B is for Beetroot

When I was a kid, the big decision was whether you had beetroot in your salad sandwiches or hamburgers with the lot. I grew up in the country and can recall stopping at a roadhouse in the middle of nowhere which served salad sandwiches: buttered white bread, soggy tomato and tinned beetroot. It wasn't until I went to University that I discovered that beetroot could be bought in the grocer's and eaten cooked, not just out of a can!

Beetroot, carrot and potato cakes

Recipe for beetroot, carrot and potato cakes
2 medium beetroots, greens removed, peeled & grated
2 medium carrots, skin on, grated
2 medium potatoes, skin on, grated
½ medium onion, thinly sliced
½ tin of green lentils
1 egg, beaten
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
25g wholemeal plain flour
3 chopped spring onions
1 garlic clove, crushed
3 tbsp olive oil

Preheat oven to 150C/300F/gas2. Combine all the vegetables in a large bowl, then mix in the lentils, egg, salt and pepper. Sieve in the flour and seasoning and stir well until it’s all blended.

Heat half the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Using 2-3 tablespoons of mixture per cake drop four cakes into the frying pan. Flatten each out with a spatula, and cook until just browned and cooked through, which should take 3-4 minutes per side. Be careful that the pan isn’t too hot, or the cakes will burn before they’ve cooked in the middle. When they are done on each side transfer the cakes to a tray in the oven to keep warm, then repeat with remaining mixture until finished.

Serve with a green salad, houmous and if you’re feeling frivolous, put them under the grill and melt some cheese on top.

© Katheryn Rice 2007


Beetroot Pesto


500g cooked beets (there are several ways to cook beets)
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup coriander (or basil)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/3 cup sunflower seeds (toasted) or walnuts (toasted)
Salt to taste

Mix all the ingredients in the food processor til it reaches desired consistency.

A is for Avocado

Avocados are really cheap at the moment. We all know how to make Guacamole and avocado on toast with tomato and cracked pepper but there's loads of other things you can make. You might like to try this site or here's some other ideas:

Avocado, spinach and walnut salad

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 1/2 tablespoons roughly chopped walnuts
• 200g baby spinach leaves
• 1 ripe avocado, peeled, stone removed, sliced
• juice of 1 lemon

Method

1. Place walnuts into a small frying pan. Cook over medium heat, shaking frying pan often, for 3 to 4 minutes or until walnuts are golden and roasted. Remove from heat.
2. Arrange spinach and avocado on serving plates. Sprinkle over walnuts. Drizzle with lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Source : Super Food Ideas - August 2003 , Page 24, Recipe by Annette Forrest

Linda McCartney's Avocado and Green Chili Soup
From: Tony & Karen Greenlee

Source: Home Cooking - by Linda McCartney and Peter Cox; Yield: 4 servings;

Preparation time: 10 minutes

• 2 Ripe avocados
• 3 c Soy milk
• 4 oz Canned green chilies
• 1 md Onion; chopped
• Salt and pepper; to taste
• 2 tb Lemon juice
• 2 tb Dry sherry

GARNISH:
Chopped chilies -OR- Fresh parsley

Cut the avocados in half and remove the pits.
Scoop out the avocado pulp and puree in a blender.
Add the remaining ingredients except garnish to the blender and puree until evenly smooth.
Pour the mixture into a serving bowl, garnish, and serve immediately.

Chocolate Avocado Dessert

Ingredients (you can use vegan versions):

2 ripe avocadoes
1 package silken tofu
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons golden syrup
2 cups melted chocolate chips

Directions:

Peel and pit avocadoes. Blend in a food processor together with the tofu (room temperature), vanilla and golden syrup.

Blend in the melted chocolate chips.

This can be eaten alone, in a pie shell, or layered individual dishes with whipped topping and or fruit.

Serves: 6

Preparation time: 1/2 hour
From Vegweb.com

A is for Artichoke

This article is the first in a series of recipes featuring winter vegetables. Buying seasonal vegetables is a great way to ensure you are getting fresh, ripe produce. Futher, eating with the seasons is a great way to ensure you are eating a healthy mix of different seasonal fruit and vegetables. It’s natures way of giving us the blend of nutrients we need.

A is for Artichokes

I've always loved the look of Artichokes but besides buying them for pet bunnies or pickled in olive oil or on a pizza, I've never been particularly confident about cooking them. So I've done a quick search of the Internet for recipes.

