Light Rye Bread

My favorite bread to eat regularly, especially as toast(though I lack a toaster or any proper condiments for said toast anymore. I didn't make jams this last season and am greatly regretting it at this point[Don't trust "fruit pectin"]), is a nice rye bread. They are an excellent in-between the lightness and blandness of a white bread and the heavy richness of something like a pumpernickel. To boot, they have a much more appealing and mellow taste than other breads such as wheat or spelt do(though I don't have much experience in the latter, to be honest). Basically, a well made rye bread is the perfect eating bread in my world and since I'm the person writting this bloody thing, that's what matters. The original recipe called for honey instead of maple syrup but I subbed in due to the vegan in me disliking using honey and because I only use raw honey, which is more expensive in my mind than maple syrup. It may not be on paper but it's a bit late for correcting it now. Anyway, here's the recipe:

Light Rye Bread (Vegan)

2 (1/4 oz) ounce packages of dry yeast
3/4 cup warm water(105-115F, this is important to not kill your yeast but still activate it)
1/4 cup pure maple syrup(warm up the syrup before you mix it or make your water hotter; if not, the syrup will make it too cold for the yeast to truly activate)
1/4 cup molasses (I use blackstrap, works fine)
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
2 tbsp caraway seeds(opt.)
1 cup boiling water

2 cups rye flour
3 1/2 - 4 cups white flour

Directions

Mix the warm water, maple syrup, and yeast and mix them well in a bowl. Let stand for the yeast to rise and make a froth on the top(if using honey, mix water and honey to dissolve it, then add yeast). Mix the boiling water, molasses, caraway seeds, salt, and oil. Mix well and let cool to room temperature. Mix the yeast mixture with the molasses mixture(if you're too impatient, you will kill your yeast and your bread will not rise.)

Mix in all the rye flour and two cups of the white flour and mix well. It will be very sticky. Add in the white flour 1/2 cup at a time until it is firm and sticks together(instead to your hands or mixer all over the place). Knead the bread for 10-12 minutes and oil the outside of the bread well. Let double in size, punch down, split in half, and let double in size again. Bake at 350˚ for 30-45 minutes. The bread it done when it sounds hollow when tapped with butter knife. Rub the outside with olive oil while still hot to make the bread moister and better tasting.

Pumpkin Bread

I feel like the name of this post is a bit of a misnomer, but I assure you that I am not trying to trick you. This is indeed a post for pumpkin bread, just not the pumpkin fruit bread that may come to mind. Pumpkin, being the amazingly versatile gourd that it is, can easily take the place of water in the majority of recipes for bread with fantastic results. The bread produced is slightly heavier but much moister and even better - it retains that moisture over a fair amount of time. White bread is especially notorious for drying out quickly, so it works best in those recipes. Surprisingly, the pumpkin has very little effect upon the flavor of the bread. If that's good or bad I'll leave up to you. I'll give an example recipe below, subbing pumpkin in a simple french bread recipe:

Pumpkin White Bread

4 C Flour
1 1/2 t Salt
3 T Oil
1 pkg yeast (I don't know if I mentioned this before but the only safe yeast I know of is Red Star in the individual packets)
2 T Pure Maple Syrup
1/3 C Warm Water, 110-115 degrees
≈1+ C Pumpkin Puree

Mix yeast, warm water, and maple syrup. If your maple syrup is kept in the fridge, you'll want to warm that up as well or your yeast will never activate. Mix is ready when it is bubbly (foamy).

Mix flour, salt, and oil together. Add yeast mixture. mix well. Add in the full cup of pumpkin puree. Work this into the bread by hand and see if the consistency is proper(you'll have to go with you gut on this one); add more pumpkin puree a bit at a time until the consistency is correct. Knead for 12-15 minutes. Grease bowl. Rub butter on dough, place in bowl, cover and allow to rise for 1 hour or until double in size. Punch down. allow to rest 5 minutes. Cut dough in half. Grease desired pan. Butter dough. allow to rise 1 hour or until double in size. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes.

If you wish to make your own pumpkin puree out of a seasonal pumpkin(I made it with cooked puree leftover from the real pumpkin pie we made, but if you get a pumpkin of the right size you could do both). Follow the steps to make you own puree:
1. Choose a small to medium size sugar pumpkin(they retain the sweetness the best) and wash the outside well, you're not peeling until after cooking.
2. Cut off the stem, scape out the guts(keeping the seeds*). Cut into pieces and put into a saucepan with a few inches of water.
3. Cook the pumpkin until it it is soft. Take out of the pot, let cool, and scape from the skin. The soft consistency will make this easy.
-You can also bake the whole or halved pumpkin in a 350˚F oven until it is fork-tender.
*Pumpkin seeds can be enjoyed raw or roasted and are an excellent form of plant based protein, zinc, and iron. They are so full of energy they were once rumored to be an aphrodisiac (and still are occasionally). I've also read they can be put straight into bread with good results as well(though I think you'd want to shell them first).

