Yesterday’s culinary adventure at the off-grid urban garage glamp-partment started with harvesting a big bunch of Okinawa spinach.
This was a big win for me, because I really don’t have a green thumb, and any vegetable plants I manage to grow tend to stay small and spare. (When fellow permies post pics from their lavish vegetable gardens and food forests, I totally feel inferior and question the entire foundation of my existence. (Just kidding… Sort of… <nervous-smile emoji>))
Seeing that the Okinawa spinach plant had gotten so nice and bushy was a very pleasant surprise. It was even blocking one of the rain pots, so cutting off the big clump was necessary for that reason too.
One of my favorite things about Okinawa spinach — besides the fact that it grows perennially, and that it is delicious either raw or cooked — is the beautiful purple color of the backside of the leaves.
With all of that fresh yummy green matter, I decided to make a pesto. Or more precisely, a pesto-like sauce thing. And to make it vegan.
I didn’t have any pinenuts, and didn’t feel like using almonds or other nuts that I had on hand, so the pesto is lacking in a nut ingredient.
Cheese alternative: Instead of Parmesan, I used nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast has been a great addition to my diet. Together with avocados, nutritional yeast has allowed me to make many delicious vegan meals and be satisfied without my beloved cheese.
I’m still very much an omnivore, but have increased my percentage of vegan meals and been able to reduce my intake of cheese to a somewhat more moderate level. <laugh-cry emoji>
Seasonings: I just added some various odds and ends from my cabinet.
And of course a key ingredient in a pesto is garlic, and I used two cloves. And the other key ingredient, olive oil.
All blended together in my little bullet blender. This mini blender is easily powered by my patriot sidekick mini generator, which is the sole source of electricity in my glamp-partment.
I also heated up some split-pea soup in the solar oven yesterday. It was a jar I had frozen before Christmas because I had been eating split pea soup so many days in a row. It was nice to come back from my holiday visit with family, and remember that I had delicious nutritious soup that just needed to be thawed out and reheated.
The object you see to the left of the solar oven is an inflatable lantern called Luci, which I purchased from my local West Marine Sports & Recreation boating and sporting supply place. This little solar-charged lantern has lasted through all types of weather, and she still charges and works great.
And little Luci never gets mad at me and stops working, despite the fact that whenever I get near her, I feel the compulsion to repeat that old famous TV sitcom line — “Luuuuuu-ciiii, you got some SPLAININ’ to do!” (Boomers LOL. You can dress us up but you can’t take us out.)
You can see the photos here, in the post on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page.
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