Beetroot and Carrot Salad

I used to think beetroots had to be cooked. Now I am wiser, I know they can be  raw. And may be more nutritious as a result.

Grating beetroots makes crunching effortless while an oil and vinegar dressing adds luxury. Carrots, also grated, are a perfect companion.

You know what they say: eat for colour: orange, reds (and more), each colour containing different immune-boosting nutrients.

I first came across the beetroot/carrot combo at the Better Food Cafe about seven years ago, and copied the idea, working out a version at home. 

Then turned it into a recipe for Grown in Britain Cookbook. I wish I had name-checked my inspiration so glad to be doing so now. My beetroots came from  the Better Food Company, too.

I peeled the carrots and beetroots, above. Grown organically, slowly, biologically, they are chemical-free and needed only scrubbing, plus the skin has nutrients. (But I am not perfect and peeling is faster).

I was taken with the yellow, white and purple carrots, as they used to be before 17th century Dutch growers went monoculture orange to praise William of Orange. Poetically, these 21st century rainbow carrots were grown in Holland.

I had bought my Dutch rainbow organic carrots at the Bear Fruit stall (above) in the Bear Pit, Bristol.

The Bear Pit is, by the way, an example of urban regeneration from the grass-roots-up. A dingy subway on a busy city roundabout now transformed by locals into a lively market and meeting place.

Beetroot and Carrot Salad – ingredients for four

• 600g raw beetroot
• 600g raw carrots
• 50g sunflower seeds
• Dressing: 4 tablespoon olive oil + 50ml balsamic vinegar
• oil for frying/toasting + soy sauce for seeds
• Salt and black pepper, to taste
• Fresh herbs (parsley, coriander) or snipped salad cress.
• 1.1. Scrub/peel carrots and beetroot, and trim tops and tails. Keep carrots whole for grating. Peel the beetroot and cut in half. Grate the raw vegetables, using hand grater or food processor. Combine in large bowl and add olive oil and vinegar dressing.2. If not serving immediately, don’t add dressing yet. Instead, store covered in fridge. Remove 1 hour before serving to bring to room temperature. Then add dressing (below).

  3. For the vinaigrette, put the oil and vinegar in a screw-top jar, put the lid on tightly and shake vigorously.

  4. Gently heat olive oil in a small frying pan and toast the seeds for 3–4 minutes over a moderate heat, stirring to prevent sticking. Add the soy sauce at the end of the cooking, if using. Most of the sauce will evaporate, leaving a salty taste and extra browning for the seeds. Store the toasted seeds in a jar with a lid if preparing the day before.

  5. When ready to serve, add the chopped herbs to the grated beetroot and carrot. Shake the screw-top jar with vinaigrette, then pour over the vegetables, and season to taste. Toss the salad gently until everything glistens. Scatter the toasted seeds.

Katie Stewart: Marmalade 2013

Oranges snow today

The cookery writer, Katie Stewart, died earlier this month.

There was an outpouring on Twitter from those including me who had learned to cook from her cookbooks.

Then Guardian food and wine writer, Fiona Beckett, suggested a Katie Cook (#katiestewart) day and others on Twitter took up the call, followed by Alex Renton in The Times. This is my contribution.

I have been following Katie Stewart’s helpful, practical recipe for making chunky marmalade since 1980 from The Times Calendar Cookbook. Having decreased  sugar bit by bit, I now use less sugar than fruit.

Katie’s original amounts: 3 lbs/ 1.1/4 kg Seville oranges | 6lbs / 2.3/4 kg sugar | 5 pts/ 2.3/4 litres water | juice of 2 lemons.

I use organic Seville oranges. They cost twice as much this year as non-organic ones because we live in a nutty world where wholesome food is more expensive than junk food. Still, added expense worth it because:

1. Organic oranges have more pronounced taste because they are smaller and denser (basically less watery) than non-organic oranges
2. More nutrients in organic too: “conventional farmers (drive) down nutrient levels via their pursuit of ever-higher yields,” says Charles M. Benbrook
3. By paying the extra, I am doing my bit for healthier soils and water, and feeding the world. Think of it as a charity donation.

