My Vegan Year

Someone asked for this recipe, so I thought I might's well put it here...

Garlic and Coriander Naan

Makes 3 large, 4 small (either, not both)

1 bread maker
100 ml wet stuff
60 ml / 4 T soy yogurt
280 g bread flour
1 garlic clove, chopped or pressed
1 t nigella/kalonji/black mustard seed (see here)
1 t ground coriander
1 t salt
2 t sugar or syrup
1 T olive oil
1 t dried yeast
1 T chopped coriander leaves (best fresh, but dried will do)

Nigella or Kalonji, also called mustard seed, although it is completely unrelated to mustard, are very small, dark round seeds that give the naan a, what?, nutty smokey flavor. You can get it at Asian supermarkets. Don't even think making naan without it.

Put the water in the breadmaker (ignore what your breadmaker manual says, trust me on this, but not enough that if something goes wrong you blame me for it), sprinkle over the flour evenly, then put the garlic, nigella, ground coriander, sugar or syrup, oil and salt in separate corners. If you don't have that many corners, just try to not make the sweet, oily and salty stuff touch. Make a small indent in the center in which to deposit the yeast. Deposit the yeast.

Use the pizza dough setting, which takes 45 minutes on my machine.

Use this time to make a nice curry.

When things go bing, remove the dough onto a floured surface. I find my kitchen counter works well for this. Preheat the oven to at least 200 degrees C, and put in enough baking sheets. Vent your agression by knocking back the dough. If it is sticky, rub some more flour into it. Mix in the coriander with your hands. Divide into three or four pieces. Knock them flat, then roll into naanshaped flat breads, about 5-8mm thick. Put them on the preheated baking sheets (I'm assuming you're smart enough to use oven gloves for this) and put them in the oven. They'll swell up like my stomach after that dodgy pint last Thursday in about 5 or so minutes. Starting with the one(s) near the top, take them out and put them under a grill to brown the tops. Make sure they don't touch the elements, easy mistake to make. This goes fast, so pay attention.

Serve with that curry you made.

You've got to try this. I know it sounds revolting, but trust me, it's not, in fact far from it.




Dear Mr. [Bill]

With regards to your request regarding suitability of beers for Vegans, it
is my understanding that the main concern is isinglass finings. We only
use these in cask beers, so can/bottle and keg products should be ok for
you if finings is an issue. Acceptable products included are therefore UK
brewed Red Stripe and Cobra, Banana Bread Beer, Bombardier, Eagle Smooth,
Crest, Crest Super, (Kirin uses egg albumin in the very early stages of
yeast culture - but otherwisw should be ok). Cask IPA and Bombardier would
therefore be unacceptable for you, as would all other cask versions of our
beers.
Hope this helps
Regards

Peter Stathers
Assistant Brewer Technical

Met up with the Cambridge Vegan society for the first time on Saturday in the ever excellent Rainbow Cafe. I'm not sure about the causality here, but vegans are just a nicer breed of people. It was very relaxed and even cosy, if that doesn't sound to twee. One of them is one a raw vegan diet. Phew, that blows my head, even though the work lunches reduce me to being a raw vegan on occasions. Once you start thinking it through, you realize how restricted a raw vegan diet is, although, as always, with a bit of imagination there is obviously still a lot you can do.
I had dragged my daughter there as well, well, actually for her it was a choice of going with me or going to her brother's football match. Still, she said she'd join me next time as well (given the same kind of choice).
It's good to meet with likeminded people, most of whom have been doing it for uh... donkey's years. Makes it easier, not that I am finding it particularly hard, still. Especially now that Oxfam are doing a very nice soy based 'milk' chocolat. Been trying to stay away from the crisps this month, and apart from some working lunches, where it has supplemented my fruit baskets, I have not had any.
Also got the very useful The Animal Free Shopper this week. A bit more portable than a long list of print outs.

It's been, what?, eight days now. I am getting worried. I hope I haven't gotten Nia into trouble with her superiors at M&S. Maybe I should give her a call?

