Rekindled

This book is about food.  Real food.  Food that’s come from the ground, not from a factory.  It is an exploration of the typical Western diet of processed food that leaves us overfed and yet undernourished at the same time.  Our way of eating has changed beyond recognition since the birth of food science and nutritionism, and yet we are less healthy than ever before.  Unfortunately science doesn’t have all the answers yet, but the food industry is motivated by profit, and it is easier to sell something in a brightly coloured box with health claims splattered all over it than it is to sell something traditional and wholesome like a potato.

If you are fed up of reading the nutritional information labels on food packaging, and trying to figure out what “superfood” you are supposed to be eating this month, then this book is for you.  The final section of the book has some simple, practical guidelines that will help you to rediscover eating.  It’s about investing a bit more time, effort and money in what you put in your mouth instead of buying cheap convenience food.

MyFolia.com is my absolute favourite gardening website.  It is basically an online gardening journal, with Web 2.0 bells and whistles like plant wikis and social networking groups.  I use it to keep a record of what I am doing in my garden, and I find it is much easier to keep track of everything than using a traditional pen and paper journal.  You can use it to keep track of any type of garden, whether indoor or outdoor, vegetable or ornamental, massive or tiny.

What I like best about it is that you can use it to keep track of individual plantings of each type of plant.  I can create a new planting of the same type of plant e.g. the sugar snap peas I planted 3 weeks ago as well as the ones I planted yesterday.  This will help me to get  a steady crop through the summer rather than having 10 boxes of tomatoes that I can’t possibly use up all in one go!

You can also keep a  journal of what you have been doing in the garden and cross-reference this with all your different plantings.  By keeping a record of information like when I plant a seed, when it germinates, when it flowers etc, I am learning a lot about what works and what doesn’t work.  I can then look back at this information next year so I that I don’t make the same mistakes over and over again.  You can see all of my journals and plantings in my profile (if you’re interested).

Another nifty thing about it is that it links to your existing online photo album (like flickr, blogger or picasa) so that you can simply link to your pictures, rather than having to upload them all over again.  I like to take lots of photos of my garden and my plants as they are growing so I find this really handy.  You can also add your seed stash and create new plantings from the same seed, so you don’t have to type in the same information more than once.  Another time saver!

I haven’t really made much use of the social networking aspects yet, but you have access to tons of information.  For each variety of plant there is a wiki (which means the information on it has been contributed by other users of the site, and you can contribute too) which tells you information such as how to grow it, where and when to sow it, how big it will be when fully grown, and so on.  There are also groups where you can discuss many different aspects of gardening and get answers to your gardening questions.

If you are a gardener and you find that you forget useful pieces of information like when you planted your potatoes or what on earth you planted over there, then you will quite probably find myfolia to be a total blessing.  I know I certainly do.

Remember the three R’s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?  I think we’re starting to get the hang of recycling, but what about reducing?  Reduce the amount of stuff you buy and you will reduce the amount of waste and pollution that is created.  If you want to know more then take a look at The Story of Stuff.  Think about all the things you have bought over your entire lifetime.  That’s a lot of stuff.  And did you really need all of it?  Has it made your life better?  Can you even remember most of it?  Where is it all now?  I’d be willing to bet that you don’t even have most of it any more.

So if you want to make a difference with your shopping habits, buy nothing and make do with what you already have.  This requires a lot of creative thinking and resourcefulness.  Think about alternative uses for things before throwing them away.  For example, I once had a TV stand that, during its long life, also served as a coffee table and bedside table simply by putting a throw (which I also already had) over the top.  

Borrowing (or renting) is also a great tactic to help you buy less stuff.  Instead of buying books and DVDs, borrow them from the library.  I usually read most books once and then they sit on the shelf gathering dust and cluttering up my house.  Now I search my local library catalogue online to find books I want, and I can even reserve them online.  Last week, I suggested a book that they didn’t have in stock, and they only went and ordered it for me!   Friends are also another great source of stuff you can borrow.  Last year, we cut down a tree/bush thing in our garden (to make room to grow veggies) and our friends lent us their shredder.  We could have bought our own, but we would never have used it again.  We lent the same friends a food processor when they were having a dinner party.

Freecycle is another great resource to help you buy less.  It’s a little bit like ebay as people advertise second hand goods, but everything is FREE!  You just have to go and collect it!  Freecycle is also fab for decluttering and getting rid of old junk – your trash becomes someone else’s treasure.  I have scored a compost bin and some jewellery making kit from Freecycle, and given away a whole host of clutter.  It’s a great way of saving things that are on their way to landfill, whilst saving yourself money in the process.

