UKC

Crikey! The weeks do come round.

I've done quite well this week, I think.  Largely down to the excitement of getting a couple of new recipe books - "the Green Roasting tin" has varied, interesting, one-pan meals.  They're quite straightforward and appear to work.  Cheese still an issue (the nicest one was the stilton and brocolli bake on puff pastry).  And a salmon "treat" this week - first as a tray bake (Jamie Oliver ironically) and then the leftovers with pasta.

Also got "Plenty", which is a bit more involved.

Started using Tofoo too - a cuople of the recipes on their website.  Both pretty nice.

The hens are knocking out 3 eggs/day pretty reliably; probably give about half of them away though!

3 car miles this week (as a passenger) to get my staples removed (now that's an odd sensation).  The challenge will be when I can walk/cycle.  Will I still hop in the car for that sort of journey?  I shouldn't, but time always seems short...better planning perhaps (no, buses aren't an option here).

Following encouragement on last weeks' thread, I have bought another aubergine for this week, and will report back.

Incidentally, working out a week's worth of recipes in advance (including "leftover night") is a fantastic way of not buying impulse crap and not throwing stuff away.  The compost bin is suffering starvation.

How's it going with you?

Hope you do manage to make the switch to walking/cycling those shorter journey - I did and now hardly ever use my car, I find it odd when I do! Even trips for messages, that's what panniers are for, and if I've to go to the shops more often then it means fresher fruit and veg etc so hardly a chore

I've ordered the lamb from local farmer, and still ploughing my way through stuff in my chest freezer so meat intake not as reduced as it could be (and once lamb is delivered that will take a while  to get through as well) but breakfasts and lunches are now all meat free.

The BBQ weather we have at present isn't helping with evening meals, although eating the stuff from the freezer should help in the long run.

The rhubarb is growing well so should be converted into wine shortly as well, that will help during the summer months - the spuds also going well and have now planted out the peas as well so they should all provide a decent crop.

Also, it will soon be mackerel season, hmm, catching these myself and scoffing them is one of life's pleasures - means I'm eating less red meat so that should be allowed, please. 

What I have also been conscious of if consumerism - do I "really" need that cycle jumper in the mid season sale or will my existing ones last yet another season - ok, lets cut back on consumerism then. I'm actively thinking of this now, which has to be a good thing so hope to keep this going.

Nice going.

Just to be clear. Everything is allowed! I know beating myself up doesn't work, and works even less from others. I'm just aiming for a general trend and being more aware of my choices. I'm mulling some raised beds once I can lift/bend again...I've never been much if a gardener but some summer salads sound like an easy way in?

This week I've stuck with the veggie breakfast/lunches, and added in using soy milk in my brews at work. Finally getting used to the taste now.

In my house we're trying to eliminate the use of plastic and a byproduct of this is going very veggie. I'm using the green grocers much more to avoid things like cucumbers and herbs wrapped up in bags. I'm taking a Tupperware box to the butchers and, as it's a bit pricier, we're saving meat for one or two days a week.

Being in London I have quite good access to plastic free shops so I've started buying rice, chickpeas, pasta and snacks (mixed nuts, dried banana etc) from there using my own pots. Finding some great containers in the local charity shops which reduces demand for new pots being produced.

I've completely cut out things like crisps, cheese and milk. Even oat milk, which is quite difficult, as it has a plastic lid.

In the last couple of weeks I've made my own hummus, tortilla wraps, doritos, Nutella and gluten free mac and cheese (with nutritional yeast. It was... interesting)

Again being in London, it's easy for me to get to all of these places using public transport easily so not clocking up those car miles.

I did however book a flight to Canada for January so I'm looking into the best option for carbon offsetting. I know it would be better not to fly at all but I hope that with the offsetting and reducing my footprint in other ways I can still finish the year better off and still have fun.

"gluten free mac and cheese (with nutritional yeast. It was... interesting)"

My sisters ex runs a vegan food truck and treated us to a vegan lasagne one time using nutritional yeast, I genuinely wouldn't have been able to tell the difference if I hadn't known!

Keep at it, I'm sure once you've got the recipe nailed it'll be spot on.

Get your sister on here. We need that recipe! I love lasagne but the cheese is a challenge

There's a lot of first attempts going on so hopefully next time I'll get it better!! 

