Vegan Miscellanies

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Baby Seal Clubbing Prank

I'm not usually a fan of direct action a la Greenpeace, PETA, inter alia, but I stumbled upon an article about a prank carried out by a Sea Shepherd Conservation Society crew that I actually don't mind at all. Why? First, seal clubbing is such a despicable, entirely unnecessary and unjustifiable practice, on par at least with cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear-baiting and Spanish bull-fighting, yet is allowed to legally continue in Canada. I don't buy, nor will I indulge here, the arguments that it is an important cultural tradition and an important industry. Second, no one is being hurt here, except perhaps these bastards' pride.

Someone's got to keep bringing attention to this and other issues 'til enough public pressure is brought to bear on the government to ban the cruel practice. This prank is one way of bringing attention to the issue while having a little fun at the expense of the perpetrators. Check it out here.

Homemade Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce and Carribbean Chickpea Curry

Yesterday evening, having bought a package of Scotch Bonnet peppers the day before, I decided to make my own Scotch Bonnet hot sauce.

 

Isn't that colour gorgeous? And it's in one of my beautiful mason jars too boot.

Here's how I made it:

• 130g Scotch Bonnet peppers, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 1/2 cantaloupe, sliced and diced (papaya is more traditionally used)
• 3/4 cup rice vinegar
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• ~ tsp salt

1. Carefully, wearing gloves, wash peppers, then remove stems and seeds. Dice. Be very careful how you do all this as you do not want to get any of the juice on your skin or in your face and eyes. These are hot! According to my research, the Scotch Bonnet pepper is the hottest pepper known, with the possible exception of another Caribbean pepper called Piment Ma Jacques.
2. Wash and dice carrots.
3. Slice and dice cantaloupe.
4. Add a handful of the diced peppers, carrot and cantaloupe into a blender with part of the vinegar and olive oil. Blend well, then add a bit at a time 'til it gets almost too thick. Then add more vinegar and olive oil. Continue this process 'til everything is in.
5. Add salt.
6. Taste test (be very careful how much you try, as it is very hot).
7. If using fresh, that is, uncooked, put into glass jars and refrigerate immediately.

I am accustomed to hot foods, but I do like to enjoy the taste of a hot sauce as well, so something like Dave's Total Insanity, made from capsaicin extract rather than from peppers, doesn't do it for me. My hot sauce has a nice, fruity taste, yet is still rather hot. Next time I might make it a little hotter still. Since I had no idea how hot these peppers would really be, I arbitrarily decided on an amount of carrot and fruit to add.

I enjoyed my fresh hot sauce with a Chickpea Curry with Caribbean Spices adapted from Vaishali's recipe of the same name.

 

Since I didn't have potatoes on hand, my version is without them. It being rather late in the evening by the time I got to making the curry, I also took some shortcuts. Rather than using all whole seeds and spices to roast and then grind, I used coriander, cumin and mustard in powdered form and added whole peppercorns and cloves. Aside from being less soupy and without the lovely garnish of fresh onion and tomatoes, these are the main differences. If you have time, please make Vaishali's version. If a little short on time, you may want to, as I did, use powdered spices.

I served the curry over toasted whole grain flax bread with margarine, then added some of my fresh hot sauce over top. Delicious!

Death in my Family

A week ago today I watched my father die of colon cancer. He was given about 4 months to live at the time of diagnosis, when the disease was already advanced and had spread to surrounding organs, but he held on for just over 2 years. He was about 3 weeks shy of his 68th birthday.

Needless to say, this past week has not been easy, nor were the weeks leading up to his death as it was clear he was quickly losing the battle. While it is all over now, it is frustrating to know that he could have had a much better chance of fighting it had he switched to a plant-based whole foods diet. But he would not. He never ate much other than meat, and his faith told him god had created animals for our consumption. How then could they be bad for your health?

I read The China Study just a few months ago and knew the role animal protein plays in feeding cancers, but he was in no state to receive this information. He continued to eat mainly meat even after his diagnosis. It was frustrating to watch as I had to stand helplessly by to watch him slip away. He read some information about natural health near the end, but mainly the type encouraging the supplementation of one's diet with special vitamins and formulae. And neither doctors nor nurses, being ill trained in matters of nutrition and working in a system that ultimately profits from people's illnesses, did anything to dissuade him from his meat-centered diet. In fact, his nurse recommended that he eat some of his favourite meat-based soups.