Kristina’s Artichokes

-To clean them, set a big bowl of water with lemon in it, and start by breaking off the exterior leaves until they come off very easily. You’ll notice the difference as you get closer to the center, and they’ll be more yellow at the base than green.

-Lop off the toughest ends of the ‘flower’, and then take a sharp knife, specific trimming knives exist but I don’t have one, and trim the ends of the leaves all the way around to clean it up. (The woman from whom I buy my produce said to worry about the ‘hairy’ inside after cooking, which saves time, so I do.)

-Trim off the stems, just long enough so they’ll fit in your pot and use a knife or vegetable peeler to clean the tough outer part of the stem. As your clean each artichoke, place them in the bowl of water. IMPORTANT: Use the lemons to thoroughly and excessively clean your fingertips or else you will have stained cuticles and underneath your nails will stain for a week to follow. Not cute if you work in an environment where proper grooming is expected of you.

-Finely chop two or three cloves of garlic, a handful of parsley, and a handful of basil. Place these in the bottom of a pot that is high enough to hold your artichokes.

-Pour 1 / 2 (one half) cup of olive oil in, and then a cup of water, or enough so that the artichokes are covered by about two-fingers of liquid. Put the artichokes in face down, add salt and pepper, cover the pan with aluminum foil (or not) and then the lid.

- Bring to a boil, then lower heat to a simmer until they are cooked, about 20 minutes. (A knife inserted through the center goes in with little resistance).

Ten ways to save money by going green

Most everyday, simple green acts do also happen to save money

June 3, 2008
By Leo Hickman, The Guardian Newspaper.

Leo Hickman trials cloth nappies on his daughter. Photograph: Graham Turner

With all this talk about how an economic downturn will spell the death of environmentalism, it seems like a good time to remember that there can be some very good savings to be made by "going green".

The central logic is undeniable: any act where you try to reduce your energy use will lead to savings in both costs and emissions. Equally, being thrifty with precious resources such as water will also leave you with more money in the pocket.

It all sounds so crushingly obvious when you spell it out, but this message often gets drowned out by all that talk about how much a loaf of organic bread can cost, or how cripplingly expensive it is to pay the upfront costs of fitting solar panels.

But most of the everyday, simple acts to live a more environmentally sensitive life do happen to save money.

To get the ball rolling, here are 10 ways to save money by going green. Please do add your own ideas below ...

Zonal living

You've fitted draught excluders and heavy curtains to your external doors and windows. You've turned the thermostat down a couple of degrees. You've put on a woolly jumper. But there are still other ways to keep your heating costs down. One of the simplest is to think about the "zones of living" in your house and heat them accordingly. For example, you only really need to heat your bedroom and bathroom for a maximum of a couple of hours each day, typically in the morning.

Equally, you only really need to heat your sitting room for the few hours in the evening when you are likely to be in there watching TV, or whatever. Thermostatic valves and timers can help you heat each zone accordingly rather than simply flicking the "on" switch on your heating and firing up the whole home.

Video conferencing

Why waste hundreds, if not thousands, on traveling all the way by plane to some faceless hotel for a two-hour meeting with a business associate when you could just save time, hassle, money and emissions by speaking to them via video conference? The technology is improving all the time and it is now even free if both parties use software such as Skype.

Change your driving style

You can knock up to 20% off your fuel costs simply by changing the way you drive your car. In the US, the Drive 55 campaign tries to educate drivers about how much less fuel efficient a vehicle becomes once it exceeds 55mph. In the UK, there are now even eco driving lessons on offer to teach drivers how to go through the gears smoothly when pulling away from a junction - one of the most fuel-intensive actions when driving. One good tip in a petrol car is to try and change gear before the engine reaches 2,500 revs.

Cloth nappies

The Women's Environmental Network estimates that parents can save almost £1,000 over the 2.5 years a child is typically in nappies if they use "real" nappies instead of disposable ones. It's probably fair to say that the savings are even better than this given how much disposable nappies are going up in price at the moment due to the fact that they are materials produced from petrochemicals. But don't be tempted to use a ...

Tumble dryer

Of all the white-good appliances in our homes, nothing munches kilowatts quite as ferociously as the tumble dryer. A washing line or clothes horse will help you save hundreds of pounds over the life of an average tumble dryer, very few of which are A-rated in terms of energy use. Even the Church of England recently got in on the act of calling "for an end to spin". For a list of Energy Saving Trust-recommended dryers, click here.

