THE VEGAN NEWS
THE VEGAN NEWS
JUNE 1999
- Recipes
- This Month's Article - Clarifying Wine
- Butterflies in June
- Vegan Product Review
- Genetic Modification Snippets
- In The Veganic Garden
- Cooking With Earthworms
- Vegan Websites
- Book Review
- The Wildlife Database
Recipe of the Month
Herby Steamed Vegetables
Ingredients
- 1 small head of broccoli, chopped into small florets
- 1-2 medium carrots, chopped thinly - no need to peel if using organic carrots.
- 50 g mushrooms, sliced
- 50 g kale, roughly chopped
- 50 g of frozen sweetcorn kernels
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed (or peeled and finely chopped)
- 1-2 tsp(s) of dried, mixed herbs
- 1 tbsp of tamari (or Braggs' liquid aminos)
- 90-100ml water
- Engevita nutritional yeast flakes (optional)
Method
- Wash and prepare the vegetables as described above.
- Place the vegetables and garlic into a wok/pan. Add the mixed herbs, water and tamari.
- Cover the wok/pan with a lid. Cook the vegetables over a moderate heat for 10-15 mins, or until they are just tender.
- If desired, sprinkle with Engevita nutritional yeast flakes just before serving.
Note: The suggested vegetables can be changed, but you may need to alter the cooking time slightly. Substitute any seasonal vegetables and experiment with different combinations. If the vegetables become too dry during cooking, simply add a small amount of extra water.
Butterflies in June - by Lynn FomisonWell June is the month that the spring butterflies fade away and the summer ones have not really got going, so it's a bad time for the avid butterfly watcher! However, you should still be seeing Large, Small and Green-Veined Whites and if your garden is near to suitable wild habitat June is the month when you will see the first brood of Common Blues. They can be encouraged to breed by providing foodplants for their caterpillars - bird's-foot trefoil (that's the egg and bacon plant of our childhood!) and black medick. Gardens with lots of shrubs and trees and grassy areas may be home to Speckled Woods or these may visit your garden from nearby woods. The males defend their territory vigorously - they sit in dappled sunlight on high shrubs and attack any other male, or indeed any other butterfly, venturing into their space. Their caterpillars feed on various grasses like cocksfoot and couch, so if you see Speckled Woods in your garden they can be encouraged to breed by leaving parts of the lawn uncut.
During June, you will start to see Large Skippers - they hold their wings a bit like a moth. Also as June wears on, Meadow browns will be on the wing and Ringlets will be around in moist grassy places. Like Speckled Woods, all of these butterflies breed on grass, so are often more at home in wild places than in gardens.
Now there is still time to plant out half hardy bedding plants, in tubs, borders etc. I don't like to buy many of these because when they are grown commercially peat-based composts are used. However, if you think your garden might be short of nectar for summer butterflies then choose some of these:- heliotrope, verbena venosa, statice, zinnias, single dahlias, helicrysum. And remember the moths! The day-flying Humming Bird Hawkmoth loves busy lizzies. Night-time moths will be attracted to night-scented stocks and nicotiana.
One last tip. In preparing your beds for summer - don' t be too tidy. Caterpillars could be feeding, or pupating, on those honesty plants that have stopped flowering. Clear them up and you'll be throwing away next year's Orange Tip butterflies!
June Product Review
Dolma Carotene-Enriched Moisture Cream With Ho-Leaf & Orange Essential Oils
This cream is ideal for all skin types (except oily) and is particularly useful for dry or mature skin. Made from jojoba, carrot and almond oils, it has a mild and pleasant smell. Use it as a night cream, but as it's non-greasy it's ideal for daytime use too. A 50 g pot costs £5.25. A fragrance-free version, (without essential oils) is also available - ideal for sensitive allergy-prone skin. So, let the carrots get to work on those wrinkles!
Both of the above vegan creams can be purchased from: Dolma, 19 Royce Avenue, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. NG15 6FU. Tel: 0115 963 4237. Orders are despatched very efficiently. I was amazed when my pot of cream landed through the letter box within a few days of ordering!
