The tao of cauliflower

Zhuang Zi, the great Taoist master states
' earth does not support yet all life is sustained'

Profound! He's talking about everything having its own individual nature that fits in to the individual nature of everything else, requiring no order,constraint or moulding.

But how does this link into cauliflowers? Well the humble cauli does not require much preparation to get two meals from one cauliflower, and in respect to taoist philosophy if the cauliflower presents itself as a two meal food why try and treat it as anything less?

If you are still with me, this is what I'm talking about. Most of us will discard the green leaves surrounding the cauli in the awe of its fluffy white flower. I have to ask why as they are as good as cabbage and full of flavour.

So heres the two meals I prepared:

Dish 1
"Recycled Greens soup"

1. Trim off your cauliflower greens and chop finely with an onion or scallion.

2. Sweat off your onion and greens in a big pan.

3. Slice up two medium potatoes and add to the pan.

4. I added a handful of Amaranth here too for extra protein, quinoa is equally good, but if you have neither don't worry its equally good without.

5. Stir to mix the veg and season.

6.Add about two pints of water to cover and a handful of shredded kelp seaweed either fresh or dried.

7. Cook until the potatoes are softening, and at this stage taste and adjust seasoning with either salt or pepper or miso,soy sauce or yeast extract. If at this point you want a creamier soup, you can dash in some soya milk.

8. Serve hot and enjoy.


Dish 2
"Crunchy breadcrumbed cauli florets"

This is a healthy 'no-fry' tempura inspired dish and also good for using up that stale crust thats hanging around.

1. Break up your cauliflower into individual florets and steam for about 5 mins so that they still hold their shape.

2. Grab your stale crust and break it into crumbs either by hand or using a food processor. Put crumbs aside in bowl.

3. Take about a tablespoon of fine corn meal (harina de maize) and add enough hot water to make a batter. Keep stirring whilst adding the water to prevent lumps and stop when its the consistency of custard. Season the batter and set aside.

4. Prepare a baking tray by lighty coating in oil.

5. Take your cauli florets and dip into your cornmeal batter one at a time and then dip into the breadcrumbs, and lay onto baking tray. Any left over breadcrumbs can be sprinkled on top.

6. Now bake in an oven on gas mark 6 umtil the batter has crisped up and the breadcrumbs are toasty.

We had this with a ginger dressed salad, and used a crust off some rye sourdough. The soup is for tomorrow.

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Fungus feed and chickpeas

The spanish medieval masons built their cathedrals on a diet of chickpeas and bread and the cost of the honoured chickpea has'nt risen much over the centuries.
A great cupboard staple either tinned or soaked, I think if there was any, the chickpea would be 'bean of the gods' for its all round versatility.
Anyway, chickpeas and 'shrooms make a good,quick and cheap vegan meal. A can of chickpeas comes in around 38p and many asian shops sell crates of 12 for around £3.

Here's how its done:

1. Chop up your 'shrooms or leave whole depending on what you've foraged or bought.

2.Fry off a small onion, and some garlic in oil and add your fungi.

3.Once sweated off, add cooked chickpeas , seasoning and whatever herbs you can get your hands on. I like a combo of fresh chopped chilli, mint and parsley, but this time we just went with basil and pepper.

4.Once thoroughly warmed through, dress with oil and serve with crusty bread.

all you need is a glass of spanish or homemade wine to wash it down and you'll be fit to lay some stone and mortar!

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Fungus foray

I woke up this morning feeling 'fungussy', I think its a combination of all this wet humid weather and Liam giving me some old oak boards that I thought I would try and spawn with some tasty 'shrooms.
I've already got an oak log in the back from when I helped cut down a dead tree for a colleague a few years back, its now sprouting with a wonderful display of 'cloud ear' mushrooms , normally retailing in china town for £1.50 a pack. They make great texture to 'shroomy' meals and fresh like mine are comparable to more expensive oyster mushrooms. Anyway I decided to plan a foray for some other edibles to accompany these for a tasty Sunday brunch.

