Tuck into easy vegetarian Vietnamese rolls

Now that we're seasoned Meatless Supper Club bloggers, my family now expects and even looks forward to at least one meatless meal per week.  Miracles do happen.

I'm loving the fantastic suggestions from friends and family about meals I can construct at the table -- keep them coming please! A huge thanks also to Heather and Renee from EnviroMom for this awesome initiative. 

This week our family tucked into some vegetarian Vietnamese rolls -- and they couldn't be easier!  It took 15 minutes from opening the fridge door to opening our mouths and stuffing them in.  We ate these as a light dinner but you may prefer them for an appetizer or weekend lunch.

  The building materials:

•  Julienned carrots, cucumber, shallots
• Chopped peanuts
• Sliced avocado, lettuce
• Mung bean sprouts
• Fresh mint leaves
• Peanut sauce, chili sauce, hoisin sauce
• Vermiciili
• Rice wrappers (8.5 inch diameter)

The construction:

Simply arrange a selection of yummy things and sauce on your rice wrapper (not too much!), roll once over, tuck the bottom edge up and finish rolling.

Scoff!  My son, impatient with my camera fumbling, was so keen to eat it that twice I had to screech "NOT YET!!!"  as the Vietnamese roll took on a life of its own and jumped into his mouth.

Yum!

Monkeying around on MiniMonosTV

Whoohoo!  We've been following Monty the Monkey as he has a blast keeping MiniMonos Island green.

 

Non-violent Harry Potter pizzas

We’re up to week 4 of the EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club. 10 of us are putting together a store of recipes over a period of 8 weeks by cooking one meatless meal a week for our families. I’m continuing with my theme, attempting to make meatless meals fun for kids by turning them into a construction project at the table.  Melissa gave me her fantastic pizza dough recipe, and my husband led the charge and made the pizzas with our son and two of his friends. All I had to do was to announce that the theme was "Harry Potter character faces", then take photos.  Hmmm…must say a couple of my photos are so shaky they look like I’ve just been hit by the Cruciatus Curse.

Here’s Melissa’s pizza base recipe:

I have been making bread since I was a kid.  This seems like an odd method, but it is fail-safe!  It is made in 2 stages;

1.  In a big bowl (not plastic) - just whack it all in and stir +/- 100 times with a wooden spoon -- I bet 50 would actually do it. The stirring gets the gluten going.  This bit is called the sponge.  It will look wet.

• 3 ½  to 4 ½ c flour (we use a combo of 3 cups white and 1 cup rolled oats (gives a little chewiness) and wholemeal flour mixed together.  You can use all white or all wholemeal or any combo, but there is no gluten in oats, so no more than 1/2 cup!  Note that any flour will do, people think you need something special but plain old flour is fine.
• 1 Tbsp yeast (that's 1 package in US)
• Approx ¼  - 1/3 c of any kind of sweetening (brown sugar, honey etc)
•  3 c water (tepid ie not hot or cold, a little warm is ok)
•  1 egg (totally optional, but I prefer it)

Throw a damp tea towel over it and put somewhere, anywhere (on the bench, in a hot water cupboard, just not somewhere cold or drafty) for ¾ hour or longer.  To be honest I often do this in the morning and deal to it all later. 

2.  Throw in:

• 1 - 1 ½ Tbsp of salt.  Do not omit this, it tastes awful without salt.
• ¼ c or about 2 Tbsp olive oil -- a good splosh. 
• 3 - 4 or so cups of flour (any combo of white and wholemeal).  Put the first couple of cups straight in, then just add the rest as required.

Get your hands in and mush, mix, knead, pound - you cannot get this wrong.  Add the minimum of flour to make a dough that you can knead.  You will need some more flour to stop it sticking to the bench.  Kneading is basically pushing, slapping mashing.  Great kid fun, you can't get it wrong. When you've had enough, make it into a ball.  Slosh a little more oil into the bowl and swoosh the dough around so that it has a thin covering of oil.  Put the tea towel back on top, and leave for 30-60 minutes (or longer but not more than a couple of hours).  Get your child to make a fist and punch the dough in the middle. He or she will laugh, it will "poof" and collapse a bit.

Now grab bits, flour the board (just use the minimum or it will get too dry) and roll.  If you don't have a rolling pin, a wine bottle works!

Turn Oven on to about 180c 350F

Put on baking trays - I put baking paper under them.  Cook!

