Vegan Miscellanies

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

I have a major sweet tooth. It's the only thing that at times causes me to be slightly less than 100% vegan. When out at a coffee shop -- most still have no vegan baked sweet options -- I sometimes get a regular sweet despite getting soy with my coffee or tea. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but baked sweets are the only things leading me to eat something that isn't vegan.

At home, however, when I'm desperate for something sweet to eat, and there's nothing sweet in the house, I'll sometimes whip up a quick batch of what I call 'desperate man's chocolate', a chocolatey concoction of raw sugar, vanilla, cocoa, soy milk and peanut butter. But when I have the strength to hold my sweet tooth back long enough to whip up a batch of cookies, I'll do that instead. And it doesn't take long either. An hour, tops.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup unbleached white flour or whole wheat pastry flour (I used whole wheat recently and got good reviews at a vegan bbq potluck)
• 1/3 cup gluten flour or rice flour (only add if using whole wheat flour, to offset the graininess a bit)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp natural vanilla extract (also works well with rose or orange water)
• 1/3 cup vegan margarine
• 1 cup natural chunky peanut butter
• 10-12 tsp cocoa
• just enough soy (or almond milk) to make into a stiff batter
• equivalent of 3 eggs (I used ground flax and water)

Preparation:

1. Put dry ingredients in bowl.
2. Cut in vanilla extract, margarine and peanut butter with a fork.
3. Add a little soy to bind into a stiff batter, followed by egg replacer. Mix well.
4. Put in fridge for about 10 minutes while oven heats up.
5. Take a tablespoon of batter at a time, roll it into a smooth ball between your palms, flatten it a bit, place on cookie sheet with wax paper, then make criss-cross fork indentations.
6. Bake at 350 degrees fahrenheit for 13 minutes.

Enjoy!

Our garlic is doing very well

Can't wait to harvest the scapes! Yum!

Wheatberry Vegetable Stew

What sometimes happens when the usual is running out and I have to figure something out.

This delicious, hearty wheatberry vegetable stew came to be simply because my kitchen was running a bit dry and I needed to come up with something. So I looked through the cupboards and saw a half bag of wheatberries. Then I thought I'd like to have it with tomatoes and other vegetables, but what spices? I craved something both spicy, hearty and with a little sweetness to it, so I quickly threw together the basic ingredients for the first version of channa masala I had learnt. Minus the garam masala. And the channa (chickpeas) :-)}}}

Ingredients:

2 cups wheatberries
6 cups water
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 onion
4-5 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch ginger, minced
4 carrots, chopped
4 celery ribs, chopped
2 tsp tomato paste
2 cups canned, diced tomatoes, with juice
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
3 tsp cumin powder
1/4 tsp cayenne, chili powder, or 2-4 fresh chilies (more or less depending upon how hot you like it)
4 cloves
1 tsp coriander powder
2 tblsp lemon juice
4 bay leaves
1 scant tsp marmite (black garlic would be lovely as well) 

Directions:

1) In a pot, bring 6 cups water to boil, then add a little salt and 2 cups of wheatberries (both soft and hard wheatberries work, but we liked the hard variety better). Lower heat and simmer for half hour.
2) While that is simmering, put olive oil in a pan and, on medium heat, add onion, garlic, ginger, carrots, celery, and turmeric. Sautee for a few minutes, just until onion becomes translucent, stirring frequently.
3) Add all the other spices, stirring them in well, followed by the lemon juice.
4) Remove from heat until the half hour is up for the wheatberries, then add them straight in with the wheatberries.
5) Take a ladle full of liquid out to dissolve the marmite into, then return to pot.
6) Add diced tomatoes and juice, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for another 30 minutes.

Serve over rice or straight with a slice of whole wheat bread on the side. Delicious! I made it two days in a row due to popular demand (can two people's demands be called that?). Our taste buds demanded a second batch, and they are legion...

Enjoy!

Indoor Seeding of Tomato and Hot Pepper

In all the years my partner and I have been together, despite our love of fresh greens and vegetables, this marks the first time we have seeded anything indoors to get a headstart for the garden. Now most of our years together have been in apartment buildings where the best we could hope for in terms of gardening were a few plants by the window or balcony, but we've lived in houses a couple times before and somehow found the whole indoor seeding intimidating.

 That's our set-up. Since I was already in the garage-cum-workshop building a custom enclosure for my bicycle cargo trailer, I got inspired and quickly put together this lamp stand, partially pictured. It allows for easy adjustment of lamp height and keeps the cords out of the way.

This time we went ahead and got the necessary items, including spot-gro lamps, to do it. What pushed us over the edge were the wonderful heirloom seeds we got at Hamilton's Seedy Saturday event some weeks ago. I simply couldn't pass those wonderful seeds up. I love LOVE biting or slicing into huge, juicy heirloom tomatoes grown in my own garden, and I knew these were both heirloom stock and organic.

