By Mary Lowther
Most of our gardens aren’t big enough to fulfill all our families’ needs, but we can certainly augment our diets and learn how to feed ourselves. While we’re at it, why limit our gardens to “typical” crops? For example, why not expand our repertoire to see if we can grow plants that provide almost complete proteins when combined with other crops? As Frances Moore Lappe has shown in Diet for a Small Planet, the protein combination of legumes plus grains OR seeds equals that of meat with the exception of vitamin B12, which is available as a supplement.
Salt Spring Seeds offers a variety of grains and legumes and the ones I’ve tried were easy to grow and worth the space they took. If we grow barley and peas this year and dry some of them out, we could make Scotch Broth for a high protein meal this winter. And if we added some chopped kale like my granny did, perhaps we’d be as healthy as the rest of my heathen ancestors.
But barley and kale are anathema to my David, who claims a gentler ancestry, so he’ll make do with split pea soup and toast while I add my healthier amendments separately.
Beans and corn complement each other to form another high protein, so I plan to dry beans and corn for winter recipes as well. I don’t have a grinder so the corn will have to be soaked and cooked and probably blended. I’ll experiment a little and see what I come up with.
Proteins in legumes and seeds or nuts also combine well, so a sprinkling of toasted sunflower seeds on baked beans ought to be a good combination. How about toasted pumpkin seeds on your morning oatmeal? These are all foods we can grow in our backyards. Here’s a good recipe for a vegetarian chili that could be paired with cornbread to make a nutritious entrée. Add a salad and you’ve got dinner:
Easy Bean Chili
2 tsp. oil
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cups cooked beans
14 oz. can diced tomatoes
1/4 tsp. chili powder or to taste
1/2 T. cumin
Saute onions and garlic in oil for five minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes. Adjust seasonings and add salt and pepper to taste.
Note 1: You can fry up half a cup of any meat with the onion if you like.
Note 2: Add up to a cup of vegetables if you like.
Events:
Native Plants with Todd Carnahan, Sunday, March 17 at 1:15 p.m., at the Siem Lelum Gym, 5574 River Rd., Duncan.
Please contact mary_lowther@yahoo.ca with questions and suggestions since I need all the help I can get.