TOFU SCRAMBLE
Serves two hungry people (or four as a lighter breakfast)
Adapted from Bonnie Chung’s recipe, this is like soft-set scrambled eggs. Nutritional yeast flakes are a useful vegan ingredient to
add a savoury note. Kala namak is a sulphurous salt, sometimes called black salt, that lends an eggy flavour.
INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp Dijon mustard 300g soft block tofu, left to drain in a sieve for 20 minutes 1 tsp sea salt flakes, or ½ tsp
fine salt
¼ tsp kala namak (black salt)
(optional)
30g vegan spread or (for
non-vegans) butter
1 tsp ground turmeric 1½ tsp smoked paprika 20g plain flour 250ml soy milk
1 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
(optional) Toast, to serve
1-2 tsp chilli flakes 1 handful of chopped
coriander
METHOD
h Heat the oil in a large pan and fry the onion until soft.
Add the garlic, cook for another couple of minutes then stir in the mustard. h Crumble the tofu into large pieces (it will break
down more during cooking) and stir in, along with the salt and kala
namak (if using). h In another pan melt the vegan spread or butter, and stir in the turmeric and paprika. Sizzle for a few seconds, then stir in the flour to make a smooth paste. Cook for one minute, then whisk in the soy milk
little by little, to make a smooth sauce. Simmer for a couple of minutes, then whisk in the nutritional
yeast flakes, if using. h Stir the hot sauce into the tofu and onion mixture and
heat through. Serve on toast sprinkled with chilli
flakes and coriander.
A year of lockdowns appears to have had a happy consequence: more people are greening up their front gardens. A recent RHS report suggests that “front garden greenery” has grown by an area 70 times the size of Hyde Park (equal to 40 square miles) since 2015. Combining a recent RHS survey with data from a 2015 Ipsos Mori survey, the charity concluded that plant cover in front gardens had increased, while the number of paved gardens had halved during this period.
I talked to Alistair Griffiths, director of science at the RHS. “It seems that more people are engaging with nature,” he says. “A lot of the people we surveyed have changed the space outside their front doors, and it’s not just pots – people have been transforming the paved spaces outside their homes and making them greener.” I hope it catches on.
When I moved into my house, the front garden, like most in my area, was buried beneath a layer of weed-suppressant membrane and stones. I took it all up, dug the soil, planted bee-friendly flowers, installed a bird bath and two hanging bird feeders. I transformed grey to green in just a few weeks, and I haven’t looked back.
The effect of the transformation was instant, but I knew it would be, I’ve done it before. East-facing, the front garden gets sun before the west-facing back, and so on sunny days I venture out to look for bees. It’s always in the front garden where I spot my first bees of the year: my first hairy-footed flower bees in February; first red mason bees in March, first leaf-cutter bees in June.
It’s not just bees that enjoy my front garden: foxes drink from my small pond while hedgehogs forage for caterpillars
among the foliage. The birds enjoy it, too – I see sparrows, tits, robins and wrens, occasionally a blackbird and once a chiffchaff! All in a space measuring 3m x 1.5m outside my front door.
I knew the wildlife would love my front garden, and that I would, too. But what surprised me was the difference it made to the neighbourhood.
When I’m tending my plot, people stop me and tell me how cheering it is to see flowers, birds and bees on an otherwise grey street. One woman told me she always crossed the road to look at my garden. This rings true with Griffiths.
“The extra greenery doesn’t just benefit the homeowner, but the whole community – greening your front garden is a public service.” He describes the effect just two trees can have on the cortisol (stress) levels of a community, and cites an RHS science project that found even small amounts of greenery had the same effect on the body as eight mindfulness sessions. Imagine transforming your front garden and improving the mental well-being of neighbours you don’t even know.
It’s not just us that benefit. Greener front gardens mean more plants for wildlife, more roots to drink water and prevent flooding, more leaves to absorb carbon dioxide. There are also fewer hard, dark surfaces to reflect sunlight and cause artificial warming, known as the urban heat island effect. Leafy front gardens are a tool in the fight against climate change and biodiversity loss.
It’s a great shame, then, that front gardens are still so out of favour, and that, as the RHS reports, in Britain 2.5 million of them remain paved over.
“There’s still a long way to go,” says Griffiths, “but we might be turning a corner.” I really hope so.