Been to Switzerland recently and was inspired to make a Rösti - the Mrs says it was better than our Swiss dinners!

Bit of a stinker this weekend, as I'm hiring a car to go North Wales (lifts still available from Birmingham areas if people are keen!), but it's the first car journey I'm making for a while

Made a tofu tikka masala, which came out ok - might use less coconut milk next time, but certainly opened up the repertoire a bit.

I haven't seen much mention of energy supply on here, but it's a good way to vote with your wallet. I use Bulb, which buy 100% renewable electricity and 'green' gas (better than the agricultural waste it's made from being just waste). Feel free to DM me for a sign-up code.

Keep up the good work folks!

I've done plenty from Plenty. Lots to like in there, the ratatouille in particular.

OK, I flew to Hong Kong in April, to see my daughter. It is the first time I have been out of Europe, but my challenge now  is to offset 10,000 miles or so of flying. 

As a start, our holiday will not be the Pyrenean odyssey I would like, but instead camping an hour's drive away. 

Just harvested the first Pak Choi from the allotment. Lots more where that came from. It always thrives. As do chillies. Have given up on cucumbers after three failed years in a row.

On the stuff front, I note that I am still using an amplifier I bought 37 years ago, still wearing the Mammut anorak I bought 27 years ago as well as the Marmot Windshirt I bought 20 years ago.

I made vegan pizza last week with nutritional yeast. It definitely added something but it wasn't exactly a replacement for cheese. Any tips anyone? Maybe I shouldn't just be trying to replace the cheese with a poor substitute but do something else...

OK, here's a question.  Is there an easy way (e.g. website) to find out what fruit and veg are uk-sourced at different times of year?  And what are shipped/trucked as opposed to flown?

I kind of know when to buy brussels sprouts and leeks and aspagarus (mmmm asparagus), but genuinely not sure where my tomatoes come from.  I guess back garden> local> Uk seasonal> UK under  glass> shipped> trucked >flown (or therabouts).  I'm crossing those options off starting from the right hand side, so it would be good to know where different veg fall at different times of year.

As mentioned prviously I can't go all the way to the left of the spectrum too quickly or I'm left with a diet of dandelions and nettles in summer and bracket fungi in winter.

Here's an example.

The Sainsbury's website says for mangetout: "Grown in Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Mozambique, Peru, Tanzania, USA, Zambia, Jordan"

What, all of them?  All year?

Shipped under nitrogen or flown?

To be honest, a poor example. mangetout no longer on the menu, but you get the question

I found this:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2003/may/10/foodanddrink.shopping6

What am I supposed to eat?!

I think it's so difficult to nail this down. Let's take, for example, the apple in my bag that I bought from a local grocers. It's a Pink Lady apple and it's website states that they come from "France to Italy, America, Chile, and Argentina and from South Africa to Australia and New Zealand". So those air miles will be difficult to track

As for when to buy, a quick google came up with this chart (https://cookingmatters.org/tips/savor-seasonal-fruits-vegetables) - though not exhaustive I know that I can look out for English strawberries now!!

You should ask next time you're at the green grocers, hopefully they should have a good understanding of the supply chain. The bad news I think is that no matter how hard you try, you're probably not going to find English bananas

For energy I've used Ecotricity, and I'm on Octopus at the moment, had great service from both

I'm into summer season work which means rarely even sleeping in my own bed so even more rarely cooking my own food. This can get tricky, but what i do have control over is snacks etc. My big weakness is chocolate, which is bad on so many levels. So my mission for the summer is to limit chocolatey snacks to a couple a week. My current favourites for hill snacks which aren't chocolatey is sugar snap peas and dried mango. The dried mango will have way too many air miles though, so should probably find another option.

What do you guys like to snack on? Sadly I don't like nuts.

There are various websites that have info on this, for example:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/seasonal-calendar/all

I'd suggest that on your sequence of preference shipped (at least from the EU) is likely to be more eco friendly than grown under glass in the UK.

Apparently tomatoes actually have a really short season, hence the rather flavourless ones available throughout the year. A lot in the UK are grown under glass using waste heat from sugar beet processing (so would be a good exception to my point above).

I have done pretty well this week, though I did have a couple of pepperoni pizzas that were going cheap. I've been avoiding that sort of low-grade meat as suggested by someone on a previous thread but couldn't resist (perhaps it counts as reducing food waste?).