I am aware that when it comes to fungi people get a bit jumpy unless they are in nicely neated cellophaned punnets. Too right, Vitaly, my ukrainian friend had told me tales of family members, experienced in fungi hunting falling ill from a foul forage. I hope this hasn't put you off, if you wish to go no further thats ok , but you can still have a go at cultivating your own with a little help from nature and not much room.
Get yourself some clean ,untreated,broadleaf boards of wood. Whilst shitakes appear to prefer pine, more native species of fungi like oak, birch and elm. Soak your boards in water for a good few days then find a suitable area of ground, in partial shade, and lay the boards on top. If you have spawn, which isn't too costly these days, you should sprinkle it between the boards. If you dont have spawn, and you fancy fungi lottery, theres plenty of it around in nature and all it takes is a few handfuls of litter from your local forest floor to innoculate your wood.
The key thing to cultivating your own fungi is to promote the decay of the wood, that involves keeping it damp and relatively warm. Ive experimented with putting cardboard or plastic over the wood with and frequently removing this cover during warm weather.
If you are doing this in an urban setting then logs might prove better. The picture of the Inky Caps was taken just yesterday on an edge of a construction site in the centre of town! Again soak logs for a few days, a bucket will do for this. Find yourself a sheltered spot to pile logs in, but firstly lay down a sheet of plastic, and then a layer of brown cardboard with your logs on top.
The good thing about having a go at encouraging fungi to grow is that you can always find some ideal wood in skips or acquire some by word of mouth. Once you've got your wood and have a spot for it you can let nature do its own thing and see what happens.

More updates on foraging for mushrooms to come...

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Staff of life, day 2

Well my free bread is still edible despite there being a few hopeful birds staring in through the window.

It shows that freeganism doesn't have to involve sneaking around the back of your local tescos but if you explain to people what your intentions are there are many a kind folk who are happy to help the cause.

Anyway just wanted to post this as a quick shared bread snack. I turned my back and Jane had russled up a pesto-y garlic toast for me. And in proper cost cutting style used some salad that was nearly beyond redemption, so its a great snack for using up saggy limp leaves.

This is what she did :

1. Pound two cloves of garlic with a pinch of salt in a pestle and mortar.

2.Dilute poundings with vegetable/olive oil.

3.Add a handful of your ' beyond best leaves' and continue pounding.

4. Top up poundings with oil to make it spreadable.

5.Toast bread lightly and smear with the mixture.

6. Top with your favourite things.We had some roast aubergine, yum!

Enjoy! Jane had hers on rye, being wheat free, but she made my free bread delicious and divine.

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Staff of life

Wow! Free bread! Today I went into a good health food shop I occassionaly go in , and they were re-stocking their shelves with fresh organic loafs. I happened to ask what they were doing with yesterday's bread and they gave me a loaf free of charge. I don't want to come down heavy on supermarkets but it shows that with your small local shops there is more community spirit. Anyway I'm considering it 'bread karma' and I hope it encourages anyone to get local and start asking in their nearest store.
Also, unbelievable as it sounds,yesterday I received post from my good friend Jean in the form of a print of John 6:48 .Apparently there is a copy of it displayed in Cartmel Priory by a shelf, where loaves were left for the poor. Wait until I tell her, what a weird coincidence!
Well every culture has its bread, and nearly every culture has its recipes for using up stale or old bread.
This is one of my favourites and a version of fattoush, a lebanese dish:

1. Take your stale or old bread bits and tear up into bean sized pieces.

2.Heat a dry frying pan (no oil needed) and toss in your broken up bread pieces. Keep shaking the pan so the bread bits start to toast evenly. Add some sunflower,pumpkin seeds or sesame seeds here for extra taste and nutrition.

3. Set aside the toasted bread and seeds and once cooled sprinkle with mixed herbs and oil. I like to add seasoning at this stage and let the bread rest to absorb the flavours for a few hours.

4. Now prepare your salad.You can use anything really but a finely chopped tomato and cucumber is a must. Try adding pomegranates, baby spinach, or for a middle eastern flavour some grated carrot and raisins.

5. Toss in your prepared bread and mix by hand.

6. Serve immediately with friends and sweet cardamon coffee.

Now thats why they call it the staff of life, enjoy.