If you try this recipe out with a darker form of bread(wheat, rye, etc...), let me know how it turned out!

Fenugreek Tea

I said I would look into the tea and lo and behold; here we are. It's very easy to make with a very unique flavor. I had two of my friends try it as well and while we all found it appealing, it is somewhat difficult to put your finger on. I would say it tastes lightly of molasses or maple syrup. It has a mellow sweetness with a deep, cooked flavor. It is often compared to slightly burnt sugar but in more of a caramel way then a burned way. It's commonly sweetened with honey when drunk but I think if one put a dried date in the pot while it was being made or even while it's soaking afterwards it would give a delightful flavor. Here's how you make it though:

Put one teaspoon of whole fenugreek seeds in a pot per cup of water. Boil vigorously for five to ten minutes, remove from heat. Allow the seeds to seep in the water for another ten to fifteen minutes, strain them out, and drink while still hot(you can refrigerate it for later if you want but I don't know how good it tastes cold).

Channa Masala

Ohhhhh how I love Channa Masala. It's involved with my somewhat unnatural love of chickpeas and basmati rice; two of my favorite things. The fact that they're both dirt cheap to buy is just a boost. I found a recipe with pictures online that I used the first time to make the masala. It's a very basic and easy recipe to use so I've been varying it ever since. Here's my last variation that I did:

Channa Masala:

3 medium potatoes, cut into reasonably bit sized pieces

2 cans chickpeas

1 large onion(don't use a sweet onion here, you'll want the full flavor), sliced into crescents

2 medium/large tomatoes(I would say use something like beefsteak tomatoes; it originally calls for canned tomatoes but I can never actually seem to find ones that don't have citric acid), chopped

2-3 tablespoons olive oil

5-6 cloves garlic, minced

1.5 tablespoons minced ginger, fresh

2 teaspoons sea salt

2 teaspoons garam masala

2 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon whole fenugreek seeds*

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

1/2-1 teaspoon cumin(if you have cumin seeds, use 1 tsp of those and add them with the onions)

1 whole dried red chili pepper(you could use around 1/4 tsp of ground cayenne instead if you have that; just do it to taste)

1/4 cup golden raisins(optional, and thompson raisins work just as well)

Basmati rice

1. Dry roast the fenugreek seeds in the pot(use a large one) for a minute or two; this will help reduce bitterness.

2. Add in the olive oil, onion, ginger, and garlic and fry until the onions are lightly browned. Add in the tomatoes and cook for around five minutes(try to break down the tomatoes a bit).

3. Put in the salt, garam masala, coriander, turmeric, the chili pepper(crush it in your hands but don't make the mistake and touch your face until you've washed your hands. Warm to say the least) and cumin(unless you added the seeds, of course). Mix well and add the potatoes; stir until the potatoes are all well coated with the spices and then add three cups of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

4. Wash the chickpeas well in a colander and add to the mixture. Add the raisins at this point as well if you want; they help mellow out the harsher flavor of the spices and puts in a nice sweet surprise every once in a while.

5. Bring to a boil and simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Serve hot on basmati rice.

*I never really realized how useful these seeds are until I read about how to properly use them. They are used in cooking for their flavor, are components in artificial maple syrup and vanillas, can be made into a tea, and apparently are supposed to help women lactate. Don't be afraid of it's bitterness; the flavors that can be done with this are extraordinary(most spices are bitter initially anyway. If you don't believe me go to your spice cabinet and try tasting them. You'll see what I mean fairly soon). I think I'm going to try to find a way of making the tea to see how it is though.

Carrot Beet and Ginger Soup

Courtesy of a friend of mine, I have an excellent and simple recipe for a carrot-beet soup. The only downside? It involves using mustard, which is ungodly hard to find because pretty much all of them have the ambiguous "natural flavorings" or white distilled vinegar, neither of which can be trusted. So I substituted ground mustard and rice vinegar(I think cider would work fine as well). The recipe calls for an equal amount of beets as carrots but since I use the smaller bunch carrots(which you always should if you're making soup, as they are much sweeter and better flavor) I always use more carrots than beets. Probably because I like carrots more than beets as well, but whatever.

Carrot Beet and Ginger Soup

7 carrots, roughly chopped

7 beets, roughly chopped

1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger

2 tablespoons dark amber maple syrup

1 tablespoon rice vinegar

1/2 teaspoon ground mustard

2 tablespoons olive oil

Salt & Pepper to taste

1. Peel the beets and chop them well. Don't bother peeling the carrots, just scrub the outside with the rough side of a sponge then chop.

2. Add olive oil, ginger, beets, and carrots to a large pot and saute until soft.

3. When soft, add maple syrup, vinegar, and ground mustard and stir well. Add water until the vegetables are covered and bring to boil and simmer for 20-25 minutes.

