Happy Birthday Loodle!
This is not really an eco-anything post. This is a post to say happy birthday to my dog. He turned 13 on Saturday.
This is Loodle.
He’ had his 13th birthday on Saturday.
He’s such an old man.
He used to be a hearing dog. He let Yankee Elv know when there was a noise she should be aware of, like a doorbell or the baby crying. (He also made a good pillow for said baby… even as the ‘baby’ got older.) Some people refer to a hearing dog as ‘an alarm clock with a tail’. Mostly, Loodle was the snooze button with doggy breath, right in your face.
He liked it (except maybe the snooze button part). He was always happy when he was ‘working’. It was a pretty nice job… lie around, get treats, let everyone adore you, and paw your best friend when you hear a noise she should know about. Who wouldn’t want that job?
He especially liked getting to go wherever Yankee Elv went. His favourite places to go were parks or cafes. His least favourite was shopping. He liked going to Yankee Elv’s work, too.
During his time off, he liked to go swimming.
Especially at the beach.
He really liked the beach. It’s hard for him now. The waves are too strong, and they push him over. He hasn’t gone to the beach in a long while.
Loodle is retired. He’s deaf himself now, and arthritic, and losing his sight. Fortunately he knows some sign language, but we have to sign in exagerated motions so he can see it. Sometimes we just sign to him generally so he knows we are talking to him.
He gets very tired. (We have to drive him to the dog park now, because it’s too far for him to walk.)
He likes to sleep a lot, especially in the sunshine.
Sometimes with his best cat friend, Pou.
Sometimes he wants to be a snuggle-bunny with his human family.
He likes peanut-butter and doggy treats.
But he is just as happy taking care of my leftovers, like stale bread. (The face of the eco-friendly garbage disposal!)
Most of all, Loodle likes being the best dog ever. We love him.
Happy birthday, Loodle!
Add comment June 14, 2010
Teenage Boys Are Not Eco-Friendly
The title of this post says it all really. I can be as eco-friendly as I want. My son is not. This is a juxtaposition, ja?
Mr Teeny-bop is emo, with coffee and crossword. (I got a snap of him smiling after this... emo defeated!)
Sometimes, it’s not his fault. Sometimes it is… sort of. Here are the top 10 reasons why, in no particular order.
1. Teenage boys grow, seemingly exponentially. Buying lots of clothes is not eco-friendly, and of course, teenage boys are too fashionable to want second-hand clothes. Ooh la la.
2. Teenage boys eat a lot. Normally, this wouldn’t bother me so much, but my teenage boy is a picky, picky eater. He likes processed foods, like Kraft’s Mac&Cheese (the kind in the blue box), when he could just as easily eat the fresh, homemade kind his mother (not me, the other mother) makes. Pretty much the only non-processed nutrition he consumes comes from fruit, veges and soy milk. Ok, and cheese and meat and cereal and pasta and bread. But that’s it. And I don’t mean lots of kinds of these things. There are two kinds of cheese (one wrapped in plastic), several kinds of meat and cereal, two kinds of pasta (including Mac&Cheese) and white, low GI bread. Oh, and pierogi. No other non-processed food. Does coffee count as processed or non-processed? He drinks that too now (one cup a day only; he’s the only person in the house who likes it.) You might think I’m a terrible mother for letting him eat like this, but remember – when you’re a teenage boy, you know it all, and that includes what food you like. Besides, compared to what he used to eat, we are having victories every day. He tried sushi recently. He didn’t love it, but he tried it, and apparently it’s better than baked beans (another recent attempt). It seems resistance is futile after all.
3. Teenage boys break headphones. Sometimes I wonder if teenage boys realise there are actually a finite number of headphones in the world. And what do you do with broken headphones? There’s really no use for them. Can anyone think of a use for them? Mr Teeny-bop has just gone through three pairs in a month. I shudder when I think of the plastic-y, metal-y waste. I think I had one pair of headphones in all my teenage years. Then again, people didn’t walk around with their own personal soundtrack to life playing constantly inside their head (or from their iPod – however you’d like to describe it.) Maybe the next eco-unfriendly thing is increased hearing aid waste due to iPod-induced deafness. (I say waste, because I know teenage boys wearing hearing aids will lose or break the aids as quickly as they destroy headphones.)