Marigold and Marshmallow Handcream
This creamy, mild-smelling, vegan handcream is produced by Honesty Cosmetics for Animal Aid. It comes in a handy 50g pot and is easily transported around. Non-greasy and good for dry hands, it contains apricot kernel, cocoa butter and calendula and almond oils. Available from: Animal Aid, The Old Chapel, Bradford Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1AW. It can also be ordered on the Internet at the Animal Aid website. It costs £4.50 + postage
Genetic Modification Snippets:
"In lab tests, pollen from the GM corn grown in the United States killed the Monarch Butterfly by making it more vulnerable to infection". (The Daily Telegraph, May 20th, 1999.)
Potatoes engineered to produce the toxin, GNA lectin, have also been shown to harm ladybirds feeding on them. (The Daily Telegraph, May 21st 1999.)
What's Happening in the Veganic Garden This Month?
Sowing and Planting Outside
Continue to make sowings of French beans and runner beans until the end of the month. Sow carrots (e.g.Chantenay Red-Cored and Autumn King) for autumn crops. Make further sowings of salad crops. Try lettuces such as Winter Density and All Year Round, White Lisbon salad onions, or for a change try an endive such as Stratego RZ, an organic, self-blanching variety (Updated February 2009 - No longer available). If you have a small garden you might like to try Mixed Leaves - a mixture of butterhead, cos, crisp and loosehead varieties of lettuce, all in one packet (Updated February 2009 - no longer available). All of these varieties can be obtained by mail order, from: The Organic Gardening Catalogue, Riverdene Business Park, Molesey Road, Hersham, Surrey. KT12 4RG. Tel: 0845 130 1304.
Plant out indoor raised leeks from now until mid-July. Tomato plants can also be put outside from the end of May until mid-June, when all danger of frost has past. Winter brassicas, sown indoors last month, can be planted outside as soon as they are large enough - either this month or next.
This year I am going to try out two new vegetables - Pak Choi-Joi Choi and Italian Parsley, both of which can be sown in the veganic garden this month. Pak Choi is a useful green, calcium-rich vegetable which is quickly cooked in stir-fries. Seeds can be obtained from the Organic Gardening Catalogue. Alternatively try the variety Pak Choi-Canton Dwarf (also known as baby or Squat Pak Choi) which has good heat tolerance.
Italian Parsley (Carum petroselinum) is available from The Organic Gardening Catalogue for £1.38. This large, easily grown, vigorous variety is frequently cultivated in Italy and has a good strong flavour. And because it grows so tall, the leaves are kept well off the ground and stay clean. This hardy plant readily self-seeds, ensuring a constant supply once it is established.
Indoor Work
Continue to make indoor sowings of winter cabbages. January King is one of the best varieties for winter use and the variety Ormskirk is also good as it has the ability to withstand severe frosts. Holland Late Winter (a white ballhead) stores well and is good for using in coleslaw and salads. Or try Tundra, a vigorous grower, widely grown in the UK, or Christmas Drumhead, a dwarf, quick-growing, blue-green variety.
Other Jobs
Net strawberries and other fruit bushes to protect them from birds. Check strawberry plants regularly, for the grey fluffy mold, botrytis which occurs in damp weather. Be sure to pick off and destroy any infected fruit. Incidentally, planting garlic as a companion plant, in your strawberry patch (best planted Dec-Feb) can help to prevent molds from developing on strawberies. Continue to keep weeds down, by regularly hoeing or scrappering between your crops. Water peas, beans and strawberries when they start to flower. A mulch of rotted grass cuttings can also be placed on bean and pea crops, in order to conserve moisture and help to keep down the weeds.
- In The Wildlife Garden - See Butterflies in June
Crops Available This Month:
Asparagus, broad beans, broccoli, lettuce, spring onion, peas, spinach, early potatoes, radish, gooseberries, rhubarb.
Cooking With Earthworms?
Did you know that earthworms can be a nutritious addition to the human diet? Apparently, they contain sixty to seventy percent protein and are very low in fat. Think I'm kidding? I'm not - see Chapter Eleven in The Worm Book by Loren Nancarrow and Janet Hogan Taylor (Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, 1998). Here you will learn how to cook with earthworms - or as the French call them Ver de terre. It appears that not even the humble earthworm is safe from human abuse!
