THE VEGAN NEWS
THE VEGAN NEWS
WINTER 2003/04
- Recipes
- Vegan Product Reviews
- Don't Miss! This Month's Article - Introducing Meditation
- In the Veganic Garden
- In the Wildlife Garden
- Web Sites
- Book Reviews
- The Wildlife Database
Winter Recipes
Source: Based on the recipe in 365 Plus One Vegan Recipes by Leah Leneman (Thorsons, 1993).
Ingredients
- 175g split red lentils, washed
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1/2 tsp. turmeric
- Pinch of chilli powder
- 2-3 tomatoes, chopped
- 225g potatoes, peeled and diced into small cubes
- 700ml water
- 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 medium onion, finely chopped
- Place all of the ingredients into a large pan (or wok) and cover with a lid.
- Bring to the boil. Simmer for about 30 minutes over a medium heat, until the lentils and potatoes are soft, stirring occasionally. Note: If the dahl looks too watery, remove the lid for the last 5-10 minutes of the cooking time.
Serves 2
Serve with rice or naan bread and pappadums and mango chutney.
- 25g fresh yeast
- 1 tsp. blackstrap molasses
- 150ml lukewarm water (mix 75ml of boiling water with 75ml of cold water)
- 225g wholemeal flour
- 1 tbs. olive oil
- 1 tsp. poppy seeds
- Dissolve the yeast and blackstrap molasses in the warm water, stirring well. Leave until frothy - about 10 minutes.
- Place the flour into a bowl, add the oil, then pour in the warm water. Mix together. Then form the dough into a ball with your hands.
- Knead the dough for about 5 minutes.
- Replace the dough in the bowl, covering the bowl with a clean tea towel. Leave the dough to rise in a warm place for about one and a half hours, or until it has doubled in size.
- Divide the dough into six pieces, rolling each piece into a ball. Then press each ball into a round, about 1cm thick.
- Place the rounds on greased foil and then using a fairly high grill setting, grill for about 10 minutes turning half way through the cooking time.
- Brush the naan bread with oil and sprinkle on the poppy seeds. Enjoy!
Serves 6
Winter Product Review(s)Rabenhorst Organic Wheatgrass Cocktail
Produced in Germany, this Organic Wheatgrass Cocktail is made from wheatgrass juice, green tea, apple juice, agave juice, lemon juice and the micro algae, spirulina. Green-brown in colour, it has a pleasant, smooth and fruity taste. Note: All of the ingredients have been produced on organic farms. Drink a 100ml portion after breakfast each day. If kept in the fridge after opening, a 750ml bottle will last for one week. Look out for this product in your local health shop.
Incidentally, wheatgrass juice has truly remarkable properties and is very easy to digest. It contains a vast array of vitamins, minerals and enzymes and is also a good source of protein and chlorophyll. Even very small amounts of wheatgrass juice (60-90ml) can have a remarkable effect on your health and energy levels. Try to consume a small quantity of wheatgrass juice on a daily basis in order to benefit from its marvellous cleansing and rejuvenating qualities. Wheatgrass juice has also been shown to have many amazing curative properties. You can find out more about these by consulting the books The Wheatgrass Book by Anne Wigmore and Wheatgrass: Nature's Finest Medicine by Steve Meyerowitz.
Even better, make your own wheatgrass juice, using wheatgrass grown either in trays of soil or on paper towels in your own home. However, if you intend to make your own juice you will need to purchase a special wheatgrass juicer. Wheat berries, equipment and books (including the two books listed above) on the subject can be purchased by mail order from the Fresh Network. (Tel: 0870 800 7070 for a catalogue.)
What's Happening in the Veganic Garden this Winter?Winter Sowing and Planting Schedule:
- December: Plant out Printanor garlic cloves and any new fruit trees and bushes.
- January: Continue to plant out Printanor garlic cloves, fruit trees and bushes this month. Make indoor sowings of hardy varieties of lettuces such as Winter Density. Young lettuces can be planted out when large enough to handle and when the weather has improved. However, do be sure to protect them from slug attack, perhaps by covering them with sawn-off plastic bottles. You should also order any gardening items you require from catalogues in early January e.g. onion sets, shallots, rhubarb clumps, packets of seeds and seed potatoes.