4. Teenage boys do half-arsed chores around the house and call it done. For example, teenage boys mow the lawn and leave the cut grass out as green manure… on the concrete driveway. Call me sceptical, but I don’t think it’s going to enrich the soil too much there. Teenage boys don’t take as much care as they could when choosing which bin to tip the recycling into, because they are too busy thinking about lame Facebook applications and text messaging. Teenage boys don’t turn off the lights when they leave rooms. Teenage boys forget to turn the iron off (when they bother to iron). You may be sensing a pattern here. Yes, it’s the pattern of my irritation. Mothers of teenage boys have their own issues.
5. Teenage boys are even rougher on their shoes than pre-teen boys. I did not think this was possible, but apparently it is. Like broken headphones, what do you do with worn out shoes, I ask you? We have to buy new ones every term (roughly 12 weeks).
6. Teenage boys like lots of screen time. Wii, GameCube, YouTube, Facebook, MSN, text messaging, TV, DVD, camcorders, email… (I am looking at a screen a lot too, to be fair, but a lot of that is for my job.) Screen time takes electricity, and more of it means more electricity. Teenage boys also forget to turn appliances off. Before bed every night I do a round of the house, turning off computers, consoles, DVD players, TVs…
7. Teenage boys wear bigger clothes. This is fine, except it means I wash the same number of items, but I need to run more loads of laundry to fit everything in. I also run out of room on the clothes line. Trust me when I say that you should not try to circumvent this by overstuffing the washing machine. Teenage boys also smell, and if you don’t leave enough room for the clothes to get well scrubbed, the smell is going to linger. Even front loaders (which I have, and which apparently are supposed to be full during use as the agitation action is caused by the clothes rubbing together) do not do well being overstuffed.
8. As previously mentioned, teenage boys smell. Self-aware teenage boys (like my dear Mr Teeny-bop), try to circumvent this with deodorant. Unfortunately, mass marketing and peer pressure means Lynx body spray (not anti-perspirant), in a pressurised can, is the deodorant of choice. At least BO smells a little better when mixed with Lynx… even if it is sprayed so thickly I can taste it if I go into the bathroom after Mr Teeny-bop in the morning. Does anyone know what happens to spray cans when they are thrown away?
9. Teenage boys have a social life, which I am all for. Fortunately, living in a city permits a social life via bus, most of the time. However, the car trips we make to drop off/pick up are still considerably more than those made in pre-teen days. There’s just no way around the car and its links to suburbia unless there is dramatic social, demographic and economic change.
10. Teenage boys are rough on clothes. Socks wear out fast. The hems of shorts come down ‘by accident’. Shirts get stained. Jeans get ripped. Jumpers get covered in dog and cat fur. Hats get lost. Undies… well, ok. Undies wear pretty normally. But this brings us back to the first point – buying more clothes. Again. For a different reason. It’s a race to see whether he outgrows them or trashes them first.
Sometimes I think my efforts towards eco-consciousness are circumvented by my son. Sometimes my pattern of irritation feels ready to erupt into firey temper tantrums. (Yes, mothers have temper tantrums, they just look a lot different to kids’ temper tantrums.) Then my teenage boy does something sweet, like invent an imaginary Italian bed and breakfast, complete with hand-written menu and fake accent, just so he can wear a manly apron and cook pancakes for me as Mother’s Day breakfast in bed, instead of adding to the consumer culture and buying me a gift I don’t really need.
Most days, he’s grumpy and self-absorbed, but sometimes I get a glimpse of who he used to be, and who he’ll become, and I know it’ll be worth these angsty teenage years in the end. No-one who can be that loving and gentle with an aging ginger cat can stay angsty forever.
At least, I hope so!
Mr Teeny-bop and that aging ginger cat, Old Man Fatso, sleeping on the couch.
2 comments June 12, 2010
Friday Feast: Carrot, Pineapple and Soybean Stir-fry
Ok, I know this combination of ingredients sounds weird, but it’s good, trust me. This is one of Yankee Elv’s recipes, and she first made it while she was in the USA. I think it’s some kind of weird US North Pacific Rim fusion sort of meal. Anyway, it’s really easy and tastes great, so give it a go!
