​When shopping – particularly if I’m hungry, savouring the idea of preparing delicious dishes, I often buy too much fresh produce.  Then I find myself stuck with an excess of wonderful ingredients and a lack of desire to cook. I have many reasons to cook or create a recipe; hunger, obviously, is the principle one, or simply “emptiness”, as my father would claim; the second is the glorious sight and smell of fresh vegetables, fruit and cheese; other reasons include the temptation of a good  recipe (or food photograph), or the memory of a dish or a flavour, and the desire to recreate it: but the one that most frequently motivates me to action is the determination to use up food stuff before it goes off, (oh, the the horror of wasting food which costs so much labour to produce!).

This January has been particularly challenging in our house as I’ve been off food since Christmas due to a long-lasting dose of the flu.  So all the wonderful food I had bought in the week before Christmas was sitting ignored.  The sight of bananas turning browner in a bowl finally drove me to rouse myself and make banana muffins – I just could not throw them out. As an added bonus I was able to use stale natural yogurt – (sour smelling but no mould).

This is an easy recipe and these muffins are a great snack, delicious for breakfast or for putting in lunch boxes and have the added bonus of being quite light on sugar. They also keep well for 3 or 4 days and, if anything, taste better a day or two after baking.

Ingredients

• 250 grams of self-raising flour
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• ½ tsp of bread soda (also known as baking soda)
• 120 grams of caster sugar
• 2 ripe bananas – mashed
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence
• 2 eggs beaten
• 125 ml of stale yogurt OR sour milk/ butter milk
• 75 grams of melted butter
• 60 grams of sultanas

Method

1. Set the oven to 190 C degrees
2. Line muffin tin with the muffin paper cups
3. Weigh and sift together the flour and raising agents
4. Add the sugar to the dry ingredients
5. Add the sultanas to the flour mix
6. In a separate bowl, mix the yogurt, bananas, beaten eggs, vanilla and pour in the melted butter
7. Pour the well mixed liquid into the dry ingredients and mix well – (no need to beat as the combination of the raising agent and the sour yogurt/milk will do all the raising you need)
8. Put a large tablespoon of the wet mix into each of the muffin cases and put in the oven.
9. Cook for 20 – 25 minutes until brown and cooked through.
10. Remove from oven and put muffins onto wire tray to cool.

 
ENJOY!
 
Katie Verling

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A chance meeting the fantastic Shirley of Petals & Paper led to an amazing zero waste project for our coffee cups and our BPA till receipts.

The talented Shirley turns them into wonderful writing gift sets.

You can find her at various markets and our own Friday Food & Craft fair.

Please send me your upcycling or zero waste ideas.
[email protected]   Geraldine​

There comes a point where you must take action. I am thinking about key points in life where a decision is made that results in a life-or-death situation. You may recognise those moments. Not to be too dramatic about it but maybe you have experienced those acute near miss events that may have shaped your life dramatically one way or another. Such adventures can form an exciting narrative for the future to tell the grandchildren etc.
 
Then there are the chronic long-term decisions that are made with which we may not feel the impact for a long time but when we do they are significant. Our policy makers are charged with the trust from us to make the best decisions for our long-term interest.  We trust they take all the best evidence from all sides and make a measured decision that is in the best interest of the majority. Or so the narrative is sold to us. Trust us, they remind us relentlessly… For the most part we do.
 
But trust is truth and transparency. Selective truth and obscure transparency are as good as it gets with policy makers for the most part. We are reminded time and time again that agendas are often profit driven in the end. We the people are left with the guilt consequence that somehow the problems are all our fault. Fear and guilt are useful tools to encourage us to behave in certain ways. I will leave one word here to illustrate this point, but I am sure you have others…butter.
 
An interesting thing is happening though. I am the meerkat watching the horizon and have noticed the narrative changing. Have we reached a tipping point where we have finally begun to accept that the blatant ignorance of the power of food as a healer is no longer a runner? For ever the sceptic I reserve the right to be convinced this is a true direction forward. The date on the report looking at what was learned from Covid 19 in terms of the US food systems raises a question for me. There has always been too much profit to be had in the Big Food & Pharma models. But hey, maybe there is a realisation that no matter how high tech we go we still need people to work. People who are well physically and mentally. Caring for those who are not has become unsustainable. Trolley crisis’s and protests fill our newsfeeds. We have reached breaking point. Someone, somewhere has decided maybe we need to look at food as our medicine again. This topic is appearing in policy reports. Not so long ago we were snake oil peddlars… (thankfully we have changed the policy of witch burning in recent centuries for using food as medicine).
 
As always, I find it interesting and curious. I will be watching this space. Meanwhile let’s keep sharing our own knowledge and wisdom on the power of food to heal us and ensure we have the continuity of supply to sustain us.
 
https://www.aspeninstitute.org/programs/food-and-society-program/food-is-medicine-project/
 
https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RF_Reset-the-Table_SUMMARY_July-28_FINAL.pdf
 
Anne Maher
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Nourishing Traditions Cookbook for Children. Suzanne Gross & Sally Fallon Morell

Over the years I have collected cookbooks like many folks that have grown up cooking. There are trends that ebb and flow as cookbooks accompanied the relevant TV programme chefs musings.
 
Darina and Nigella have taken up space in my life for quite a time it has to be said. The battle between the need to keep traditional techniques and values with the modern fandangled trends continues in this genre and this is where we sit with this month’s recommendation. Tradition and real food are the priority now.
 
Children’s cookbooks though are a pet peeve of mine.  Queue the rant!!
 
Teaching children to cook is a no brainer. It’s a necessary skill we can mostly agree on. But OMG the templates to support this venture are poisoned with sugar!! The very time our children are growing and developing we are drowning them in the toxicity of ultra-processed sweet “treats” and immersing them in a syrup of addiction that our society pays the eternal price for… diabetes, mental health problems etc etc.
 