The reason the Harry Potter theme was chosen is because my son’s favourite pizza is meat-lovers (Eeek!), followed by Hawaiian. I figured that if my husband announced that they were making vegetarian pizzas, his would consist only of cheese and pineapple, with barbeque sauce.  But faces require interesting colors and vegetables – and kids love to be gory and eat the eyes, even if they’re made from olives.

The building materials:  
They used pesto (both tomato and basil), sliced zucchini, black olives, tomatoes, pineapple, mushrooms, red capsicum, mozzarella and caramelized onion.

The construction:
Unfortunately no-one read the last sentence of Melissa’s recipe: “Cook!”.  So the kids built their faces on un-cooked pizza dough.  Luckily it worked out fine.  Melissa wasn’t kidding when she said the recipe was fail-safe.

The results:

Hermoine:

Fred:

And Fred’s twin, George.

The verdict:
My son’s friends were a wonderful addition to the Meatless Supper Club this week. They said enthusiastic stuff like: “Yum! I love pesto” and “Yay! Caramelized onion!”. There was nothing they turned their noses up at -- I’m thinking about borrowing them for dinner, every night for a month.  They all had fun making their faces and the final result was declared “super-dooper delicious”. All olive eyes and capsicum mouths were scoffed, although there was no reason for them to use the zucchini.  Next time we’ll push our luck, bring out the broccoli and try making Incredible Hulk pizzas.

What parents are saying about MiniMonos virtual world

Awww….thanks to those wonderful parents who recently left comments when they registered their child to become a MiniMonos member.  It makes us all warm and fuzzy to read them! 

I think my daughter will love this website.

Your site rocks -- I like flying

This seems a very nice and caring game-i like it!

Love the concept.

Looks great!!   

Love the fish game!!

I love this site it rocks

MiniMonos is awesome

lovely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you from Team MiniMonos -- from the heart.  We really appreciate your feedback as we continue developing MiniMonos for your good, green kids!

Palming-off our climate change problem

 
Photo via flickr by Anthrotect

Today is Blog Action Day 2009, the annual event which unites the world's bloggers to all write about a single issue of global importance on the same day.  The issue this year is climate change, a topic very close to my heart, and which in 2007 inspired my training with Al Gore to become a Climate Project Ambassador. As I write this, there are over 7,300 of us blogging today from 138 countries and this number is growing by the minute.

 

As well as being Blog Action Day today, October 12-18 is World Rainforest Week.  I have had increasing concerns about the effects that the palm oil industry has had on our rainforests, so today is the perfect day to air them.

 

Deforestation is responsible for a whopping 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, due to the destruction of tropical rainforests, Indonesia and Brazil are the third and fourth largest greenhouse gas-emitting countries, just behind the U.S. and China. As well as being one of the worst contributors to climate change, deforestation continues to destroy the last remaining habitats of the orangutan and the Sumatran tiger.

 

One important driver of tropical forest loss is the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations, which produce oil used in food, cosmetics, cleaning and biofuel products. Roughly 90% of the world’s palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. The United Nations estimates that palm oil plantations are "now the primary cause of permanent rainforest loss."  If action is not taken, 98% of the rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia could vanish in only 15 years.

 

Palm oil is not a tropical problem; it is our problem. In the U.S. alone, palm oil is found in almost 50% of items on grocery store shelves.

I am sure that many of you, like me, do your best to tread lightly on the earth.  We do our utmost to raise our children to love nature and understand that we are part of it.  We teach them that there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ when it comes to humans vs. the planet.  Or humans vs. all other living things.

I believe that to solve the deforestation and climate change issues, we can’t do it by ourselves.  We need our governments to take action.  But there are also actions as individuals which will make a difference:

 

1.Read that label!  

About  40m tonnes of palm oil are produced a year.  The most recent figures I found showed that 1.5m tonnes of “sustainable” palm oil were produced in 2008.  That’s roughly 4% of the total production. Many countries allow palm oil to be labeled as “vegetable oil” in products; as my research has shown me that this happens frequently, I have decided not to buy anything with miscellaneous “vegetable oil” in it.  A quick look around my supermarket revealed either palm oil or “vegetable oil” in chips, biscuits, crackers, and margarine as well as Dove soap.  

 

2. Buy consciously

Some companies are waking up to the palm oil issue.  LUSH previously used around sixty metric tons of palm oil per year, but for the last 3 years have switched to a palm oil-free soap base.  "We believe that until global levels of palm use are cut dramatically, there is little hope of a workable sustainable palm oil industry, and the future of the forests, animals and people of Indonesia and Malaysia is bleak," said Brandi Halls, LUSH Communications Manager.