4. Put the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Add salt and pepper as needed.

Compounding Medicine

Corn, the insidious beast it is, not only invades our food supply but also our medicine supply. I recently got a script for Amoxicillin(the common penicillin antibiotic) from the University doctors and went over to the CVS to get it filled only to have my suspicions fulfilled: they have corn in both the tablets and liquid solution; this was on top of the fact that purely corn-free antihistamine does not exist for some reason, so you'll actually need to get that compounded as well. However, since people working at CVS only have Bachelor's degrees and are what Nurses are to Doctors in a hospital, competent but not the one you want committing surgery upon you, you can't get your medicine there because they have no idea how. You have to go to a compounding pharmacist(which apparently used to be called a formulary, according to my parents), where the head Pharmacist has a doctorate degree. Not only that, you have to get your doctor to write the script specifically for it being compounded and being corn-free(do call the pharmacist to find out exactly what they want though, I'm sure it varies). The little tidbit of advice I have is to sort this all out as soon you can, preferably before you're coughing up half a lung like I was during this process because it's quite likely that your doctor has never written a script for a compounding pharmacist and that unless you happen to be lucky, the pharmacy is probably somewhat far from you. A nice introduction to this issue can be found at: Corn-Free Compounding
So by all means, good luck and take care of this early. Also, curse the corn-production industry on your way to the pharmacy.

College & Falafel

Jesus, College is slowly killing me with corn. Until I have this constant paranoia about contamination worked out this isn't going to be the best situation. However, I want to get the recipe I've always used for falafel out there because it's just too damn good not to share:

Falafel

1 (19 ounce) can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 small onion, finely chopped/minced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
1 teaspoon dried parsley
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup fine dry bread crumbs (check for being corn-free, of course)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cracked black peppercorns

1 quart vegetable oil for frying

1. Mash the garbanzo beans in a large bowl. Stir in the onion, garlic, cilantro, parsley cumin, turmeric, baking powder, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Do not be afraid to use your hands. Shape the mixture into 1 1/2 inch balls; you should get 18 to 24*. If the mixture does not hold together, add a little water.
2. *If no deep fryer, skip to step 3* Heat the oil in a deep fryer to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Carefully drop the balls into the hot oil, and fry until brown. If you do not have a deep fryer, heat the oil in a heavy deep skillet over medium-high heat. You may need to adjust the heat slightly after the first couple of falafels, and be sure to turn frequently so they brown evenly
3. If you don't have a deep fryer, it will be a bit tricker but shouldn't be terrible assuming your careful. Take a pot and fill it with 1-2 inches of oil and heat this up very hot and drop the falafel in this, probably need to spin it around to ensure uniform coverage. You know it will be of the proper heat when the falafel bubbles like french fries do in oil just with less intensity. Use tongs for this or you will no longer have fingers. A very, very, important note of this is that if your oil starts smoking at any point in this situation, stop using it immediately, turn off the heat, and dispose of later. If an oil goes over its smoke point it becomes carcinogenic amongst other bad things.
   

*Note: I only got around 16 of these, maybe I made them a bit larger than it called for or had a smaller amount of garbanzo beans than I had thought. Also, I substituted ginger for turmeric, as they are the same family and similar in some respects. Tumeric would probably have been better, but it turned out to be excellent nonetheless. It will also be much easier if you just mash the beans by hand rather than by any machine, they lack enough moisture to be pureed nicely(I always use a plastic ice cream scoop because it works in a bowl well).

A delightful picture of my falafel frying in a pan, step three style. I fry them in sunflower oil because it's not only very healthy for an oil but it has a smoke point of around 450˚, so I'm very unlikely go over it's smokepoint on my stovetop.

Oat Milk!

After finding almond milk to be a bit of a pain to make due to the whole having to finely grind the nuts to a powder in my coffee-grinder(which my mother did not appreciate due to her having almonds in her coffee for the next few days), I decided to attempt to make Oat Milk. I probably shouldn't say "attempt" as it was a success, just a royal pain the ass. However, it is deceivingly simple, as the recipe shows:

Oat Milk
4 cups cooked oats (not quick oats)
4 cups warm water
Sweetener and flavoring as desired

Basically, cook the oats, put them in a blender with half the water and whip the hell out of it. Then after five minutes or so add the other half of the water and blend for another five minutes. When this is all done, attempt to run it through a cheesecloth.
That last step is where the issue arose. Notice the word "attempt". The stuff has so much sediment that it just outright stops going through the cheesecloth fairly quickly and requires a multi-tier cheesecloth system and is really much more work then it's worth. The nut milk was much easier and is more nutritious(Oats are pretty much lacking in nutrition, they have a bit of iron though), so I'm sticking to that in the future. As the last note about this, I did something that proved I am an idiot: I cooked four cups of oats, which is very, very different than four cups of cooked oats when it comes to steel cut oats. Around ten bloody cups of oat difference. I now have four quarts of oat milk and 9 days to use them. We'll see how this works out.

