Sorry about the extendend absence. Here ars some photo of what I been up to:

Potatoes growing well without me

My Beautiful Fig tree

My herb bed I am a luch girl not onlt was this built for me but so was ...

... My cold Frame! (shown here with the lid (actualy an old cloche) off)

I am lucky :)

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Has spring yet sprung?

Whoo hooo! I finally found the battery charger for my camera. How cool. So heres a pic of my allotment:

Its not much to look at but I do love it. As you can see we are cultivating a great crop of black plastic ;)

The garlic is growing well, and I can't wait until the time finally comes to eat it. We are growing the garlic lovers collection from the garlic farm. I've planted out broad and runner beans and have courgettes and sweet corn coming along apace at home, reay for May.

I've also been thinking about yoga. I think I need some. It's the only thing that streches me out and stops me seizing up after a day at work, and it think does that same thing for me after a day's digging.

It's really beginning to feel like spring now, I'm off to search the net for climate info, and see if there's anything that can tell me when the last frosts are likey to be.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

A farm for the future?

Wow. I've just watched a farm for the future, which I was alerted to by the excellent the gardeners world blog. This a great film about farming and peak oil (i.e. it's running out), and looks at both the problems and the possible solutions. Radio 4's Food Programme recently had a great show looking at Cuba and how they coped with their 'special period', and London and whether it can be made more self sufficient. It does strike me that we have massive areas in our cities that could be used productively, although as the owner of a spoilt pet rabbit I do not think we should keep them to eat! A newspaper article recently alerted me to incredible edible Todmorden, the town is basically attempting to make itself self sufficient in vegetables by 2018. this seems like a great idea. I wish councils would plant more fruit and nut trees for example instead of those that are, well not edible.

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Who gives a fig?

Well. Last year I ordered a fig tree (why, Brunswick, as you ask) and 3 random trees. My 3 random fruit trees (2 vines and a kiwi tree) turned up and the fig never did and eventually I forgot about it. So when my mum rang to see if I had sent a 'big plant' to her house I denied all knowledge. Two days later she rings me and tells me that it's a fig tree. Suddenly everything clicks into place. I'm guessing i must have ordered it at the wrong time of year last year and they've just sent it out (it looks a bit healthy for having been in the post for a year). Now deciding where to site it. I'm thinking of pot growing it as apparently they are very vigorous, and also that makes it easier to move it somewhere safe in the winter. I've recently picked up Carol Klein's Grow your own Fruit, which is a lovely book. I've not read her grow your own veg but I like this and hopefully can use it help make Mr FatGirl build the fruit cage he's promised me.

I think I've killed my worms. again. I think is over feeding and over sogginess. But before i clean out the can-o-worms and start again I'll leave it a month as I've thought I'd killed them all before and I hadn't.

Yesterday's Independent on Sunday had a good article on water scarcity (sadly on-line lacking the insane graphics that print in the paper. It seems that while everyone talks about CO2 no-one wants to talk about water. I know it rains a lot but be waste massive amounts. I live on the south coast where hosepipe bans are a yearly occurrence, yet still we think we can just, well, er, chuck it down the toilet. I've briefly chatted about this issue before. I'm like anyone but why aren't new houses built with say grey water diverters or rainwater harvesting as a matter of course. They should be. It should be obvious.

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All gone wrong again

Well the whole faux green house thing didn't go well. After blowing over three times in the winds this week it ended up at the bottom of the garden in bits this morning. So I have abandoned the seedlings and sown some simple stuff by a sunny windowsill.

I have also ordered a selection of vegetable plug plants. I think this will hopefully take some of the leg work out and give me a good chance. I also think with that that I can hopefully plant up the whole plot (dun, dun, dun!). Last year we only cultivated half of it (black plasticking the rest), and was expecting to do the same this year. The selection of plugs I have ordered is brassica heavy so I've stared some sweetcorn, and courgettes inside and sown in situ some broad and runner beans. I'll get some winter squashes and more roots too.

The bokashi is amazing. Dug my first pickled batch in under a good spit of soil this weekend. Lets see how it rots down. I think (again) I've killed the worms. There is a fluffy mold growing in bin, I'm sure that's not a good sign, and i can only see dead worms. Oh dear.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Sowing Season, yeah

Today I are been mostly sowing sweetcorn, tomatoes, celeriac, Brussels sprouts and walking stick kale. Excitingly Mr Fatveg bought a bought a little faux green house thing for us to bring on our seedlings in, which we have propped against a south facing wall at home. Sadly there has been too much vandalism at our site to make it an idea to put anything there. Not just the normal break ins to sheds and thefts and but now arson to sheds and green houses, on two separate nights in one week. Weirdly nothing actually appears to have been nicked, just burned.

