3-COURSE VEGAN MEAL

Starter: Baked onion bhajis
Main: Chilli non carne with seitan, coconut milk and Thai spices
Pudding: Apple strudel

Baked onion bhajis

I left these a couple of minutes too long in the oven - so they've just caught a little

Ingredients:

2 large onions, sliced fairly thinly

Oil (for the frying pan - I use rapeseed)

1 teaspoon curry powder (my made up curry powder consists of 3 parts chilli powder to 1 each of cumin, coriander and turmeric – you may wish to reduce this ratio)

½ teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

100g gram (chickpea) flour

2 teaspoons bouillon powder

2 dessertspoons tomato puree

Water

Method:

Fry the onions for about 5 minutes until al dente

Stir the spices in with the onions and fry for a couple more minutes

Mix the gram flour, bouillon powder in a bowl, then add the tomato puree and enough water to form a batter.  Add the onions and mix altogether. It should be a fairly loose mixture.

Using a dessertspoon, place heaped spoonfuls of the mix onto a prepared baking sheet (I simply oil mine), and bake at 200C for 20-25 mins.

Thai chilli non carne with seitan

Ingredients:

Start with a vegetable curry.

To which add a tin of coconut milk, a dessertspoon of Thai curry paste, a dessertspoon each of soya sauce and lemon juice, and a squeeze of garlic paste.

Then add a tin of red kidney beans (or 240g of dried, cooked beans), the Seitan chunks and simmer until the chunks have softened.

Adjust seasoning

(Personally, I would add an extra dessertspoon of Thai curry and a splash of Encona West Indian Hot Pepper sauce, or similar)

Serve with Jasmine rice

Apple strudel

This is one of the strudels made with my special need's students. If you look  carefully, you can just make out a K (on the right) made from a scrap of dough - which means it was made by Kestor.

You can, of course, make this with ready made puff pastry which is easily available and very often vegan.

However, I find a strudel made with your own croissant dough to be, not only tastier, but very satisfying to make.

Ingredients:

1 portion of croissant dough, made with 200g flour and a dessertspoon of sugar instead of the salt. Once made, keep it in the fridge, in an oiled plastic bag, until you're ready to use it.

Filling:

3 medium apples, peeled and thinly sliced

200g sultanas

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon each cinnamon and nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground clove

100ml orange juice

Either stew the fruit in a saucepan on the stove until the apples are soft - but still retain their shape; or, microwave the fruit for approximately 10 minutes.

Let the fruit mixture cool before shaping the strudel.

Once you're ready to go, roll the dough out to to approximately 35cm x 25cm (a little bigger than my laptop!) and place it onto a piece of baking parchment, with the long side across in front of you.

Spread the filling in a thick band across the length of the dough, leaving a couple of centimetres at each end. Gently, using the baking paper as support, bring the dough over the top of the filling until it is covered. Roll it over an extra 2-3 cms to create an overlap.

Trim any spare width of dough (bake as nibbles), and carefully tuck in the ends.

Using the baking parchment, slide the strudel onto a baking tray and, using a sharp knife, make shallow diagonal cuts in the top of the dough. Cover the strudel with a dry tea towel and leave to prove until the dough is risen and puffy.

Turn the oven onto 200C, and carefully brush the strudel with a sugar glaze - one dessertspoon sugar to two dessertspoons boiling water.

When the oven is up to temperature, place the strudel in the middle of the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes. Brush again with the sugar glaze. 

Either serve immediately, with Alpro custard, or place to cool on a wire rack.

VEGANISM: Reason Nr. 1 - Animal welfare

(There are two other good reasons for going vegan - Global warming and health. I shall post about these as soon as I can - and I'll link to them from here. Necessarily, some of these links cross the boundaries, but I've tried to separate them out as much as I can.)

I was a vegetarian for 2 years - for health reasons - before I transitioned into a vegan. It took me two years for the blinkers to fully come off. Prior to that I’d been a meat-eater for 63 years, with the blinkers fully in place.

There is more and more evidence emerging of the inherent cruelty involved in the livestock industry - here I'm going to present some of it. Much of it comes from the US, but we have our own tragedies over here.

"...with the number of land animals slaughtered every year reaching over 50 billion - plus incalculable numbers of sea creatures."

Chicken hatcheries

Free range is a con

What's wrong with eggs.