Accompanying the launch of the public awareness campaign, LUSH is selling a tree-shaped soap called "Jungle". 100% of the proceeds will be donated to the Rainforest Foundation, a group that campaigns for indigenous rights and rainforest conservation. LUSH also partners with the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), an activist group, to convince other comapnies to source their ingredients responsibly.

A big bouquet also has to go to Cadbury New Zealand. Earlier this year, Cadbury incensed their buying public by using palm oil, but as a result of the negative impact on sales and their reputation, they switched back to cocoa butter, and made a further step to commit to fair trade.  Hooray!  A PR win for Cadbury means a win for consumers, producers, farmers, and the planet!

 

Illegal logging also contributes to rainforest destruction.  Every time we buy cheap outdoor furniture and decking made from popular tropical timber called kwila, we encourage this trade. Imports of kwila contribute to the destruction of the rainforests of Indonesia, Malaysia and Papua New Guinea.

3.   Lobby

I heard today that there are approximately 100 buyers who buy all the products stocked on the shelves of all of Europe’s supermarkets.  They get paid by picking winners, and not stocking “losers” (ie poor selling products).  I’ll bet the same system is in place in North America. You have the power to influence these buyers through your shopping behaviors and the noise you make.

 

Here in New Zealand, dairy cattle are fed palm kernel as supplementary winter feed.  Our cattle used to be grass-fed, with supplementary local crops grown to assist through the winter months.  Now, with global demand for dairy and New Zealand beef heading offshore at high prices, our dairy industry imports palm kernel expeller for winter feed -- a product created from palm kernel after oil extraction. Indeed, New Zealand is the largest single user of this product in the world.  Fonterra has said that it buys from sustainable sources, but remember that only around 4% of the world’s palm kernel oil is produced sustainably -- while NZ alone buys 25% of the world’s palm kernel expeller. Hmm. Something doesn’t add up.

The bans on palm oil by LUSH and, this year, the Auckland Zoo, go further than the broader push to use ‘responsibly-sourced’ palm oil. In recent years, Unilever, Whole Foods, and other companies have pledged to use only sources of palm oil that have been independently verified and certified to meet environmental and social sustainability criteria. But efforts to develop and promote eco-friendly palm oil have stumbled out of the blocks.

Some activist groups have questioned the credibility of palm oil certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an initiative which lays out green standards for palm oil production.  At the same time, demand for certified palm oil, which costs more to produce than conventional palm oil and carries an 8-15% price premium, has been tepid, partly as a result of the global economic downturn.

Last month, the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned an advertorial taken out by the Malaysian palm oil industry and stated that RSPO’s certification scheme was "still the subject of debate".They found that the Malaysian palm oil industry’s claim -- that it was possible for palm oil to be sustainable -- could not be substantiated and it was deemed to be misleading. The ASA pointed out that the industry could not prove that the production of palm oil did not, in fact, lead to deforestation or environmental damage. They added that research had shown biofuel production to cause adverse social impacts including rising food prices and a major short-term impact on the poor. The ASA ruled that the ad should not be shown again.

Nevertheless, curtailing global demand for palm oil will be a challenge for green groups. Oil palm is the world's most productive oilseed, generating more vegetable oil at a lower cost than any other crop per unit of area. A single hectare of oil palm may yield nearly 6,000 litres of crude palm oil, outperforming soy, canola/rapeseed, and corn ten to twenty times over.  Further, the recent drop in palm oil prices has made it more attractive for biofuel production, opening an entire new market. Western governments are considering banning palm oil-based biodiesel due to concerns about emissions associated with its production. However, other countries -- including China and India -- are gearing up to burn more biodiesel as car ownership expands. Thus it seems likely that demand for palm oil will remain strong.

The Worldwatch Institute concludes that despite new efforts at sustainability certification, palm oil development will likely remain unsustainable unless a global solution increases incentives for preserving forest. 

It’s time we used our consumer and lobbying power to create just that incentive.

More information can be found from the following sources:

Rainforests Action Network

Mongabay.com

Green- You can download the film for free and hold a discussion about it. 

The Prince’s Rainforests Project

David Attenborough's Q&A with the Prince's Rainforests Project

Bruce Parry's Q&A with the Prince's Rainforests Project

Article: 'Sustainable' palm oil campaign banned by ASA– guardian.co.uk.  September 2009

Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (industry Org)

Article: Indonesia's Palm Oil Problem  - Worldwatch Institute

 

 

Roll up for week 3 of the Meatless Supper Club!