Yesterday, just five days after seeding them, the Purple Calabash tomatoes began peeking out of the ground. So exciting!

And then this morning I heard Jihan's excited announcement that one of the Jaune Flammee tomatoes had joined the others.

When I was a kid my mom used to encourage us kids (I have one sister and four brothers) to each grow a little plot of vegetables and compete for the nicest, most bountiful garden. She taught us to always put three seeds in each hole as you never knew which seed would be viable. That way at least one out of three should be viable and there would be no empty spots. So I did the same for indoor seeding and, as you can probably see, two Purple Calabash are growing in one pot and all three in the other. I'm a little nervous about separating them -- I certainly don't want to cull them (they're my babies) -- but will probably try after they have a second set of true leaves (per some advice found on online fora). If anyone has any tips, I'd be happy to hear them.

Now I have to wait for the Cosmonot Volkov tomatoes and both my Thai hot red finger chillies and Scotch Bonnet peppers to emerge. I've read that the hot peppers, the hotter the variety, need lots of warmth to germinate and may take up to 18 days... It's hard to wait that long!

Oh, and outside our garlic is looking wonderful. I forgot to take a picture of them. They are now about 4 - 6 inches tall. We had planted 58 in late fall and 54 have come up and are looking really nice. I'll try to get a pic of those up later today or tomorrow. Happy growing!

Spaghetti Squash with Chunky Black Garlic Tomato Sauce

It is the night before moving day and I have two food items just begging to be used up -- a lovely spaghetti squash and a black garlic bulb.

I hear black garlic is a love it or hate it thing. Chances are, if you love garlic and you like fermented foods, you'll love black garlic. It definitely doesn't taste much like regular garlic -- it has a taste and smell, quite bold, all its own. Some taste molasses or balsamic in black garlic while others taste beef bouillon. I taste both the bold flavours of a hearty bouillon with a hint of dark molasses. And this garlic no longer causes garlic breath. We both love it and fear it could become an expensive habit.

I had tried spaghetti squash before with regular spaghetti sauce and it was only okay, not great. The sauce wasn't bold enough. I needed something bold to complement the sweetness of the somewhat bland squash, so I came up with the following chunky black garlic sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 spaghetti squash
• 1 28oz can diced tomatoes, or equivalent of fresh tomatoes (if using fresh, you'll need to add some salt)
• 1 bulb black garlic
• 1 jamaican hot pepper (unless you like very spicy food, don't use what I did)
• 1 red bell pepper
• 2 portobello mushrooms
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• good bunch fresh basil
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Directions:

Wash spaghetti squash and cut in half. Scoop out seeds and stringy mass. Place cut side down in deep glass or ceramic dish in half inch water. Some prefer to bake whole, having poked holes with skewers all around, and then scoop out the seeds after. I prefer the former as it reduces baking time and reduces possible waste with scooping. Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes, then turn and bake another 15. Let cool a bit and use fork to scrape out spaghetti-like flesh.

In a heavy saucepan (I used my cast iron wok), combine olive oil and chopped black garlic on medium heat until fragrant. Then add diced hot pepper, red bell pepper and diced portobello. Increase heat to medium high and add half of the diced tomato, mashing it with a spoon as it begins to heat through. Mix well and add the rest of the diced tomato, the oregano and fresh basil. Simmer for another five minutes.

Scoop squashta (my corny term for spaghetti squash) into plate and top with chunky black garlic tomato sauce. Serves two to four (we pigged out and finished it in one sitting).

The Return of Vegan Miscellanies? Spring 2011

Vegan Miscellanies may well return full force next spring. Moving back into a house, and not one shared with anyone else, has got me all excited about gardening again. And from gardening follows cooking.

A few weeks ago I went to the Stratford Garlic Festival where I not only immersed myself in all things garlic for a few hours, sampling various garlic dips, jellies and pesto, acquiring a couple of garlic-related kitchen items and attending talks on growing and braiding garlic. I also left with a bag of Ontario-grown, organic, hard-neck garlic to plant. I learned there that the best time to put garlic into the ground is late September through early October, before any chance of frost. Fortunately our friend and future landlady, into who's house we are moving at the end of October, was kind enough to let us prepare our garlic growing plot before we even move in and while she is still living there.

My partner, Jihan, checking out the location of our garlic and pepper plot.

So last weekend, though rainy for much of it, we were able to go to her/our soon-to-be-home to dig up a section of sod in the most sunny, southerly portion of the yard for our garlic and pepper plot.

The plot dug up with much of the sod removed.