Talking of which, Katie Stewart’s family has asked for donations (rather than flowers) for The Kids’ Cookery School. The charity’s mission is to give every child in the UK an unique fun cooking experience to help them make informed choices about food. You can donate online.

My marmalade 2001 blog post talks about the young US soldier, Bradley Manning, Wikileaks whistleblower. Currently in pre-trial court martial proceedings, on Thursday he was refused the whistleblower’s defence: motive.

The marmalade: Katie Stewart’s recipe for Chunky Seville Marmalade, her invaluable tips, my amounts and spin on my Marmalade 2011. Apologies not metric – any help with converting amounts welcome.

Marmalade 

5lbs organic Seville oranges

4 lbs organic cane sugar

2 lemons

4 pts of water + 1 pt for extracting pectin

Top Katie Tips

• Place a few saucers in freezer so boiling jam can cool quickly when testing to see it has set
• Put weighed sugar in a preserving pan in low oven to warm
• Clean jars thoroughly with hot water and dry them in oven
• Add lemons at preserving pan stage.

Five stages of making marmalade

1. Clean oranges + simmer to soften

Scrub non-organic oranges and remove stalks. Cook in a large pan or two smaller ones – with lids – in 4 pints of water and simmer heartily for about an hour until peel is soft. Orangey aroma fills room…

Drain cooked whole oranges and preserve cooking water as if it were a precious liquid (it is).

This process can be done earlier, or even the day before.

2. Extracting pith and pips for pectin

Pith and pips (left)

Pectin, extracted from the insides of the fruit, is the setting agent. Cut cooked-and-cooled oranges in half. Scoop out with spoon the oranges’ insides – the pith and pips (pith and pips pith and pips - say it quickly) .

Add pith and pips to large pan with the 1 extra pint of water. Simmer for ten minutes then drain: this pectin-rich liquid will help jam set in Stage 4.

3. Slicing peel 

Flatten softened peel with your hand, and cut up peel of oranges (and lemons), thinly or thickly, as you like.

4. Sugar boiling drama 

Fast-boil for imminent set

Add the sugar (warmed from the oven) to a preserving pan. Strongly suggest a preserving pan is good investment – otherwise use two of your widest pans.

Add the precious-liquid (stage 1), drained pectin-juice (stage 2), and cut-up peel (stage 3) in with sugar in preserving pan. Start boiling…

You must not overboil or you can lose that magic-setting moment. It really is as terrifying as it sounds. But you know what they say: the other side of fear is excitement.

It takes about 20-30 minutes to get it to boiling temperature and then you have to watch it like a hawk.

Start timing your 15-20 minutes when the jam is boiling like mad i.e. not just bubbling but when liquid goes into a furious fast-boiling glucky whirl – then start timing those 15-20 minutes.

So, after 15 minutes, take the pan off the heat and drop some hot jam on one of those icy-cold plates.

Let jam-droplet cool, tilting plate to encourage cooling, then push droplet gently with your finger. You are looking for tell-tale wrinkles and jelly-like character. (The opposite of an ideal lover? My 2011 joke).

If droplet is still runny, carry on boiling the big pan for a few minutes then test again. And so on.

Stage 5. Marmalade in jars

The marmalade droplets are now unequivocally set. Let jam cool in pan until not-too-hot nor too-set for pouring . Next, the sticky bit. Use newspaper to cover kitchen surface, use a ladle or a small cup. Good luck.

Recipes say use waxed discs to keep out condensation and mould but, cutting-corners-cook that I am, I have not not done so for years, with no adverse effects. Wipe jars from stickiness and proudly label.

Organic nourishment from Neal’s Yard Remedies

As an organic fanatic, I apply the same quest for uncontaminated naturalness to skincare products as to food.

I don’t want to rub parabens (preservative linked to cancer) into my skin.

I don’t want my unctions laced with Sodium Lauryl Sulphate (chemical used in paint stripper linked to skin irritation and allergies), thank you very much.

About half of what you put on your body goes in your body.

Thanks to campaigning, the European Commission is considering a restricted ban on parabens.

However, worrying evidence already exists. Which is why organic standards have already banned parabens.

This is what I like about organic standards: they are based, o so sensibly, on the Precautionary Principle.

