Maple Syrup and Garlic....where's the link????

.....The Farmers' Market, of course!

This summer has been uncharacteristically miserable - weather-wise, at least. Many days it has poured with rain continually and I'd begin to believe that a) I'd been magically spirited back to England, that (in)famously drizzly isle, and b) that I'd better evolve some webbed feet. PDQ....!!!

Yesterday, however, the day started out beautiful and doggedly remained that way and so, to celebrate, My Beloved and I hot-footed it up to the Farmers' Market in Northampton. It's a pretty low-key affair, with only a handful of stalls, and a preponderence of plantable plants....bedding plants, annuals, that kind of thing.





However, there are also at least two or three extremely well provisioned vegetable stalls with a truly impressive array of greens - kale of every kind, mustard greens, collard greens, you name it, they have it - root vegetables, enormous bunches of fresh herbs, and some fruits. Since we are still experimenting with growing our own kale, I restricted myself to getting some fingerling potatoes (delicious simply boiled and tossed with thinly-sliced garlic sauteed in olive oil), heirloom tomatoes, baby eggplants (just 2 inches in length - perfect for grilling lightly and popping into your mouth!), white eggplants, corn, a bunch of radishes the size of small plums, and some summer squash. It's all somewhat cheaper than the grocery store and I love that the money is going direct to the grower, the farmer. One of the stalls was offering only shallots and different types of fresh garlic:




Show me the grocery store where you'd find this kind of choice of garlic bulb!!!! We bought a handful of different kinds and I'm planning to roast them with a little olive oil and then use in soups, breads, or as pizza toppings.

The other specialty stall belonged to the maple syrup guy. We've bought from him before and the syrup is wonderful, ranging from a very light amber to a deep golden color. I love to use the former on crepes and french toast and the latter in baking - especially as I want to use more of these natural sweeteners and (ultimately) leave refined white sugar behind.




The whole market is basically just one small side street of the town that they close off to traffic for the morning, but it was heaving with shoppers. Perhaps the sun brought them out or perhaps it's just the nature of Northampton. There were folks with strollers, young tattooed couples, one young woman proudly sporting a Vegan Radio t-shirt, spry seniors, bicyclists, people with their dogs. It's very much a mixed bag. One couple, I noticed, had a very unusual dog - an American Hairless Terrier. I didn't manage to get a picture - to be honest I was kind of embarassed to ask - but, while talking with the man, I learned that they had bought her on the internet. From a breeder. I could barely stop myself from rolling my eyes and sighing - it's not like we don't have dogs galore here in shelters and pounds who need a home!!!!!! But no, these guys had the dog driven up from heaven knows where. And it struck me that this hairless dog is really going to enjoy the New England winters, oh yes indeedy! Hmmmmm.....

One of the few stalls that I avoid - for obvious reasons - is the farm-raised, free-range, happy-beef stall. Usually, I try to walk directly past it and just not look. I find it altogether too sad. And it struck me yesterday how different the vibe was coming from that particular stall...see what I mean?

The canopy seemed a ridiculous contrast to the butchered bodies in the altogether pathetic coolers. And the owner was not exactly doing a brisk trade, I am glad to say. I clung tightly to my Vegan Outreach bag as I walked by and tried not to think too much about it all. 

As we were leaving - the 'happy beef' stall having totally killed my earlier good mood - the fates intervened and presented me with the following sight:




It's hard not to feel better when you look at them isn't it!

Do you have a farmer's market where you are? And if so, what do you like best about it?

Stay Vegan Friends!

Simple pleasures

Sometimes when the world is just too crazy and complex, you really need to reconnect with what's good and beautiful and worthwhile in life. To that end, My Beloved brought me these as a reminder.



And Humphrey, my smallest pup, brought me the one thing he could.....







...his own trusting self

Oh, to be on 'island time'.....

One of the real indulgences I have come to enjoy in the past couple of years is the annual pilgrimage My Beloved and I have made to commune with the fishes. We're both keen SCUBA divers and - being Brits through and through - love the warm waters of the Caribbean. In past years, we've made aquatic acquaintances, fishy friends and marine mates with turtles, sharks, squid, rays, one now famous and beloved octopus, and sundry other reef dwellers in the waters off Tortola and Cayman Brac.

This year, however, with the state of the economy as it is, we felt it financially 'prudent' to remain home and not commit to such an unnecessary expense.

However, it seems that I may be missing the trip even more than I thought I would. And perhaps this would explain my sudden and overpowering urge to create the perfect vegan Caribbean Ginger Cake. The recipe I had from years ago makes liberal use of animal products in the form of butter and eggs so I decided to do away with all of that and this is the result:




It is super moist and sticky with a dense and chewy crumb that'll have you reaching for a second slice before you know what's hit you. Studded with chopped candied ginger, it packs a little heat and an element of surprise.....