Oh, one thing I forgot to mention. That 'don't eat/buy crisps things didn't last long'. I just put that in as a kind of joke. At least that's what I tell myself.

Today at work the only vegan sandwich was a roll with mango salsa. It was as disgusting as it sounds. Actually, probably more so, or I wouldn't've bought it.

Dear Nia,

Continuing our earlier exchange, I have a few more points to make. By the way, before I forget, could you please address your reply to me personally, as I am a bit paranoid that I am having a conversation with an automatic email reply generator.

You see, I don't think it makes business sense to cut out a whole section of the population from being able to buy lunch at your stores. I know that us vegans only make up a small minority, but as a statistician, and someone with a master's degree in marketing and market research, there are two flaws in ignoring us:

1. More and more, people like to eat more healthily, and vegan sandwiches and such fit this category nicely.
2. There once was a national rail company who decided to cut out branch line to industrial estates, arguing that as the branch lines only made up a tiny fraction of the total network (say one percent) this would only lead to a corresponding drop of freight of one percent. Imagine their surprise when freight dropped by a much larger amount.

Yours sincerely,

--[Platypus Bill]

Following is the reply from the M&S Customer Services department to my latest email. If you compare it to their earlier reply, you will notice a close similarity. Nevertheless, I remain hopeful that something will happen. At least the situation cannot get any worse. Unless they start replacing vegatarian sandwiches with meat ones, of course...

From: RetailCustomer.Services@marks-and-spencer.com
Subject: RE: Food enquiries
Date: 19 February 2006 16:09:11 GMT

Thank you for your email.

I am so sorry that you are having trouble finding Vegan foods in our
ranges. I appreciate how frustrating and inconvenient this must be for
you.

I can assure you that I have passed your comments onto our buying team
for their consideration. I know that they value all customer feedback
and will appreciate you taking both the time and trouble to make us
aware of your thoughts.

I have enclosed a list of M&S food that is suitable for vegans. You'll
see there's a product bar code against each item on the list, you'll
find the same bar code on our food packaging.

We update the list regularly and take great care over its accuracy. We
do recommend, however, that you take the extra precaution of
double-checking the ingredient list on the back panel of our packaging.

You may already know about the Vegan Society. In case you don't, their
address is:-
Donald Watson House
7 Battle Road
St Leonards on Sea
East Sussex
TN37 7AA

Please feel free to get in touch again if you need an updated list or if
we can help in any other way - Our phone number and email address are
below.

I do apologise for this disappointment and will certainly pass your
comments on straight away.

Many thanks for getting in touch.

Kind Regards,
Nia Coleman
Retail Customer Services

retailcustomer.services@Marks-and-Spencer.com

At the risk of offending my friend Dick, I just cooked this up and it came out surprisingly well. It even makes a crunchy, dare I say quacky sound as you eat it. It has a remarkably sweet taste.

Serves 2

300 g penne (preferably whole wheat)
1 tin plum tomatoes (organic)
1 tin mock duck (maybe seitan works as well)
3 small red onions
soy sauce
the ubiquitoes balsamic vinegar (optional)
olive oil
sunflower spread

Boil the penne for the minimum stated time. Drain the duck. Pluck the feathers (just joking). Cut the top and bottom of the onions, then cut in quarts, removing the yellow core. Heat the olive oil and sunflower spread over high heat. Put in the onions chunks, stirring vigorously (watch out for spitting oil). The heat will separate the layers of onion. When the onions start to brown (difficult to tell with red onions) turn down the heat a tad and put in the duck, breaking it up with the sharp edge of a wooden spatula. Fry for a few more minutes. Put in the tomatoes, breaking them up (watch out for spurters). When the sauce thickens (if you're using cheap tomatoes, thick will take forever, just don't say I didn't warn you), put in some soy sauce and balsamic vinegar to taste. Add plenty of freshly ground black pepper. Let it thicken some more, then take off the heat and toss in the pasta.