Does this ingredient pose a potential health risk?

Is this risk necessary? If not, then…

– don’t take it!

Thanks to the Precautionary principle, organic standards have already banned, as I said, parabens, and Sodium Laurel Sulphate. (And many more).

Factory-made chemicals with potential health risks are cheap to produce – they are in the small print on the packaging. The beneficial ingredients are in bigger lettering, shouted on the packaging, sounding as if they make up most of the product.

Organic skincare products avoid ingredients with health risks and have more active ingredients than non-organic products.

I am always happy to promote products that are as honest as they can get.

I work in PR but I’m also a campaigner. And luckily (could it be any other way?) I do both.

I have been working with Neal’s Yard Remedies, a campaigning (my favourite type) brand.

Please check out its up-to-minute information resource: NYR Natural Health News now edited by previous-Ecologist editor and investigative journalist and author, Pat Thomas.

This blog describes Neal’s Yard Remedies’ eco-factory at Peacemarsh, Dorset.

Neal’s Yard Remedies was founded 30 years ago by pioneering Romy Fraser.

Determined the company would not fall to greenwashing corporates, she sold it in 2006 to environmental campaigner, Peter Kindersley of Sheepdrove Organic Farm (which supplies Neal’s Yard Remedies with organic herbs). The organic products are now all 100% Soil Association certified.

Mini-digression: Romy Fraser makes soaps for Neal’s Yard Remedies, and runs courses on Trill Farm, her must-visit organic farm in Devon - with Daphne Lambert (for the-most-nutritious food education – and food).

Last month, we had a great evening at Neal’s Yard Remedies store in Bristol for Organic September.

We invited Bristol bloggers interested in organic products for babies.

Lovely people and what a great supportive blogging community. And yielding such fresh honest responses to the evening, such as from Tigerlilly Quinn’s night out, ShipShape’s review , Purple Ella, Knitty Mummy, and Circus Queen (moon cups and all!),

Brilliant to meet people previously only-met online. Despite being a social media maniac, I believe: Nothing. Beats. Real. Life.

Max from Neal’s Yard Remedies in Bristol gives Bristol blogger, Purple Ella, a hand massage.

Fantastic to have support from Neal’s Yard Remedies HQ in Covent Garden. Nicola Nolan gave a great talk about the company, and its Bee Lovely campaign to ban the lethal bee-harming and totally unnecessary neonicotinoid pesticides – please sign the petition.

Also, from Covent Garden, Jane Killingsworth.

Organic cheeses provided by Sheepdrove Organic Farm – its Butcher’s shop is just across the Whiteladies road.

The best of organic Mediterranean produce from artisan farms and cooperatives – breads sticks, dip-in spreads, olives. Thank you, Organico. (My fuzzy pic)

Me bee-hind the Bee Lovely campaign and Bee Lovely organic products stand.

Neal’s Yard Remedies is like an old-fashioned apothecary – rows of healing herbs and spices.

Thank you to all the Bristol bloggers and Tweeters.

Thank you, Nadia Hillman, for above fab photos – do credit her if you use them!

I took this one of Nadia!

London, 17 May: Symphony of the Soil UK premiere

I am a soil lover.

Some see soil as dirty.

What does that say about our relationship with the world?

Love soil – our lives depend on it.

I am proud to be promoting the Symphony of the Soil UK film premiere on 17 May 2012.

With specially-composed music from a Hollywood great, and original animation, Symphony of the Soil is a multi-media film. Read its roll-call of expert interviewees soil scientists, farmers and campaigners including Dr Vandana Shiva.

Organico, the Mediterranean organic food company, is sponsoring the invitation-only premiere. Do Like Organico on Facebook for the chance to win tickets to this exclusive event.

Director and filmmaker, Deborah Koons Garcia (above) will be  talking about Symphony of the Soil with the Soil Association’s Helen Browning OBE and organic farmer.

In 2006, I organised the London premiere of Deborah Koons Garcia’s film documentary The Future of Food. It examined the corporate domination of our food system, sounding the alarm on GM patents, and exposed revolving-door politics between biotetch executives and the US administration.

The Future of Food helped spearhead the US real food movement, currently calling for GM labelling in California.