Given that the disease is hereditary as well, his mother having died of it before him, I am currently undergoing colon cancer screening myself. I might as well work towards early detection. But I know that my veganism at least means that I have a much better chance of preventing and, should I get it, fighting it.

It is not easy, still, losing a parent.

Stuffed Small Sugar Pumpkin

We doted on this little guy all summer. He was an only child :-). Since the pumpkin was planted late spring and the pumpkin was not ready to harvest until after thanksgiving, we enjoyed it today, halfway between thanksgiving and halloween. We don't really celebrate thanksgiving anyway--we are thankful every day for our food. And we don't really celebrate halloween either, but good food is always an option, and 'tis the season for pumpkins.

Here's our little sugar pumpkin's last moment on the vine:


In my hand to show size:


And now to the meal...

Here's what I used:

• 1 small sugar pumpkin
• 2 or 3 tbsp water
• smidgen extra virgin olive oil
  

Stuffing:

• 1 cup brown basmati rice, cooked
  
• 1 cup soy chunks, soaked in 2 cups hot water and 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 3 slices whole grain bread cut into 1/2 inch cubes
  
• 1 cup soymilk (preferably unsweetened)
• 1 large Honeycrisp apple (nice combination of sweet and tart), diced
  
• 1/2 cup raw cashews, halved or crushed
• 1 large onion, diced
  
• 1 large clove elephant garlic, diced
  
• 1 rounded tsp ground sage
• 1 tbsp freshly ground black pepper
  
• 1/2 tsp ground allspice
• 1 sprig fresh oregano, finely chopped
  
• 3 tbsp whole chia seeds
• 3-4 tbsp naturally brewed soy sauce
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• salt to taste

Preparation:

1. Cook brown basmati rice.
2. Soak soy chunks for about 30 min., then drain.
3. Put bread cubes into wok or heavy pan, drizzle olive oil over and, stirring frequently, fry until cubes are lightly toasted all around.
4. Mix chia seeds and soy milk and stir well (chia seeds will absorb up to 13 times their own weight in liquid). After about 15 minutes, stir again.
5. Clean pumpkin and cut around stem to create a lid (make sure to cut at an angle so lid won't fall into pumpkin as it bakes), then scoop out the seeds.
    
6. Put 2-3 tbsp water into scooped pumpkin, dab or spray a smidgen of olive oil around edges of hole and lid and close. Place in oven preheated at 350F and bake for about 30 minutes or until fork will pierce outer skin without too much effort.
7. While pumpkin is baking, prepare the stuffing. Saute onion, garlic and apple in a little olive oil until onion and apple become translucent.
8. Add bread cubes, soy chunks, cashews, fresh oregano, spices and 3-4 tbsp soy sauce. Mix well and continue sauteeing on medium heat for about 15 min.
9. Add salt to taste and the stuffing is done.
   
10. Carefully remove the baked pumpkin from the oven, open the lid and fill with stuffing until about 3/4 full, then pour soymilk/chia mixture in as well.
11. Close lid again and return to oven for another 30 minutes, then place pumpkin on the middle of the table and carefully (a puff of steam will emerge) open the lid.
      
12. Scoop stuffing onto individual plates, then scrape out the pumpkin flesh (be careful not to scrape right through the outer skin).
     

Serves two without an appetizer or side dish, or up to four with. Enjoy!

A Nice List of Nutrients to Keep Handy

 

It's absurd how often people ask that question of vegetarians and, even more so, of vegans. It's especially absurd in light of the information available to us, via the book I'm currently reading--The China Study--which makes abundantly clear that animal protein, especially the amount generally consumed in North America, is simply not good for us. Indeed, it puts us at extreme risk.