We had to stop short of removing all the sod from the plot last Saturday because of the rain, so we returned this weekend to not only finish that but also to construct a cedar wood frame for square foot gardening.

The frame put in place.

Divided into square feet with jute string, though I intend to create a better, more sturdy and durable wooden divider. A total of 42 square feet.

Garlic in the ground, covered by a thick layer of mulch for the winter.

We are so excited about this! The last time we tried growing our own garlic, in the fall of 2008, we had put it into the ground and covered it for the winter, but had to move out, for reasons I shall not delve into here, just as a few garlic scapes began poking out of the ground in the spring. We were unable to enjoy that harvest and, it appears, the tenants who moved in after us never did anything with the plot.

In this plot we have planted 58 bulbs of garlic, leaving just one square foot empty for something else. We are thinking of allowing 3 of the 58 plants to flower, both for the beauty of their flowers and for the bulbules/seed. We are not sure yet whether we will set aside up to a quarter of the yield for the following year. 

In the northern/bottom rectangle, also 21 square feet, we intend to plant various peppers, from red finger chillies to jalapenos to scotch bonnet to bell peppers.

In the plot against the garage wall, on the other side of the walkway, we will leave the lavender in place and add pole beans and tomatoes (hopefully two or three heirloom varieties).

The yard has three more sections where we can garden -- another strip against the fence near the house for various lettuces (as it gets less sun), a small mound of about 4 square feet of herbs (sweet basil, holy basil, Thai basil, sage, rosemary, french tarragon), some of which are perennials, and a 63' plot (rough estimate) next to the house on the western side. It is this largest section we have not yet planned out, though we have some ideas. But we have the winter to plan that.

So with the move into a nice little house with lots of gardening opportunities, I may well bring this blog back to life with more frequent posts on our gardening (and other urban/local gardening-related issues) and our cooking (with occasional reviews of other local food-related issues). Look for more vegan miscellanies next spring!

Retiring Vegan Miscellanies

While I certainly enjoyed creating and blogging Vegan Miscellanies, I never felt I had the time to develop it to its full potential. Then, from the beginning of 2009 to the present, I only wrote 10 posts. There are an number of reasons, chief among them time and money. My day job has kept me so busy, working such long hours, that I haven't even had much time to cook or bake, nor read books related to veganism, and finances were such that I could only rarely eat out and report on vegan fare at cafes and restaurants.  

The other reason I have decided to retire this blog now has to do with a shift in focus. I will continue to create and eat delicious vegan food and I have no intention of ever returning to the consumption of animal-based foods. There is now such a wealth of vegan blogs and sources, both in print and online, of vegan recipes and information, that I feel comfortable leaving vegan blogging to focus my energies (to the extent that I can find any after work) on other things about which I care. I have met many other interesting vegan bloggers online whose blogs will be there for one another and for those who are just beginning to wonder about and research vegan living.

I have, over the past couple of years, become quite involved in and excited about cycling. I'm not talking just about cycling as a recreational activity or a sport, though those are fine. I'm talking specifically about cycling as a valid form of transportation that is healthier for us--it keeps us physically active, reduces the number of cars on the roads, leaving cleaner air for us to breathe, and fosters more human interaction--and has a much smaller environmental footprint. A greater shift to cycling for urban transportation, along with clean public transit, also has the potential to help us slow down to create happier, healthier, more human-centred urban environments. These are all things that many vegans also care about. 

Look for cycling advocacy from me in the coming months and years, once I manage to find more time, a better work/life balance. I'll be out there in our cities, on my bike, and I'll write about it. I hope to see and meet you out there!

 

Vegan Princeton Shoe Disaster Story

You may recall my post about a pair of vegan dress shoes I ordered from Alternative Outfitters. They are crap! Though they are one of the cheapest vegan dress shoes to be found online, they are worthless. Do not buy them.

I had hoped to get at least a year or perhaps two out of them, but what I got instead was a few weeks. I thought it only fair to allow Alternative Outfitters to respond to my complaint before I reviewed the shoes here. Below is the letter I wrote to their customer care centre:

Hi,

On January 27th, 2010 I picked up my vegan Princeton dress shoes from the post office. I was quite excited about them and they felt comfortable for a couple of weeks.

After only about 3 weeks of wearing these shoes strictly at the office, where I sit most of the day, they were beginning to hurt the soles of my feet. The sole, it would appear, has a hard plastic waffle-like body with a rubber or plastic compound at the bottom and an insole on top of it. The insole, after these few weeks, was sinking into the hard waffle pattern and pressing painfully into the soles of my feet. A couple of weeks ago now, after a short walk, the soles of my feet were so sore that I had to take the shoes off as soon as I got home. Upon inspection, I found the soles of both shoes to be cracked almost all the way through.