Deborah Koons Garcia says  that Symphony of the Soil is a positive film because we can all do something, such as make compost or support organic farms.

“I am making a positive film, science presented in an artistic manner [so] that people will fall in love with [soil] and become part of the soil community – because we are anyway. We rise up from it and we go back to it. So we’re part of it and when we are responsible members of the soil community, we give back to it, it gives back to us. …

“When people see this film they’ll actually become even more committed to a positive relationship with soil.”

As I am writing this blog, I hear BBC radio news announce: “Half of Britain is in drought.”

I shout to the radio: “Go organic!”

Organic soils retain more water than non-organic soils, according to long-term research.

If we put back what we take out, the soil can nurture us.

“We don’t grow plants. We grow healthy soil – and the soil grows the plants,” says a grower in the film.

Symphony of the Soil illuminates the complex dynamic relationship between soil life plants – “a dialogue of nutrients.”

It is all common sense. You have to put back what you take out otherwise soil becomes barren.

So why not listen to our common sense?

Follow the money.

Dr Hans Herren co-chaired the IASSTD 400-strong scientific review of agriculture which found that what the world needs now is small-scale ecological farming.

Interviewed in the Symphony of the Soil, Herren says of organic farming:

“…but it does not fill the pockets of the few. It only feeds the consumer and the farmer.”

Symphony of the Soil is a beautiful and moving film – shows how clever and intricate and subtle nature is.

But it will also made me angry and sad because there is so much needless destruction of this natural precious resource.

What is Tesco Real Food?

Tesco Real Food is the name of of Tesco’s recipe magazine and website, Tesco.com/realfood.

Launched by Tesco PLC in 2011,  the magazine is given away free by Tesco six times a year as a marketing promotion (see pic above).

Tesco sells real food in the sense it is tangible, not imaginary. But Tesco food is not what this Real Food Lover calls real food.

I have had this definition on my Real Food Lover blog since 2008.

“What do I mean by real food? As close to nature as it can get. I want mine grown organically – without chemicals and with respect, as close to my home as possible. And wholefoody and unprocessed too, please.”

Others have a similar definition.

The Real Food Festival says: “Real Food is all about great tasting, sustainably and ethically produced food.”

Real Foods, based in Edinburgh, has, for the last 30 years, sold: “healthy, natural, organic (real) food to the nation at affordable prices.”

In a blog post responding to Tesco’s recent use of the term “real food”, Real Foods writes: “… ’real food’ is food from which the body can extract the maximum amount of nutrition with the minimum amount of waste; food in its most natural state with the best bits still left in rather than foods that have been processed so that the goodness has been removed and replaced by chemicals which, if not actually harmful, are nutritionally ‘empty’.”

Like the efficient retailer it is, Tesco has done its consumer market research and understands the nation’s need for nourishment. The result is its Real Food marketing initiative. Will it help people eat real food?

The magazine promises 32 “seasonal” recipes on the front cover.

Out of Tesco’s three “Season’s Best” recipes, one features mangoes from Peru. Mangoes are not grown in this country. They can never be seasonal for the UK.

Ten out of the 32 “seasonal” recipes were puddings with no fresh produce at all. Some were for Valentine’s day, Pancake day and Mother’s day. Are these annual celebrations what Tesco means by “seasonal”?

If so, Tesco has misunderstood the importance of seasonal for real food lovers.

Eating seasonally is about enjoying freshly-harvested produce. The fresher and more seasonal the produce is, the more nutrients it has and the better it tastes. That is one of the (many) reasons why local is important because it means the food is fresher when you eat it.

Tesco Real Food magazine’s current issue invites readers to Love Local and check out online its “wide variety of food from local producers around the UK”.

I checked out Tesco.com/local with my Bristol postcode and was directed to the Gloucestershire region. I was offered only eight products, four of which were beer. Yes, all good local produce, including Pieminister pies and cold-pressed rape seed oil.

But eight products do not a local-food-supply-chain make.

Like most supermarkets, Tesco sources globally not locally.

This article on apples gives us a clue.

According to the Telegraph, at the height of the UK apple-growing season in 2010, Tesco sourced only ten per cent of apples from Britain. The rest were imported. However its billboard ads promised ten different British varieties (subject to availability).

