Happy World Vegan Day 2009!

This one is a vegan interpretation of a fairly popular dish people eat in Slovenia. It is originally probably from somewhere else, but who cares. In my family we call this dish “svinčniki” (pencils in Slovene). This is really play on word: “svinja” (pig), “svinčnik” (pencil), “svinčniki” (plural of pencil). In any case, it is a deep fried breaded pork, but some people use different meat. It is also called “Wiener Schnitzel” (Vienna Steak), but I think that one is supposed to have veal. Since both veal and pig suffer super brutal and horrifying life and death for this dish, I think it is time to have a vegan alternative.

Before I start with the recipe, you will ask me, if I am vegan, why would I make a “meat” dish. I generally don’t like fake meats. They seem to send the wrong message. Exception to this are vegan drum sticks and “svinčnik”. Why? Because they are convenient to eat.

The body

• Cup of vital wheat gluten flower
• 1/4 cup of wheat germ
• 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast
• Table spoon of onion powder
• Table spoon of garlic powder
• Table spoon of paprika
• Other spices for flavor
• 2 Table spoons of Soy sauce (use tamari instead of the cheap stuff)
• 2 Table spoons of Olive oil
• Water

Take most of the dry ingredients, except paprika, and mix them together. I usually don’t mix too much to keep some variety of flavor. Add oil and some water and knead until all the dry stuff is moist. It should not be wet or runny. It should have consistency of a stretchy playdough. You will know that it is done when it stops sticking to anything. At this point add paprika and soy sauce and knead but don’t over-knead, so there will be some variety of color. Finally, form into the patties. This last step will be hard, since the dough will be super stretchy.

The suit

• Fine wholewheat flower (or garbanzo beans flower, or white flower)
• Soy/Almond/Hemp/Coconut milk (or any other vegan milk)
• Finely ground flax seeds (use whole seeds in the coffee grinder and not the flax meal)
• Some salt
• Vegan breadcrumbs (make sure they are vegan… most breadcrumbs in the store may have whey, eggs, cheese, cyanide, or other strange things inside)

Take patties and dip them in flower. At this point you should be able to form them even better, since they will have more things to hold them in place. Prepare a low bowl with breadcrumbs. Mix soy milk, flax seeds, and flax. Let it rest enough that flax release their oils. Put in a low bowl for easy dipping. Take flowered patties, fully submerge them in the soy milk mixture, flip them over if necessary and dip them in the breadcrumbs. At this point they should have an even coating. If you like more coating, repeat dipping into the milk and breadcrumbs.

The lotion

• Enough grape seed oil to cover the “svinčnik” (you can use any other high heat oil)

The final step is to deep fry the patties. Heat oil and once hot, put it on medium. Drop the patties in the oil and fry until golden brown on both sides. Take them out and place on a paper towel or a strainer to get rid of some excess oil.

Traditionally “svinčniki” are served with french fries or some other potato dish. That said, you can serve them with pretty much anything. I especially like them next day cold.

Make sure to have some nice wine with them. Preferably a wine from Slovenia.

I would prefer people would go vegan, but this is a great first step. Go Meatless on Mondays:

If we all just commit to one day a week without eating meat, the effect will be great over the course of the year:

• Our greenhouse gas emission reductions equal US switching from a car with average fuel efficiency (that’s about 22 mpg for the entire fleet) to a high efficiency car such as the Toyota Prius (50 mpg).
• We will save about 1 ton of water, enough to fill up the bathtub 22 times per week
• If everyone in the US did this, we’d collectively save about 12 billion gallons of gasoline

(from TreeHugger)

While you are checking out the Meatless Monday website, make sure to check their recipes, such as Zesty Carribean Banana Muffins.

Just wanted to share this great little vegan dish with you. It is super easy to make and is one of the set it and forget it dishes. You pretty much just dump everything in the pot and cook for however much you want.

So, here it goes:

• 1 cup of red lentils
• 1 cup of brown basmati rice
• 1 table spoon of garlic chilly sauce (or less if you don’t want spicy)
• 1 table spoon of peanut butter (real one, not that sugar junk)
• 2 table spoons of Island Soyaki
• 5 cardamom seeds
• Some oregano
• Some salt or soy sauce for flavor
• 1 green onion
• Some garlic
• Table spoon of olive oil
• Enough water to cover everything (about three to four cups)

So, dump everything to the pot, mix well, cook until everything soft and eat. Make sure to not eat the cardamom pods. They are there just for flavor.

Couple of things you can add:

• Cinnamon sticks
• Other vegetables
• Tor dal, black eyed peas, or any other quick cooking legumes instead or in addition to the red lentils
• Almond butter

And you can eat this by itself or serve as a side dish to some nice grilled mushrooms, garlic and paprika flavored seitan, or a broiled tofu.

Many vegetables are actually better for preventing bone loss than cow’s milk. Preventing osteoporosis is about more than calcium intake. It is also about calcium absorption and the calcium in many vegetables is more absorbable than calcium from cow’s milk. A number of vegetables also have more calcium per calorie than dairy milk and vegetables have other nutrients for bone health that dairy milk does not.

Highlights from page 103 [of Brenda Davis's "Becoming Vegetarian"]:

Cow’s Milk
1 cup – 300 mg – 32% absorbed, 96 mg net

Turnip Greens, cooked
1 cup – 198 mg – 52% absorbed, 102 mg net

Bok Choy, cooked
1 cup – 158 mg – 53% absorbed, 84 mg net

Mustard Greens, cooked
1 cup – 128 mg – 58% absorbed, 74 mg net

Kake, cooked
1 cup – 122 mg – 49% absorbed, 60 mg net

Broccoli, cooked
1 cup – 70 mg – 61% absorbed, 42 mg net

Tofu, made with a calcium based coagulant
1 cup – 516 mg – 31% absorbed, 160 mg net

Taken from: change.org: On Lactose Intolerance and Absorbing Calcium.