Carrot, Soybean, and Pineapple Stirfry
Carrot, Pineapple and Soybean Stir-fry, with rice.
Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoon oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced (or as much as you want)
• 2 medium carrots, sliced
• 1 240g (8oz) can pineapple chunks WITH juice – don’t drain
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups frozen green soybeans (edamame)
• 2 tablespoon soy sauce
• 2 teaspoon sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper (less or more to adjust spiciness)
• 2 teaspoon sesame seeds (optional)
• cooked rice (preferably cooked at least a day before, so it is less sticky)
Method:
1. Heat the oil in a wok or large frying pan over medium-high heat.
2. Add garlic and carrots and stir-fry for about 4 to 5 minutes
3. Add the pineapple with the juice. Saute on medium-high until juice is almost gone; about 5 to 10 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, defrost the frozen soybeans so they are no longer frozen (but they can still be cold) by heating them in the microwave, in water to cover, for 1 minute (if you don’t have a microwave, you can do it on the stove).
5. When the pineapple juice is almost gone, add the soybeans, soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and red pepper. Heat for 3 to 5 minutes, until the spices are mixed and the beans are warmed through.
6. You can either mix in the rice and cook it some more with the stirfry (gives the rice some extra flavor), or just ladle the stir-fry over the rice.
Optional: sprinkle sesame seeds over the meal for a bit of a crunch.
Add comment June 11, 2010
Moving the BP Oil Disaster
I got some serious news about my health recently. I’m still waiting on a definite diagnosis, but I probably have a degenerative disease with a likely outcome of paralysis or blindness. Fun stuff. Imagine Yankee Elv with her hearing dog and me with a guide and/or assistance dog. Won’t we make a pair? I’m hoping I’m one of the lucky ones who misses out on those symptoms, but there’s no way to know, there’s no cure and I haven’t responded well to treatment so far.
As you may imagine, this has had me a bit distracted. That’s partly why recently there have been lots of posts about happy, achievable things, like saving chickens and eating vegan food – I haven’t felt up to delving into the serious stuff. Plus, aside from eating healthily, exercising regularly and avoiding illness and tiredness, the best way to look after myself is to reduce stress. Just for a little while, reducing stress has included not keeping up with the really nasty environmental crap – like the disaster of the BP oil spill. It just didn’t seem like something I should stress about. So that’s why you haven’t seen anything from me about arguably the greatest single event of human-created ecological catastrophe in memory.
However, a friend of mine posted about this site on Facebook, and I thought it was too good not to share. It’s called IfItWasMyHome.com and it allows you to digitally move the oil spill around on a map. You think it’s bad in the Gulf of Mexico? Well, of course it is. But is it better or worse if it’s in a major city? What about if it was where you live? On this site, you can try it out.
I found it interesting because I lived on the Gulf Coast in Texas for a while. In reality, it’s getting close to places I’ve been, so I can picture what it’s doing.
The BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The little red circle shows where I used to live.
I also moved the oil spill to Brisbane. It helps me understand, more tangibly, how big it actually is. It covers up the entire south east of Queensland region, including where I live now, where I grew up, where I go camping… everything. It’s huge.
Here's what the oil spill would look like if it had happened in Brisbane.
Here it is in New York. The place where Yankee Elv grew up is covered in oil.
Here's what the oil spill would look like if it had happened in New York.
Possibly the most shocking and frightening image came up when I moved the spill to Rome.
Here's what the oil spill would look like if it had happened in Rome.
The width of the spill is greater than the width of the entire country of Italy. The BP oil disaster is bigger – significantly bigger – than a number of European countries. You can see them right there on the map. Get that in your head…
…then think about how the oil has been gushing out unchecked for well over a month. So far, BP has not done much. What kind of company doesn’t have a contingency plan for a disaster like this? Did they really think nothing like this would ever happen? Why didn’t they have plans in place, just in case? So far, the most help has come from Kevin Costner. Good on him, his brother and their company – but why on earth is a movie star better qualified to clean this up than the enormous company who got the world into this position? And if he’s so much better qualified, why didn’t they get him on board before this happened?