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Bubble and squeek burgers

Left-overs in the fridge are easy pickings when returning home with an appetite, but when was the last time you had 'bubble n squeek'? Well here is a quick cook up of left- over veg in the shape of a burger.
We had some new potatoes,parsnips,carrots and cabbage in the fridge from last night's tea. This is what I did:-

1. Mash up the left-over veg and potato in a bowl.

2. Shape into burger rounds. If the mix is looking wet and difficult to handle you can use a bit of cornflour to strengthen.

3. Lightly oil a frying pan or griddle pan. Heat and cook off burgers flipping half way through both sides.

4.Serve with salad

I tossed my burgers in some sesame seeds for added nutrition, this works equally well with sunflower seeds, or if you want that fish-less fishcake taste you can throw some seaweed into the mix.

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Cheap as chips!

Are you a spud bud? Who doesn't like a potato?
Over the years I've dipped in and out of freeganism and the humble spud is a joy to find amongst the supermarket food bins, not because they make good honest scavenged food but with a little encouragement, a dark cupboard and some patience you can have your own little production line for new potatoes. You can equally do this with the yellow labelled (reduced item lines) spuds and bag yourself cheap seed potatoes, or even with your peelings (why you would want to peel a spud please let me know!) I once found a spud at the side of the road when walking home, why waste an opportunity like this, and often at the end of the day at your local market you can find a few floating around.
Anyway I know it isn't cooking but consider this as a pathway to potato joy. Just take your potatoes and place them on newspaper and put them in a dark cupboard for a few weeks. If they are fregan spuds you will need to trim off any bad or damaged areas before doing this, the smell of rotten potatoes is not something you want to cultivate.
They should start to throw off sprouts by the third week and you will then be able to plant them.
The great thing is that you don't need much room for growing them, after living 7 years in the city I found that old rice sacks or bin bags make great planters for your mini spud farm as they can slip onto a balcony or in a corner of a yard. Whats also great about spuds is they can cope well with poor soil so if you are in the city and soil is hard to come by, you can use broken up brown cardboard mixed with earth to bulk out the growing medium . Just make sure any soil or other medium is free from pollutants.
Now just quarter fill your rice sack, place in 5 chitted potatoes (the technical term for sprouted spuds) and top up with the rest of your growing medium.
In a few further weeks they should be popping their green leafy heads over the edge of the sack. You can let them do their own thing, only water if they look droopy or they are in a position where they can't access rain. Potatoes will reliably inform you when they are ready for harvesting as they start turning yellow and dying back.

Now several months later its time to spread spud joy and share your efforts with a tasty dish. Here's one I prepared earlier:-

Tortilla Veganese

I was inspired in this by two places I visited in recent years thats left me with food in my belly, change in my pocket and potato joy in my soul. Firstly, Vegetalia in Barcelona , a great place to hang out in the gothic quarter and soak up the history of the Catalonian spirit of political resistance and culture. Secondly, Mono in Glasgow, Jane and I revived ourselves with their vegan ingenuity after spending the week living off porridge in Ayrshire.

1. Slice your spuds into 5mm thick slices and boil until they are soft enough to poke a knife easily through without breaking. Be careful not to over cook as you want to keep them firm.

2.Set your spuds aside to cool.

3. Now you need to make a gram flour (chickpea/besan flour) sauce. Gram flour is an excellant source of protein.
Warm some oil (vegan marg will equally do) and add about 2 tablespoons of gram flour, a pinch of chilli, some smoked paprika and a finely chopped bell pepper and small onion. Fry off until sticky, then slowely add water a bit at a time, stirring constantly. Add seasoning as you desire.
The skill here is to add your liquid without getting lumps until you have a thick creamy sauce. You can experiment with adding different things to your sauce, try cilantro (coriander) or spinach and nutmeg.

4.Set your sauce aside to cool for a moment.

5.Add your cooked spuds to the sauce, you have to be liberal with quantities. Your sauce should be like thick custard and you want to add enough spuds so they are all thickly coated. Shake don't,stir (thanks James!), as you want the spuds to keep their shape.