This week it’s just my son and me in the house. Father is away reliving his youth at a basketball tournament so he won't be sampling this week's EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club recipe.

Sushi is my son’s favorite food and although I always meant to make it at home, I’m sorry to say I never got round to it, thinking it would be time-consuming and end frustratingly in weird shapes with contents spilling everywhere.  So while Dad was away and unable to laugh at us -- or 'help' -- our vegetarian building project for this week was constructing sushi at the table.  And we were pleasantly surprised!

The tools:

6 cups water
3 cups short-grain brown or white rice

Any combination of the following vegetables:

cucumber
zucchini
green bell pepper
red bell pepper
carrots
daikon radish
asparagus
scallions
mushrooms
sesame seeds
avocado

2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
6 Tbsp. brown sugar
1 package pre-toasted nori sheets
Prepared wasabi paste

Bamboo rolling mat (especially if you're a beginner!)

Preparation:

Add rice and cold water to a large pot with lid.  Bring to the boil and lower the heat, simmering for 15 minutes. Turn off the heat and stand for a further 10 minutes. Seed and julienne the vegetables. Steam the vegetables, except avocado which should be raw, over boiling water for 5 to 7 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.

Mix together the vinegar and brown sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. When the rice is cooked, stir in the vinegar and brown sugar mixture, and cool to room temperature.

When the vegetables and rice are cool enough to handle, lay out the first nori sheet.

 

Put about 1/2 cup of rice in the centre of the sheet, pressing it out to the edges, but leaving a one-inch line on the edge closest to you.  You need to keep your hands wet so the rice doesn't stick -- a bowl of water is good to have close-by.

On the bare nori line, place any combination of vegetables which appeal.  I was a bit afraid to put too much in the first roll, but got bolder (and greedier) the second time.  I didn't include the wasabi in the roll itself, prefering to flavor the dipping soy sauce with it, later. 

Carefully lift the mat over, rolling the edge of the nori over the contents.  Tuck the edge in, before continuing to roll.  Be careful not to include your mat in the roll!

When you've completed rolling, squeeze it with both hands, still in the bamboo, to stop it unfolding when you take the mat away.

Cut with a good, sharp knife.  Hint: if you wet the knife in between cuts, it's much easier.

 

 

The verdict:

It was really fun to make and YUMMY to eat!  In fact we can't believe we haven't done this before. Son was so enthused about it that I have a feeling it will be requested for his birthday party -- that's if we're not sick of eating it every week until then!

A good way for your child to fall in love with nature

We were lucky to be invited to write an environmental guest blog for Good about encouraging your child to have a relationship with nature.

Good magazine is New Zealand’s first carbon-neutral magazine for forward-thinking New Zealanders who want to live more sustainable lives with less impact on the environment. Packed with inspirational people, world-changing ideas and practical, down-to-earth advice, Good will arm you with all the information you need to make wise choices for yourself, your family and our planet.

Read more about A boy, his grandfather and the environment: a love story

 
  
  
  

Making a difference with SIFT

We are very proud to have written a guest blog for the Sustainable Initiatives Fund Trust (SIFT), a Canterbury Trust which assists local sustainable projects.  We think they ROCK!!

The Sustainable Initiatives Fund is a charitable trust with extensive knowledge and experience in the waste industry, research and development and business development.

Originally set up by the Christchurch City Council, the trust plays a vital role in funding and assisting Canterbury individuals and organisations to develop new and unique ways of reusing resources and reducing the amount of waste that would otherwise go to the landfill. Check out some of the awesome projects SIFT has funded to transform waste into sustainable products and reduce the waste stream.

Our guest article is called An Inconvenient Truth for Canterbury Kids.

Constructing an Eco-Pad Thai

It’s week two of EnviroMom’s Meatless Supper Club, where for eight weeks, ten eco-bloggers are cooking and sharing family-friendly recipes without meat. 

Continuing my theme of distracting the family carnivores, I’m creating build-a-meals. Hopefully the process of construction at the table will be entertaining enough so that the boys (old and young) will not mind that their usual form of protein is missing. 

Tonight I made Tofu Pad Thai. This way, I could make the main rice noodle dish in the kitchen then bring the rest of the ingredients to the table to build on our plates.