If you really want to go the whole hog, you can even join The Compact, a group of people who pledge to buy nothing new for a whole year.  I joined the pledge and managed about 6 months without buying anything at all.  I don’t stick to it any more, but I definitely buy a lot less than I used to, and I never go shopping just for fun any more – I only go if I actually need something.  So if nothing else, it will change the way you think about shopping.

It really doesn’t take much effort to buy less, and it certainly won’t cost you anything.  But I believe that changing our pattern of massive overconsumption is the single biggest thing that we can do in order to reduce our impact on the planet and make our way of life more sustainable for the future.  And if I haven’t convinced you then can I remind you again about The Story of Stuff?  Seriously, it’s well worth a look.

Banana! by aphasiafilms on Flickr

We are bananas for bananas in my house. We buy them every week.  I take one to work with me every day for my lunch.  They are delicious and nutritious.  Yep, we love our bananas.

However, no matter how many bananas we get through in a week, we often seem to end up with one or two dreaded brown bananas.  YUK.  No longer delicious and probably not that nutritious either after a week in the fruit bowl.  I have been very guiltily adding these to our compost heap.  I hate throwing away any kind of food, but throwing away food that has probably been flown in from far far away is just … ridiculous.

Happily I have now discovered 2 solutions to this problem: banana smoothies, and banana bread.

Banana smoothies

Banana Smoothie Before Blending by mudge on Flickr

 Smoothies are so easy to make, especially if you have a blender.  Just chuck a couple of bananas in, plus some milk, or apple juice, or yogurt, whizz for a couple of minutes, and bingo!   For extra sweetness, add some honey.  For a milkshake type smoothie you can even add ice cream.  You can also add any other soft fruits you like, such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, mango etc, which will give you a nice variety of flavours.  We usually keep a bag of these in the freezer for just this purpose -  you don’t even need to defrost them as the blender will chop them up, and they act like teeny tiny ice cubes.

If you don’t have a blender, don’t worry, you can still have homemade smoothies.  Just mash the bananas (and any other fruit you want to use) and then push the mush through a sieve.  Add milk/yogurt/fruit juice and whisk/stir enthusiastically.

Banana Bread by seriouslygood1 on Flickr

Banana Bread

Banana bread isn’t really bread at all in my book, it’s definitely cake.   I made my first banana bread yesterday, using this recipe, which contains walnuts as well.  It is yummy, and nice and moist in the middle.  I used a food processor which made it super-duper quick and easy but you can do it by hand.  You will just need to use a bit of elbow grease to cream the butter and sugar together,  just remember to take the butter out of the fridge to soften.  I think this is the first time I’ve ever baked something for myself as an adult and I found it very theraputic.  The best bit – licking the bowl clean of course!!!

For banana bread you will need about 3 medium sized bananas.  However, you can freeze leftover bananas until you have enough to make a batch.  You can freeze them whole, either peeled or unpeeled, or you can chop them up and put them into a freezer-safe container.  NB Frozen bananas will be softer and mushier when thawed so they are best for using in recipes rather than eating whole.

Finally, thanks to the wonder of Twitter, I have discovered a website dedicated entirely to banana bread recipes.  There are tons of variations on the basic recipe, so there is no excuse for getting bored!  I just need to work out what a cup of something equates to in grams.  This is a bit of a puzzle as surely it depends what size of cup you use.  Can any Americans out there enlighten me?

I’m sure there are many other ingenious ways of using up leftover bananas, so leave a comment and let’s hear them!

As I mentioned in this post, one of the things I would like to do to make my lifestyle more sustainable is to eat less meat. As I work full time, I take my own lunches to work, so I have mostly been alternating between cheese sandwiches and marmite rice cakes (sooo yum!). I did have chicken and stuffing sandwiches for a couple of days when we had leftovers from a roast dinner but I don’t really count that. I think I need to work a few more alternatives into the mix so I don’t get bored.

Here are some of the meat-less main meals I have enjoyed over the past few weeks:

• Cheese Risotto
• Jacket Potato with Baked Beans and Cheese
• Baked Camembert with French Bread
• Spinach and Ricotta Tortellini with Napoletana Sauce (ready made)

Is anyone else noticing a theme here? Hmm…

At the same time, I have also been making better use of leftover meat.  For example, we had a small roast chicken for dinner, one Sunday, from which I also made sandwiches (as I mentioned above) and a chicken risotto, and there was still enough left to give to the cats as a treat!  Then last week, we had a leg of lamb (yes, we do love our roast dinners!) which then became a lamb stew the next day.  It didn’t really take any extra effort, just a small amount of thought, and it made me feel like some kind of extraordinary food magician!

I am also very happy to see that my favourite veggie burgers are back on the shop shelves – I probably just missed them last time. Hurrah!