Go Vegan!

Interested in some awesome Japanese vegan dishes?

Vegan Freak is a great book and a must read for any vegan wannabe, vegetarian, a family member of vegan, or somebody who cares about animals in any way. In addition to the book, there is also a great website with forums and other useful information. It also contains Vegan Freak Radio, which is a lighthearted weekly podcast on all things vegan.

In the last Vegan Freak Radio show (June 20th), hosts Bob and Jenna talked to Professor Gary L. Francione. Dr. Francione is a great spokesperson for abolition of animal exploitation.

This was a great interview and worth listening whether you are vegan or not.

Why is the vegetable being vilified?

• Spinach
• Scallions
• Peanuts
• Tomatoes

To quote Dan Brook: “As with e. coli, the media seem to blame vegetables (spinach, scallions, now tomatoes), but the culprit is the farming of animals for meat, especially factory farming.”

Also, from Latina Viva Health: “…, animal waste can get into fields in the form of run-off from contaminated water supply systems and infected animals that sneak in and relieve themselves.”

So, go Vegan!!

Why are we so much against torture of people but when it comes to animals we are ok with it?

Ok, 2007 is over and 2008 is here. First of all, Happy New Year!! to everybody. Yeah, it was a good one. Here is a recap:

• Lots of travel
• New Job
• Drive from NY to CA
• Move to CA
• Lots of biking
• Meet new people
• More biking
• Found several vegan restaurants
• I love this place
• Even more biking

So, time to make some New Year resolutions. Here they are:

• More biking
• More fun
• Meet more people
• Do more for the environment and peace (kind of cliché)

Beyond this, I will attempt to do a century a month thing this year, next to biking to work every day.

Just wanted to show you some cool vegan web sites:

• Vegan Freak
• Vegan Cycling
• Vegan Fitness

So, CM and I went to Slovenia to spend holidays with my parents. Overall, the trip went great. We saw some awesome places, such as Piran. That said, most of time we spend in some groups, such as family, that spend most of time talking to each other in Slovene. I am still fluent in Slovene, but CM only understands little Slovene, so most of time she was bored. Fortunately for her we only go to Slovenia every two years or so.

Here are couple of highlights from the trip. We landed in Munich, Germany. Why? Well, this way we save about $200 per person. Then we rent a car that we need anyway. So, we almost get the car for free. Maybe with Slovenia being a leading member of EU, the flights to Slovenia will become cheaper. The new airport sure looks impressive. After Germany, we drove to through the Alps towards Slovenia. For mid-december, the snow conditions were, well, weird. Almost no snow. If you were ever in the Alps in December, you know how weird that is. I guess people finally achieved their goal of leaving the mark.

In Slovenia, we visited Ljubljana, which was gorgeous. All decorated and super cold. But we did not care, we visited downtown several times, do some shopping, eat in the restaurants. We were tourists. Just tourists staying with my parents. One day we decided to visit Piran, which is a great little town on the coast. My favorite thing about this town is that it is essentially a labyrinth of narrow streets, some big enough for the car, one narrow enough that you have to be slim to go through. These streets are surrounded by houses that are built on top of each other.

My parents took us for a two day trip to the house in Croatia. On the way to Croatia we stopped in a little town in Slovenia called Lipica. This is where the white horses (Lipicaners) come from. It was interesting to see all these horses being really excited about us. They wanted us to play with them. After that, we continued our way to Croatia. Though Croatia has lot to offer, it is clearly far behind Slovenia in terms of their infrastructure. For example, the Istra’s costal roads are in pretty bad shape and things look in fairly bad shape. That said, they did have war much longer than Slovenia, so I would imagine they are still rebuilding. Also, the tourism in the area was greatly affected.

While in Slovenia, we also visited Skofja Loka and Radovlica, which are old town with some really interesting history. In Skofja Loka, we checked out this old castle and museum, and in Radovlica we watched old tradition of creating gift gingerbread artworks.

Finally, we visited several people I know in Slovenia. They ranged from may extended family, neighbors, to people I went to school with, and people that live in US, but I only meet at the conferences.

The way back was non-eventful except that the plane was broken, so we had to sleep in a bad hotel in Detroit.

For my birthday, I received a great book called Vegan Freak. It is essentially a list of resources for new and becoming vegan, compiled by a well educated couple. My diet already did not include almost no dairy, and meat and eggs started to get kind of disgusting. So, I decided I give this vegan life style a try.

Now, before you attack me with all the “how are you going to get your proteins”, and “I heard vegans are stupid”, and “it’s just a phase” statements, let me tell you this. First of all, I have not eat so many variety of foods in my life. Before it was more or less variations on the same dishes. Meat, rice, potatoes, pasta… Now, stuffed squash, falafel, humus, couscous, some type of chili, and on and on. It turns out that vegan cooking is actually simpler than non-vegan. For example, you do not have to cook anything before you can try foods. Well, some vegetables and mushrooms are problematic, but overall, I can try anything.

The proteins and calcium are two things people are afraid for some reason. Which is funny, because the animal proteins are actually bad for the calcium level. Just read this article and its references if you do not believe me. Turns out soy proteins and stuff in various fruits and nuts is actually much better. And vegetables have tons of calcium.

Anyway, without sounding like a preacher, the food is good, and it is good for you. The only thing that is missing is a nice vegan clothing line. With this we could then stop living our carnivorous life and become one with the nature. Except of the destruction that civilization causes.