THE VEGAN NEWS
THE VEGAN NEWS
NOVEMBER
1997
In This Month's Issue:
- Recipes
- This Month's Article - Green Manures
- Vegan Product Review
- Water Saving Tips
- In The Veganic Garden
- Your Comments
- The Centre For Alternative Technology
- Vegan Websites
- Book Review
- The Wildlife Database
Recipe of the Month
Quick-and-Easy Fruit Crumble
Ingredients
- 5 oz (140 g) Sainsbury's, unsweetened, wholewheat muesli
- 1 large (or 2 small) Bramley cooking apple(s), peeled and sliced thinly.
- 1 oz (50 g) blackberries or other fruit (optional)
Method
Recipe Serves 2
- Stew the fruit until just cooked, or if you prefer, the fruit can be microwaved instead. (In my model, apples take about 5-6 mins. Add a tablespoon of water to the fruit before microwaving.)
- Put the stewed fruit into a small casserole (or oven-proof dish) and sprinkle the muesli on top.
- Cook the crumble in the centre of the oven, until it is heated through and the topping is crispy and slightly brown. This should take about 15-25 mins depending on the selected oven temperature. If you want to save gas, then the crumble can be cooked in the oven at the same time as a main meal. The temperature of the oven is not critical: gas 4, 5, or 6 would all be suitable temperatures to use. (At the higher temperature the crumble would probably be ready in the shorter time.) Serve the crumble by itself, if you like a crispy texture, or with vegan custard. You can also mix in other stewed fruits such as plums/rhubarb, if you can't get blackberries. A plain apple crumble is also nice - try adding a handful of sultanas or raisins to the cooked apples.
Trick or Treat?
At the moment, the shops and markets are full of pumpkins. For some ideas on how to make tasty pumpkin dishes, this Halloween, visit The Vegetarian Resource Group. At this site you will find quite a few vegan-friendly pumpkin recipes including: lentils with pumpkin, pumpkin and black beans, tomato and pumpkin soup and stuffed pumpkin.
November Product Review
Plamil No-Added Sugar Carob Spread
Top of Page
Water Saving Tips
- Fix dripping taps.
- Take a shower instead of a bath.
- Don't leave the tap running when you clean your teeth. Use a glass of water instead.
- When choosing domestic appliances select ones that are water and energy efficient and have the EU ecolabel.
- Install a 'Hippo' in your toilet tank. This small, blue bag saves about 3/4 gallon of water every time you flush the toilet.
They can be obtained from:The Environment Agency,
Rio House,
Waterside Drive,
Aztec West,
Almondsbury,
Bristol, BS12 4UD.
- Ban hosepipes from your garden. Install a water butt and water your garden plants with rain water instead. Wash vegetables in a bowl of water and reuse this water on the garden.
- Mulch plants (e.g. with grass cuttings) to reduce evaporation.
- Plant drought-tolerant plants in your garden. Buddleia, berberis, hebe, hedera (ivy), lavender, rosemary, sage, sedum and thyme, are all drought tolerant and will attract wildlife into the garden too. (If you need more info, then look these plants up in The Wildlife Database .) To cut down on watering requirements, avoid growing plants in containers. And why not grow cacti indoors, instead of houseplants?
- Use a bucket of water when you wash the car.
- Reuse as much water as possible.
What's Happening in the Veganic Garden This Month?
Tidying Up
Finish tidying up your raised beds and if you need to make any new beds and aren't sure how to do it, then see the January Issue. Compost any garden debris or crops that are no longer needed, as leaving waste lying around will only attract pests. Continue to collect leaves as they fall off garden trees and convert them into leafmould. At this time of year, you should add as much humus-rich, well-rotted organic material to your raised beds as you can. This will improve the texture of the soil and increase the level of nutrients available for next year's crops. Mature compost, leafmould, green manure crops and seaweed/seaweed meal, are just some of the substances which are suitable for this purpose. Organic matter should be placed on the surface of the raised beds; the earthworms will then do all the digging for you! Bonfire ashes can also be sprinkled on the soil and are particularly useful when placed in areas where you are going to grow runner beans/tomatoes next year.If any of your beds are too acidic them you may want to give them a dusting of lime. The Organic Gardening Catalogue sells an animal-free form of lime called 'dolomitic limestone' which has calcium and magesium and can be used to raise the pH of the soil. You can also purchase seaweed meal from this catalogue. It should be applied about three months before planting your crops and is very rich in trace elements.