See why I have been trying not to think about this? I get into a stressy, rant-y place. But really, even if BP can’t figure out how to stop the tragedy, why aren’t they at least paying people to get out and clean it up? That’s something achievable that, sadly, people have experience with.
Why isn't BP paying people to clean up the affected areas and wildlife, like these poor pelicans in Louisiana?*
*Photos by Charlie Riedel for The Big Picture.
Add comment June 5, 2010
Friday Feast: Vegan Quiche
I was reading my local Vegsoc forum and came across a thread about vegan chickpea omlettes. The thread included a recipe for a batter based on chickpea flour (rather than eggs), plus a tonne of rave reviews. Apparently, this batter can be used to make lots of things: omlettes, fritters, faux scrambled eggs, pizza bases, frittatas and quiches. Considering I hadn’t had any of this eggy stuff for at least 6 years, I thought I might give it a go. I made a quiche, and it was pretty good! I thought it tasted quite quiche-like. Yankee Elv, who still eats eggs, didn’t think it tasted exactly like quiche, but she liked it a lot anyway.
I made mine in a pie dish, so it was quite shallow. If you wanted a thicker quiche, you could put it in a smaller dish or double the mixture. You might have to increase the cooking time too. I didn’t make mine with pastry, but other people have made it with vegan puff pastry and it worked well. I might try that next time.
Vegan Quiche
My very first vegan quiche (no longer an oxymoron) - made primarily with chickpea flour and topped with pine nuts.
Ingredients
**batter**
- 1 cup besan (chickpea) flour
- 1.5 cups water
- 2 tabs olive oil
- salt/pepper to taste (be generous)
- vegan margarine (to grease the dish)
**my filling** (this is all optional, change as you like – you want to add flavourful stuff though or it will be bland)
- sun-dried tomatoes, finely diced
- roasted capsicum, finely diced
- black olives, finely diced (consider the strong flavour of these when deciding how many to add)
- shallots (green onions), finely diced
- nutritional yeast (I used about 1/8 cup)
- garlic powder
- onion powder
- Italian herbs
- pine nuts (to sprinkle on top)
Method:
- Preheat oven to 200°C (390°F).
- Sift besan flour into a bowl. Add other batter ingredients (aside from vegan margarine) and combine very well.
- Add filling ingredients (except pine nuts) and combine.
- Pour mixture into a greased dish. (Use vegan margarine to grease.)
- Bake for 25 to 30 mins, then sprinkle pine nuts on top and return to the oven.
- Continue to bake for about another 10-15 mins, or until set and golden brown around the edges (and on top, if you want).
2 comments June 4, 2010
Spotlight: Rescue a Battery Hen!
My mum is talking about getting chickens. It will be a while before she gets them, but she is very enthusiastic. Her local council has changed the law so her yard is now considered big enough, which she finds ironic. She had chooks in suburbia as a kid, then they were regulated out (only poor people and farmers had chooks – suddenly everyone was rich enough to buy their own eggs, so it became illegal to keep them). She and I had an interesting (if abbreviated due to time constraints) discussion about how everything comes full circle and we’re going back to the environmentally-friendly way things were done in the past.
Mum also saw an eco-coop at a university environmental day which caught her fancy. It was nice and big and had a trough on top where you could grow veges (like lettuce). Clearly the garden part would be conveniently handy to the chook manure!
In addition to those little incentives, Mum just plain likes chickens. Let’s just say that this weekend wasn’t the first time she and I have talked about her childhood chook, Penny. (Sadly, a snake got Penny when Mum was about 5 or 6.) Cows might make her nervous (‘They have such big faces!’), but she gets this really sweet smile on her face when she talks about chickens.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I suggested Mum rescue battery hens and she seemed keen on the idea. Mum is always keen to rescue animals in distress (I think she would be vegan if she allowed herself to really think about it, but let’s not get into that debate.)
Hens, one month after adoption. (Photo from The Battery Hen Adoption Project.)
I read about battery hen rescue on the Queensland Vegsoc forum (I feel like I’m reading everything there lately!). I’m going to send her links, but here are three threads about battery hen adoption, some with links to photos, for you all to read too.
- Jan 2010 hen adoptions (there’s a very moving poem on p4)
- March 2010 hen adoptions
- May 2010 hen adoptions.