Here's the recipe, if you'd like to give it a try. You will need:

(wet things)
3/4 cup molasses
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup non-dairy butter (I like the Earth Balance Buttery Sticks)
1/2 cup ginger beer (note: not ginger ale - good powerful ginger beer!)
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped coarsely
2 tbsp fresh ginger, minced
1 whole over-ripe banana, mashed
2 tbsp dark rum

(dry things)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Here's what you do:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and grease/line a 9"x 9" baking pan
2. In a large saucepan (actually, I use a saute pan, but who cares?!?!) gently melt the non-dairy butter with the molasses, brown sugar, candied ginger, fresh ginger and the ginger beer. While this is melting, mash your banana and stir the rum into it. Turn off the heat under the saute pan and then add the banana-rum-goo and stir well to combine. (In the original recipe, the molasses mix had to be left to cool as the next stage was to add in some beaten egss...see, veganizing it makes the recipe not only more compassionate but quicker too!)
3) Next onto the dry ingredients: into a large mixing bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and powdered ginger. Stir with a clean spoon to mix.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet, mix well and pour the batter into your prepared pan.
5. Bake 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

You could leave it to cool and frost the top thickly with a basic vegan lemon cream cheese frosting or just serve it with a sprinkle of powdered sugar. Which is my preference.

OK, so it's not the same as swimming with the fishes but an afternoon in a sun-splattered garden with a fruity little cocktail in one hand and a slab of this in the other...well, I can always pretend I'm on 'island time', right?

Eat well and stay vegan, friends!

Little by little, hope grows

Sometimes, as a vegan, it's hard to resist the strong sense of isolation, of being enveloped and insulated within an alien, meat-eating, animal-profiteering culture. It's hard, in the face of the billion jagged reminders every day of the egregious ways animals are used and abused, to remain hopeful about the broader picture.

The web is an invaluable tool in this regard, of course. By reaching out to others in the blogosphere, joining online groups and creating our own community - with all its fissures and patched imperfections - we remind ourselves daily that we are not alone. We are not crazy. And, most of all, we are not wrong.

This is an emotional sanctuary to which I return when I'm overwhelmed by the scale of the problem. But it is so much the sweeter when you find someone in real life who is also doing the work, living the life and promoting compassionate values. So, as I was noodling around the web earlier, I came across a post on Animals Not Ingredients called 'Today I Met My First Vegan' and it piqued my curiosity. The writer expresses her appreciation of meeting another vegan randomly in a health food shop, and of being able to make a connection. And I was struck by how uncommon that is, or at least how uncommon it used to be. And then I started to think about the ways in which I've noticed that veganism is becoming more mainstream. And I realized that I do not necessarily believe that it's just a matter of me noticing it more now. Here's why....

I grew up - in the 80s - in a small market town in south-west England. It's right smack-bang in the middle of farming country, where the local population has lived off the land and raised animals since before Noah was a young lad. The ways were old-fashioned, the values even more so: there was a respect for the land and a scepticism and distrust of new-fangled ideas and concepts.

Veganism - nor yet even vegetarianism - was a concept that would not have been well received.

Fast forward to today. My mother, who still lives in this area, IMed me today to report on her visit to a new little eaterie that has sprung up in the town: The Owl Cafe. It is vegan. Pure. Vegan. Food. With a healthy dose of AR on the side, by the sound of it. Indeed, from the website you can get a taste of their philosophy as the chef says

My food you can cry for - die for. You will eat like you won’t believe. Yes I’m a chef, so therefore arrogant; I’m good, but I have an advantage - I simplify my cooking by not using bits of dead animal.

You have to love that!

Furthermore, on a noodling trip around the web a few weeks ago, I stumbled across a B&B in a neighbouring town which explicitly tries to attract the veg*n crowd: The Limetree Nursery. I was so excited that I actually contacted the owner to say how pleased I was - from 4000 miles away on the other side of 'The Pond' - to know that they existed. Such a B&B would never have survived back when I was growing up.

So perhaps this is all evidence, in a very concrete way, that times are changing. That it is no longer such a radical, ultra-far-left, fringe position to actually want to be consciously respectful of the needs and rights of the other creatures with whom we share this experience called life.

Perhaps, little by little, hope grows.

What's happening in your area to give you hope?