I get the feeling Tesco likes using words such as real and seasonal and local and organic because they sound good. But does Tesco subscribe to the principles and practices that underpin these words?

Tesco Real Food magazine’s current issue has an advertising feature for Tesco Organic. It says organic produce is grown “with reduced reliance on fertilisers”.

This is incorrect. Let me explain. Natural fertilisers – such as composted green and animal manures, and nitrogen-rich crops – are crucial to organic farming. This is how the soil is nourished.

On the other hand, chemical fertilisers are banned in organic farming because they strip the soil of life and cause environmental damage including water pollution.

Tesco’s Organic range is truly organic, and I am not questioning that [added after publication for clarification]. But does Tesco understand organic farming methods? Or is it using organic to make Tesco’s other products – such as intensively-farmed chickens - seem more wholesome?

Here is another example of the mismatch between Tesco Real Food and the reality of Tesco food.

As far as I know (please tell me I am wrong) Tesco still sells foods with trans fats despite a promise to ban them by 2011. Trans fats may make food last longer, but they are essentially candle-wax with huge health risks.

Trans fats are not real food. In fact, they are not even food.

Tesco’s Real Food magazine is glossy, handbag-size and beautifully-presented. In thick bold type, it emphasises words such as “nutritious” and “soul-warming”.

Is Tesco Real Food  the marketing version of trans fats, a cheap filler that tricks us into thinking we’ve been nourished?

Real food producers can tell you exactly what is in their food: how and when and where it was grown, reared, produced and processed – how the land was fertilised, and the farm animals cared for.

Why is Tesco spending its marketing millions pretending to be real?

               

Carrot cake at the Grand Canyon

I ask the Grand Canyon rancher: “What is the trail for the scaredy-cats with no heads for heights?”

Nonplussed, she sends us to the start of the Bright Angel trail.

Looks steep and scary to me.

I do not dare take in the view. Just focus on my feet.

Try to ignore the images of pitching headlong over the edge which my mind is generously supplying.

We see a zag of lightning.

Thunder hollers in the canyon.

Anxiety about heat exhaustion (it was 100 degrees when we started) is replaced by fear of being struck by lightning.

Fat plops of rain fall.

When we reach the Mile-and-a-half shelter, I am soaked. Chilly.

Three US students and a  family from Amsterdam are also sheltering. We commiserate over Holland losing the World Cup.

The students have been hiking since early morning.

They witnessed a helicopter rescue for a hiker with a scorpion bite. The helicopter took six hours to arrive, the rancher two.

Not enough money, say the students. The Grand Canyon is feeling the recession.

The rain stops.

We set off on our return journey up the trail.

Miraculously, my mind is no longer furnishing scenes of disaster.

I am no longer hugging the side of the rock.

I am taking in the view. And stride.  A miracle.

Time for the carrot cake’s photo-shoot (see pic above).

I baked it the night before, amalgamating and adjusting several recipes found on the web for the simplest.

Here it is before I forget it.

Whisk five small eggs (or four big ones) with 1+1/4 cups of sugar and 1+1/4 of organic coconut oil

Fold in 2 cups of organic flour and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Plus 3 cups of grated organic carrot and some cut-up raisins.

Bake in a greased loaf tin for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Insert a knife to check it is not wet when withdrawn. If wet, the cake is not sufficiently cooked.

Because of the high altitude (7,000 feet) of Flagstaff, the cake took another twenty minutes.

I concocted a separate topping of whisked organic tofu, lime juice and organic agave nectar (the un-organic kind is highly processed and not worth it).

The topping did not come with us to the Grand Canyon.

Unlike the brave carrot cake, that did.

Beetroot and carrot soup

When I say I am a food writer, people assume I am a gourmet foodie, a superior being who will look down my refined nose at their offerings.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The reality is I am an everyday, sloppy, how-quickly-can-I-eat-well cook.

My concerns lie not with how food looks, or how unusual or exotic its ingredients are but rather how healthy are they and how they were grown.

I want to demystify cooking not put it on an pedestal.