The organisation that rehomes the battery hens is Brisbane-based. It’s called The Battery Hen Adoption Project. They have some really good information on their site about taking care of the chooks when they first come home. Of course everything is new to the poor bald chickens; they don’t even know how to sleep sitting down, or have a concept for getting up and walking to the water/food dishes to eat and drink.
There’s also the saddest video on the site:
I really want to rescue some hens now! I can’t wait til we’re not renting anymore. (I have visions of a strawbale type of construction to be a lovely, fox-free coop for them to sleep in at night.) I am also pleased with the idea of supplying Yankee Elv and Mr Teeny-bop with some truly free-range eggs, since they both still eat them.
In the meantime, I guess I will have to make do with visiting Mum’s chickens, when she gets them. I wonder, if she gets them in winter, if they will need jumpers like these…
If you want to keep chickens in Brisbane, get all the info on ourbrisbane.
5 comments May 31, 2010
Friday Feast: Vegan Apple Crumble
Lately, I’ve been on a bit of a muffin kick. This isn’t a muffin recipe though – I’m still working on those. Don’t get all impatient-like, the recipes will come. But right now, this is an apple crumble recipe. It’s good stuff. I tweaked an apple crumble recipe I’ve been making since I was 13, took some inspiration from a berry cobbler that Yankee Elv makes, and ta-da! Vegan dessert-y goodness. I first made this about a month ago.
I made up some soy custard to go with it. I just followed the instructions on my Poppy custard powder box, but added extra custard powder as soy custard seems to thicken up a bit less than dairy custard. It turned out beautifully. For those of you who can’t find custard powder, you could probably just use cornstarch (cornflour) with some vanilla flavouring and yellow colouring. The only other ingredients are non-dairy milk and a spoonful of sugar.
Yankee Elv asked me to make this again the next week. She’s a bit obsessed with it now. But it really does taste so good…
Apple Crumble
Apple crumble with home-made soy custard. It's a dreadful photo, sorry - it was night time so I had to use flash and it's very glary.
Ingredients
**filling**
- 800g tin pie apples (or equivalent fresh apples – I work full time, so I’ve no time to stew apples. I have to make do with recycling the tin)
- 2 tabs white sugar (I use low GI cane sugar)
- 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
**topping**
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- Heaped 1/4 cup vegan margarine, softened and in small pieces
- 1 1/4 cup rolled oats
- 1/2 cup plain flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened desiccated coconut
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F).
- Combine filling ingredients in a pie dish.
- Combine topping ingredients, except margarine, in a bowl.
- Rub in margarine until combined.
- Cover filling with topping.
- Bake for approx. 30 mins, or until topping is starting to brown and get crunchy.
Add comment May 28, 2010
Eco Shoe Choices
I received this article from ecorazzi.com in my RSS list today, and it got me thinking about vegan shoes, and whether you could get animal-free leather-look shoes that are durable and environmentally friendly. Here’s some background to my thoughts:
My work shoes are starting to wear out. The upper seems to be ok (although it is getting thinner in some places), but I have nearly gone entirely through the sole. They have lasted almost a year, which is pretty good for me. The last two pairs of shoes I got lasted about six months each.
The difference? My current pair are made of leather (not vegan), and the previous two pairs were synthetic (vegan).
I thought long and hard about whether I should buy leather shoes. I eventually decided to do it because I felt it was more eco-friendly to buy a pair of shoes made from a natural material (cow skin) that would last a year, than it was to buy a pair of shoes made from petroleum that lasted for only six months. Note: I am not particularly hard on my shoes (unlike Mr Teeny-bop, who wears out his school shoes in three months, sometimes less).
Vegan shoe (Roma from Vegan Wares*) similar to the shoes I wear. They are expensive and what are they made from? How long will the last?
However, all year, any time I have thought about my shoes, I think about the poor cow that died to give them to me. I’m determined to make them last as long as possible, to make this sacrifice worthwhile (as much as it can be). I am going to take them to the local cobbler to have him fix the soles, if he thinks the uppers will last me another year or so – if the uppers will only last two more months, I don’t see much point.
