Vegan Apple Crumble

In my Christmas Eve skipping haul there were about a dozen packets of pre-sliced apples & grapes in snack-packs. There was also a bag of peanuts & cashews. And a few dozen pitta breads. So, for Christmas dessert I decided to make an apple crumble mainly from these ingredients.

I mixed the apples with some fair trade muscovado sugar and spices (nutmeg, cinnamon, mixed spice). I placed them at the bottom of a baking dish. Then I made the topping. I crumbled about four pittas into a bowl with some of the nuts (washed as they were salty) and some brown sugar and a bit of flour. I added in a good bit of oil and mixed it all up until I got some nice crumbly clumps. I piled this on top of the apple mixture and stuck it in the oven. You don't want the top burning, so don't have it on too hot. I also poured some maple syrup over it towards the end. It's done whenever you want to eat it! It depends on your crumble preference.

It will hold out of the fridge in a cool place for a few days and I think it's even better cold.
(Props to Erin and Anna for getting me on the crumble train.)

- Dara

Skipping Christmas

I've been doing a good bit of skipping these days, or dumpster-diving as the Americans call it, somewhat less pleasantly. To those who have not tried it, I would highly recommend it. It's essentially reclaiming often-perfect food from going to waste, usually from a skip out the back of a supermarket or shop. I'm at home in Ireland currently and haven't really done much since I came home for Christmas. So, at 11pm on Christmas Eve I decided I must go and see what my hometown had to offer. I dragged my brother (and his car) along with me and soon hit the jackpot out the back of the big, evil, British supermarket chain. You know, the blue one, starts with a T. Anyway, this is what we took home, but we could have taken twenty times this amount and fed the entire town for Christmas dinner. But we didn't, we just took what we could use and carry.

      (I even found a chocolate bunny, but that didn't make it into the picture. )

Skipping is my favorite way to scavenge for food. It sure beats shopping, which I really hate and need money for. You don't have to queue, worry about prices, fair trade, ethics, animal treatment, the carbon footprint of your food - it's all rotting in a bin, so anything you take and use can only be positive. You're not supporting any unsustainable or cruel industries, in fact you're feeding off the waste they're causing. It's beautiful.

Though there is a stigma when people first hear about skipping. Like my brother said, 'You imagine someone eating a half-eaten pizza from a dirty bin,' like in those (American) movies. But it's really not like that at all. Often supermarkets are quite meticulous in their binning of foods, double- and triple-bagging goods. Heaven forbid, even the bin should be a mess. And everything's wrapped in plastic these days, which is quite convenient. Even if you don't eat the food you take from the skip, you can compost it and recycle the packaging.

My favorite bit of it all is probably creatively using up the food. It's like 'Ready, Steady, Cook'. Work with the ingredients you've got. In fact, I'm sure that could be a good show: 'Ready, Steady, Skip'. Someone may have suggested that to me before (Webby, was it you?). If no one claims it I'll take full credit for the idea.

My next few entries will concern using these ingredients to make some creative veggie dishes (and even the Christmas hams were used up on the day by the non-veggies in the house). More to come!

- Dara

Camping

Here are edibles for a 4-day camping trip:

What you see up there fed two people for a period of four days - that's three meals a day plus snacks. We bought some much appreciated grapes and raspberries, and a baked potato with veg curry between the two of us, but apart from that it's all up there.

Below are four meals that came out of the above ingredients. Read and imagine!

This is cous cous with sprouting beans, flavoured with chilli mix and tomato paste.

Amazingly fresh tasting and filling.

Now, this one was a stroke of genius. It's TVP with the chilli spices and tomato paste again, this time with sun dried tomatoes and lovingly surrounded by a tortilla wrap.

Again with the TVP - this time with pasta, stir-in pasta sauce (light to carry!) and sun dried tomatoes. You would not believe how warm and comforting that lovely thick sauce was in a cold Scottish field. Beautiful.

Now, before thinking too much about the meal below please remember that camping is hungry work, and by the fourth day having something hot that will sit there in your belly making its presence known is exactly what you want.

Ok, so please find below a pitta bread topped with baked beans, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, TVP and (ahem...) red wine. It tasted good. Honestly.

There's something strangely satisfying about seeds that have soaked up a load of liquid - their texture becomes easier to eat and - I'm told - digest. And no-one can deny that red wine is a good liquid. As is bean juice. Just take a look at this concoction...