THE
VEGAN NEWS
THE
VEGAN NEWS
SPRING 2002
- Recipes
- Vegan Product Review
- Don't Miss! This Month's Article - Gardening for Wildlife (Birds)
- In the Veganic Garden
- Crop Review
- Websites
- Book Review
- The Wildlife Database
Recipe of the Month
Field Bean Minted Hotpot
Source: The Vegan Diet by David Scott & Claire Golding (Rider, 1985).
Ingredients
- 2 onions, choped
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 1 stick of celery, chopped
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- 3 large carrots, diced
- 2 small turnips, diced
- 2 large tomatoes, skinned and chopped
- 3 tbsp of chopped fresh mint (or 1 and half tsp dried mint)
- 2 tbsp (30ml) soya sauce
- 450 g cooked field beans (225g uncooked, dried beans)
- 450 ml vegetable stock or bean cooking liquid
- 1 tsp miso
- 450g potatoes, peeled, parboiled and sliced
Method
- Saute the onions, garlic and celery in the vegetable oil in a pan.
- Add the carrots and turnips and cook for a few more minutes.
- Mix in the tomatoes, mint, soya sauce, cooked field beans and stock. Cover the pan with a lid and cook over a moderate heat for 20 minutes.
- Remove a little of the hot juice from the pan, transfer it to a small cup and add the miso. Stir well until the miso is dissolved.
- Transfer the mixture to a casserole dish. Stir in the dissolved miso and arrange the slices of potato on top. Brush the potatoes with a little oil and bake in a hot oven, gas mark 6 (200 degrees C or 400 degrees F) for one hour.
Serves 4
Field beans are very nutritious and grow well in the UK. They should be planted in November (see last issue). Dried beans should be soaked overnight and are best cooked in a pressure cooker, if you have one, as they can take quite a long time to cook. Field beans can also be eaten fresh. Remove the beans from their pods and cook them in a pan of boiling water until tender.
Spring Product Review
Redwood Mature Cheddar Style Cheezly
This dairy-free alternative to cheese is made from soya protein and contains only non-hydrogenated fats. In addition, it is cholesterol and lactose free and does not contain any animal products or genetically modified ingredients. I tested it out in sandwiches, grated it and used it as a pizza topping and also melted slices of it on toast. It could also be used to make a cheese sauce. Mature Cheddar Style Cheezly is very tasty, melts fairly well and could be used in most recipes as a replacement for dairy cheese. Look out for this product in your local health food store.
Redwood have recently brought out three new products: Feta, Nacho and a grated version of the Cheddar-Style Cheezly. The Feta is stored in jars of oil and tastes quite pleasant, but the texture reminded me more of meat than of cheese. The Nacho looks like Red Leicester cheese and also makes a good cheese substitute, although I found it rather too salty. Redwood also sell a range of meat substitutes which are ideal for sandwich fillings. You can obtain more information about Redwood products by visiting their website.
Vanilla & Macadamia Nourishing Cream
This is a rich moisturising cream, especially suitable for dry and mature skin and for use at night. It contains macadamia nut oil and is gorgeously scented with vanilla and believe me the smell is quite addictive! It leaves the skin feeling very soft and smooth to touch. Available by mail order from Animal Aid, a 50 g pot costs just £4.50 plus postage (Product information updated in February 2009). To obtain a catalogue or to order this product phone: 01732 364546, or alternatively write to Animal Aid at : The Old Chapel, Bradford Street, Tonbridge, Kent, TN9 1AW. It is also possible to order online from their online shop at the Animal Aid website.
What's Happening in the Veganic Garden This Spring?
Sowing and Planting
March
- Well it should be getting warmer now! So make further sowings of broad beans, peas and spinach. March is also the best time to plant out onion sets. Space the bulbs about 13 cm apart and firm the soil around each bulb, so that it is half covered. You will need to keep a watchful eye on the newly planted bulbs for a while, just in case they are pulled out by birds, or disturbed by the wind. Firmly replant any bulbs that do come out. It should also be possible to make outdoor sowings of parsnips, carrots, Brussels sprouts, turnips and lettuces this month. And it's also a good idea to sow leeks in March as they need a long growing season. Leek seeds can either be sown in a pot of compost and kept in a cold frame or on a window sill indoors, or alternatively they can simply be sown straight into shallow drills outside.