Vegan Sloppy Joes

I've had a package of Textured Vegetable Protein(TVP), a soy flour product, since pretty much the beginning of summer but hadn't made a single thing with it. The only recipe I had really found was a Shepard's Pie adaptation and I was honestly just too lazy to make it. Then I found a recipe for a vegan sloppy joe a few weeks back and since my parents ate meat-people sloppy joes, I was feeling left out and wanted something akin to it. Hence, this fairly easy recipe and delicious adaptation:

Vegan Sloppy Joes

1 small onion, diced
3/4 cup boiling water
3/4 cup TVP
1 1/4 cups tomato sauce
1 Tbsp. mustard (I made an adaption to this by mixing ground mustard and rice vinegar to around 1/2-3/4 tbsp, as it will be much stronger)
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp sugar
1/2 tbsp celery seed
1 tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp sea salt

Saute the diced onion in a pot with a bit of oil. Once it is soft and becoming translucent, add in all other ingredients, mix well, and cook for around twenty minutes on medium-low heat. Stir occasionally. Serve on either toast or old dry bread, softer bread won't hold up to this at all.

Almond Milk & Extracts

First off: Fuck you, Silk soymilk. I naively drank this in quite significant quantities(not necessarily drank, but used it in all kinds of cooking as well) and was therefore messed up for the rest of this week due to the corn in it. However, I have now recovered and have time/energy to tell of the many things I created this week.

The first thing I made this week were extracts. I made spicy pepper oil and peppermint extract(both still brewing actually). The oil is absurdly easy to make, just take two hot peppers per quart of olive(or your preferred) oil, chop them up, put them in a mason jar and let them sit for a few weeks, shaking every few days. I would recommend using Serrano peppers in the mixture, but you can use whatever kind that you prefer depending upon how hot you want it; either way, make sure no seeds are wasted. After the few weeks run through a fine colander or cheesecloth and store it like a normal oil.

After my realization that pretty much all toothpaste in existence has corn in it(I've heard Tom's Of Maine "Silly Strawberry" does not but I cannot verify this), I started using a 4:1 mixture of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide as my toothpaste. Cheap? Yes. Terrible Tasting? Yes. Hence, the want of peppermint extract to mix into the paste to make it slightly less horrendous tasting. To make it, buy a fresh bunch of mint, pull it all apart, bruise the mint with a mortar and pestle(or with whatever you have handy, they're friggin' leaves), put it all in a mason jar. Fill the jar until the mint leaves are just covered with potato vodka. Potato vodka is superior due to a complete lack of corn, fairly neutral flavor, and not being overly expensive for a quality product. I used Luksusova and it cost $13 for a fifth of it, so it wasn't that pricey(or that bad tasting). Let this sit for 2-3 weeks depending upon how strong you want it; Strain it through a cheesecloth when finished.

Since I can't have any soymilk around here and I'm now weary of even the unflavored rice milk, I decided to make my own nut milk. Since the nut I have the most of is almonds, almond milk was the one I chose to make(that and almond milk is the most commonly made one and I'm new at this). The recipe for making the milk is as follows, read the comments after it before you start making it though:

1/2 cup raw almonds(or other nut/seed)
2 cups cold water
1 tbsp natural sweetner(I prefer agave nectar)
1/4-1/2 tsp vanilla(make sure it's corn-free! Mine is from Mexico)

Crush the nuts into fairly small chunks and then grind them finely inside of a coffee-grinder. If you don't crush them first the size of the almonds will impede the grinding process. Pour the nut powder into the blender with one cup of cold water, the sweetener, and the vanilla. Have this whip for at least five minutes. Add the other cup of water slowly to the mixture will it is still mixing and let mix for another five minutes(*If you want more cream for milk or the like then stop before you add this water and just mix longer). Mix for another five minutes. Double layer cheese cloth within a colander and pour in the mixture and allow it to pour through without tampering. You'll probably want to do this yet again to ensure that there are no particulates in your milk, unless you fail to care that much.

A few very important notes about making the milk:
1. I highly recommend getting a separate grinder for nuts if you're going to do this consistently. If not, you will end up with coffee in your nut milk and nut residue in your coffee. Not as nice as one would hope.
2. The nuts powder may very well clump up as its being ground, so make sure it's all going through the machine fine so you don't break it.
3. The second straining is very important if you're using the same grinder as your coffee. Otherwise the bottom of the glass is like gritty coffee.

In the next week I plan to set up vanilla extract seeping, make pickles(I have a large amount of pickling cucumbers from the garden), and I'm heading to Toronto for some shenanigans. Good stuff. Oh, and pictures will return as soon as I get a non piece-of-shit camera. Working on that.

