A Vegan Guide

“Fresh seasonal produce is the starting point of any meal.”

By Adam Day

I live in a small community in Fife.  We are lucky to have the use of a large garden, two polytunnels and an orchard.  The vegetable garden is a large focus of my life here and greatly influences what I eat.

I love the direct link between garden and table.  It’s particularly exciting in the summer months and well into the autumn when there is an abundance of courgettes, peas, beans,

tomatoes, cucumbers, fresh herbs such as coriander, basil and parsley as well as plentiful supplies of brassicas and root vegetables.

Root vegetables really keep us going through the winter. They are very substantial and include potatoes, parsnips carrots and beetroot.  For winter greens we have various varieties of kale, cabbages and Brussels sprouts.  I fully appreciate the benefit of space and time to produce such an array of fresh fruit and vegetables.  Much of the same produce is readily available through a box scheme or direct from a farm shop but the quality is generally better if you can grow it yourself as the time from garden to table is minutes rather than hours or days.

The first fruit of the year starts in May with rhubarb. Great for crumbles, shortly followed by fresh strawberries from the garden.  We freeze much of the soft fruit that we pick during the summer months to keep for winter puddings or to make into jam and chutney later in the year.  Pears we eat fresh in September, plums we freeze and apples we store in  a cool, dark place throughout the winter.

Wild food also comes into its own in spring when not much else is available. We use nettles in soup or steamed like spinach and wild garlic which grows in abundance nearby as a pesto or when you’d normally use garlic.  As well as being tasty, wild food is rich in nutrients.

To supplement the fresh cultivated produce, wild food forms a small but significant part of my diet.  Brambles in the autumn are the most obvious. Also elderberries which we make into wine and a sweet syrup which is great diluted with water, good for winter colds and flu or poured onto porridge.

Preserving food as chutneys, jams and pickles is a great way to use up surplus produce and helps to add a bit of spice to winter meals. This year pickled onions and pickled runner beans were both great successes.  As well as storing in jars, we make good use of a chest freezer to store peas and beans to eat in the hungry gap between April and May when it is hard to stick to an 80:20 diet.  Fermented food is another of my passions.  As well as being tasty, fermented foods like sauerkraut can also have a high nutritional value.

I bake all of our own bread, generally filling the oven with 6 or 8 loaves and then storing some in the freezer so as to make better use of the gas. Sourdough bread tends to keep very well for a week or more just in a bread bin, for those without a large freezer.  Although Fife flour is available, I use organic flour from a farm in Northumberland because non organic wheat is heavily sprayed. We also make our own oatcakes from Scottish but not Fife oats (although Fife oats will be available very soon).

As well as local (or fairly local) produce, I find I have to buy a fair amount of imported food in order to have a balanced diet.  We buy this in bulk from a wholefood supplier called Greencity which is based in Glasgow.  In my work with Fife Diet, I am experimenting with growing good quality vegetable protein this year with quinoa and dried bean trials.  The imported food that I do buy is as local as possible, from within Europe as a rule.  For example rice from Italy, olive oil from Spain and flageolet beans from France.  I tend to lean more heavily on this imported produce in the late spring and early summer when fresh local produce is sparse but it always forms a part of my diet.

So, the seasons influence how and what I eat with fresh, local produce forming the basis of most meals. I find it easy to stick to the Fife Diet as a vegan throughout late summer and autumn.  Winter with an abundance of root vegetables and brassicas is relatively straightforward but a couple of months in the spring are a bit more challenging even with a well stocked freezer.  Maybe a box scheme or more dried or pickled veg could span this gap.

As to cooking methods, I use a pressure cooker to cut down on energy use as much as possible.  I try to make full use of the oven when it is on for example cooking a crumble for pudding when baking potatoes. I try to use the right sized pan for the meal and to keep the gas as low as it needs to be.  I’d like to look into making a haybox which is an insulated box that can be used to simmer food without the use of any energy.

SEASONAL MENUS

Below are a weeks recipes for each season.  I tend to eat porridge most days but I’ve tried to add some variety.  I also often cook enough for lunch the next day so this is just a sample of recipes rather than a typical week.

SPRING

SUMMER

AUTUMN

WINTER