Anyway, this is a neat list to keep handy for ourselves. I also like the counter-question, "Where do you get your vitamins and minerals?" No kidding! I wish I could have gotten my dad, now undergoing one last bout of chemotherapy, to read The China Study and/or switch, at the very least, to a mostly plant-based diet. He still won't change his diet--mostly meat and few vegetables and fruits. Supplements, no matter how good, taken with an unhealthy diet simply can't do much good. Makes me sad :(

A Dairy Farm in a Vegan's Garden: Ants and their Herds of Aphids

In 1996, the year my partner and I got married, we went to see Microcosmos at the same little independent movie theatre where we had our first date on November 27th, 1993. The film is so well executed, with minimal narration, stunning microphotography, and hypnotic music, that the viewer is brought back to the wide-eyed, open-mouthed wonderment of childhood.

One very memorable scene in the film was of ants with their aphid cattle. Humans are not the only beings to develop and engage in farming and animal husbandry, by the way. Some ants engage in underground fungus farming, while others raise herds of domestic aphids whom they carefully tend for their 'milk', or honeydew.

What brought me to sharing this? Well, interestingly, it was the discovery of aphid farming ants in my own garden. Fortunately they have stayed well away (I think) from my tomatoes and pumpkin, choosing instead to set up their farms and tending to their herds on the fava bean plants I grew as a cover crop to enrich the soil. It turns out the aphids, black aphids in this case, prefer nitrogen rich foods.

Unfortunately my camera lacks manual focus, making it very difficult to focus on the ants and their aphid herds rather than the plants. After some experimentation, the ants came into fairly decent focus, but the aphids still look like blurry blobs.

While I find all this very fascinating, I am concerned about these ants migrating to and damaging other plants in my garden. If anyone has advice as to what to do to prevent them from damaging next year's garden, please share.

Some Rather Useless, though Hopefully Amusing, Updates

Though I had a week off recently, I was so busy with all kinds of errands that I did not get to do much reading or blogging.

Here, however, are some updates:

Accidental Grape Candy
Mom recently gave me some not-quite-ripe grapes from her backyard, saying I could make grape jelly out of them. I didn't have any pectin on hand, so I did a little research on the web into pectin-free jellies.

I read that unripe fruit is high in natural pectin, and that fruit high in acidity, like grapes, don't require the addition of pectin when some unripe fruit is added. Hey, I thought, the bulk of my grapes are not quite ripe, so it should be high in natural pectin.

So I began. I washed the grapes and put them in a small pot together with a little raw sugar (about 1/4 sugar to about 2 cups of grapes). I began heating them on low heat and simmering for a while until it looked nice and juicy. I then put everything into a cheesecloth and hung it over a bowl for a few hours to collect the juice. The juice went back on the stove to simmer for a while longer. I thought I used the spoon test to check for the requisite thickness before removing it from the stove, but was I ever wrong...

Turns out I'd boiled it way to long. That or there was way more pectin in the juice than expected, because after transferring the mixture to a small container and cooling it in the fridge, what I got wasn't jelly at all, but rather hard grape candy. Isn't that called serendipity? Though rather tart, the candy wasn't half bad! We both enjoyed it.

Chilaquile

and

Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Don't they look yummy? They were, but I was bad and forgot to write down the recipes. Sorry. I'll try both again and remember to share.

Evolution of Our Solitary Pumpkin

Remember my post a little while back on pumpkin sex? Well here you go. One pumpkin from pollinated flower to baby to adolescent. It's just beginning to turn a yellow that will, hopefully soon, deepen into orange. Perhaps having just one is dangerous. Too much doting. And should any critter touch it before it is ripe, dog help me to keep my lower impulses in check!

Creamy Broccoli Soup

I had a head of broccoli in the fridge that was nearing its end and, since I did not want to let it spoil, had to think of some way to use it quickly. I had used up both my regular and sweet potatoes a couple of days ago, so steaming the broccoli to serve alongside potatoes wasn't an option. I could have made a vegetable stir-fry with broccoli in it, but didn't really feel like having a stir-fry. Besides, I had no tofu, and I like tofu in my stir-fry. What I did feel like having was a vegan cream of broccoli soup.

Now this delicious dish isn't a close approximation of cream of broccoli soup. If you've been vegan for only a short time and remember the taste and texture of dairy-based cream of broccoli soup well, don't set your taste buds for that exact taste. But I think this creamy broccoli soup actually has more flavour and more character than the dairy-based cream of broccoli soup.