It was such a welcome breadth of fresh air when I first came across the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook for Children. Visually pleasing and easy to understand with pictorial prompts in the ingredients there is a wealth of nourishing recipes that embrace the philosophy of Weston A Price. Foods such as kefir, raw milk, fermented foods, soaked grains make an appearance and introduce children to the world of nourishing foods. What a game changer! I have no doubt it will be a long while before we see a celebrity chef cooking along with this cookbook on TV, but this makes it all the more special. Perhaps we can start our own trend for parents and support them to educate children and normalise real food again. Any budding celebrity chefs out there willing to break ground on this new venture? Give us a call at The Urban Co-op. You never know where this could lead..!

Anne Maher 

Gary Larson captures life so well and this one is a favourite. Most recently captioned as “If 2020 was a food truck” It’s a love it or hate it thing with liver. But as a real food we have seen a rising appreciation for this superfood at The Urban Co-op. Customers wait patiently for the next batch to arrive from the farms and it sells out quickly. Stories abound on the healing impact this food has. We reminisce on stories of liver coated in flour and fried in butter and onions and cooked by grandparents, urging us to consume for its goodness. That was then.
 
Our distance from this food into modern eating habits has meant it has been devalued on all stages of the food chain. So much so it is harder to get. Not that it is unavailable but not worth bringing to our table anymore. The cost of processing does not justify the effort. For now, this is a very cheap superfood. It is true I obsess about it, probably more than rationally healthy. But like raw milk it represents something bigger about our food system. A sustaining food in plain sight that we wilfully ignore and undervalue until it is not available to us.
 
For what it’s worth, I baulked at the idea of eating offal for a long time but have learned to respect its value. Fried liver and onions cooked in butter and served with some tamari and balsamic vinegar is a winner recipe for me. It is like a battery recharge to have this meal. Jacinda in NZ tells us she has no more left in the tank. She wasn’t eating NZ lambs’ liver I’d say.
 
Anne Maher
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The old traditional dish was made with beef, but the new traditional one is now made with mushrooms and chestnuts.
 
Bourguignon is a saucy dish of seasonal root vegetables made with wine as the base for the broth originally from the Burgundy region. The wonderful deep flavour comes from the wine & the porcini ‘jus’… and from the slow cooking in the oven. All the vegetable flavours come together with the herbs. 
 
Poured over a nice bed of mashed potato this dish is pure winter comfort food!
 
INGREDIENTS

• 6 small onions, quartered
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled, whole
• 400 g button mushrooms, halved
• 20 g dried porcini mushroom
• 4 carrots – cut into bite size chunks
• 1 red pepper – cut into chunks
• ½ to 1 cup cooked chestnuts, chopped in two
• 2 Tbsp tomato paste
• 2 Tbsp tamari soya sauce
• 1 cup of red wine
• ½ litre soaking water from the porcini
• 2 bay leaves
• A few sprigs of thyme
• 3 Tbsp wholewheat flour
• ½ tsp ground black pepper
• A handful of fresh parsley, chopped
• salt and pepper to season, to taste
• ½ litre of water

 
INSTRUCTIONS

1. You will need a ‘Dutch Oven’ or large Pyrex dish with a lid to place into the oven.
2. If you have time, marinate the onion and carrots for a few hours or overnight in the fridge. Marinate in the cup of wine, the water, the tamari, the thyme, and the bay leaves.
3. Soak the dried porcini in 500ml of hot water, set aside
4. In a frying pan lightly separately fry the onion, the pepper and the mushrooms for a few minutes in a drop of oil, to braise the surface. Transfer back to the water and wine broth.
5. Then do the same with the carrots. Before transferring the carrots to the broth, sprinkle the flour over them and mix well to avoid lumps then mix it all into the broth.
6. Finally add the tomato paste and the chestnuts, mix it all well and place into a hot oven 200C to cook covered for 30 minutes, then uncovered for another 15 minutes. You want to make sure the onion and carrots are cooked and the sauce has thickened a bit.
7. If it is too dry add a little water so there is a sauce with the vegetables. If too runny you can add a tsp of cornflour pre-mixed in a little water.
8. Serve over piping hot mashed potatoes and some freshly chopped parsley.

 

​Bon appétit !
 
Jacques
 
@HungrySoulVegan  - Changing the Culture

This time of year, it is no surprise yet again to hear the relentless drum on the media of the overburdened health service as they cope with the waves of sick populous coming through. A few weeks earlier and we were being entertained with the anticipation of Christmas and regaled with the advertisements oozing with sugary delights to tempt us. Can I be the Grinch here and call out the obvious? Sugar prevents us from staying well. Managing the onslaught of sugary snacks is quite an achievement for our bodies at the best of times throughout the year and Christmas is somehow the last chance saloon to send us over the edge. Our immune system does not work as effectively to defend us from infection when dealing with the sweet invasion. Is there a point where being ill is not worth the temptation? It’s the eternal struggle. Is New Year going to be an opportunity to change and improve things? Maybe we can be motivated to keep ourselves well enough to prevent us being victims to the stressful health system as it currently is…
 
At The Urban Co-op we meet many people who are on their journey towards wellness and are literally sick of being sick. Encouraging people to make the change from products that actively deteriorate health to foods that nourish is a process of discovery. Learning that we are highly influenced by our own microbiome on what we consume and how we can change it for the better. There is much to learn but somehow it seems to take the personal or family health crisis to motivate change. Amazingly real food can heal and feed our microbiome and this microworld returns the favour by protecting our health. That’s a good deal in our books!
 
Anne Maher
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