So this soup could indeed be my ‘signature’ dish. It’s comfort food made with locally and organically-grown vegetables, it took me about half-an-hour to make, is healthy and tasty.

I cut an onion and sweated their slices in olive oil in a medium-size saucepan with a lid on. I washed but did not peel the 2 large beetroots, ditto the 5-6 carrots. I chopped carrots and beetroot in inch-bites because the smaller you cut ‘em, the quicker they cook.

I added the chopped veg to the softening onions, and added 3-4 mugfuls of water (one mugful=1/2 pint), and simmered it for 20 minutes, with the lid on.

I did not add salt. Both beetroot and carrot are so sweet, what other taste is needed?

I did add black pepper. And I whizzed it with my £20 handheld electric blender because I am a bit of a baby and like eating mushy-comfort food.

Escoffier, I ain’t.

So have no fear, past and future dinner hosts!

The Organic Food Festival 2009

We met last night to discuss the Organic Food Festival 12-13 September 2009 in association with the Soil Association.

First my starter (above) which made me think: my favourite dishes are mush-tastic. I eat lots of grains and pulses, and, let’s face it, they blob.

Please don’t reject my love because of their apparent lack of finesse.

Nourishing, healthy and economical, grains and pulses lend themselves to many tastes.

I ate the above starter (£6.50) last night at the Lido (saved and restored to its Victorian-swimming-baths-original thanks to a community campaign).

Couscous with yogurt, fresh broad beans and coriander – delicious, soothing.

Even when eating out I am drawn to mushy grains.

But why be ashamed? Eating for substance is the organic way.

“We are about inner quality, not outer appearance – that is our hallmark.”

So said Patrick Holden, Soil Association director, recently quoted in the Independent apropos the abolition of those wonky EU-rules on wonky veg.

Which brings us back to the Organic Food Festival.

Last night’s dinner was the inauguration of two things:

1) I was in my new role as food editor of The Source.

2) The Source is helping produce the programme for the Organic Food Festival 2009. And that’s what we doing, round a table at the Lido.

Every September, Bristol Harbourside transforms into Europe’s largest organic market place. The Soil Association organic festival used to be free but became so popular it got rammed so, there has been a charge. This year £1 of the £5 entry fee goes to the Soil Association.

My message?

Join us!

The Organic Food Festival in Bristol Harbourside on 12 – 13 September 2009

Taste the future

Organic is more than a product

- it is our sustainable future.

Homemade hummus

The cast is assembled. The starring ingredients (pictured) in a classic production of hummus are: olive oil, a jar of tahini,  lemons and garlic, and chickpeas soaking in a pan of water.

Thanks to kineseology, I was recently diagnosed as lactose-intolerant. Ah ha! The missing piece of the jigsaw – no wonder I prefer vegan food.

I am sad to ban eating cheese, butter and cream but not when I realise those yummy darlings make my gut sore because I lack the digestive enzymes to process them. Apparently most non-Europeans (including Mediterreanean/Eastern European types like myself) are lactose-intolerant.

This makes me ponder: our dairy-filled western diet may be dominant but is it giving the rest of the world a belly-ache?

So instead of eating cheese, I concoct homemade hummus every week. Although made from plants, hummus is a complete protein because it is combines different groups of plants, in this case, chickpeas and sesame seeds.

You can buy cooked chickpeas in a can in most shops and search out a wholefood shop or Mediterranean/Middle east delicatessen for a jar of tahini (sesame seed paste) and raw chickpeas. This recipe uses raw chickpeas.

The amounts are enough for a party dip, or eight-ten servings. I dollop it on toast, brown rice, grated carrots, lentils, fried eggs…

[Note: Chickpea upped from 100g to 150g following Ingrid Rose's helpful comments below. So do take note when doing five times the amount, Ingrid Rose!]

150g dried organic chickpeas soaked in over twice the amount of water. Soak overnight (or speed up the process by soaking in boiling-hot water) in a pan. The chickpeas will go from shrunken to plumped-up pellets.

Bring the pan with chickpeas to the boil then simmer for an hour (on a low light with a lid) until they are soft-enough to mash.