Sowing
Winter field beans and grazing rye can still be sown this month. Read this month's article on Green Manures for more details. It is also possible to make sowings of some varieties of broad beans (Aquadulce claudia) but I prefer to make my sowings in February when the worst of the winter is over!
The Wildlife Garden
Stock up on fat balls, wild bird seed and peanuts this month. Then you are ready to set up the bird table if the weather turns very cold. If you grew sunflowers in the garden this year, the sunflower heads can be hung up outside for finches to eat over the winter. For more details on the types of bird tables available and how to feed birds, see the December 1997 issue.
Apart from birds and possibly grey squirrels, you probably won't see much wildlife in the garden at this time of year. Do keep a look out for hedgehogs though. Underweight, young hedgehogs can sometimes get into difficulties at this time of year, particulary if the weather goes cold suddenly and they need to hibernate. Then, you may see them walking around in daylight hours and they probably need your help. They can be housed indoors and should be given plenty of food to fatten them up! They need to weigh between 500-680 gms before being released outside again. For more details on how to care for hedgehog orphans contact: The British Hedgehog Preservation Society.
And of course, don't forget when tidying up the garden this autumn, to leave some areas untidy for the wildlife! Hedgehogs, for example, like to hibernate in piles of autumn leaves and will use dry leaves to make their nests in spring.
The Fruit Garden
November is the best time of year for planting new fruit trees and soft fruit bushes. Before purchasing fruit trees, check if they are self-fertile and if not, then plant cross-pollinating varieties. If you have existing fruit trees, then they can be pruned after the leaves have fallen off. Currants, raspberries, blackberries, mulberry and medlar can also be planted this month.
Crops Available This Month
Brussels sprouts, perpetual spinach, winter cabbage, leeks and celery.
Your Comments!
The Centre for Alternative Technology
Not strictly speaking a vegan organisation, but if you are interested in sustainable living, then I'm sure that you will enjoy a visit to the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales. CAT's 7 acre site is located 3 miles north of Machynlleth on the A487. Here you can see working examples of many of the new technologies. The centre has working displays of wind, water and solar power, low-energy buildings, its own organic gardens and an educational range of interactive displays. A woodchip boiler, using local waste woodchips, heats the buildings and energy is also produced from a solar roof which helps to power the visitor site.
There is an onsite wholefood vegetarian restaurant that also sells vegan food.
You can even visit the Centre for Alternative Technology on line.
Other Interesting Vegan Websites.
The Centre for Alternative Technology
This site has many green ideas which I'm sure will be of interest to many vegans. Here you can find out about CAT's courses and publications and take a virtual tour of their 7 acre site in Wales! Send them your queries to answer too.Friends of the Trees Society
This Society aims to double the world's forests. Visit this site to find out more about their courses, publications and events.
November Book Review
Oriental Vegetables. By Joy Larkcom.
This book will tell you anything and everything you could possibly want to know about Oriental vegetables! In the first part of the book, you will find detailed information on the many varieties of Oriental vegetables which will grow successfully in temperate climates. Packed with info on well known varieties such as: Chinese cabbage, pak choi, choy sum, komatsuna, mitsuba, mitzuna, mibuna, mustard greens, Oriental saladini, burdock, daikon, Japanese pumpkin and bunching onions, it also covers many of the less well known varieties too.
The second section covers the gardening techniques which are used to produce these wonderful and often very attractive looking vegetables. Joy Larkcom tells you how to sow them and also covers topics such as soil fertility, crop rotation, interplanting and growing these vegetables in a bed system, or under cover. If you want to know which mulching material to use, or how to deal with the pests and diseases that can attack Oriental vegetables, then you will find the answers to all your questions in this well-researched book.(She even tells you how to with cook them, although many of the recipes are not vegan/vegetarian.) Finally, at the end of the book, there is a list of Oriental vegetable seed suppliers, covering the UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand. This book is illustrated with eight pages of colour photos.