Teff Pancakes

The Post-Punk Kitchen gives an excellent recipe for vegan pancakes but the issue is the primary flavoring for pancakes is from the eggs and milk. Therefore, the veganized adaptation is going to need some compensation for the lack of flavoring and that's why I came up with this recipe. I had some teff flour lying around that I still had not used for a lack of reason; the flour is supposed to be quite flavorful(which it is) so I decided that it would be an excellent addition. The mixture of the teff and cloves make a warm, almost malty flavor. The recipe I created is as follows:

1 cup White Flour
1/3 cup Teff Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Sea Salt (Normal iodized salt contains dextrose as a stabilizer to help prevent the iodine from evaporating from the salt)
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Oil
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Cloves
1 cup Soy Milk (Trader Joe's makes safe soymilk that contains just soybeans and water)
1/3 cup Carbonated Water

Mix all the dry ingredients then stir them well. Add the wet ingredients on top except the carbonated water and whisk until the batter is smooth. Add the carbonated water and slowly fold into the batter to ensure the carbonation stays, otherwise the pancakes will not be as fluffy. Cook in a pan on the stove that has spray oil as a lubricant and flip when the top of the pancake starts to look dry. Serve with apple butter or a plum jam. Hooray for Breakfast!

Tempeh Sandwiches & Cincinnati

I went to Cincinnati this last weekend to visit my sister and, needless to say, was worried about the prospect of actually finding places to go out to eat. It turned out I got lucky and unlucky; I had an allergic reaction to corn after not thinking about cornstarch being in the sauce(my reactions aren't terrible but they do take me out for a while), and lucky as I also found an excellent deli. Mentioned in the New York Times article on Cincinnati for their 36 Hours not too long ago, Melt Eclectic Deli is an excellent place to go for vegans who have non-vegan compatriots who complain about having to eat vegan food. I had the veggie seitan cheezesteak and it was awesome. If you're ever in Cincinnati for a meal I highly recommend stopping by. The neighborhood it was in seemed pretty interesting as well but I arrived too late in the evening to be able to peruse much.

Anyway, going to the Melt made me want to have a sandwich again to remember its greatness. I was also getting quite hungry due to my hypoglycemia and did not want to spend a huge amount of time in prep work. Therefore, a sandwich seemed grand to me. I had some tempeh bacon and fake white cheese in my refrigerator from my voyage to Whole Foods(I say voyage because it was an hour and a half away and I don't believe this items are available in my county). So I whipped up a fairly quick sandwich, with the ingredients as follows:

1 Package "Fakin' Bacon" Tempeh
1 Small Onion
4-5 Baby Bella Mushrooms(I really like the flavor of these mushrooms but you can use whatever kind you like and it'll work out fine)
3 Tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
~3 Tbsp oil for frying
2-3 Leafs lettuce(I like Romaine or Boston Bib)
1-2 Tomatoes
Vegan Cheese
Wheat Bread

Fry the tempeh up in medium to high heat in the oil until its browned on both sides. Remove and set to the side. In the same pan, throw in the sliced mushrooms and onions cut into rings; fry them until the onions are starting to become translucent. When that happens, scrape them all together into one bunch in the pan and pour the vinegar over them, stirring afterward. When the fluid as boiled off, turn off the heat and assemble the sandwiches over some wheat or rye bread.

On a totally separate note, while down in Cincinnati I obtained some Kaffir Lime Leaves. They are a common ingredient in many Thai or Indonesian curries and dishes. So a recipe of such should be up soon; I'm fairly excited actually.

Seitan & Green Beans

A quick post for a quick meal. I adapted an old and very simple family recipe into a vegan form and it's luckfully still quite simple and tasty. It's basically just green beans and seitan in a simple sauce, and the recipe is as follows:

1 medium onion
2 tbsp oil
1/2 tbsp Pepper
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
~2 cups of green beans (You can wing this part and the seitan part to whatever is good for you)
1 medium to large seitan steak, cubed

Brown Rice

Slice the onions into rings and throw in into a deeper pan with the oil, pepper, and salt. Fry until the onions are translucent and then pour in the broth and bring it to a boil. Mix the arrowroot powder with a bit of water(if you put it straight in the broth it'll gel almost instantly and fail to thicken the mixture) and pour it into the broth. Add in the beans and seitan at this point, cooking them while the broth thickens. It's ready when the beans are tender and the seitan is heated through. Enjoy over some brown rice while still hot.

Animal Rights Vs. Welfare

At one time or another, people always inquire as to our reasons for veganism. Not that I mind at all, but it is a bit drab answering the same question again and again & the my justification is a bit elaborate to explain in a normal conversation without sufficient time and attention. However, this post also has the purpose of explaining the oft-misunderstood(even by me not too long ago) differences between those arguing for animal welfare and those arguing for rights(intertwined with those for animal "liberation"). Finally, I'm just plain interested in your opinions and need a way of passing these long summer days.