I stand by my conviction that it’s better for the environment to use fewer resources, and natural resources at that, but I wish there was a third choice – natural, long-lasting resources that were of plant origin, or alternatively, that would last for ages and ages (or even better, both). So far all I’ve seen are hemp shoes, which would be great for casual wear, but will not work in my semi-corporate work environment.
Does anyone know of shoes that would fit the bill, provided the bill is not exorbitantly expensive (I have seen ok-looking vegan shoes for a couple of hundred dollars, but I don’t want to pay that)? If the cobbler says it’s not worthwhile fixing my shoes, then it might be time to go shoe shopping again, and if I can avoid leather or petroleum, that would be my preference…
*Image comes from Vegan Wares website.
Add comment May 25, 2010
Friday Feast: Bean Tortilla Stack
Bean Tortilla Stack is the first food my mother made me after I became vegetarian, about six years ago. It was originally a beef meal, but there were instructions in her recipe book on how to alter it for vegetarians, so she did and it was fantastic! I got the recipe and have made it myself a number of times over the years.It’s kind of like a Mexican lasagne, with tortillas instead of pasta sheets.
Recently, I decided to try veganising this dish using Bryanna Clark Grogan‘s Melty Pizza Cheese recipe (which I found on pakupaku) to replace the cheese component of the original dish. It doesn’t have the same taste or texture, so don’t expect that or you will be disappointed, but it looks good and it does add a little something-something in my opinion. I’ve only included the link here, since this is a direct copy of someone else’s recipe and I haven’t modified it in any way to make it ‘my own’.
The original recipe calls for a packet of taco seasoning. I don’t find this spicy enough, so I add paprika, chili powder and cumin to taste. In contrast, Mum will make it with only half a packet of taco seasoning if she is cooking for my sister – she’s a spice wimp. It’s really up to you.
The best kind of dish to use for this is a pyrex or ceramic type of dish, the kind that comes with a lid (although you don’t need the lid unless you want to use it when you store leftovers in the fridge). The dish should be round, to fit the tortillas, and high to help the stack keep it’s shape. Pie dishes are too short. The dish I use is a little small; I have to trim the edges of my tortillas. Mum’s is the best. It’s about 25cm in diameter (just under 10 inches), as opposed to mine, which is about 20cm in diameter (just under 8 inches). Still, both worked, so just get as close as you can.
Points to remember:
- The tortillas soak up some of the sauce, so if you have to trim them to fit in your dish, you might want to reduce the amount of sauce you put in, or it will be runnier than it’s supposed to be. Use your judgement! If it’s a bit goopy, don’t worry – it will still taste good.
- The smaller in diameter your stack is, the higher it will be as the sauce layers will spread out less and therefore be thicker.
Now read on, then cook!
Bean Tortilla Stack
Bean Tortilla Stack after a night in the fridge. The layers hold up best after refrigeration.
Ingredients:
**general**
- 450g (16 oz) can refried beans
- 425g (15 oz) can kidney beans, drained and rinsed
- 5 tortillas (I use wholewheat, but it doesn’t matter what kind you use)
- Melty Pizza Cheese
- oil (cooking spray, margarine, olive oil…)
**for the sauce**
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 cup capsicum, diced
- 1/2 to 1 cup vegetables/mushrooms (like grated carrot, diced zucchini or chopped mushrooms) (optional)
- 425g (15 oz) can crushed tomatoes
- 3-4 tabs tomato paste
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp vegetable stock powder (Vegeta!)
- 35g (1.25 oz) packet taco seasoning
- paprika, chili powder and cumin, to taste (optional)
Bean Tortilla Stack with smooth guacamole. This slice is fresh from the oven - you can see that it doesn't retain it's shape straight out of the oven.
Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Add some oil to the bottom of a large pot or frying pan and combine sauce ingredients. Bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes.
3. Take one cup of sauce out and leave to the side.
4. Add beans (both kidney and refried) and bring to the boil again.
5. Grease a round, tall, oven-proof dish (I use cooking spray oil cos I’m using up my current can). Place one tortilla on the bottom and spread 1 1/2 cups of the mixture over it.
6. Repeat tortilla/sauce step three times.
7. Top with the last tortilla. Pour the extra cup of sauce (sans beans, that you had set aside earlier) over the top and spread evenly.