I'm using biodegradable seed pots this year, it just seems like a much better idea. Exciting times. At home Mr Fatveg had started a beautiful herb bed with hitherto unknown skills. Our first harvest of worm compost went into filling the new raised bed. After thinking I'd killed them all this was a delight, the worms are alive and the wormery is working. I used a ton of worm tea as fertilizer down on the allotment (diluted 1in 10ish). I didn't transport it in a properly air tight container and had an in - car spill! (if you have ever smelt worm tea you will know why this is so bad). The first bucket of bokashi has been filled and sealed, lets see how that goes. Will let you know how it all goes.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

yummy Brighton

So I went to fair Brighton for a day out yesterday. I love Brighton it's fun, has the funkiest shops, and has so many veggie places to eat it is a total delight. Much to my disappointment The amazing Terre á terre is closed on Mondays, If you go to Brighton and it's not a Monday you simply must go to this place it's great. So seeing as it was closed I lunched at the Infinity foods cafe which is great. I shared the mezze platter with my beloved and it was really delicious, it is just a lovely little laid back cafe. While I was lunching I overheard some well travelled vegans saying how easy it is to be vegan in the UK compared to other countries, I think if they are living in Brighton they are definitley having a head start :)
Afternoon tea was in the choccy woccy doo dah's bar du chocolat. this was amazing. i has a white chocolate hot chocolate, with all the trimmings and a lemon cup cake. I'm guessing this combo probably had wayyyy more calories than my lovely mezze and was so rich I just couldn't finish. I love choccy woccy doo dah and they are making my bespoke wedding cake. Their creations are just stunning and taste amazing.
Dinner before the drive home was in food for friends. Yum yum yum. I love this place. I had the stuffed portobello with sweet potato, fine beans and pesto which was delicious, and my fiancee had the stuffed butternut squash filo parcel, I'm guessing it was good ... when i asked for a taste it had all gone. We shared the stuffed peppers with goats cheese (yes please).

I wish I lived somewhere with so many great veggie places to eat out.


How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Back to the land

After a good (weather induced) rest i got back down on the allotment today. The garlic I planted back in November looks to be doing well. I've planted the Garlic Lovers collection from The Garlic Farm and am quite excited. Last year being a newbie I planted my garlic in the spring instead of in the autumn, If you do this, you end up with just an eye wateringley enormous clove rather than a head. I've since learned its frost that make the garlic head up and we sure have had enough of that I think.

Today (a little later than planned) onion and shallot sets went in. Shallot sets are a ton of fun, you plant one and you just get loads and its definitely low maintenance. I hope it's as good this year. Also going on the ground were potatoes Maris Peer (second earlies) and Maris Piper (Main crop). Actual proper seed potatoes, not like last year when my beloved planted a bunch of Desiree that had chitted in our cupboard, although that did work much to my surprise.

Sprouts (Brussels), sweet corn and tomatoes I plan to all sow indoors this week, wish me luck :)



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Three Bean and Vegetable soup

I haven't written in ages, I know. No I haven't been snowed off the Internet just been nesting. No visited to the allotment as it's been to cold to go in the garden! Much to my surprise having written them off as dead my worms are thriving, just making their way though the waste slooowly. I've made some good soups, it's a winter thing I think. Made a lovely 3 bean one in the slow cooker and a butternut squash and sweet potato one which I definitely over gingered, it was H O T. My lovely mum made me some amazing butterfly cakes, which I will definitely do some of myself soon.

Three bean and Vegetable Soup

1/2 a cup each of mung, black and aduki beans
1 big carrot
2 celery sticks
125g (ish) mushrooms
1 pepper (any colour it's all good)
1 onion
2 l vegetable stock

• Soak the beans in cold water overnight
• Rinse thoroughly, pop in a saucepan and cover with cold water, bring to the boil and boil fiercely for 15 minutes
• Rinse thoroughly and pop in the slow cooker
• Chop all your veg, add to the slow cooker and add the stock. Cook on low for six to eight hours, until the beans are tender
• Allow to cool a little, then blend
• Bring the boil, season and serve

Serves four to six

Any combo of beans or veg I imagine word have a similar effect and a diced chili would spice it up up nicely. How much you blend depends on how chunky a soup you want. being the saddo that I am I took ages trying to blend the veg but leave most of the beans intact which looks cook but is a hell of a faff. For stock I cheated (as usual) and used marigold. I used their organic stock and it was amazing, am not sure if this is because it was organic or just much fresher than my old tub.

As soon is the ground is not quite so frozen my shallots will go in, I am really looking froward to graong these as they were such a success and so easy last year.