Water butts

Water bills seem to be rising along with just about every other utility at the moment so it clearly pays to reduce your water consumption wherever possible. Hose pipes can use huge amounts of water, particularly if you're watering a lawn, or washing a car. Getting a spring-loaded nozzle for your hose can help you get your water use down, as can using a bucket and sponge to wash your car. Lawns are a much trickier one. Sprinklers are a no-no, really, as they can use hundreds of litres of water an hour.

Better just to let your grass grow a bit longer in summer so it can better retain moisture. Better still, get a water butt and use rainwater to water your garden. Many local authorities now offer subsidised water butts.

Invest in a flask

It's funny how old technologies are so often the best. For many of us, flasks have slipped from the mind as an everyday tool, but they are incredibly useful - and, more importantly, incredibly efficient. For example, you only need to boil a kettle once in the morning to provide all your hot water for tea and coffee for the rest for the day. And if you take it to work you will save yourself a few quid each day by not needing to buy tea or coffee once there.

Food cooperatives

For just a few pounds a year, you can join a local food cooperative, which will help you to keep your food costs down by taking advantage of the wholesale prices that collective buying allows. And it means that you get to support local farmers and keep food miles to a minimum. The Soil Association has a long list of local food networks and cooperatives on its website so have a look and find the closest one to you. And if you want to set up your own, it's worth knowing that there is currently £50m worth of Lottery-funded grants up for grabs to support local food projects.

Seed swaps

People have been doing this for centuries, of course, but the act of swapping your spare seeds (steady now) with other gardeners seems to have formalised in recent years into proper community get-togethers, as seen by the popular Seedy Sunday meets. Made all the more attractive by the fact that seed prices are, like everything else, going north all the time. Why pay £3 a packet for some generic carrot seeds, when you can get some Cherokee Trail of Tears beans for free?

Car clubs

Get public transport... Yadda, yadda. Yes, we all know the drill by now, but one increasingly popular way to reduce car use and save money is to join a car club. It's a concept that is only really suited to city-dwellers, but car clubs are nonetheless a very economic for the occasions when only a car will do. Street Car in London, for example, starts at £3.95 an hour, and there's usually one parked within a few streets of your home. Plus, you don't have any of the extra hassles of owning a car such as MOTs, insurance and garage bills. Oh, and the first 30 miles of fuel you use per day are free.

So what other money-saving green actions can you think of? Post your own suggestions here ...

Shopping with a conscience.....

Consciencous shopping can see like a massive undertaking. Loads of reading of labels and deliberating whether to buy the dearer ethical product or something cheap and cheerful. Australian made vs Fair trade? Is it made in Australia with Australian produce, made in Australia with overseas produce, made overseas with Australian produce? Does it contain genetically modified ingredients? How is it packaged? What's the carbon footprint? Is it tested on animals? Does it contain MSG? And as much as we'd like, we don't all have time to shop at farmer's markets and food co-ops all the time.

But the best things about being a consumer is that you have CHOICE. You can choose what to buy and where.

Ethical Consumption

The Ethical Consumer Guide by Ethical.org ranks brands according to their company rating. This is based on assessment information gathered from over 25 sources including the work of organisations such as Greenpeace, Choose Cruelty Free, Corporate Monitor, Reputex, Responsible Shopper and Sustainability Victoria. Its an excellent consolidation of loads of different products rated by different organisations.

Presently the guide focuses on supermarket products. You can download the guide here

If it all seems too difficult, Ethical also runs Ethical Shopping Tours, a brilliant way to learn how to put the guide into action:

Real Food Film Festival

Last night I enjoyed the first of the Real Food Film Nights.
This included two films:

Store Wars
and

The World According to Monsanto

This is a brilliant film and definitely worth a look. You can view it online here

Next Week's Screening:
Tuesday 1st July 6.30pm sharp

The short documentary on Melbourne’s ‘Food not Bombs’ (6 min) and

‘We feed the world’ (95 min - subtitles) which investigates food and globalisation, fishermen and farmers, drivers and high-powered corporate executives, the flow of goods and cash, a film about scarcity amid plenty. Desert consists of the spoof Matrix animation titled ‘Meatrix’ (5 min) where Moothius and Leo discover the impacts of factory farming.

Free Entry.

Drinks and food available from the bar.

Seating is limited and RSVP is preferred.

