahead. For morning tea everyone had muffins. They even had gluten free muffins, but no dairy free ones. There was no soy milk. But I did get fruit.

For lunch I got green salad and a really bland vegetable rissotto. No protein at all to speak of! My dessert was fruit. Afternoon tea was  (you guessed it),fruit whilst my colleagues had pastries. I guess the moral here is, even when you are catered for, bring along some extras just in case, something I will be instigating from now on at such occasions.

Socialising is fine, if a little less festive. We went to a friend’s birthday saturday night at a seafood restaurant and had the only veg option on the menu. It was nice enough, but not comparable to the 8 course feast most of the guests were having. I didn’t mind not eating it, more that I felt a bit left out in the occasion of it all. But this is my an attitude than anything else I guess.

That said, I’ve discovered that Tart n Round in Thornbury will be starting their 5 course degustation menu next week, definitely something to check out! We’re also planning a vegan dinner party for next week and a trip to the East Brunswick Club on the weekend for some of their excellent fare!

I found this recipe originally here, but i made a few changes as I found it a bit too high in sugar and fat. So this is my revised edition.

I made it for my rather conservative parents and they quite liked it which says something! It’s a great way to use any beetroots you have growing at the moment!

Vegan chocolate & beetroot cake

• 500g self raising flour (or gluten free and baking soda).
• 180g cocoa
• 100g sugar (more to taste)
• 2 medium beetroot, grated
• 100ml olive oil
• 350ml orange juice
• 1.5 tablespoons baking powder
• 250g silken tofu

Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease and line a 22cm cake tin (it’s easier if you’ve got a loose-bottomed one).

Sift the flour and cocoa together into a mixing bowl. Add the sugar and grated beetroot and mix to combine.

Blend together the oil, juice, baking powder and tofu, until it has a smooth texture and is well combined. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir to combine. Then pour this into the cake tin and cook in the oven for 1.25 – 1.5 hours. Check the cake after 1 hour by insterting a skewer into it – if it comes out clean the cake is ready. The cake will come out of the oven slightly cracked on top, but smelling wonderful.

Leave to cool on a wire rack and serve with the spiced beetroot glaze.

Spiced beetroot glaze

• 1 litre water
• 1 medium beetroot, cut into 2 cm cubes
• 1 cinnamon quill
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 vanilla pod, split in 2
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to the boil and then gently simmer for 30 minutes. Strain the mixture, reserving the liquid. Add the beetroot back to the strained liquid and then blend this together. Pour the glaze back into the pan and heat for a further 2 minutes.

I successfully managed to avoid Melbourne Cup shennanigans and did loads of stuff at home. I finally had  time to do some batch cooking. I’m a strong believer in batch cooking. It allows you to cook in bulk and freeze in smaller portions, saving money and food wastage. I cooked up a heap of brown rice, dahl and mexican beans.

Chris picked a heap of produce from our garden so I sorted it out into cooking, salad and beans!Amazing stuff when it’s from your very own garden.

For breaky I had a potato (cooked in the microwave with the brown rice) with mexican beans and avocado.

I paid a visit to the rather good Radical Grocery Store in Sydney Road, Brunswick. I was pleased at the wide range of products but a little disappointed how many products aren’t available in ‘mainstream’ supermarkets.  I guess it shows how hard it is to run a ethical company and compete with all the big producers, let along get your products stocked!

Not everything was super cheap, but it would be no different to doing all your shopping at a gourmet deli or some such. Further, I’m trying to eat lots of fresh wholefoods rather than only vegan alternatives of carnivore products so it’s not like I’m relying on speciality shops for the bulk of my meals. Far from it.

I picked up some quinoa, chai tea, vegan cheese, vegan schnitzel (Chris loves these)  and a rather splendid Funky pie. Funky pies are a vegan pie making company in Sydney that sell their products all around Australia.

The pie was really yummy: