The Circus Gardener's Kitchen

seasonal vegetarian recipes with a side helping of food politics

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Thai-style aubergine and shiitake balls with peanut sauce

vegan Thai noodles with spicy vegetable balls

During the 1970s and 1980s, Costa Rica was being cynically exploited by multinational burger companies. These companies, most prominently Burger King and Wendy’s, incentivised native farmers to burn down rainforest in order to create grazing land for beef cattle destined to end up in fast food burgers. Similar exploitative forces are continuously at play elsewhere across the world, most recently in the Brazilian rainforest, as the rapacious beef industry continues […]

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poached pears with pecan granola and miso ice cream

This recipe for poached pears with pecan granola and miso ice cream is the latest in a monthly series of recipes I have created in association with Suma Wholefoods. In these recipes, I use products from Suma’s extensive range of organic and ethically sourced products, and the recipes appear both here on my blog and on the Suma website. I first encountered miso ice cream just a couple of months […]

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caramelised onion and thyme tart

Amongst the lies, chicanery and subterfuge that currently passes for politics in the UK right now, most people may have missed a key part of Boris Johnson’s first speech to parliament since becoming Prime Minister. In that speech he urged “let’s start now to liberate the UK’s extraordinary bioscience sector from anti-genetic modification rules, and let’s develop the blight-resistant crops that will feed the world.” Johnson was obliquely presaging a […]

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aubergine fritters with pomegranate salad and labneh

This recipe for aubergine fritters with pomegranate salad and labneh is the latest in a monthly series of recipes I have created in association with Suma Wholefoods. In these recipes, I use products from Suma’s extensive range of organic and ethically sourced products, and the recipes appear both here on my blog and on the Suma website. I love aubergines (eggplants) in all forms, but this Middle Eastern influenced variation […]

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Indian-style vegetable and paneer stir fry

For several decades following the end of the Second World War we really believed that the challenge of feeding a growing population would be solved by chemicals and technology. Now a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has laid bare how catastrophic this belief has proved to be. The IPCC is the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, and in the […]

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roast red pepper with garlic and basil

Like many others I have been horrified by the fires that have raging in the Amazon rainforest and utterly appalled by the deliberate inaction of the Brazilian government under President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro, a populist neo fascist, came to power in January this year. Backed heavily by agribusiness and the mining industry, he has already gained the nicknames “Captain Chainsaw” and “Trump of the Tropics”. Like Trump, one of the […]

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harissa roasted vegetables with couscous, feta and pumpkin seeds

This recipe for harissa roasted vegetables with couscous, feta and pumpkin seeds is the latest in a monthly series of recipes I have created in association with Suma Wholefoods. In these recipes, I use products from Suma’s extensive range of organic and ethically sourced products, and the recipes appear both here on my blog and on the Suma website. This delicious, flavour-packed dish is inspired by the cuisines of north […]

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Thai green curry

US President Donald Trump often uses the phrase “fake news” to undermine truthful reporting that threatens to expose his own lies. It may be brazen and shocking to many of us, but it is not a new deceit. The food and agriculture industries have been using similar, if more sophisticated, tactics for decades to undermine critics. A wide range of underhand methods are deployed, not only to disguise indefensible practices […]

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broccoli, pea and mint soup

Earth Overshoot Day is the day in the calendar when humankind has used up the equivalent of a whole year’s worth of the Earth’s natural resources. When I began this blog in 2013, Earth Overshoot day fell on 20 August. This year it fell on 29 July. Each year the date gets earlier, solemnly marking our continuing failure to adapt towards a more sustainable pattern of existence. To understand how […]

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slow roast tomatoes with basil spaghetti

A few weeks back, as the UK’s wettest June on record gave way to its hottest July on record, I decided it was time to dust down my bicycle. I have since been out cycling on a regular basis around the lovely city of Worcester where I live. On my trips I have been delighted to see that the Council has deliberately left some roadside verges and traffic islands unmown. […]

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