The majority of the reasons for not consuming animal products are fairly straightforward but, unfortunately, the more straightforward they are the less actual persausive power they seem to have(they are the one of those arguments people tend to agree with but are too immaterial to have an effect in a practical sense except in a few people). The main reasons fall into the following categories:

• Ethical


• Environmental


• Health

Health is the most obvious, as animal products contain cholesterol, fairly large amounts of saturated fats, more calories, and are more a strain on your digestive system than most plant foods. As long as one pays attention to their diet(which most vegans do quite closely due to natural reasons) then protein will not be a an issue: Legumes, soy products, grains(especially wheat gluten, which is over 70% protein), some vegetables(more notably broccoli), and nutritional yeast all contain good sources of protein. Furthermore, there have been notable athletes who did fine on a vegan diet(look up UFC Fighter Mac Danzig as an example[no, I don't watch UFC]). The only real issue is vitamin B12, which is only from animal based sources, and that can be solved by taking a supplement or fortified foods. But honestly, I find this argument the least persausive; Americans, as a culture, have a habit of being more talk than action when it comes to healthy intentions and we often brush aside such intentions when the plate is put in front of us.

Environmental is a bit less obvious but is often cited as a reason for vegetarianism/veganism so people are often familiar with it. It takes an extraordinarily large amount of resources to raise animals, especially cattle(pigs are actually the most "efficient", I believe), for slaughter. The UN estimated that around 18% of the world's greenhouse gases are from animal production, more than all the transportation sectors in the world combined(I still want electric cars though). Furthermore, I've read it takes anywhere from twelve to twenty-two pounds of feed(comprised mainly of corn and soy, unless you explicitly buy grass-fed meat) to make one pound of beef; most of the estimates I've seen are actually towards the higher end of this margin but even giving the benefit of the doubt this is atrocious(which will be addressed in the ethics section). Finally, the literal rivers of waste filled with antibiotics that can easily destroy land it is put upon is another reason as well. However, due to the disconnect between the people and the methods of production and the tainted land, this argument often fails.

Ethics is the most persausive argument, in my opinion, but also most dependent upon personal philosophy and morals. I'm not going to say anyone's morally wrong because they fail to adhere to this philosophy, just that I think this is a sound system. I'm not going to address the wrong of killing animals(that's a much more elaborate argument that I do not think I can do justice to here), instead focusing on the other main ideas. The principle one is the idea, often based off of utilitarianism but does not have to be, that causing unnecessary pain is a moral wrong. Whether or not it is to a non-human animal doesn't really have a bearing on that idea, as people become outraged when they see people abuse their animals, farm animals are malnutrition or harmed, or the pain caused by things such as horse or dog racing. Animal welfare laws exist for this reason as well as bans such as the one recently passed by Massachusetts getting ride of greyhound races. Getting back to the point, the vast majority of the meat created in the developed world comes from inhuman conditions(they are worse in the US than in Europe) that cause a large amount of unnecessarily cruel pain to a millions of animals just to provide people the pleasure of eating meat. Causing a pig to live a life where it is crammed in small cage and brutalized for its entire lifespan cannot be justified by the pleasure of eating meat, no matter how much you love your bacon. Additionally, that pig is smarter than most dogs(pigs are quite intelligent animals) and definitely animals such as horses(which aren't usually the brightest animals relatively); the reason we protect the latter animals, as one cannot kill a dog or horse for meat, is purely sentimental reasons that have no logical foundation. There is no real reason to make a distinction between a sheep, pig, horse, dog, or pretty much any such animal on the basis of pain, though some do have a cognition of a future and therefore make it more unjust on the basis of pain (I'll explain that more if requested). Now, there is a more elaborate argument that argues against the common notion that humans have the right to exploit "lower" animals and that we are distinctly separate from them but I'm not going to go into that here because I have the feeling this is already along enough for our brains during the summer.

Finally, as a short blurb, the actual difference between Welfare and Rights: Welfare activists do not think it's intrinsically wrong to raise animals for meat, eggs, or the like as long as it is done within a humane fashion; Rights activists disagree with this stance, saying it is intrinsically wrong to exploit animals due to inherent immorality and cruelty involved with such a thing. I, and most vegans(I think), are more on the Animal Rights side of the argument thought there is a lot of gray area. However, this is why I disagree with people when they say they can still consume animal products and be for animal rights—they are contradictory. To help finish explaining that, I leave you with an excerpt from Peter Singer's Practical Ethics:

Killing animals for food makes us think of them as objects that we can use as we please. Their lives then count for little when weighed against our mere wants. As long as we continue to use animals in this way, to change our attitudes to animals in the way they should be changed will be an impossible task. How can we encourage people to respect animals, and have equal concern for their interests, if they continue to eat them for their mere enjoyment?...