The materials:

Pad Thai sauce:
3 tbsp tamarind paste
1/4 cup hot water
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp fish sauce
1-3 tsp. chilli sauce (to taste)

8 oz Thai rice noodles
4 oz firm tofu

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp chopped garlic
3 eggs
4 stems green onion, cut into 1-inch pieces
Fresh coriander leaves
Wedges of lime
1 cup bean sprouts
6 tbsp roasted salted peanuts, chopped

The construction:

1. Bring a large pot of water to boil, then remove from heat. Dunk in the rice noodles. Soak (do not boil) the noodles until soft enough to eat, but still firm and a little "crunchy". Drain and rinse the noodles thoroughly with cold water. Set aside.

2. In a small bowl or cup, dissolve the tamarind paste in the hot water. Then add the other sauce ingredients, stirring well. (Add as much or as little chili sauce as you prefer, but don't skimp on the sugar - it is needed to balance out the sourness of the tamarind.) Set aside.

3. Heat a wok over medium-high heat. Add 2 Tbsp. oil, then add 2 stems of chopped shallots and garlic. Stir-fry 1 minute.

4. Add the tofu and toss until browned.

5. Push the tofu and shallots up the sides of the wok and break eggs into the centre. Stir until whites and yolks are combined and cook, like an omelette. When cooked, remove the egg and slice.  Reserve.

6. Add the drained noodles and pad thai sauce and combine. Keep tossing, maintaining the heat between medium and medium-high – the pan must be hot enough to finish cooking the noodles but not burn them.  Stir-fry until noodles are cooked but firm.

7. Bring the noodles to the table with bowls of chopped peanuts, coriander, egg, bean sprouts, limes and the rest of the chopped shallots.

8. Start building!

The verdict:

The cooking was easy and the construction was fun. Even though everything in the bowls was technically 'optional', I found everything did go on the plate.  I'm sure if I put it all together in the kitchen I would have had a: "What is this?" (accompanied by wrinkled nose). So veg pad thai is a keeper.

You can find the rest of week two's Meatless Supper Club recipes here.

On eggshells around my reluctantly green husband

We're thrilled to have a guest blog from commercial photographer, green advocate and friend, Mette Kristiansen. Amongst her many eco-initiatives, Mette has been an inspiration for her home-made wine, freshly baked bread and a gorgeous goumet herb garden.

I call my husband a “begrudging greenie” or “greenie by default”.

Poor thing. He’s been badgered, cajoled and coerced into many things green; firstly by his sustainable-architect mother, then by his health freak/vegetarian/placard-waving photographer wife. Okay, maybe I’m not that bad, but I have added some annoying green habits to my repertoire by watching and learning off my mother-in-law -- much to my husband's disappointment.

He bemoans the trips he had to make as a child to the compost heap deep in the heart of the New Zealand winter, with a cold Antarctic wind whipping up Wellington Harbour.  His mother was cunning: she raised him and his brother to think cucumber skins and dried pasta were a treat. Unfortunately, he has now completely switched and is abnormally partial to the candy bins at the local store -- but has fantastic teeth all the same.

A new habit his mother has introduced me to, and one he tries to dodge with great regularity, is the cleaning and storing of eggshells.  We put them into either the compost or the worm farm. Admittedly, and despite my great intentions, the dried shells tend to pile up and spill out of their containers in our already over-flowing pantry as they wait for me to grind them up into eggshell dust. Hating this “eggshell infiltration”, Hubby casually flings the shells into the green-bin, hoping I won’t see or, even more tragically, into the rubbish bin! ‘Traitor husband!’ I mutter to myself, as I fish around in the bin rescuing mucky eggshells under his disgusted glare.

Another mother-in-law-influenced behavior is the saving of banana skins to put under our lemon tree. My husband hasn’t succumbed to this one yet and I haven’t quite reached the saintly heights of chopping them up carefully into little pieces as the in-laws do, tending more to fling them at the lemon tree with wild abandon. It does give me a wonderful warm fuzzy each time, but I’m not sure if it’s helping the lemon tree!

One green behavior he did enthusiastically attempt was the placing of coffee grounds around my hostas to discourage slugs. However, instead of placing them neatly at the base of the hosta, he would hurl them at any old plant that was in the area. As a result, all our plants now wear a layer of dried, black coffee grinds -- not the look I was hoping for in our little courtyard garden!

So, as time passes, I think hubby has resigned himself to the fact that he will spend the rest of his life hiding eggshells and banana skins under bits of green waste, dodging the wrath of the eco-warrior women in his life. Deep down, however, I am sure he loves the fact that he has something to moan about to the boys over a Friday night beer and that, when he wants to, he can win dead-easy brownie points just by chopping up a few banana skins!