8. Gently spread faux cheese on top.
9. Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until faux cheese has a skin. You can put it under the grill (broiler) if you want to get it a bit brown.
10. Leave for five to ten minutes before serving. (It will be goopy if it’s fresh out of the oven; it holds its shape better after refrigeration.)
Add comment May 22, 2010
The Milo Replacement Debate
I know I keep harping on about this vegan thing, but it’s something I’m conscious of lately, it’s often at the forefront of my mind. You know how when you’re just learning how to do something, you have to think about it, nothing is second nature? That’s how it is for me still. Vegetarianism was like that too for a while, but it became automatic eventually, and so will veganism. It will just take time. For now though, living vegan feels like one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, commitment-wise. It’s not that it is difficult to eat vegan generally, but it is tough (particularly as a new vegan, I think) to keep it up, day after day. Especially when it means missing out on foods you love, for which there doesn’t seem to be an adequate replacement.
Don’t get me wrong – as a vegetarian and now as a vegan, I’m discovering so many new foods and food combinations that I enjoy. Check out my StumbleUpon favourites if you want some examples! Most of the foods I’ve given up were never very healthy for me in the first place. Some I ate more often than I should have. Overall, I think I’m better off as a vegan, although I’m not experiencing that wonderful, bouyantly healthy feeling many new vegans brag about. I wonder if that’s because it’s been such a slow transition for me, and the non-vegan things I did eat weren’t chock full of dairy and eggs. I have been on mostly soy and oat milk for years, so I guess it wasn’t such a shock to my system, like it was when I first went off drinking milk. I had to do half cow/half soy for a while to allow my body to adjust. I got there, and soon only ate a few non-vegan things.
But those few non-vegan things I did eat! Most I’ve since given up without much concern (such as ice-cream or custard), but there are others that have been more difficult – cheese for example. It seems to be the universal vegan stumbling block. This has, however, worked in my favour regarding cheese. Since everyone finds it tough to get over, there are lots of recipes and ways around it, advice, suggestions and commiserations. There are some other things that seem to be more unusual though, and I’m actually finding those more of a struggle.
Milo: chocolatey goodness that is actually good for you! But it's not vegan. 
Milo, for example. For those of you who don’t know, Milo is a chocolate ‘energy food’. It’s something like chunky Nesquik or Ovaltine, but with the vitamins of Sustagen. You add it to a glass/mug of cold or hot milk (non-dairy, in my case), and stir it in. Unlike other chocolate milk powders, it doens’t entirely dissolve in cold milk, but also leaves a moist, chocolatey, slightly crunchy top layer of ultimate tastiness. Milo is low GI and provides a bunch of vitamins, minerals, iron and calcium. It’s brilliantly tasty and I’ve been eating it all my life. It was pretty much my stand-by for whenever I wanted a chocolate bar but didn’t think I should have one. Milo gave me the flavour without all the bad fat and sugar. It also helped ensure I got my vitamins and minerals. At work, I was known for having a giant tin of Milo on my desk. I heard more than my fair share of Milo and Otis jokes.
Unfortunately, in addition to the malted barley and cocoa and sugar and other fabulous ingredients Milo is made from, it also includes milk powder (just a little bit), so it’s not vegan. That means no more drinking Milo. And since this doens’t seem to be a global phenomenon, there doesn’t seem to be a comparable vegan alternative. At the moment, I’m drinking Akta-Vite, which does the trick for vitamins and minerals, although not so much with the sugar, taste and texture. (As a colleague said, it looks like little chunks of rat poo. It does, fortunately, taste better.) It’s not the same though. Akta-Vite dissolves completely (except for random chunks left at the bottom of the cup), so it’s not a good replacement for cold Milo. As a hot drink, it tastes a bit like Horlicks (who came up with that name!?). Malted, but not so chocolatey. I know I can drink hot cocoa, but it doesn’t solve my vitamins, minerals and sugar problems. And what about a cold drink?
I am out of ideas! Aside from drinking Akta-Vite (which I’m doing), making my own inferior batch, or somehow convincing Milo to go vegan… what can I do?
And if, as I suspect, there’s nothing I can do… how on earth do I get over it?!
5 comments May 19, 2010