Comments? Ideas? Indifferent Shrugs?

Udon Noodle Bowl!

By far one of my favorite things to get when I go out to eat are Vietnamese(Pho) noodle bowls. However, since I live in the middle of bloody nowhere and I have never seen a Vietnamese restaurant in all of Southeast Michigan(I'm sure one does exist somewhere, I just don't know where that is). So, naturally, I had to find an acceptable recipe so I could make it myself. It did take me until last week to actually find some udon noodles that didn't have cornstarch though(Eden Organic is the brand if you happen to be in Michigan, I've never seen them outside of here). Anyway, I took the majority of this recipe from a gluten-free website that I can no longer remember. If I do, I'll say it in the comments.

Broth:
8 cups vegetable broth (either make your own[look at veganyumyum for a good recipe for that] or Pacific and Imagine brands both make corn-free pre-made broths)
1/3 cup Tamari (a more flavorful kind of soy sauce)
2 small unpeeled onions, chopped
6 garlic cloves, peeled (still whole)
A 1-inch piece of ginger, coarsely sliced
Two 3-inch cinnamon sticks
1 bay leaf
1/4 tsp szechuan peppercorn
3-4 allspice berries (these may be small but they pack a wallop, so watch out)
1/4 teaspoon tumeric (optional, and I accidently put in too much last time which created a bitter aftertaste unfortunately)
Sprinkling white pepper
Sesame Oil
Lime juice

Soup Fillings:
1/2 Pound Udon Wheat Noodles or Rice Noodles

1/2 of a large Radikon
3-4 cups Sugar Snap Peas
2-3 medium carrots
1/2 package(of a total six ounces, I believe) baby bella mushrooms
A small head of broccoli
1/2 cup bean sprouts
A few green onions
Whatever else you want (I actually put parsnips in this one actually, as I had one sitting around)
Optional: 8 oz pan browned tofu, to give some more protien and filling power.

To start the broth, throw everything in a stock pot except for the broth and dry char everything until the onions and garlic are starting to blacken a bit then slowly add in the broth. Let the brother slowly simmer for an hour covered, then run it through a colinder to filter out all the onions, garlic, etc...

Once the broth is finished, things move fairly quickly. Cook the noodles and add the prepped(mostly chopped) vegetables to the soup itself, only around five minutes before actually serving (leave out the green onions for now). If you're adding in tofu, do it at the same time as the vegetables. After cooking all the vegetables, add in some sesame oil(I'd start with 1/4-1/2 tsp) and then serve the soup onto the noodles. This is actually somewhat important, as if you leave rice noodles sitting in water they'll disinigrate and become fairly unappetizing (very important if you have leftovers). Add in the chopped green onions at the last moment for the best flavor from them. If the flavor is too spicy or intense from the allspice, I recommend adding in the lime juice to help counter that.
My final product(my broth is dark because I cook it in a poorly seasoned cast iron pan, which causes the iron to leech in and darken the broth):

Seitan!

Having had nothing on the itinerary today, I decided to make myself up some more seitan as I had run out a while back after making a teryaki stir-fry. Seitan is by far my favorite meat substitute, kicking tofu, tempeh, or any mushroom's ass in my opinion. For anyone who does not know what "seitan" is, it's vital wheat gluten mixed with water and boiled (hence it commonly being known as "wheat meat") and it works as an excellent high-protein meat substitute. Now since most people don't know what "wheat gluten" is either, it is the protein within a whole wheat flour(the manual way of extracting gluten involves washing wheat flour repeatedly until all the starch is gone, leaving just the protein left). The wheat gluten has a very sticky consistency, much like a very wet bread dough(gluten is actually what holds bread together and helps with the rising process). Anyway, I'm digressing. The point is I made some seitan to freeze up for future use(it holds up very well if frozen and can last quite a long time). The recipe I use for seitan(strictly speaking, all that is necessary is water and wheat gluten) is as follows:

1 cup vital wheat gluten (I recommend finding it in bulk form, much cheaper than other ways)
~3/4 cups water
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp Garbanzo bean flour
2 Tbsp Tapioca Starch (find the stuff that has the fine, cornstarch-like consistency. The pearls would just be weird)
1 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast (I will explain what this is later)
6 cups of broth for cooking (start heating this right away if you want to save time)