For bookings and more information, email realfood@melbourne.foe.org.au

Organised by: Friends of the Earth Melbourne Real Food group

Supported by: Loop Bar, 23 Meyers Place Melbourne

I Want to Live Here Film Competition

‘I Want to Live Here’ film comp is a step forward in exploring the intricacies of our housing crisis. We want the competition to reflect economics as essential, interesting and accessible to all.

The dream of owning a house is becoming a distant reality for more and more people. Affordable rent has become a world wide issue. Land is a basic human right for all.

The good news is we can do something about it! The film competition asks you to explore the issues near you and present them in a fun and interesting format.

www.iwanttolivehere.org.au

Brunswick Art & Sustainability Forum, Brunswick

Not been able to find many details on this, but here you go

Art & Sustainability - Free Public Forum
The forum will consider the role of art and creativity in addressing contemporary social and environmental challenges. It will feature both artists and sustainability experts.

Date: Saturday June 21
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Location: Brunswick Town Hall, 233 Sydney Road (corner of Dawson St), Brunswick, VIC

Container Gardening- Winter Veggies

Fact Sheet: Potted Winter Vegies



Presenter: Jane Edmanson, 31/05/2008
Jane pots up some flavoursome winter vegies

Related Fact Sheets

• Potted Winter Herbs
• Potted Winter Vegies
• Cottage Garden Design
• Growing Vegies in Pots
• Creating a Small Garden
• Creating a Small Garden
• Growing Sprouts
• View all...

Growing nutritious vegetables in decorative pots not only looks good, but is great fun for the family. It’s also a good idea for people with little space, or who only have a balcony.

Grow the vegies singly in a pot or have some extra fun and mix up some different combinations. Some suggestions include silverbeet in the middle and surrounded by coral leafed lettuce. It’s a really good combination.

Bok choy, or pak choy, is an Asian green that is terrific in stir-fries and soups and a great vegie to grow because it performs quickly. Just cut and eat some of the leaves and then let them keep growing. The other vegetable perfect for this time of year is rainbow chard – so named because of its yellow, orange and crimson stems. It’s a relative of silverbeet. Use it either as a decorative or edible plant.

Potting vegies is straight forward. Remove them from the small pots and gently separate them. They will take about six weeks to grow and be ready to harvest. Fertilise them initially with seaweed fertiliser to give them a good start. Then fertilise every two weeks - liquid feeding is ideal to keep them growing.

And where would we be without lettuces? I love growing them all year but at this time of year, they take off well if grown in a sunny spot. And that’s one of the advantages of growing vegetables in pots - you can move them around to get the benefit of the sun.

Try the wonderful cos lettuce and for an effective look, plant two or three in a pot, and then plant some red leaf oak leafed lettuce around the pot perimeter.

The benefit of many of the other new varieties of lettuces is that as they grow, just cut off the side leaves and leave four or five in the middle to keep growing. They’re called ‘cut and come again’. It’s best to grow any leafy vegetables such as lettuce really quickly. Put them in the sun and keep the moisture up to them. If the leaves dry out you’ll find that they become bitter to taste. Water the pot at least once a week and liquid feed every two or three weeks to keep them growing quickly.

In about six weeks, you’ll find the whole pot absolutely filled with lovely nutritious lettuce. But watch for slugs and snails.

From Gardening Australia

How to Green your rental

Choose Well
The location of your home can have a huge impact on your ability to live sustainably, so think hard about your lifestyle when you are looking for your next rental property. Are there good connections to mass transit? Is it walking distance to work, or downtown? Are the roads safe for cyclists? It might help you to talk with current residents to find out more, or just take some time to scope out the neighborhood by yourself. The more people who seek out greener communities, the more developers and local authorities will be motivated to create them.
How to begin?
Visit Walk Score to locate restaurants, parks, grocers and other businesses and amenities within walking distance of your possible future home.



Buddy up and live with a roommate; it'll cut your expenses and your footprint. Photo credit: kristina mayyy


Live Small or Live Together
You might not be able to afford that passive solar house of your dreams, but you can still have a huge impact on your home’s energy consumption simply by limiting its size. The smaller your house or apartment, the less energy is needed to heat and light it, and the smaller its physical footprint on the land will be. Your can also greatly decrease your personal environmental footprint by sharing your home with others. Sharing energy bills, appliances and common space automatically means that more people can live with less stuff. Besides saving money on your bills, you can save money on rent, too, and have a little extra to spend at the farmers market…


Talk to your Landlord
One of the biggest obstacles to living green in a rental property is the feeling of powerlessness to make changes. It’s important to remember that as a tenant you are a customer and you deserve decent service. A good landlady or landlord should work with you to make your home as pleasant as possible. So talk to them if the property is drafty, the toilet keeps running, or heating systems are inefficient – after all, investing in improvements will help them to retain tenants, attract new ones, and it will increase the value of their property. The owner might be particularly amenable to funding improvements if you do the math to show them the return on their investment, and offer your labor free of charge, creating a win-win situation for all concerned.