This is pathetic! I have used these shoes under very gentle conditions for only four or five weeks and found them broken and useless.

I wrote about these shoes on my Vegan Miscellanies when I first got them and now have nothing good to say about them. I need to share with people how these turned out, but I wanted to write to you first. Please make this right.

Thanks,
Abram

Below is their reply:

Dear Abram,

We are sorry to hear about the condition of your shoes. We have sold a lot of these shoes and have not had any problems with them. In any case, we would be happy to offer you a replacement pair, or if you’re feeling weary about receiving another pair of the same shoes, we could always issue you a store credit to be applied toward a future purchase. Also, it would not necessary to return the damaged shoes back to us.

Please let us know what you would like to do. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused you.

Sincerely,

### ########

Alternative Outfitters

I chose to accept the store credit, though I haven't yet decided on what to get with it. I thought it was decent of Alternative Outfitters to at least offer me a store credit. I am nervous about trying another pair of shoes and I don't really like the idea of having to pay the shipping, handling and taxes on whatever I do buy. When the shoes arrived, those things together were almost half the cost of the shoes themselves (the order came from Pasadena, CA all the way to Hamilton, ON).

If anyone has any suggestions on what is a safe and decent product to order for about fifty bucks, please let me know.

Vegan Shoes

Last Wednesday after work I picked up my new vegan casual shoes for the office. I ordered these vegan Princeton shoes from Alternative Outfitters, as the only non-leather options I could find in local stores were cheap Payless shoes made in China under unknown/questionable labour conditions. It is equally important for me to buy vegan products, so animals need not suffer and die for me, as it is to buy products made under fair labour conditions, so people need not slave away in sweat shops for me.  

I had been wearing, when I had to be more dressed up for work, an old pair of leather dress shoes. They felt like a skeleton in my shoe closet. I had purchased them several years ago when already vegan because I had no dress shoes, had an interview for a job in two days (no time for mail order) and needed good looking shoes quickly. I could have bought a cheap pair of shoes at Payless that were man-made, but then I worried about the people who made the shoes (I could find nothing about fair labour conditions). I was in an ethical quandary. 

When my workplace changed its dress policy to allow jeans and t-shirts, I bought a pair of black Converse running shoes that happened to be made of man-made materials. I don't know about the labour conditions at Converse. I used them until they were completely run down, with holes in their soles and missing eyelets. And then, while I was still trying to stretch the life of those, the office dress policy reverted back to business casual. I had to get new shoes and, having some time, but finding no decent local options for shoes that were both vegan and manufactured under fair labour conditions, I mail-ordered.

Speaking of local vegan options, I found a place in Toronto's Kensington Market called Left Feet. It turns out they had to close their doors Sept. 11, 2009 because they could not renew their lease. They are looking for a new location. I also found a shop called Vegans Love Lava out of Guelph, ON, just a 15 minute drive from my workplace, but they have no store front and their vegan dress shoes are expensive. Their cheapest vegan dress shoe for men was over a hundred dollars before shipping, while the shoes I ordered from Alternative Outfitters were still under a hundred after shipping & handling and duty.

I hope these last me a while - at least a couple of years. I'll keep you updated.

Atheist Cartoon Illustrating Western Religion's Contribution to Animal Rights/Welfare

I stumbled across this cartoon illustrating Christianity's (and to an extent, Judaism's) silence, via their god's supposed word, on one ethical issue humanity is increasingly beginning to grapple with -- the treatment of non-human animals.

This cartoon obviously refers to the contribution of Western religions to the issue of 'the ethical treatment of animals' and is slightly inaccurate even there, exaggerating a little (the bible does ask that we not hurt animals for fun), and does not recognise the doctrine of ahimsa (non-harm, or non-violence) propounded in Hindu, Buddhist and Jain scriptures. Ahimsa, as laid out in those traditions, does not pertain only to human relationships, but also to our relationship to all other beings. 

There are, of course, many ethical issues -- regard and treatment of women, treatment of children, slavery, labour law, sexuality, aggression, genocide, ethnocide, among others -- we, as evolving, modern humans have thought about, studied, discussed, debated and, recognising that certain universal rights exist and that these rights must be protected, have enshrined in law. We have accomplished most of this in spite of religion, with religion(s) being dragged, kicking and screaming into the modern age, rather than because of or through religion. And we have much work left to do.

Religion is perhaps the biggest obstacle, the biggest threat, to continued human progress. Indeed, religion poses a serious threat to human survival itself. While there are many well-meaning religious moderates with whom we can work, as long as religion is granted special privileges in our society we are driving with the parking brakes on. Imagine how much progress we could make without this baggage! We'd certainly stumble and make mistakes, but we'd have a much better chance of recognising our mistakes and correcting them.