I will give a brief account here - just in case you are unable to get hold of a copy of this book for yourself. This is how it is recommended that they should be prepared and cooked:
After purging the worms wash them in cold water. Then plunge the live worms into a pan of boiling water and cook for 15 minutes. Drain the worms. Repeat the boiling procedure, at least one more time, in order to remove all of the mucus from their bodies. After boiling, the worms can be chopped into pieces and used in casseroles - instead of chicken or beef.
Alternatively, the worms can be baked in the oven. Freeze the worms first. This kills them and stops them from wriggling off the baking tray! But defrost the worms thoroughly, before baking in the oven at 200 degrees F, for 30 minutes. The dry worms can then be ground into a protein-rich flour. Use this instead of normal flour in baked goods, such as bread, cakes, muffins etc. Dried chopped worms can also be used instead of raisins or nuts! Chapter Eleven also contains a selection of earthworm recipes. How about Worm' N Apple Cake, Apricot-Earthworm Balls, Oatmeal Earthworm-Raisin Muffins or a tasty Earthworm Scamble? Note: Many of these recipes contain eggs and cheese, as well as earthworms, so they are definitely not for vegans!
I am sure that most of you are already well aware of the cruelty that is inflicted, by humans, on larger animals such as chickens, pigs, calves etc. Yet, it's so easy to overlook cruelty to smaller creatures - like the earthworm. Earthworms have a central nervous system, consisting of a brain (suprapharyngeal ganglion) and two nerves which receive impulses from special sensory cells in the skin. They can suddenly contract their whole body in response to unfavourable stimulation of these cells. I am sure that being dropped into boiling water, whilst still a live, is not a pleasant experience for them.
I don't know how widespread this practice of eating earthworms is, although I doubt that it is a very popular way of eating. I can't really see that many housewives jumping at the chance of preparing lots of wriggling worms for dinner! I sincerely hope that it doesn't catch on. We need all the earthworms we can muster - to mix, loosen up and aerate the soil, to improve soil structure and drainage and to break down decomposing plant and animal material into humus. Earthworms are so important in agriculture, yet they are already greatly reduced in numbers. The soil everywhere is becoming increasingly barren, as earthworms and the other soil organisms needed to produce fertile humus dwindle. So please, non-vegan readers, don't eat the earthworms!
The Vegan Society (UK)
Other Interesting Vegan Websites
An excellent site and a particularly good starting point for obtaining information, for the new or intending vegan. You can now visit their online Shop.
VeggieDate (USA)
A new non-profit online, searchable vegetarian dating/meeting place. Here you can make friends, or perhaps even find the vegetarian of your dreams! And lifetime membership is only $15 for the first 500 people who join. VeggieDate is a project of GreenPeople, a non-profit organization of Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs. (Updated February 2009 - This url no longer goes to this site. It now goes to the Green People site, which looks quite interesting so I have left the url in.)
Genetic Engineering Articles
This site is maintained by the International Vegetarian Union and has many interesting articles on genetic engineering.
June Book Review
Vegetarian Baby & Child by Petra Jackson (Headline 1995). Price £9.99.
I am often asked about recipe books for vegan babies. Unfortunately, there are very few suitable books available and those that are available are generally American! This is a British book, written for parents of the vegetarian baby/child, but I am sure that anyone who is trying to raise a vegan baby in the UK will find it of some use.
Chapter One: Covers babies of 4-8 months, providing recipes for lunch, tea and puddings. These early recipes are mainly based on fruit and vegetables, baby rice and a few other ingredients, likely to be found in most vegan store cupboards. All of the recipes in this section are suitable for a vegan baby, although a vegan baby milk should be used. Food preparation techniques (e.g. pureeing and sterilizing) and weaning are also covered.
Chapter Two: Covers babies from 8-18 months and offers recipes for breakfast, lunch, puddings and tea. Common feeding problems are discussed. You will need to use vegan alternatives for milk, cheese and yogurt in quite a few of the recipes.
Chapter Three: Covers toddlers and older children and apart from providing meal recipes, also has recipes for lunchboxes, snacks and party food. However, this section is not so useful for vegan children - a fair bit of substituting will be required and many of these recipes contain eggs or egg white, making them difficult to adapt for vegan children.
In my opinion Vegetarian Baby & Child would be mainly useful for vegan babies of up to 12-18 months. Note: Many of the recipes in the earlier chapters can be quickly prepared and cooked in 30-35 mins or under.