Let me know and stay vegan, friends! :)

Tofu Omelettes: Part Two

This has to be a first. I don't believe I have ever blogged about the same subject twice. At least not in two consecutive posts anyhow! But I cannot help myself - I am still just totally bowled over by the whole tofu omelette thing and I now have pictures to prove it...erm, I mean 'to share.'

This morning, My Beloved and I made a second attempt at the brunch omelettes, this time stuffing them with leftovers from last night's dinner.

[Sidebar: Since it had been such a wonderful summery day yesterday, we made plans to grill and assembled a motley crew of vegetable victims - a couple of squash (one zucchini, one yellow squash), a gigantic green pepper, a more modest pepper of the orange variety, two portobella mushrooms the size of small dinner plates, cauliflower and broccoli florets and some thick slices of red onion. Having tossed them in a little olive oil, garlic salt and a dash of chipotle pepper, we stepped outside to throw them on the grill only to find that the heavens had opened and it was now pouring with rain.

Undaunted, in that peculiarly British fashion, we grilled in the rain. Well, My Beloved did, and I leant support from the relative safety of the kitchen. Finally, when he considered them done to perfection, My Beloved appeared at the screen-door, bedraggled and dripping wet but proudly bearing a platter of the most intensely delicious-smelling vegetables ever. End sidebar and fast-forward back to this morning's brunch.....]


OK, so the batter looks a little scary, but perservere and you will be rewarded....



Starting to look like the omelettes we all used to know and love...


Drape over a selection of your favourite grilled vegetables....




...fold and we're in business!

And they were 'the business'. Terrific. Tremendous. Delicious and fantastically more-ish. My Beloved, who - to my eternal annoyance - is of a preternatural slenderness, decided that we absolutely had to make the recipe stretch to TWO EACH.

Two.

Each.

I quietly thanked the tofu gods that the batter did not go that far - I would have ended up looking like the Pilsbury Doughboy....Or at least even more so than usual. LOL

Anyways, I have to say - this recipe is no one-hit wonder. It was just as good the second time as the first and got us both thinking about other ways we could use it for weekday dinners. OK, omelettes are great but what about the spanish omelette/tortillas we used to make back in our egg-eating days? I imagine that we could cook up some veg, make a few fried potatoes (homefries-style), fold them all into the batter and pour the whole thing into a somewhat shallow dish to bake until firm. I am poised to experiment. Served with a fresh green salad and a hunk of crusty bread, I can see this going down really rather well as a mid-week dinner treat.

However for now, I thought you might like to see the 'proof positive' of the true magnificence of this recipe from Isa's Vegan Brunch. And, if you are teetering on the verge of trying once again to satisfy your post-egg omelette cravings, to nudge you over the edge into trying out this dish. Believe me....it's well worth it!

Let me know how it goes and stay vegan, friends!

Whether for breakfast, dinner or brunch...

Last night, I experienced a true breakthrough moment. You know how there are always things that you miss from the pre-vegan days? Milk chocolate....sharp cheddar cheese...BLTs??? Fill in your own non-vegan favourite here...

Well, one of mine is the humble omelette. Which, as the saying goes, you can't make without breaking eggs. Right?

Wrong!

Last night My Beloved and I attempted Isa's Tofu Omelette from the Vegan Brunch. And I have only one thing to say:


PHENOMENAL!!!


OK, I have no picture for you as My Beloved and I fell upon and devoured them as if we'd not eaten in years. Which, I suppose in terms specifically of omelettes, we had not. However, this is the official image, courtesy of the PPK:





I'm usually skeptical of official foodie photos as I'm sure they are all styled and doctored - at least that's what I tell myself when my own attempts turn out to be less than perfect. However, this image truly does the omelette justice - mine turned out an equally delightful eggy-yellow shade with a nice browning on the underside. Stuffed with a mix of onions, peppers, mushrooms and great northern beans with a little fennel seed and garlic and served with a simple green salad, it made for a really great dinner on a busy week-night.

Yes, I have to admit that the process is a bit more complex than cracking a few eggs into a bowl but I think the extra - perhaps - 5 minutes it took me to make the batter is insignificant against the 30 tortured hours it takes a battery hen to produce one egg. And the result was fabulously fluffy, light, moist in the center and delightfully cheesy, due to the chickpea flour and the nutritional yeast.

Never ever again will I be intimidated by the thought of omelettes...and I simply cannot wait now for the weekend when we'll be making them again as Isa intended...for brunch!

Buy this book, try this recipe and stay vegan, friends! :)

Jumping on The Table

Please forgive me if this is a case of jumping on the bandwagon but I can refrain no longer from saying a few words about the newest addition to my cookbook arsenal - Colleen Patrick-Goudreau's 'The Vegan Table'.



