Austin Shackles wrote:Burra drew my attention to this thread and we had a quick thinky (as I do most of the cooking when we're both here) - I could easy enough knock up a nice quick pasta dish with basil from the garden, onions, mushroom, peppers and so on which we ordinarily have al the time. The tomato sauce in bottles from Lidl turns out to be vegan when I check although I don't think it's labelled as such but there aren't any animal products on the list. Or I mostly have fresh tomato in the fridge anyway. Or I could do a veggie curry if I cooked the rice specifically: we often have cooked rice read but that isn't vegan as Burra puts "skinny bits" in it for collagen to help are increasingly aging joints. But there's plenty of uncooked rice and it doesn't take that long to cook. We also mostly have frozen cooked beans or chickpeas in the freezer.
R Grier wrote:I also love looking into all the edible plants around me, and as such have a huge variety of greens lol.
I have found success with a few techniques.
1-throw them in chopped at the end with ANYTHING, soup, rice, stew, eggs, bean patties, cooking meat ect, just make sure to add salt and oil!
2. Many are quite good dried for teas, even some i don't particularly want to eat can be quite nice as tea.
3. Hang drying and crumbling turns any leaf into a preserved "herb" which can be added for flavor and health.
4. Chop or blend and freeze the season specific ones (for me that includes basil and sorrel) to add to things out of season. Don't be afraid to just toss some in.
5. The good ol' "extract" soak a dried herb of delightful flavor (mint being a classic) in glycerin or vodka for 2 months, now you have gourmet flavors.
6. (And this might be more in answer to your question)
Toss a mass of random leaves and sprouts all in a skillet with some olive oil, salt, and maybe some garlic, mushrooms (also a crop you could look into) or onion and call it "wilted greens" serve it as a side with meat, eggs, beans, ect.
For me If im being good I usually eat 1 meal a day wi th a large portions of "random greens", and its usually just tossed in. I do love my horseradish leaves for a "lettuce wrap" though.
I think maybe your problem here is calories and protein though. Nuts, seeds, beans, and surprisingly duckweed are vegan protien options you could look into. If you don't have much space but have lots of trees you could look at game hens, like guinee or quail, or bantam chickens, they can also eat all those apples you are sick of 😉. They can exist in a surprisingly small space while giving you protien and bug control at the same time. Another thought is aquaponics/aquaculture. Adding home grown fish to your options would help alot.
Small fruits are always good (shade making climbing fruits like grapes, kiwis, or passionfruit can be grown over greens or shade tolerant fruits like strawberries), and can be used for more than just jams or chutney, such as syrup, mixed with yogurt or cream, or frozen and blended into "nicecream" or even roasted with savory spices and meat. A roasted apple with cinnamon is quick and easy and delightful!
An under used calorie and variety source i love to remind people of is honey, bees are fantastic for your trees too! Sweet potatoes, potatoes, sunchokes and other tubers are great calorie choices if you want to cut out or limit grains. But beware, grains have important things beyond calories/carbs, such as Iron and b vitamins, which can be surprisingly hard to get enoigh of if you aren't careful. Kiwi and passionfruit both provide huge amount of b though.
M Pearson wrote:... a barefoot vegan looking hippie girl running a RMH and lacking both a chainsaw and a pickup.
... Skinny barefoot vegan chicks tend to live in apartments on University Ave in Berkeley.
So maybe you want to not frame it as "big tough chainsaw pickup logger dudes vs skinny barefoot vegan girls" but "big tough chainsaw pickup logger dudes being cool & creative vs. wasteful and bad stewards of their land" or something.
C Oakes wrote:I sent you an email.