April
In April continue to make regular sowings of parsnips, lettuces, carrots, peas, broad beans, spinach and radishes. Plant out chitted, second early potatoes, covering the potato shoots with polythene or a fleece when night frosts are forecast. By the middle to the end of the month it may be warm enough to make sowings of beetroot too, but as the young seedlings can be susceptible to frosts I usually wait until May before sowing this vegetable. (Incidentally, it's usually possible to sow beetroot quite thickly as the failure rate is often high.) Try sowing some land cress (American cress) which is a very useful, easily-grown salad green and plant out home-grown Brussels sprout plants, if these are now large enough to go outside. Indoors: make sowings of kale and sprouting broccoli. Tomatoes should be sown indoors (or in a greenhouse), either in late March or in early April.May
Around the middle of May make sowings of frost-susceptible vegetables such as runner beans, French beans, beetroot and sweetcorn. Continue to make successional sowings of lettuce, radish, Swiss chard, perpetual spinach and turnips. May is also a good time to sow marrows, 'ridge cucumbers' and courgettes. But don't forget that these plants require a rich soil, so add plenty of compost and of course they also need plenty of water and sun! Kale, winter cabbage and winter cauliflowers can be sown in a seed bed in May and it's not too late to sow more sprouting broccoli. Plant any remaining seed potatoes before the middle of May, if you want to get a good yield and you should also plant out any remaining Brussels sprout plants. This year, I am going to try to grow some licorice for a treat (seeds are available from Suffolk Herbs). Licorice seeds can be sown in boxes or pots between mid-May and July and are then planted out into their final position between September and October.Crops Available this Spring
- March: Jerusalem artichokes, Brussels sprouts, leeks, kale, spinach and sprouting broccoli.
- April: Asparagus, sprouting broccoli, rhubarb, spring greens, turnip tops and early lettuce.
- May: Asparagus, broad beans, rhubarb, spinach, spring cabbage.
Crop Review 2001On the whole quite a successful year cropwise. I had a wonderful crop of purple sprouting broccoli earlier in the year and crops of peas, French and broad beans and leeks also did well, as did the cucumbers, spring greens, beetroot, lettuce, celery and spinach. However, the earlier part of the summer was very dry here, in Essex and as a consequence my onion crop really suffered, the onions making very little growth at all. I also lost my tomato crop again. It seemed to be doing very well, then in August the tomatoes started to go brown and the leaves shrivelled up and within days the whole lot had to be ripped out due to wilt.
Slugs have caused little damage in my veganic garden this year, but cabbage white caterpillars have run riot on occasions, reducing some of my brassicas to mere stalks! My pots of old English lavender have certainly proved to be very attractive to the adult cabbage white butterflies, but unfortunately do not seem to have stopped them from laying eggs all over my sprouts, cabbages, broccoli and kale! However, I am pleased to report that these plants recovered well over the winter and are now supplying me with plenty of spring greens.
Other Interesting Websites
The Vegan Society (UK)
An excellent site and a particularly good starting point for obtaining information for the new or intending vegan. Lots of useful information sheets available!
The Veganstore
Sells over 300 animal and cruelty-free products. Veganstore offers a range of groceries including mock meats, engevita yeast flakes and powdered soy milk. But you can also order items of clothing, household products, footwear and vitamins all at the same time. Goods can be ordered either online or by phone.
Vegan Action
I have already reviewed this site in an earlier issue, but as it's been updated recently it's well worth another visit. Why not pop along and find out how to grow your own cucumbers?! Best viewed with Flash 5.
Vegetarian Cuisine (Now VegWeb.com)
This site has a fair amount to interest vegans and includes recipes, articles and links. (Updated February 2009)
Vegan Cooking
Offers many simple vegan recipes, interesting vegan links, a chance to submit your own recipes and to order vegan cookery books online.
Spring Book ReviewWild Flower Gardening by John Chambers (WI Books Ltd, 1989)
More and more people are becoming interested in wild flower gardening. And with so many species of wild flowers under threat and disappearing from the countryside at an alarming rate, there could be no better time to start introducing some wild flowers into your garden than now! Wild flowers can make very attractive garden plants and will often draw wildlife such as butterflies, bees and birds into your garden far more efficiently than the more modern brightly coloured F1 hybrids.
Wild flowering Gardening is the ideal book to get you started in this area, providing useful information on the 100 most suitable wildflowers to grow in your garden. You will find many old favourites listed, including violets, cowslips, primroses, foxgloves and oxeye daisies, as well as some more unusual plants that you probably hadn't even thought of growing before! Plenty of tips for cultivation are included and advice is given on what to plant in different types of habitat such as in sunny and shady borders, or in a wetland area or flowery meadow. There's also a chapter on how wild flowers can be used - for flower arranging, pressing, for fragrance, or for medicinal purposes - and a whole chapter on using wild flowers to attract wildlife into your garden. Addresses of organisations supplying wildflower seeds and plants are given at the back of the book and there are various other useful lists such as a listing of outstanding butterfly nectar plants. This book is available by mail order from the John Chambers' catalogue for £5.95, including postage. (Ref. number: 21505.) To order a copy write to: John Chambers, 15 Westleigh Road, Barton Seagrave, Kettering, Northants NN15 5AJ or phone: 01933 652562. Highly recommended.