- February: From mid-February onwards it should be possible to make sowings of a winter hardy pea such as Feltham First and towards the end of the month, if the weather is good, try making an early sowing of broad beans as well. Seed potatoes should be placed in trays to sprout as soon as they are delivered, arranging them rose end upwards in a single layer. Be sure to keep the trays in a place where they will not be exposed to extreme cold or frost. Sow round seeded (summer) spinach towards the end of February, perhaps in between your rows of broad beans. Shallots can also be planted outside in February. It's possible to force some of your established rhubarb crowns this month in order to give an early crop in April. This is best done by placing old buckets (or other suitable containers) over the rhubarb crowns, after first covering the crowns with leaf mould or compost. Incidentally, if you haven't grown rhubarb before, then February is also a very good time to plant up a new rhubarb bed.
In the Wildlife Garden
Many of our wildflowers and commonly grown garden plants are beneficial to animals and can be used to attract wildlife into your garden. Here, I will cover another two plants that are especially attractive to wildlife. (See the Wildlife Plant page for details of other suitable plants.)Cowslip (Primula veris)
Although widespread in meadow lands in Britain for many centuries, cowslips are now much harder to find in the wild. Cowslips make excellent garden plants, being especially suitable for planting in a mini-meadow, although they will also do well at the front of a sunny border. They dislike acid soil and prefer more sunshine and a drier soil than their close relative, the primrose. Their attractive bright yellow flowers with orange markings are borne in clusters of 10-30 and are held high above the plant's rosette of pale green leaves. Cowslip's flowers provide nectar for butterflies, but the plant's main wildlife value is as a caterpillar food plant for Duke of Burgundy Fritillary caterpillars, which pupate on the plant. Cowslip flowers are also a valuable early source of nectar for insects with long tongues such as bees and moths.
Primrose (Primula vulgaris)
Primroses make attractive garden flowers and are one of the first flowers to bloom in spring. They grow best of all in moist woodlands, underneath hedgerows and in other shady places, but also look very attractive, with their creamy-yellow flowers when grown at the front of a shady border or in containers. Primroses will attract many kinds of wildlife to your garden. For example if planted in large groups they will be used by early spring butterflies such as brimstones and orange tips and they will also provide early nectar for bees, bumblebees and bee-flies. In addition, primroses are the caterpillar food plant for the duke of Burgundy fritillary butterfly and also for several types of yellow underwing moths. Birds, especially chaffinches, eat primrose seeds.
Other Interesting Websites
The Vegan Society (UK)
An excellent site and a particularly good source of information for the those who are new to veganism, or for anyone who is thinking of going vegan. You can now also shop online.
A site that aims to let the whole of Essex know about veganism! You can leave a message on the message board for other vegans, find out more about current and future events, obtain vegan recipes, or read an assortment of features including poems and interviews. This site would be especially useful for vegans living in the Essex area.
Scented Nectar's Page of Tastiness
This informative web site offers links to a multitude of vegetarian recipe sites, including some sites that are exclusively vegan. I would recommend that you try looking under V if you want vegan recipes, although there are vegan recipes scattered throughout the whole site.
SuperJuice: Juicing for Health and Healing by Michael van Straten (Mitchell Beazley, 1999).
Michael van Straten's SuperJuice is the book you need to help you along the road to better health. Juicing is an excellent way of making sure that you get all of the life-protecting vitamins and minerals you need.
For ease of use the book is divided up into sections. There are power juices to give you energy, cleansing juices to help you to detox, vitality juices that are bursting with anti-oxidants and even aphrodisiac juices, if your sex life needs a boost! Protective juices will help to ward off diseases such as cancer and the shake and smoothie recipes are meals in themselves, being especially useful if you are convalescing. Of particular interest is the Natural Pharmacy chapter. Here you can find out which vitamins and minerals are present in a food and look up the best juices for treating a particular illness. The book closes with some useful practical information on juicing and describes some of the juicers that are currently available.
Healing Foods CookBook: The Vegan Way To Wellness byJane Sen (Thorsons, 2000)
Illustrated with simple yet attractively laid out photographs, this cookery book contains just under one hundred healthy, vegan recipes that are based on fresh, whole ingredients. The author (who incidentally is the Head Chef at the Bristol Cancer Help Centre) proposes that we aim for a 50/50 balance between raw and cooked foods. Consequently many of the recipes, but more especially those listed in the salad section, are based on raw ingredients. This book contains an interesting selection of savoury sauce recipes that can be used on pasta and on vegetable dishes. The Dressing/Dips and Spreads section contains many tasty recipes, including recipes for salsa, sandwich spreads and mayonnaises and this book also offers a wide array of hot vegetable dishes, including recipes for pilafs, bakes, stir fries and quiches. All the desserts, cakes and cookie recipes are sugar free and eggless, although unfortunately some of these do contain honey. Be sure to try out the frosted carob cake recipe, if you get the chance!