To make the seitan itself, mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl well then add in the fluid ingredients and stir by hand. If you use a machine, I can only imagine bad things happening to all objects involved. After ensuring that all the dough is mixed in entirely(little pockets of the dry dough have a habit of forming due to the nature of the gluten), knead around 15 times and let it sit for five minutes. Knead again 5-10 times(the kneading activates more of the gluten, making it sticker and more dense). By this point it should look like this:
The next step is to tear this apart and form cutlets out of the raw dough. I usually have my cutlets be around 3x3 when stretched out(the cutlets will retract in size when you set them down, as you will see) and only around 1/4-1/2 inch thick. Don't worry, the seitan will expand dramatically while it cooks(don't underdo the fluid). Put the cutlets in the broth when it is simmering and lightly simmer it for around one hour. The seitan will have expanded a considerable amount and be fairly meaty when finished. Refrigerate or freeze as soon as cooled, but either way you should contain it somehow so it doesn't dry out. When being used in recipe, the seitan merely needs to be reheated(take out 1-2 hours before hand if frozen). Finished Product:
There is a different way of making seitan, easily found by googling the term "Seitan O' Greatness". That way involves making a loaf, wrapping it in foil, and baking it. It also unfortunately involves vegetarian Worcestershire sauce, which contains friggin' xanthan gum. It does look good otherwise though.

*Nutritional Yeast is a product made by Red Star, who also makes a corn-free activated yeast product. It is debatably a whole protein(I honestly don't know or care what non-animal products constitute as a "whole protein" anymore, it's all just so damn contradictory) and is fortified with B vitamins, including the quite important B-12 for vegans. It is commonly used in fake cheese dishes but also as a garnish upon many a different dish. Not a huge fan of the straight up taste though.

Orange Chipotle Tofu Stir-Fry

As my first actual post, I may as well give a recipe I made up today that I'm glad to say turned out pretty well, even if a bit odd. It's a stir-fry with a chipotle and vinegar marinade on the tofu; the recipe is as follows:

Tofu & Marinade:
3 Chipotle Peppers
2 Tablespoons Adobo Sauce(This is what the peppers will come in when you buy them canned)
3 Minced large cloves of garlic
1 Medium Onion
1/2 Cup Jalapeno Oil(a few Jalapenos with a half cup olive or equivalent oil will work)
1/2 Red Wine Vinegar
14 ounces cubed tofu(it can be more or less than this, as long as it can be covered by the marinade)
A pinch of pepper and sea salt.

Orange Glaze:
2 Whole Oranges(zest one)
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
1/2 Cup Water
1 1/2 Tablespoons Tapioca Flour(Arrowroot can be used as well, just a bit less)

Stir-Fry Vegetables:
1 Medium Daikon, chopped
2 Cups Fresh Sugar Peas
1/2 of a large Parsnip, chopped
1 colored Belle Pepper, chopped
(Carrots, Broccoli, or anything you else can be added in as to your preference)

To start the marinade, throw some of the oil, the chopped onion, the adobo sauce, and the chipotle peppers in a pan and fry them until the onions are translucent. Add this mixture to the rest of the oil and vinegar in a bowl and add the tofu. Let marinate for a few hours.

When read to make the stir-fry, brown the tofu with the peppers from the marinade and set aside. While this is going on, add the orange zest, the juice from said oranges, the water, and the brown sugar to a pot and heat the mixture slowly(make sure to be fairly slow, as brown sugar can char easily). Once it is boiling, add in the tapioca starch, mixing well the entire time to thicken the mixture. If you don't consistently mix while it is added, it will gel up and form clumps which is just a pain.

After having removed the tofu, throw all the vegetables into the pain and steam them for a few minutes, probably around 4-5. More oil may be needed to prevent any kind of charring. Once the vegetables are all finished, mix the tofu, vegetables, and orange glaze together and serve over rice(I recommend a brown aromatic rice the like.)

Picture of the finished product:

Introduction

To all those who may peruse this blag:

The purpose of this blag is multifold: To help give people vegan, corn-free recipes(hence of the name of the blog, but that will be explained later), to chronicle and spread knowledge of small-scale organic farming, such as the type that would be used in urban/suburban settings, and to occasionally propose the random philosophical question that I want other's opinions upon.

Now there may not be many other vegans who have corn-allergies out there(I have no idea actually; I just haven't heard of many) but due to it being vegan and relatively unprocessed food, pretty much anybody with a corn allergy can have these meals. Our recipies work for us all, which is pretty sweet. Anyway, to explain the title: Xanthan Gum is a commonly used polysaccharide(a carbohydrate class which includes things like starch) which is used to stablize emulsion(the seperation of oil from other liquids), add stickiness to Gluten-Free cooking, and many other things. The only issue is that the vast majority of it is created by a bacteria grown upon corn, so it cannot be eaten by people with a corn allergy. It, along with corn syrup, are the bane of a corn-free existance when it comes to processed foods, hence the title.

As for gardening, it's been a personal hobby for years but has a more important purpose. That is, the greater creation of locally created foods that are organic; this reduces fossil fuel consumption greatly, increases the nutritional value of the food, and, honestly, the food tastes a hell of a lot better than it does at the store. I personally find it satisfying to eat your own personal harvest as well; a pinch of self-sufficency is good for your state of mind.

I'll write more soon about gardening and veganism but I'll have to formulate that more in my head more before I write it down. A recipe should be up pretty soon though.