Dairy is scary!

SWINE - a very British horror story.

And even closer to home:

Pig farm in Somerset.

And here's an overview of the meat industry.

There are some truly inspirational animal activists around - here's James Aspey, one of the most remarkable. Another is Gary Yourofsky, who is perhaps more 'in your face'. (Video starts 20 mins in - you'll need to slide it back to the beginning.)

Here are the top 10 vegan documentaries - each one with its own trailer.

There's more - much more. Do your own research. If you still want to eat meat and meat products after wading through all these links - then please don't call yourself an animal lover!

DUMPLINGS - MADE WITH JUST FLOUR AND WATER

There are several dishes that can be made with just self-raising flour and water - and here are the ones I've posted so far.

Finally, I've got around to adding dumplings to this list - and, once again, they are simple to make, cheap - and surprisingly good!

Today, I had a rich vegetable sauce simmering on the stove, and I thought it's time I made the effort!

So I took a heaped dessertspoonful of self-raising flour, added a pinch of salt, 2 or 3 dessertspoons of water, and mixed it into a dough. This I kneaded for a couple of seconds, formed it into a ball and dropped it into the hot, bubbling sauce.

It had been in the sauce a minute or two before I took the pic, and it had already grown a little

Six or seven minutes later, I looked at it again.

Doubled in size

After about 10 more minutes I turned it over in the sauce - and left it for a further 20 minutes. Then I took it out and, with difficulty because it was very soft, sliced it in half...

It was light and fluffy - everything you'd want from a dumpling!

I should have made more - in the end, to bulk out the dumpling I tore pieces off a quarter of a soda bread I'd made earlier, and simmered them in the sauce.

Next time I do that, I'll make sure I add sufficient water, because the soda bread soaked up all the liquid - and my lovely sauce was nearly burnt!

I don't think these dumplings require measurements - but for those of you who don't agree with me, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 mug or 200g self raising flour

1/4 tsp salt

1/3^rd mug or 125ml water

Method:

1. You'll need a stew of some kind to cook these in! :)

2. Place the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, add the water and begin mixing with a table knife or similar.

3. Mix together into a soft dough, stirring and cutting through the dough as it forms, adding more flour or water as needed. 

4. Keep the dough as soft as possible - even a little sticky, since they're going into a liquid, after all.

5. Divide the dough into 8 or 10 or 12 pieces - depending on how big you want them - and form into balls a bit smaller than the size of a golf ball - then place these gently into your stew.

6. Make sure there is enough liquid in your stew to carry the dumplings. Turn them over after about 6-7 minutes. They'll be ready about 20 minutes after going into the stew.

Notes:

Ring the changes with these - make them with half and half white and wholemeal flour. If you don't have self-raising wholemeal flour, add a teaspoon of baking powder at the rate of 1 teaspoon to 100g of flour.

Add herbs and spices to the flour to pep them up a bit.

I posted this recipe on Mumsnet, and AmberLeaf responded:

"You should try Jamaican dumplings, plain flour and water, sometimes cornmeal [fine] 50/50 with the plain flour."

FUNDRAISING FOR YMCA AND TAH (Taunton Association for the Homeless)

Wednesday 10th August 2016
Final total raised was £850 - meaning £425 went to support the homeless in Taunton, and £425 went to the YMCA roof fund in Taunton.

Wednesday 13th July 2016
This morning I was invited in to BBC Radio Somerset, where I gave two interviews on the Breakfast Show. In the first (02:04 into the show), lasting about 5 minutes, I was given the opportunity to explain the background to my challenge - and I was also given the chance to outline the part Intermittent Fasting (5:2 diet) had played in my overall fitness.

Then, later on (at 2:25 on that link), I was brought back on to show the announcer, Claire Carter, how to do a proper press up - by lying on the floor and pushing yourself up. As you'll hear, under my guidance, she managed her first ever!

Press ups on the radio - it doesn't get any more rock and roll than that! :)

Shortly after this I went over the road to the lawn in front of County Hall where they filmed me in action.

Previously... [I've done it! Just completed 1175 press ups in one hour. Update at foot of post.]
On Friday the 1st of July I shall attempt to complete 1000 press ups in under one hour. I'm asking for sponsors to contribute 1 penny per press up - but, of course, I'll accept any contribution, no matter how small.