6. Pour spuds,sauce and all into an oil lined baking tray and bake until firm and browned on top. My oven tends to default at gas mark 6 so I would say middle of the oven for around 20 mins gas mark 5 to 6.

7. Once cooked, allow to cool for few hours to set the dish, and then it can be conveniently sliced and served either cold or re-heated.

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Veganomics

I thought I would put something up about vegan economics with the hope that I can generate some genuine discussion. It seems appropriate to include something here upon economics as measurements of economics are innately tied in to the success and effectiveness of this blog. I also felt it was appropriate to reflect upon the New Economic Foundation's measurements of wellbeing in respect to veganism and sustaining a low impact diet.
I suppose we have to start at a statement of exchange, that vegan economics is both sustainable, promotes life,culture and wellbeing without reliance upon animal products or animal exploitation. We could expand this further by reflecting upon the 5 ways of wellbeing and discuss that the nature of such exchange involves giving,learning, activity,connecting and taking notice (www.neweconomics.org). This expansion upon such exchanges means we can all have the potential to practice vegan economics ('veganomics') without necessarily subscribing to veganism, but by undertaking social,financial,emotional and physical exchanges that are low impact and supportive to non-human life.

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The 'P' word

Whether you are vegan or not Protein is the most expensive item in your shopping basket. The good thing is you don't need a lot of it, just the right amount of the right types.
But getting it free or as cheap as possible has posed me a bit of a problem.
Again I'm drawn to Chinese cultural cuisine, my father's aunt was Shanghai Chinese so this post is in her honour. Extracting the protein out of wheat as wheat gluten is a very popular vegan product in Chinese cuisine. Wheat gluten is available in tins in chinese supermarkets often in the guise of 'mock' duck or 'mock' abalone, but with a bit of time and a cheap bag of flour (around 30 pence) you can make a batch yourself and save on airmiles as well as funds.

The key to extracting the gluten is water as follows:-

1. You will need half amount of water to flour to make a dough. With a 1kg bag of flour this is probably going to equate to just under a pint of water, but different flours have different absorbancies so add a little at a time.

2. Make up your dough and knead it like your life depends on it. The kneading process helps to draw out the protein, so why not get the family to get involved and work up those biceps - its more enjoyable than a Wii Fit!!

3. I would say after a good 15 minutes knead you need to lay off the dough and give it a break. Wrap in cling film or other suitable covering to stop it drying out and rest it in the fridge for a good 3 hours.

4. After all that kneading you'll probably need a rest yourself. Next comes the washing, you will need a sieve and a large bowl. At this stage we are going to wash off the starch.
Take your dough and place in the sieve over the bowl and in a sink. Now under running water gently knead and wash the dough until the water runs clear. The bowl underneath is to collect the starch which we can either use as thickeber for stews, soups or for making starch sheets for spring rolls. What you have left in your sieve is around 70% protein that you can grill,fry marinade and use in any of your dishes.

The following is a good youtube video of the process.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRNxKKOncY4&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Its often referred to as Seiten, which if you get into making it, is an interesting experience at parties when you introduce yourself as a 'seiten-ist'

My biggest challenge now is to find a wheat-free equivalent for my partner Jane. I'll keep you posted ...

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Seaweed salt

Well I did say I'd put something up about seaweed salt. I'm not that near to a good coastline myself so its one of those things you keep in the back of your mind until you have an opportunity available.

Firstly a good honest word of warning, seaweed has high concentrations of iodine and those of you with over active thyroid or on thyroxine should best avoid this. Ive found a good web page which is frank and open on this subject
http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/iodine

Well if you've made it past the health warning its as simple as this. Find yourself a clean beach of a rocky nature, both kelp and bladderwrack are common in these areas. Collect responsibly, and dry in the sun or in your kitchen. Ive got a piece of kelp still hanging over my stove from my last foray.
Once dry, put it in a food processer and grind to a course powder, use sparingly instead of salt.

I have to point out if it wasnt for my japanese and chinese friends many years ago leading the way I wouldnt have persisted with seaweed, but now its always in my kitchen and there are such varieties around the coast of britain that are so versatile. Its great to know them all and how best to use them, or have some in to add that vegan seafood taste to your platter.