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mmm tasty

Oooo, I just made Gino's Herby Potato Cakes with Bubbling Goat's Cheese, form the February edition of Cook Vegetarian magazine. They were lovely, really good. This has made me think of two things. 1. Why don't I use fresh thyme more? It's a great herb with a lovely, lovely flavour. and 2. How great is it that there is an entirely vegetarian cooking magazine out now? I love food mags, and buy too many, and get frustrated that at least half of their content doesn't even apply to me. So go out, buy the mag and make the potato cakes, alright?

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

SWEETcorn

Oh, in reference to the last post, I totally forgot to say, sweetcorn is so easy to grow and freshly picked corn tastes like nothing you can buy in a store. People tend not to think of grown sweetcorn but even if you only have a limited space for growing, do look at it, it is easy and well worth it. Yum.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

mmm, corny

So first up I made a great sweetcorn soup last night and I thought I'd share the love with you all.

2 cobs of sweetcorn, stripped
1 300g tin sweetcorn
1 400g tin of creamed corn
1 red pepper, diced
1 red chili finely diced
4 spring onions, sliced
1 small red onion, diced
1 tbs dark soy sauce
1 tsp marigold swiss bullion powder
1 litre of water

Okay so put the corn no longer on the cob, the pepper and nice green bits of the spring onions in a bowl. Put everything else in a slow cooker, then add half the pepper / corn mix. Pop the slow cooker on high for 2 to 4 hours (I guess you can do this on the hob for 1 hour but you would probably need more liquid). Now blend (carefully, it's hot) the soup mix and put in a saucepan. Add the rest of the pepper/sweetcorn/spring onion mix, bring to the boil and serve in warmed bowls. Serves 4.

Also I used for the first time a cake mix in the bread machine. I used Wright's ginger cake mix. This for no effort made a surprisingly good, slightly sticky ginger cake . I do enjoy baking, but say if I was busy and had guests coming for tea, I would definitely think about throwing one of these in the machine to serve with a morning or afternoon tea.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Obama takes the cake!

Well the 44th president of the USA is inaugurated today and on cupcakes take the cake (a blog guaranteed to make you drool) has a cool display of some of the Obama cupcakes on offer. I just couldn't imagine that ever happening with a prime minister in this country - could you?

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Bokashi

So last night I finally took the plunge and ordered my bokashi buckets. I will let you know how it goes ...

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Moments of Truth

So the Raw Food Life Force Energy Plan ... well i thought it was going quite well. I'm enjoying it, my mood is brighter and I'm definitely less bloated and having better digestion. Therefore imagine my surprise when I stepped onto the scales yesterday and discovered I'd lost seven pounds, 7 lbs! In one week! I nearly fell off the Wii in surprise, too good to be be true surely? But no apparently not, a diet that's fun to follow and really works? Well I never thought such things existed.

Just thought i'd mention yeterdays lunch which was courgetti with pesto (from Shazzie's Detox Delights) which I really, really love. It's so simple and so lovely. I wish I could find the battery charger for my camera so I could share pics with you all.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods

Mischief and raw food life force energy!

Okay so I started writing this post on Monday but then I went and got a bunny! A beautiful new boy called Mischief, he was up for 'adoption' as he beat up all the other Bunny's his last owner had! He is beautiful, cute and eating all my curly kale, he is still only a baby though.

So on Monday I started the Raw Food Life Force Energy 21 day programme. It's actually going pretty well so far. The life force power-ade I had for breakfast the fist two days was amazing. I have had unpleasant experiences with green juices before but this tasted amazing. really really zingy and nice, not what I was expecting at all! Today I made The Great Eliminator which was also good. Lunch on the first day was the Cleansing Corn Chowder which was delicious. I've had raw-avocado based soups before and this did not disappoint. I then froze it and took it to work for lunch the next day. Freezing juice works fine, freezing the soup ... not so good, it separated so I had the less than ideal combination of baked potato with cheese for lunch. Dinner the first day was non wheat pasta with vegetables in a tomato sauce, I've come to rely on Parmesan for flavour and forgot just how a good an unadorned pasta dish can be. Yesterday I had a goats cheese salad for an early evening snack at work (i was there 'till gone 9 (although it was only supposed to be 8.30) and then sweet potato wedges at home. I think I left enough time between them for it to not be a combination.

I'm really enjoying this diet, much to my surprise, the food is great and the 21 day programme has lots of little things every day to do so you move and detox more.

Raw Food Life Force Energy: Enter a Totally New Stratosphere of Weight Loss, Beauty, and Health

What a lovely new year's gift

No not from me old scrooge that I am, but from the Raw Food Coach Karen Knowler! She's giving away a fab eBook called 13 Wondrous Ways to Wahoo Your Way into 2009! Thanks Karen!

Talking about eBooks that are free and fabulous I have to mention squawkfox's Frugal Food and Fitness, a credit crunch classic.

How To Get Started With Raw Foods