Drain the chickpeas (hang on to the cooking water for later) and put them in a large deep bowl ready for mashing (or blending) together with:

3 Tablespoons of organic tahini or sesame seed paste. I use a dessert spoon for measuring because it will fit in the jar – give the tahini a jolly good stir before spooning out.

3 Tablespoons of olive oil

Juice of two lemons – cut in half and rotate a fork vigorously to extract the juice and pulp or use a lemon squeezer. Organic lemons can be smaller than non-organic ones and have more pips but they are more juicy.

2 fat cloves of garlic – crushed with a garlic crusher or the flat of a knife. It’s optional – not everyone loves immune-boosting garlic.

Add salt and black pepper for taste and/or crushed chilli and/or ground cumin.

A word on chickpeas. You can buy them tinned – conveniently and organically – but I prefer dried. Dry, rattly chickpeas which you soak are cheaper, tastier, less watery and have twice the nutrients than canned ones.

I blend half the drained chickpeas with:

garlic, lemon juice, tahini and olive oil

and whizz till smooth. It’s easier to work in small batches.

Then I add the remaining chickpeas – see picture above. If the mixture is too stiff to blend, add a teaspoonful or two of the cooking water. You are aiming for smooth and creamy not runny.

I am addicted to my electric handheld blender but a strong fork or potato masher will mash the chickpeas – just make sure the garlic is well-crushed before adding.

And here’s the mystery, every homemade hummus turns out differently.

Have you made hummus?

Vegan noodle pie

I dedicate this post to fellow blogger, Meg Wolff, who recovered from cancer thanks to a macrobiotic diet and Donna, a woman who befriended me at a Devon train station, who – it turns out – also cured her cancer after following a macrobiotic diet for ten months.

When Donna first approached me at the brightly-lit station on a dark wintry rainy evening last week, saying: “Hi, I am Donna,” I thought she had mistaken me for someone she knew.

Or maybe we had met…in another dimension?! (I love these stories so bear with me, you rationalists).

Donna asked me: “Are you interested in shamanism?”. “Always” I answered because I love real-life mystery.

To which she replied: “You have good medicine around you.” And I was thrilled.

Donna gave me her card and we are now in email contact – that’s how I know about Donna’s macrobiotic diet, and Axminster’s Awareness Centre, and her parents, the original ‘organic kids’, now 89 and 91. So listen up, you young things, eat your organic greens to get some healthy longevity inside you!

This is all the encouragement I need to eat more organic grains and vegetables, keeping animal-food to a minimum…

Donna and my other dedicatee, Meg Wolff, share many beliefs including the magic of writing things down.

Go visit Meg Wolff’s inspiring blog and I won’t even mind if you don’t come back.

Ah, you are back. OK, so Meg sent a newsletter which included a recipe for vegan lasagna. As a mama, I made lasagna but never considered how to veganise it – until this moment!

So I played around with Meg’s original recipe and here is mine – all ingredients from my local organic shop, the Better Food Company.

I peeled and chopped a big slice of pumpkin, putting the chopped-up pieces gently oiled, in a roasting pan to sizzle away in a medium-hot oven for 40 minutes.

For oil, I used Clearspring organic sunflower seed oil (first cold pressing for a naturally-nutty taste), a new discovery thanks to speaking coach, John Dawson.

While the pumpkin pieces were doing their thing in the oven, I made a vegan white sauce with organic soya milk, sunflower margarine and Dove’s rye flour, adding sliced fennel and mushroom, and tamari sauce, for interest and taste.

Then I drained and mashed 450g of tofu with gently-fried slices of onions and some sprinkling of smoked paprika.

I dunked 50g of gluten-free buckwheat noodles in a pan of boiling water until they softened – about five minutes.

Then I assembled my layers into an oiled-casserole dish, starting with the drained noodles covered with half the fennel and mushroom sauce, followed by the mashed-up tofu and the roasted pumpkin pieces, followed by the rest of the sauce – and baked it for 20 minutes.

I served it with fresh mustard leaves which grow on my balcony in salad pots from Cleeve nursery bought at the Organic Food Festival in Bristol last September – an easy way to have fresh leaves (see pic below)!

It was comfort food-supreme with the baked noodles reminiscent of lokshen pudding from the alter heim.

Happy Obama week!

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