THE VEGAN NEWS
THE VEGAN NEWS
SEPTEMBER
1997
In This Month's Issue:
- Recipes- Miso soup.
- This Month's article - Japanese Cuisine for Vegans
- Vegan Product Review
- Recycling Tips
- In The Veganic Garden - Including how to grow your own Japanese Vegetables!
- Vegan Websites
- Book Review
- The Wildlife Database
Recipe of the Month
Pauline's Miso Soup
- 1 heaped tbsp miso
- 1 medium carrot
- 650 ml vegetable stock/shitake mushroom soaking water/or boiling water
- 25g Sharwood's stir-fry rice noodles
- 50g frozen peas
- 50-65g tofu
- 1 strip of wakame seaweed
- 1-2 tbsps corn flour
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 5g dried Shitake mushrooms (optional)
Method
Recipe Serves 2
- Peel and wash the carrot and chop it into small cubes.
- Soak the rice noodles, wakame and shitake mushrooms according to the packet instructions. (I usually soak rice noodles for 5 mins in boiling water, wakame for 10 mins in cold water and shitake mushrooms for 20 mins in warm water.)
- After soaking the wakame, remove the central midrib and cut the fronds into small pieces.
- Put the chopped carrot, peas, mushrooms and wakame into a pan with the vegetable stock or water. Bring to the boil and simmer until the vegetables are nearly tender. (About 10 minutes)
- While the soup is cooking, cut the tofu into very small cubes and fry them in the olive oil until golden brown.
- Add the browned tofu, the soaked noodles and the miso to the soup and cook for 5 more minutes. Just before serving, mix the cornflour with a little cold water and add it to the soup. Heat the soup until it thickens.
Although it doesn't take long to make your own miso soup, if you are feeling really lazy, or simply don't have the cooking facilities, then why not try an instant variety of miso soup instead? These instant soups are also a good way to find out if you like miso soup before purchasing the ingredients to make your own.
September Product Review
Westbrae Natural Hearty Red Instant Miso Soup
This soup is sold in health food shops in boxes of four individual 10g sachets. Each sachet makes one large cup of soup - simply add boiling water and leave the soup to stand for one minute to allow the vegetables to rehydrate. Because these soups are so easy to make, they are ideal for travelling, camping/backpacking, or taking to work. The soup contains miso, wakame seaweed, dried green onion and fu-wheat gluten. I would recommend that you keep a spoon handy as the wakame seaweed sinks to the bottom of the cup - don't waste it as its rather nice. There are also rather delicious 'bits' which float on the surface of the soup (these are probably the fu-wheat gluten). These miso soup sachets can also be used as a gravy base. They are made in Japan and have 35 calories per sachet. Westbrae also produce a white miso variety of soup which has added tofu.
Wakama Instant Miso Soup with Tofu
Similar to the above miso soup, but each box of Wakama soup contains five, individual, foil-wrapped, soup sachets. Again simply add boiling water. Ingredients include white miso, dried tofu, wakame, spring onion and onion powder. A free pocket guide to Japanese foods was included with the packet I bought. This is a useful little fold-up leaflet which has information on Japanese sea vegetables, Japanese teas, miso and many other Japanese foodstuffs. It also has a good selection of vegan-friendly, Japanese recipe ideas. Look in your health food shop for these quick and tasty little soups. Made in Japan.
Recycling Tips
Do you use a lot of batteries? Here are some tips to help you cut down:Top of Page
- Buy a mains battery charger and some rechargeable batteries. Rechargeable batteries are available in many sizes: I find the RX6 size particularly useful but bigger sizes are also available. Chargers and rechargeable batteries can be purchased in many do-it-yourself stores, Halfords and in branches of Boots.
- A solar battery charger can also be purchased from the Natural Collection.
- Green-Fill is a polystyrene-like substance which can be used instead of polystyrene chips for packaging. Green-fill chips look rather like Whotsits (or similar potato 'crisps') and are made of wheat! When you no longer want to use the chips, they are biodegradable and can be disposed of easily: simply wash them away or compost them. 2009 Update: I haven't come across any of this recently, so it may no longer be available. Such a shame as it was rather good!
What's Happening in the Veganic Garden This Month?
Harvesting Your Crops
As soon as there is any sign of frost (or when night temperatures fall below 10 degrees C) bring in any remaining green tomatoes and ripen them indoors. I usually ripen mine in plastic baskets, but they can also be ripened on a sunny windowsill. If you do not want tomatoes all over the house, then simply store them in brown paper bags and put them in a warm place, such as in the airing cupboard. Check them regularly and use up any ripe tomatoes. Green tomatoes can also be used to make pickles and chutney.If you didn't harvest your onions last month, then this should be done urgently this month, before the weather turns wet. Onions can be stored in an airy shed. Tie the onions in small bundles (about 6 onions in each) and hang the bundles on nails or hooks which have been knocked into the rafters. Other crops which can be harvested this month include: some types of sweet corn, cucumbers, beetroot, runner beans and calabrese. Remove any large seeds from old runner beans and dry them on a windowsill for sowing next year. Store them in jars or envelopes when completely dry. Bring in any marrows and pumpkins (as these vegetables do not like frost either) and store them in a cool, airy place, such as suspended in nets from the ceiling of your shed.