Dear Nia,

You might remember that I contacted you about three weeks ago, saying how disappointed I was that the avocado sandwich was no longer vegan, and that this meant the only thing available to me out of your range of sandwiches, wraps, salads and sushi was the vegetarian sushi. Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered this week that the vegetarian sushi is now no longer vegan.
I hope you realize what this means. Out of the dozens if not hundreds of lunch options, not one is now suitable for vegans? What have I done to deserve this?
I can't vouch for this, but I think you are the only seller of lunch articles who do not offer me a single choice of midday snack - Sainsbury, Eat, Pret a Manger, Boots, they all offer me something; often uninspired, true, but when I'm hungry I'm not fussy.

Once again, if you put something on the shelf for me to eat, I promise I will come and buy it. While I'm there I'm likely to pick up some other things as well.

Good luck and let me know if there's anything I can do to help,

--[Platypus Bill]

PS: this is very unscientific, but I know anecdotally that lots of people don't like mayonnaise on their sandwiches, so if you could just take it off your avocado and spinach sandwich, that would make them and me very happy, as well as all the other half a million or so vegans in this country.

An old favorite of mine, recently improved. It's so simple it will reduce you to tears. Just don't drop them into the sauce or it will never reduce. It really pays to get organic tomatoes (apart from any other reason) as they tend to be less watery.

This is wonderfully therapeutic, and it smells really good. You will find the dried limes in Asian stores. The blacker the better, but any will do.

Serves four

500 g of conchiglie (or other pasta that holds a sauce well)
4 or 5 dried limes
2 tins plum tomatoes
balsamic vinegar
soy sauce
1 dried chilli
1 hammer

Boil the pasta in plenty of water, al dente (the lower of the stated times).

With the hammer, crack the dried limes, hitting them square on their heads. Pull apart and extract the black flesh, removing all the seeds (it doesn't matter if the papery skin gets in). Depending on how black the limes are, you can grind them in a blade grinder (a clean coffee grinder will do) to a fine powder or a not so fine sludge. You might think that you can do it in a pestle and mortar, but you are wrong. I bought a blade grinder for the purpose. If that's going too far, you can boil the lime flesh in a little water for 10 minutes or so.

Add the tomatoes with their juice, the ground lime, 1 T of balsamic vinegar, 1 T of soy sauce and a sliced chillie (seeds removed) to a blender and blend together. Reduce in a pan (in which you have fried some crushed garlic if you like) until your patience is at an end and toss into the pasta. Serve with freshly ground black pepper and vegan parmesan if you like. Enjoy.

It's recipe time...

Serving four

1.5 cups basmati rice (white or brown)
2 or 3 red peppers
good 1/2 cup sundried tomatoes
1 T balsamic vinegar
3 cloves garlic
1 or 2 dried red chillis
2 red onions
1 large black or 3 purple aubergines
olive oil

Soak the sundried tomatoes in hot water.

Rinse the basmati and add 3 cups of water to the brown basmati (2.25 for white). Boil covered for 5 minutes, then remove the lid and gently boil (yes, I know) until almost dry. Stir once and remove from the heat, cover.

Cut the peppers into halves or quarters and chop the aubergines into little chunks. Toss the aubergine liberally in olive oil and place both under the grill. Toss the aubergine several times. The peppers are done when the skin starts to go black and pull away from the flesh. Remove the peppers and let them cool down a bit. Then with a sharp knife remove the skin.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil and put in the chillies (unless you decide to add them to the salsa), sliced open and seeds removed. Wash hands! Add the crushed garlic and when it darkens add the finely sliced onions.

Add the red pepper and the sundried tomatoes, all cut in chunks, the balsamic vinegar and 2 T of olive oil together in a blender. If you like your food hot, add the chillies here (one should do). Blend. If the salsa is too thick, add more olive oil until you have the right consistency (not stiff but not runny either).