Get Good Habits
With all the buzz around solar panels, LEDs, and smart homes, it can be easy to forget that much of what makes a house or apartment green is the behavior of those who live in it. Recycling your waste, turning the lights out when you leave the room, putting on a sweater when you’re cold – all of these things are simple to implement, and they’re at least as important as owning the latest in fashionable green gadgetry. Putting a little thought into how you arrange your home can make a big difference too – put the recycling bin where it’s easy to access, keep your reusable shopping bags close to hand, and plug all your electronic devices into one power strip so you don’t have to switch each one off separately. With a little forethought, green habits can become second nature.


Stay Snug
Many rental properties suffer from poor insulation or leaky doors and windows, but it doesn't have to be that way. By applying simple, affordable measures, like weather stripping to doors and windows, or placing reflective foil behind radiators, you can have a significant impact on your energy bills. You can even apply plastic glazing to windows to increase heat retention. Installing sun shielding shades and blinds can also go a long way to regulate light and temperature in your home.



Weather stripping and sealing your windows is a great way to green your rental. Photo credit: Niemster


Find Your Power
Off-grid living is not feasible for most of us renters, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go renewable. Many large utility purveyors are now offering green power options. You can also purchase offsets from a reputable supplier to compensate for your household energy usage. There are also an increasing number of small-scale renewable energy devices on the market, from solar cookers to phone chargers to hand-crank radios and lanterns. While the energy they produce is unlikely to make up a large proportion of your household usage, they can be an inspiring first step towards energy independence.


Lighten Up
Yes, the ultimate eco home makeover may be beyond your grasp for now, but it only takes eighteen seconds to screw in a light bulb. By switching out your incandescent lights for compact fluorescents, or even the LEDs that are becoming increasingly available, you can save a considerable amount of energy and money. And if you’re concerned about moving on before the investment pays for itself, you can simply take them with you. Alternatively, you can leave them behind to help future tenants on the path to green en-light-enment.


Be Water Wise
Water is becoming an ever-scarcer resource. Of course, installing the latest in low-flush toilets would be great, but it’s not too high on most landlords’ priority lists. Start small by encouraging your landlord to install water-efficient faucet aerators and low-flow showerheads on your taps; if they aren't up for springing for new ones, the installations are easy enough that you can do it, if they'll let you. As with energy, our use of water has as much to do with our own behavior as it does with technology. Spend less time in the shower; consider only flushing the toilet when you need to (follow the old adage ‘If its brown flush it down, if its yellow, let it mellow’); don’t run the tap when brushing your teeth; only use your washing machine and dishwasher with a full load, and consider reusing water from your bath or shower to water plants – these simple measures alone can cut your water use by over 50%.


Any Color You Like, As Long As It's Green
Adding a fresh coat of paint to a rental property can be one of the easiest ways to make it feel like home. Unfortunately, many paints are loaded with toxins that are not only harmful to the environment, but can also be hazardous to your health. Be sure to search out brands of paint with low VOCs (volatile organic compounds), and you can even experiment with the increasing number of natural paints that are appearing on the market; we've got some green paint suggestions below.



Painting green, with low-VOC paints, will help you feel at home and won't contribute to poor indoor air quality. Photo credit: Erik++


Buy Green
When the average renter moves into a new apartment, they spend as much as $4,000 on new furniture and other items to make it feel like home. If you’re needing to fill up your new abode, scour antique shops, flea markets, Craigslist or classified ads for pre-loved furniture; if buying new, look for heirloom quality furniture made from FSC-certified or reclaimed wood, and take the time to seek out energy efficient appliances. Choosing to furnish your home with lasting products is key to maintaining your sustainable abode. While it may be tempting to run to IKEA for all your furniture needs, ask yourself is that new coffee table will realistically last you ‘til your next move (or even until the next year). If your space is limited, you should also consider multi-functional transformer furniture – as we’re fond of saying, less is more when it comes to living green.

by Sami Grover, Carrboro, NC, USA on 02.29.08 / TreeHugger