Here's my Just Giving page, where anyone interested can donate.

Initially my goal was to raise £300, but I feel I can do better than that, so I've increased my target to £600. 

Here's the story of how all this came about.

Just over 4 years ago I started Intermittent Fasting (IF) after reading about it helping to keep prostate cancer at bay. I joined a forum on Mumsnet devoted to IF and I’ve been practicing 5:2 ever since, losing 24lbs in the process. I’m now doing 6:1 for maintenance.

http://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/eat-less-live-longer.html

Two and a half years ago, I was encouraged, on an associated Mumsnet thread, to take up home-based exercises - and learned how to do a proper pushup. The ethos of the thread is that you should keep pushing yourself to see what you can accomplish.

http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet/2369081-5-2-IF-Exercise-Fitness-Thread-Number-3-Advice-and-information-for-those-following-Intermittent-Fasting-and-anyone-else-too

This is a post from the thread last November:

Someone, can't think where, recently mentioned 1000 press ups in a day. I was idly musing on this with the YMCA manager, Keith, saying that it was an achievable goal for sometime in the future. He perked up his ears and said that could be a fundraiser - "78-year-old bloke does 1000 press ups in a day.”

So that’s where the challenge came from.

TBH, I’m amazed at how quick my progress has been. If it tells me anything, it tells me we’re all capable of doing more than we think.

I put my fitness down to three things - first of all, the amount of extra energy I get from regularly practicing Intermittent Fasting - IF; secondly, body weight exercises and HIIT; and thirdly, the fact that I’ve been a vegan for the past 13 or so years.  

I'm actually well on course to beat my target with just under three weeks to go. 1000 press ups in an hour requires an average of 17 every minute. And initially I thought I'd go for 20 every minute for the first 300 or so, then drop down to 17 a minute, finishing on 14 a minute. But, the more I trained, the more I realised that I can manage 20 a minute for the full hour. And to make sure I'm really comfortable with 20 a minute, I'm currently doing 25 a minute. Yesterday I did 500 in under 20 minutes.

Tuesday 14th June 
Tonight I had a full dress rehearsal - I completed 1200 press ups in 59mins 20 seconds. I did this in sets of 20 every minute - and I felt fine, but the last 3 or 4 of each set, once I'd reached 1000, were hard. But I know that those are the ones which will improve my performance, so I didn't mind too much. From now on until the day of the challenge, I intend to train on every 3rd day, doing 25 every minute - probably up to 200 or so - but I'll see how I go.

Friday 1st July
Well, I did it! 1175 pushups in one hour - witnessed by YMCA staff and a Somerset County Gazette reporter!

I intended to do sets of 20 pushups every minute, on the minute, aiming for 1200 - but there was a bit of slippage somewhere, since I ran out of time. :(

I can't deny I found the last couple of press ups of each set were getting tougher as I neared my goal; but still, each set averaged out at around 16-17 seconds. 

And I can't deny that I got my body lower at the beginning of the exercise than I managed towards the end!

But, all in all, I'm very happy! :)


If anyone wishes to help me celebrate my achievement, my Just Giving page link is towards the top of this post.

Letter to a vegetarian

Dear Fiona

I was very glad to read your article in Saturday’s Mirror exposing the cruelty involved in the meat industry. 

However, it has to be said, all the cruelties you describe in your article apply equally - if not more so - to the dairy industry. Every cow or calf in that industry finishes up in a slaughterhouse, enduring the same appalling conditions. Indeed, I would argue that dairy cows suffer much more than animals raised for beef, since they endure forced pregnancies, separation from calf at birth, and constant over-milk production for the few - 4 or 5 - years they are allowed to live. Then they are killed - 15 or so years before their natural life span. Their male offspring are either dispatched immediately or they are kept a few short months for veal. The dairy industry underpins the beef industry!

So, if I am to believe your horror and disgust at the cruelty you describe so graphically, logically you should go a step further and advocate a vegan lifestyle.

Anything else, Fiona, I’m afraid, is hypocrisy!

BTW, I didn’t join the dots immediately, it took me 2 years to transition from vegetarian to vegan - but it’s the only moral choice.

(This is to leave aside the benefits of becoming vegan, both to your own health and the health of the planet.)

Yours sincerely, Paul