Add the aubergines and the salsa to the pan and toss together. Add freshly ground pepper if you like. Serve with the rice.

How silly of me! Here I was, pretending to be vegan, while all the while I was carrying in my wallet an egg credit card, and still accumulating interest on my egg savings account. And to make matters worse, I had shares in the company.
Well, I'm glad to say that's all now in the past. I sold my shares a few weeks back, and last week I cut up my credit card and closed my savings account.
On the work front, my campaign for vegan catering is bearing fruit, as last Friday there was an absolutely amazing array of vegan food at someone's retirement party. Most of it was Indian, that always helps, but not the ubiquitous samosa's, no there were all sorts of pastry parcels.
I also bought a 1 kg bag of pistacchios, but that didn't prove such a good idea, as they're almost all gone, and although I'm not the only culprit, I am by far the main one.
Maybe walkies tomorrow will burn some of the calories.

Today I realized I have been a fully fledged vegan for a whole month now. Michele from the office keeps asking me if I feel any different? Not really. I feel good, actually, although sometimes I overeat on wheaty things (biscuits), and then I feel a bit bloated. I guess being used to things flying through your intestinal tract, those things throw a spanner in the works.
Getting plenty of fruit, which is good.
Also found a nice chocolate at Holland and Bartlett (that's what I call it and there's nothing you can do about it), Plamil dairy free chocolate with crushed hazelnuts. Most Plamil chocolate has Carob flour in it, well, that's what it's called but it's not really flour. It's all gritty, blugh. But this one has soya flour in it, much smoother. It has the taste and texture of milk chocolate. And the soya flour gives it a creamy flavor. Might have to get another bar soon.

To: andy@prestoretail.com
Subject: Pasty_Presto_Website_Survey

Could you tell me if any of
your pasties are suitable for vegans?

From: Steve [mailto:steve@prestoretail.com]
Sent: 31 January 2006 09:35
To: [Platypus Bill]
Subject: Re: Pasty_Presto_Website_Survey

Dear [Platypus]

None of our pasties are suitable for vegans as the glaze we use on the
pastry contains eggs and milk.

Hope this helps.

Yours Sincerely

Stephen Grocutt.

Many thanks for contacting me.

I am sorry that you are disappointed with the range of sandwiches we
offer. I will certainly pass your comments onto our buying team for
their consideration.

I have enclosed a list of M&S food that is suitable for vegans. You'll
see there's a product bar code against each item on the list, you'll
find the same bar code on our food packaging.

We update the list regularly and take great care over its accuracy. We
do recommend, however, that you take the extra precaution of
double-checking the ingredient list on the back panel of our packaging.

You may already know about the Vegan Society. In case you don't, their
address is:-
Donald Watson House
7 Battle Road
St Leonards on Sea
East Sussex
TN37 7AA

Kind Regards,
Nia Coleman
Retail Customer Services

Dear M&S,

You must be one of the country's biggest sandwich sellers. So as a vegan I am a bit disappointed that not a single one of your sandwiches (or wraps or pastas for that matter) are suitable for me. Last year I regularly enjoyed a spinach and avocado sandwich, but that now has mayonnaise in it.
You vegetarian sushi is very nice, but it's not something that I'm in the mood for every day.
If you would offer at least one vegan sandwich (or wrap or pasta for that matter) I promise I will come and buy one most weeks.

Yours sincerely,

[Platypus Bill]

Don't try to make it too spicy, but add lots of of ginger, not too finely chopped.

To: info@bodegasmarquesdevitoria.es
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 3:54 PM
Subject: Rioja Crianza

Hello,

Could you tell me whether your Rioja Crianza, 1998 is suitable for vegans? In other words, what is the fining agent used (if any)?

Thank you,

--[Bill]

From: Almudena [mailto:aimhof@bodegasfaustino.es]
Sent: 19 January 2006 09:07
To: [Platypus Bill]
Subject: Fw: Rioja Crianza

Dear Mr. [Platypus],

Thank you for contacting us through our web page and for your interest in our wines.

