March 23
Retro fashion: Vintage knitting needle bracelet
Fashion shouldn’t cost the earth, so today my action for A Year in a Day was to take a little time out to play and reimagine a joyous future in which wearing Retro was the norm. I rummaged through my old knitting needles for ones that had lost their twin, and made myself a vintage knitting needle bracelet. This is one of the needles my mum taught me to knit with, so it’s more valuable to me than gold. It’s now being upcycled to have a second life on my wrist, where the memories live on.
It was super easy to make! I just dropped it into some boiling water, and then used tongs and an oven mitt to twist it around when softened. I held the ends in place with two pegs until it cooled down and rehardened.
PRODUCE>CONSUME
This evening I raced to beat the rain’s return, to collect the Purple Sicilian Cauliflower seeds that have struggled to dry out in this wet season. This is one of my favourite foods and plants, and is a super healthy addition to any diet:
I managed to get around 120 seeds which I put into punnets that I brought inside, because who knows what’s happening with this rain. I’d like to nurture them carefully until they’re strong enough to cope with whatever the weather throws at them.
If you’d like to know what else to plant, a great site is Gardenate, where you type in your climate zone and it lists what’s best to plant now. You can get a free reminder emailed every month to help keep you on track!
PLANT-BASED EATING: Chilean Green Bean Fritters
Today I harvested scarlet runner beans and one of my favourite recipes for them is Chilean Green Bean Fritters. I’m including the traditional vegetarian recipe with an alternate eggless batter. The parmesan can be replaced with nutritional yeast.
Chilean Green Bean Fritters
This recipe makes about 8 fritters and they are just so tasty!
- 800 gms green beans
- 2 eggs
- ⅓ cup whole wheat flour
- ½ cup grated cheese or nutritional yeast (optional)
- oil, salt, pepper
- chopped green onions or chives (optional)
Alternative eggless batter
- ⅓ cup cornstarch
- ¼ cup flour
- 2 tbsp rice flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ½ cup sparkling water
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Wash beans and pat dry. Cut the ends and chop lengthwise (french style). Boil salted water in a pot. Add the beans and cook for 3 minutes, or al dente. Drain and place in a bowl with ice water to set the colour and stop the cooking. Leave 5 minutes and drain.
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In a bowl, place cooked beans, flour, eggs, cheese, and green onions with salt and pepper. Stir with a fork or hands until well blended. (Or replace flour, eggs, cheese with the eggless batter.)
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Heat a large fry pan over high heat. If you throw water droplets, they should dance and evaporate almost immediately. Reduce heat to medium. Add one tablespoon olive oil, and place a generous scoop of green bean mixture in the pan, forming patties and cook for 5 minutes. Turn and cook 5 minutes more.
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Remove to a plate lined with a tea towel and continue with the rest of the mixture. Serve hot or at room temperature, sprinkled with salt.
WHAT ACTIONS ARE OTHER PEOPLE TAKING?
Meredith and Libby both signed up for Earth Hour this coming Saturday too!
And I had the loveliest surprise when the Planning Team at Blue Mountains City Council sent through a fabulous graphic of the 28 actions they worked on over the month of February – one action per day!
Others have continued to email me about actions they hope to do on the 7th April for World Health Day so that we can try to reach 365 actions in one day. Would love everyone to contribute on that day if you can!
Research by academics at Leeds University, engineering firm Arup and the C40 Cities climate group has identified that 73 per cent of all changes needed by 2030 to keep the world on course to meet the Paris agreement targets need to be made by governments and industry. But private citizens have considerable influence over the remaining 27 per cent. So let’s get cracking!
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