Though I’m very critical of the intensive farming of animals for meat, I’m not a vegetarian. If you’ve ever seriously tried to grow enough to feed your own household (let alone enough to fully support it), you will know that food webs include predators, prey, animals, plants, insects, funghi, bacteria – the whole complex web. If you take animals and predation out of the system, it teeters and falls.
The zucchini glut is upon us! (And the tromboncino are about to start now too). This was a make-it-up as you go recipe, and the quantities are very negotiable. But it is fast and easy and a good way to make zucchini work for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Home making mustard is ridiculously easy, and worth it because mustard – Brassica juncea- is a member of the brassica family, closely related to canola – Brassica napus. It is prone to all the fairly wide range of pests and diseases of that family, and because it is grown in the same areas and conditions as canola, subject to all the same consequences of overpopulation of any one species –…
It’s too simple for a recipe. Just good bread processed in a food processor to fine crumbs. Mixed with finely grated parmesan cheese – I use about half as much parmesan as crumbs. Beat an egg or two till frothy. Dip the dry mushrooms in egg, then in the parmesan crumb mix to coat.
OK, so we have cultural drift, and we’re not so connected to the seasons that we feel the affront of pumpkins in spring. But can we do a little bit of reinvention? Dressing up is very Beltane (especially as it tends towards the burlesque), but I can connect Princess Leia or the Incredible Hulk to Beltane easily. Street parties and pool parties and water fights and icecream, parades and costumes…
The Recipe
In the scale of foods that are Popeye worthy, kale is about as dense a source of vitamins and minerals and antioxidants as you can get, including Vitamin K which is important for bone density and for brain health, and Vitamin A which is important for skin and eyes. But more uniquely, it’s also a source of some important anti-cancer phytochemicals.