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Store cupboard clean out - Wheat free pasta

Ok, my last post was a bit Ray Mears and probably there were a few expletives from anyone finding themselves crawling around the undergrowth looking for a dock-leaf to tend those nettle stings.
Well, Liam from three doors down came round today, they'd been having a spring clean of their kitchen cupboards and found a bag of rye flour with a handful left in.
What to do with remnants of flour?? I think you've guessed at the title, all across the land mass of Europe and Asia for hundreds of years different cultures have been storing and eating their grains in the form of pasta , be it noodles, pappardelle or vareniki.
I had to think on my feet here, Rye flour is very absorbant to moisture and has high soluble fibre so doesnt crisp up in the same way as wheat. So I added a good tablespoon of fine maize meal to the handful of  Liam's Rye flour, maize meal is really cheap, I got 1Kg for less than a pound sterling and its great for thickening things, making 'Jonny Cakes', making tortillas and anything wheat free you can imagine (even cake!!). Maize has xanthen in it which loves water so it balances the water holding properties of Rye. So heres the recipe for wheat free spiralli.

1.Take a good handful of Rye flour and a good tablespoon of fine maize meal (thats the big spoon!)and mix together.

2. Add water slowely and mix until you get a firm dough. No need to give it time to rest, get stuck in straight away this isnt a pastry class!!

3. Pinch off a bit at a time and roll into thin worms on a wooden board, no thicker than knitting needle and trim to 2 inches in lengths, or the length of your thumb.

4. Now here's the bit where you might need to grab a seat, grab a friend or a willing partner, put on the radio and get twisting. Take your pasta worm and wrap around a lightly floured chopstick or similiar to create your spiral shap, and slide off onto a suitable baking tray or flat surface for drying. I've seen Italians use pieces of clean cardboard for drying pasta on so why not?

The spiralling process takes a bit of practice and time, but with good company and some good conversation its a rich experience. My partner Jane was a wonderful pasta team member, she does have pasta making experience so whilst I did the pinching and rolling she did the twisting, and I think in our conversation we put the worlds to right along the way.

5. Ok, hopefully you've carpeted your front room with sheets of drying pasta now. I left mine 24 hours to dry as the weather has been damp and unsettled, but on a good sunny day you could have this made in the morning and dried and ready for your tea.
The drying process helps the pasta keep its shape whilst cooking so if its looking a bit damp leave it a bit longer, a good tip is to give the drying tray a shake and a good sound and movement of the pasta should reassure you if its ready or not.

6. This is the best bit. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, when its on a rolling boil drop in your pasta. I start counting here, my golden rule is 3 mins. After 3 minutes drain, toss with oil, seasoning or add to a sauce and enjoy.

Pass us the nettle pesto....!!

Young and tender greens

These are the last few weeks to bag yourself a meal of nettle tops. Now we are fully in May the patch of nettles out back is looking like its ready to flower and seed. This is not good for us hungry vegans as when nettles start to flower they produce tiny grains in their leaves that if eaten can irritate the urinary tract. So the key thing is to get them whilst they are green and bright.Grab yourself a good couple of handfuls of dandelion leaves to throw in with them, do you know you can eat all parts of a dandelion! Now this is what I do with them:-

1 Rinse all your leaves under cold water, take care handling your nettles.

2 You want a good carrier bag of nettles and two handfuls of dandelion leaves chopped finely.

3 Heat a heavy bases frying pan with a bit of oil and toss in your prepared leaves.

4 Now if you have some, or can borrow some a bit of nutmeg does wonders. If you can also scrape together an onion this gives it a good texture or in your trip picking leaves you could follow the trail of wild garlic by its smell and throw in some leaves and flowers into your bag for this.

5 Toss in some seasoning, I shall blog later about making seaweed salt, this is great here especially with some black pepper.

Redress with some herb oil, olive oil or anything you can get your hands on and either eat as a lovely green snack or serve on toast.

This also makes a great layer to homemade vegan pizza , put your tomatoes on first then nettles and dandelions next, topped of with any of your favourites.

Now wheres my fork....