Seed Sowing
This month sow perpetual spinach and winter lettuces. If the weather is mild, then you may also be able to sow some more Black Spanish Round or Summer Cross F1-(Mouli) radishes at the beginning of the month. Overwinter lettuces such as Winter Density, Imperial Winter, Dynasty, or Valdor can all be sow outside and there are many other types of lettuces that can be sow in a greenhouse at this time of year. Rocket can also be sown outside in September although it may need some protection. Plant out spring cabbage plants - sometime between mid-September and mid-October. Offenham and Harbinger are suitable varieties to use. Some types of onion seeds can also be sown in the autumn including: 'Giant Zittau, or 'Reliance'. And, the variety 'Senshyu Yellow' can be sown at the end of August.Other Garden Tasks
If you have any mature compost, then this should be placed on top of the soil as you start to clear your raised beds. Also, start to collect any leaves that fall off the trees at the end of this month as these can be used to make leaf mould.Autumn/early winter is the best time to plant fruit trees and soft fruit bushes. Visit your garden centre to see which varieties are available, or order some from a catalogue. Most soft fruit is planted from October onwards, but new Strawberry beds can be planted up this month.
Growing Your Own Japanese Vegetables
This month, I would like to introduce you to some Oriental vegetables as they are easy to grow and are highly nutritious. The following seeds have all been selected from Organic Gardening Catalogue. I have deliberately picked out the Japanese vegetable seeds from the catalogue, in order to fit in with this month's article on Japanese Cuisine for Vegans. But, the Organic Gardening Catalogue also sells many other kinds of Oriental vegetable seeds, plus a book called Oriental Vegetables by Joy Larkcom, which tells you how to grow and cook them. (The revised edition is available in their 2009 catalogue.)
- Mitsuba (Japanese Parsley)
A cross between parsley and celery. Use it in salads and in soups.
- Japanese Burdock (gobo)
Parsnip-like roots which can reach 60cm in length.
- Mizuna - Japanese greens
A mildly mustard-flavoured vegetable which can be used in stir fries, or when young, raw in salads. Large leaves can be frozen after blanching for two minutes.Sow seeds outside from May to August, or under cover from September to April. Mizuna can also be grown in a container as a cut-and-grow again vegetable, but use potting compost, rather than garden soil, to fill the container. Summer crops should always be sown in a slightly shaded spot (to prevent the crop from going to seed) and the crop should be kept well watered. Mizuna needs to be covered with cloches or a frame in late autumn. Alternatively, soil can be mixed with water to make mud which is then used to make a wall (at least 8 inches high) around the mizuna. Plastic sheeting is then stretched over the top for protection and weighted down with bricks on the outside of the walls.
- Mibuna - Japanese Greens
Grow and use in a similar way to Mizuna above.
- Hikari Bunching Onion
A multistalk green salad onion. Sow in August for overwinter use.
- Ishikura
Another Japanese bunching onion.
- Uchiki kuri (Japanese Pumpkin)
A bright orange trailing pumpkin with a sweet and nutty flavour.If you would like more information on how these vegetables are used in Japanese cookery, then please read this month's article on Japanese Cuisine for Vegans.
Other Interesting Vegan Websites.
- The Vegan Society (UK)
Visit the Vegan Society's new website!
- Vegetarian Journal
Read the Vegetarian Journal's article on Japanese Vegetarian Cuisine. This site also has some Japanese vegetarian recipes which are suitable for vegans.
September Book Review
Vegan Vitality. By Diane Hill. Thorsons
If you are feeling a little short of energy, then this book could be just what you need to pep you up a bit!
The introduction covers the health, animal rights and moral reasons for going vegan. And, if you ever thought that vegan cookery meant going without milk and cheese, then think again. The Vegan Dairy section of this book has many delicious vegan alternatives to yogurt and cream and quite a few recipes for homemade cheese, ranging from firm cheese to vegan cottage, cream and curd cheese.
This interesting cookery book has the usual sections on soups, pates, main courses, salads, salad dressings, sauces (including vegan cheese sauce), vegetables, puddings/desserts, cakes/biscuits and homemade bread. I have tried out the pistachio risotto recipe, which is rather nice, although I thought the portions were rather small and needed to be increased in size! And, I have made up the tofu pasta recipe which I am going to use to make some home-made ravioli (most shop-bought ravioli contains either dairy cheese or eggs) and it is lurking in my freezer at the moment, until I have time to invent a suitable ravioli filling.
On page 181 of this book, you will also find a quick and easy way of making your own tofu, using soya flour and lemon juice. There is a good recipe for a scone pizza base on p 101. This recipe is very quick to make and the pizzas only take 20-25 mins to cook, so they are ideal if you want to save gas. Other interesting sounding recipes include: crispy tofu crunches - p. 52; chili con coconut; tofu loaf; strawberry ice cream; pumpkin coleslaw; tofu pancakes and spinach lasagne.