I am lucky enough to own a copy and it has opened my eyes to all manner of new taste sensations. With the emphasis firmly on sensations!

Divided into occasion- and season-themed chapters, The Vegan Table gives menu and recipe guidance for every occasion - from a romantic night-in for two to catering a formal dinner for ten. Now it is true that I personally will never be in the position of having to cater such a large gathering - the anxiety would just about kill me! - but, with a mite of common sense, each recipe can easily be scaled to your specific requirements.

And, for me, what elevates this above the myriad other cookbooks 'out there' are the supplemental sidebars - the mini discussions of common issues for vegans such as turkeys and Thanksgiving, embracing our ethics, and consciousness-raising. It is so much more than a recipe book: it's a survival guide....and a mighty elegant one at that!

Check it out and stay vegan, friends!

Vegans only eat lettuce and tree bark, right?

It's really hard being vegan, isn't it?

I mean...

It.....Is.....Hard!

There's just soooooo much to give up.
To feel *totally* deprived about.
Oh, but I can't - just CAN'T - give up my ______ [fill in the blank here].

Yes, indeed, it is a salad-and-tree-bark-munching life of ascetic deprivation.


Yeah right!!!!!


I bought a crepe pan last weekend and tested out Isa's recipe from 'Vegan Brunch'. And - boy oh boy - was it good! Look...





This tender little crepe made of a mix of chickpea, tapioca and all-purpose flours, non-dairy milk and some maple syrup is stuffed full of a sauce of fresh strawberries scented with rosewater. The recipe made 9 of these babies - 4 each for My Beloved and I, with the remaining one split between two very hopeful puppies who declared them possibly the best breakfast crepes THEY'D ever had. Here's Darwin pleading his case for a taste:




Who could resist that look?? Or those crepes!! Try them for yourselves and then tell me all about how extreme and deprived the vegan life is!!

:-)

Drinking the Ursine Kool-aid

A wise person (you know who you are!) suggested a tonic for the blue funk I've been in recently: 'Seek out good people doing good things'. And, in the spirit of this advice, I went out last night to see The Bears.

Living in New England, we all know there are bears. And deer, skunks, raccoons, moose and possoms. However, we rarely see them - unless you count roadkill as 'seeing them', which clearly I do not. Occasionally I am thrilled to catch a glimpse of a deer, often at this time of year with a fawn, grazing along the side of the interstate as I trundle wearily home in the evening. It's a sight that always gives me a boost!

But the bears, for the most part, continue to elude me. I have had two sightings in the ten years I've lived here: one in someone's front yard as I drove past and the other - amazingly - was a mother bear with two cubs, nonchalently crossing a road in a nearby town. Right in the middle of a school zone in broad daylight. It was a real heart-in-the-mouth moment as I watched the trio saunter along and the other onlookers getting out of their cars to follow. Yes, you did read that correctly .....getting out of their vehicles to follow a mama bear and her babies!!!!

Hmmm.....

Anyways, that aside, last night I too drank the ursine kool-aid (er-hum, well, you know what I mean!) and ventured out to our neighbouring town to see The Bears.

On foot.

Without the aid of a safety net.

Am I crazy?? No, not yet! The BearFest has begun in Easthampton and here are some of the little guys I met there....




Spirit Bear, outside the town hall




Me with my favourite - Global Bear




...and a bear behind!



My Beloved with his favourite - 'The Red Bearon'




This is a sweet little chap we discovered hiding out away from the 'main drag'. His name is Wire Hair Bear.





My Beloved again, this time with his new friend Aloha Bear.




And then - horror of horrors - we learned of the 'Ursine Alert: Chrome Bear Missing, Feared Kidnapped!'

The text reads as follows:

WANTED: The Safe Return of "Chrome Bear".

BEAR FEST BEAR MISSING!

Chrome Bear, a.k.a. "Bearly There Bear" was removed sometime during the night of June 13th. Torn from his bolts in front of Eastworks on Pleasant Street!

If you have any information, please call 413-527-8278.

We hope for our bear's safe return! No charges or penalties for his anonymous return, and no questions asked!

Reward: your karmic balance restored and the immense happiness of all the bear lovers of Easthampton!

Oh, and I couldn't resist including this:



A nice shot to end the evening.

OK, it's all very silly and it's really not especially vegan-related, but I wanted to post some pictures of the lighter side of life. Going back to the sage advice offered to me after my last post, here are some fun people doing some (animal-related) fun things. And I thought you too might like to share....

What do you like to do when you need an emotional pick-me-up????

Thanks for reading and Stay Vegan, Friends!

Why?

Today I am deeply ashamed of my species.

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