I used creamed coconut and coconut milk to give this soup its creaminess, and coconut does have a unique taste. It isn't as neutral a base as dairy is. But I've found, from my experience with creamy Norman soups, as also with various Asian coconut curries, that it does not really make dishes sweet as the coconut-uninitiated might think. It in no way interferes with the taste of robust, even spicy, savoury soups and stews. You could also use soy milk instead of coconut milk, but you'd probably need to add creamed cashews or silken tofu to end up with a thick, creamy soup.

Here, in any case, is how I made this creamy broccoli soup:

• 1 large onion, diced
• 3 carrots, chopped
• 1 head broccoli, florets removed and stem chopped
• 1 cup parsley, finely chopped
• 1 bulb garlic, roasted
• stock (3 cups water, 1 Tbsp naturally brewed soy sauce, 1/2 tsp marmite, and 1 small can coconut milk)
• 1 package creamed coconut, dissolved in 1 cup boiling water to make a heavy coconut cream
• 2 tsp rosemary
• 1/2 tsp sage
• 2 Tbsp vegan margarine
• sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

1. In a large pot, combine diced onion, carrots, broccoli stems and parsley. Saute in margarine for about 5 minutes.
2. Wrap the bulb of garlic in foil and roast in oven for about 15-20 minutes.
3. Add the stock to the sauteed vegetables, along with 1 tsp of the rosemary and the 1/2 tsp sage. Mix well and bring to boil, then reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, partially covered, for about 15-20 minutes. By now the garlic should be roasted and taken out of the oven.
4. Transfer the soup, as it is now, to a blender, or use a hand-blender as I do, and blend thoroughly.
5. Put the broccoli florets and the remaining tsp rosemary into the soup, bring back to boil and simmer, on reduced heat, for another 10 minutes or so.
6. Squeeze the soft, roasted garlic into the heavy coconut cream and blend thoroughly. Pour the now garlicky coconut cream into the soup, stirring constantly to ensure a smooth finish.
7. Add sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.   

Enjoy on its own or with crackers.

Serves six to eight, or if pigging out, four.

A Little Update: Blueberry Grunts, Tomatoes, and Pumpkin Sex

I wanted to write a post about the blueberry grunts I made last weekend much earlier, but simply didn't get around to it. The blueberry grunts pictured above don't look as nice as Lolo's, and probably didn't taste quite as good either, but they were, nevertheless, a delicious treat. I'm not being humble here--they don't look quite as good because of those cute little gratin dishes she made hers in, and the taste was a bit on the grainy side because I had no unbleached white flour and therefore used the durum atta flour I had on hand. Durum atta flour is an Indian whole wheat flour ideal for samosas, chappatis, puris, parathas, etc. We did however grunt with, err, blueberry delight.

In other news, my garden, though begun much too late in the season, is looking very nice. Looks more like an early summer garden than a late one, but I think we'll get some tomatoes out of it anyway. And maybe a small pumpkin or two as well. See below.

Here are some of the tomatoes. Still a bit small, but looking nice. I must admit I'm getting a bit impatient. I so want to eat tomatoes from my own garden--sliced on toast with margarine, diced into tofu scramble, pureed in a sauce, etc.

I know, on to the pumpkin sex. WTF am I talking about? Well, for some time now our little pumpkin plant has been producing a lot of flower buds. So, while waiting impatiently, I did a little research and learned all about the birds bugs and the bees in relation to pumpkins. I learned that pumpkin plants have unisexual flowers, both male and female flowers on the same plant, and rely on insects to carry the pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers. The male flowers, as could be expected using a human analogy, grow several inches out, while the female flowers stay close to the plant.

Male Flower

Female Flower

With the decline in bee populations, it is increasingly recommended that humans get involved in pumpkin sex. This is especially so for prize pumpkin growers and those, like myself, who have only one or two plants in their gardens. What the human needs to do, apparently, is to take the stamen from a male flower and use it to dust the female plant with pollen to fertilize it. One can even, for extra security, place the stamen right into the female flower (sex toys, anyone?). Anyway, as you can see from my pictures, I don't need to get into the action, but can remain a voyeur, as there are most definitely bees and other insects present. I watched the same insects flying back and forth between the male and female flowers. I think fertilization will happen without my intervention, though I did snap some pictures of the pumpkin porn for you to view :>).