THE VEGAN NEWS
THE VEGAN NEWS
DECEMBER
1996
In This Month's Issue:
- Recipes
- Vegan Product Review(s)
- Recycling Tips
- In The Veganic Garden
- Your Queries
- Book Review(s)
- The Wildlife Database
Recipe of the Month
Christmas cake
Ingredients
- 150 g each of dried peaches, pears, apricots, raisins and almonds
- 500 g mixed dried fruit
- 300 ml pure orange juice
- 125 ml brandy *
- 300 g wholemeal self-raising flour
- 100 ml of sunflower oil
- 4 tbsp molasses
- EnerG egg replacer (or similar) to replace 5 eggs
- A small amount of desiccated coconut and reduced sugar jam. Cake decorations
* Cognac listed as suitable for vegans can be obtained from Vintage Roots.
Method
Note: An alcohol-free version is now available in a later issue.
- Chop the dried peaches, pears, apricots and the almonds into fairly small pieces.
- Put all the dried fruit and the almonds into a pan with the orange juice and bring to the boil.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add the brandy. Put the pan to cool in a large bowl of water.
- When the fruit is cool transfer it to a large bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix thoroughly.
- Grease and line a 9" round cake tin. Fill it with the cake mixture and smooth the surface of the mixture with the back of a spoon.
- Bake the cake at Gas mark 2 (300F/150C) for two and a half hours. A scewer should come out clean when it is cooked. This cake can be made in advance and frozen. It should be defrosted for at least 5 hours before using.
- To decorate the cake: Brush the surface of the cake with low-sugar jam e.g. apricot - it is better if the jam is melted a little first - and sprinkle the surface of the cake with desiccated coconut. Christmas decorations and a cake frill can also be used to decorate the cake if required.
December Product Review
This product is cruelty free and is suitable for vegans. It is made entirely of natural ingredients and contains no artificial colouring, sweeteners, flavourings or preservatives. It is biodegradable. Available in fennel, mint with lemon, baking soda with mint or strawberry flavours. It is approved by the British Dental Health Foundation. It is produced in 50g and 125g tubes. Kingfisher toothpaste can be purchased in some health food shops and in Sainsbury's and other big supermarkets. The fennel flavour tastes like aniseed/liquorice and is rather nice!
Recycling Tips
Before you throw anything away think! Can it be reused? Here are some suggestions:
Aluminium Cans and Foil
Most local councils now have facilities for recycling any aluminium cans that you absolutely have to use, but aim to reduce the number of cans that you purchase too. (It takes as lot of energy to produce each can and some more to recycle it.) Over four billion of these cans are used each year in the UK and less than 10% are recycled. Aluminium foil, trays and pie plates can also be put into can recycling bins. Many branches of Oxfam will accept donations of aluminium foil and milk bottle tops. Please wash them well before donating!
Plastic bags
Try to avoid using plastic bags. Take string or cloth bags with you when you go out shopping and always reuse any plastic carrier bags that you do acquire. They could perhaps be used as binliners instead of purchasing new ones. Also, think of ways to reduce the amount of shopping that you buy and then you won't need so many bags either! Small plastic food bags can be washed and reused. Dry them on top of old wine bottles, empty milk or washing up bottles, or chop sticks in a jam-jar. Buy goods loose whenever possible and when buying wrapped items, try to purchase goods wrapped in cellophane, cardboard or paper as these wrappings are all biodegradable and can be recycled, unlike most plastics.
What's Happening in the Veganic Garden This Month?
Very little should need doing in the garden this month. However tasks which can usefully be done, often in doors by the fire, include:
- Finish planning out what you would like to grow in the garden next season.
- Do some stock-taking and check your supplies of garden sundries.e.g seaweed meal, Biotal, SM3 and comfrey liquid. The Organic Gardening Catalogue can supply these and the seeds below.
- Order any packets of seeds, seed potatoes and onion sets if you have not done this already.
- Check all your garden equipment and repair or replace any broken garden tools.
- Don't forget to take a complete break from gardening while the garden is quiet!
The garden can often seem a little bit too quiet at this time of year. However, it is possible to liven up a garden enormously during the winter months by installing a bird table or bird feeder. My bird table can be viewed from the window of a sunny room. Siting of the bird table is important. Try to place it where it is difficult for cats to attack the visiting birds. A path nearby is also useful in the winter so that your feet don't get too dirty when putting out food. Hanging bird tables can be purchased. These are usually hung from tree branches and it is now also possible to get feeders which can adhere to the outside of a window. These are useful if you do not have a garden. Wooden bird tables look nice and are of course made from natural, biodegradable materials. (Try to make sure that the wood is produced sustainably before purchasing.) In fact why not buy or make, a bird table or feeder as a Christmas present for someone. Old people who lack companionship will often gain enormous pleasure from watching the birds outside their window, and of course children do too.