I am afraid I can not assure our wines are suitable for vegans as egg-based fining agents may be used in the elaboration process.

Do not hesitate to contact us back should you have any further question or request.

Best regars,

Almudena IMhof

To: info@bodegasmarquesdevitoria.es
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2006 3:54 PM
Subject: Rioja Crianza

--,

Thank you for your quick response. My girlfriend will be enjoying your wine at a forthcoming company event, but sadly, I will not (but then one of us has to drive anyway).

Best wishes,

--[Bill]

My girlfriend cooked lots of chickpeas last weekend, so I told me children on the way home from school, you can choose anything for dinner you want, as long as it has chickpeas in it, and as long as it's vegan. Back home we delved through some cookbooks, and my daughter found a nice-sounding recipe in Madhur Jaffrey, chickpeas rawalpindi style. They had already decided that they wanted naan bread with it, so I decided to have them make it.
It's hilarious. It takes them 10 minutes to do one clove of garlic or to add two spoonfuls of molasses (substitute for honey). My son didn't read ahead and just put the garlic clove in the breadpan. But in the end we had a lovely meal, for sure the best way I've had chickpeas so far. There was one thing in the recipe we didn't have, mangoor I believe it was called, it's mango paste. I should have a look in town sometime, plenty of Asian shops only a five minutes' walk from my work.
I'm sure getting my vegetables these days. Lunch yesterday was potatoes, mixed vegetables and broccoli. I have to find some good sources of snacky food. There's a market stall that does rice snacks with chili, that's quite nice, but it probably gets old quickly. And all the nice crunchy stuff has cheese on it. There are vegan fudge bars, but they're kind of expensive, and I can't buy more than two or I'll eat them all in a day.

Time's really speeding up. Someone grabbed the last and only vegan sandwich at work right in front of me in the queue. Went across the road and got a felafel roll. Then at four we had a retirement party for our former head of department. Chilean wine, Chilean wine everywhere, but not a mention of fining agent, so orange juice it was. As far as food, potato wedges, celery, carrot and cashew nuts. There was lots of interesting stuff of possibly vegetable origin, but I just couldn't be sure. Had a bit of one, but took it out of my mouth. Someone it just didn't have the right consistency. I used a colleague as a food taster. Am I going mental? Are vegans allowed to bite their nails?
Also had a few crisps, but they tasted a bit cheesy, I think there were various flavors all mixed up.
Back home I had some hemp spaghetti, but it didn't taste all that good with the walnut and olive oil sauce. Maybe with some tomato sauce it would be better. It had a bitter taste, that didn't go well with the bitterness of the walnuts.

Well, I went and bought the camera, a Nikon D70s. From now on my photography will be vegan (there's gelatine in film). I know some people will go so far as to not go and see movies because they're shot on film, but then you can't watch a lot of tv shows either. Anyway I have no problem with using animal products where there is no viable alternative. If I need to replace my walking boots and the vegan boots aren't up to scratch, I'll buy leather ones. I bought some shoes recently that had some suede in them, but they were the only ones I could find that weren't made in the Far East.
We had some friends around yesterday, seven adults in total, six of whom where either vegetarian, pescetarian, or vegan (me). I made a walnut and olive oil sauce from the River Cafe cookbook. A whole bottle of olive oil and half a bag of walnuts. I think I got my mono-unsaturates for a whole week. My girlfriend made her vegan chocolate mouse cake and I spend half an hour on the espresso machine making everyone their drink of choice.
I finally found some vegan sausages in my local wholefood coop, or should that be co-op. Also bought some hemp spaghetti. What else? Lunch on Friday, it was the turn of Sainsbury. They had a wrap with roast red pepper, houmus and various other bits. Bought some prunes to go with that. Much nicer than a bag of crisps if you think of it. Lasts longer to. Later in the afternoon I found two bananas on my chair. I think my office coworkers are getting worried I might waste away.