It is important to feed the birds during the winter months when it is cold and frosty and the ground is too hard for them to be able to find food easily for themselves. A supply of clean water is also important for the birds at this time of year. Replace the water regularly in order to avoid it freezing up. Many pet shops stock food which is suitable for wild birds. Tits will readily take peanuts from a feeder and mixtures of special wild bird seeds and fat balls can also be purchased from pet shops and some large DIY stores. However, it isn't necessary to spend large amounts of money on special bird food as household scraps can all be recycled. Bread, crumbs, bacon rinds, suet, raisins, over-ripe fruit /apple cores and the odd bit of cheese can all be put out for the birds instead of being thrown away. Aim to offer a variety of foods as different species of birds like to feed in different ways. Some prefer food which is hanging e.g. blue tits, while others prefer to feed on the ground. The great spotted woodpecker likes to find fatty morsels in the crevices of a tree trunk.
It is also possible to grow certain plants in the garden which will provide food for the birds. Birds particularly like many of the plants which bear berries and also of course fruit trees or bushes. Until recently I had a 'natural' bird table in my garden. This was an old apple tree which produced fruit which wasn't really much good for human consumption. The birds and the wasps both loved it though. Unfortunately, the tree developed wood boring beetle and had to come down and now the birds like to eat my raspberries instead!
Plants which are particularly good for birds to eat include: chickweed, brambles, crab apple, dandelion, groundsel, holly, ivy, teasel, thistles and sunflower. Sunflowers can easily be grown by children and look very attractive in the garden. Their seed heads can be hung up to dry in an airy shed in the autumn and can be used to supplement the food on the bird table throughout the winter. The seeds can either be removed and mixed in with other food or simply hang the dried heads on a fence or bird table where they will soon be visited by finches.
There are many good books on wildlife gardening. I would particularly recommend Creating a Wildlife Garden by Bob and Liz Gibbons. If you can't get a copy of this book from your library, you may still be able to order a copy from a large bookshop like WHS, or obtain a second hand copy from Amazon UK. Some mail order catalogues also offer a selection of wild flower seeds, many of which are very good for attracting birds into the garden. For example a Wild Bird Mix (code: WIWG) of seeds is available from the Organic Gardening Catalogue and Suffolk Herbs also do a Bird Seed Mixture Of Herbs & Wildflowers (Code: BR). The Organic Garden Catalogue also stocks various bird feeders and offer a range of wild flower seeds that will attract bees and butterflies. Don't be too keen to pull up that clump of nettles either, as it is the caterpillar food plant for several butterflies! Finally, CJ Wildlife produces an interesting booklet called The Handbook of Garden Wildlife and sell a wide variety of prepared bird food mixes, feeders and nesting boxes.
Salad Plants
Why not make a resolution to start to grow some of your own salad plants? Shop-bought salad can be expensive and it is in fact very easy and far cheaper to grow some of your own salad. Even if you do not have a garden it is possible to grow a useful amount of salad on your windowsill! e.g Mustard and cress and alfalfa sprouts. (For more information see the Sprouting Article.)
There are now many varieties of 'cut-and-come-again' lettuces available. These are particularly easy to grow. Simply sprinkle the seeds on the soil and a few months later pick the leaves off the plant as you require them. When leaves are picked just before being eaten they are very nutritious.
My favourite salad plants are:
- Claytonia- A winter salad crop sown outside in August to provide salad from November to March. Take a few leaves off the plant when required.
- Corn Salad- Another lettuce sown in August for the winter months. Pick the whole plant when it is young.
- Tom Thumb - A dwarf variety, good for the small garden. The slugs like it too so I start mine off indoors and after planting out cover them with half a transparent fizzy water bottle until established.(See November issue - Recycling tips.) This type of lettuce is good for small families as the whole plant can be eaten at once.
- Lolla Rossa - A very pretty, red lettuce which can even be grown in the flowerbed! Individual leaves can be picked when required.
- Saladini - A mixture of salad plants which can be sown directly into the soil. The slugs do not seem to eat these plants. Pull the leaves off the plants when required and the plants will continue to produce new leaves for quite along time. Other similar cut-and-come-again lettuces include Catalogna and Avoncrisp.
- Land Cress- Very easy to grow with a flavour similar to watercress. August sowings can provide leaves in the winter.
- Welsh Onions - a perennial onion like chives which can be picked all the year round. Simply cut off the required amount of stem and the onion will grow back again.
- White Lisbon and White Lisbon Winter Hardy- These 'spring onions' take a long time to grow in my soil and so I leave both varieties over winter to grow bigger!
There are of course many other varieties of salad plants that can be grown in the garden. All the above varieties can be obtained from : The Organic Gardening Catalogue.
Any Queries?
What is Engevita please?
F. Davies. Exeter.Engevita is a type of nutritional yeast flake which is produced by Marigold. It can be sprinkled on soup, stew, spaghetti sauce, salad or can replace cheese in many recipes. It is a very good source of the B vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B6, folic acid) and minerals and can be obtained from many health food shops.
December Book Review
Vegan Cookery. By Eva Batt.
A book of simple and economical recipes. (I ordered my copy from the public library.)
The book contains many ideas for main meals such as: curried tvp (p.55), butterbean roast (p.54), pease pudding (p.67), and paella (p.61). It also contains plenty of bread, pizza and cake recipes and a recipe for making your own vegan cheese too. (p.121) There are also several recipes for roasts. Why not try out the brazil nut roast with chestnut stuffing this Christmas!(p.56). The recipe for parkin on (p.134) is also easy to make and tastes very good too.