Tofu Temptress

Cecina

March 10, 2017 by Tofu Temptress 4 Comments

I’ll be honest and say that the yummy Italian dish cecina isn’t particularly visually arresting. In fact it looks quite boring. However, the taste is phenomenal. It’s amazing that such a simple, ordinary-looking dish with so few ingredients can be so wonderfully tasty.

It is normally served as a starter or side dish in Tuscany, but the quantities I’ve given provide two people with a hearty meal by itself. Obviously, feel free to cut the recipe in half or even into quarters to suit whatever portion size you’d like.

Ingredients

Sieving gram flour makes it easier to work with

280g chickpea (gram) flour

1 litre water

60 ml olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

Ground pepper

Here’s how I do it:

Firstly, sieve the flour into a large bowl. Gradually stir in the water, making it into a paste then a thinner batter. This way you can keep it relatively lump-free as opposed to adding the water all at once.

It'll be a thin batter once all the water's incorporated — It’ll be a thin batter once all the water’s incorporated

Once all the water is incorporated stir in the olive oil.

Finally, stir in the salt. Rest the batter for about thirty minutes.

Preheat your oven to 375/190 degrees/gas mark 5. Prepare two medium or three smaller baking trays by spraying them with a little oil. (I use one tray 40cm X 25cm and two trays 20cm X 30cm.) Pour in the batter so that it covers the bottom of the trays, but not so full that it’ll spill when you carry them over to the oven!

Pop them in the oven and bake until golden brown, which is usually about 20-25 minutes.

Let the cecina come away from the sides a little

Take the trays out and leave them to cool for a couple of minutes so the cecina can come away from the sides a bit.

Ease the cecina out with a spatula onto a plate and grind some pepper over it to taste.

You can fancy it up a little... — You can fancy it up a little…

As I said before, normally it looks pretty boring, but I don’t mind as the taste is so good. However, if you’d like to pretty it up a bit, cut it into shapes with your most attractive cookie cutters – great for a dinner party.

Enjoy!

Tofuture Tofu Press

February 23, 2017 by Tofu Temptress Leave a Comment

I never thought I’d invest in a tofu press to be honest with you. It just seemed a bit posh and seriously, what could it achieve that a pile of books and a couple of tea towels couldn’t? Well, quite a lot, as it turns out.

The logo gets pressed into the tofu

I picked up my Tofuture tofu press at a recent vegan festival as I’m always in a buying mood at these events. There’s just something about everything surrounding you being suitable for vegans (SFV) that makes me open my wallet and, well, keep it open all day. The nice lady at the stall said that she’d recommend pressing the tofu for about four hours in the fridge for the best results. After I took it home, one morning I got up, put the tofu in for the morning and was impressed how much liquid had come out. It was kind of funny seeing the logo pressed into the top, but I can’t deny the effectiveness.

The bands on the side seem really strong

Also, when you’re pressing tofu the old fashioned way, you have to make room on the counter for it and then after you’ve wrapped it in tea towels you precariously balance heavy books and cans of beans on top of it. It’s also advisable to turn it over halfway through and maybe change the towels. I always managed to get my tofu block all lopsided using this method, which made it more difficult to slice afterwards.

So, with this handy little gadget, you basically just pop the tofu block in the tray, pull down the lid with the super-strong elastic bands and stick it in the fridge and forget about it. It really couldn’t be easier.

Once I’d pressed the tofu, I cleaned out the main bottom part of the try that catches the water. I thought it would make a great wee marinating dish. See, most of the time when I’ve marinated tofu before, it can be a bit tricky to find a container that is the right shape. I was glad to discover that popping the cubed tofu into the tray worked really well. And because the press had been so efficient at squeezing out the water, I reckon the tofu absorbed even more flavour from the marinade than usual.

Baked, marinated tofu can make a great ‘meat replacement’ on a plate full of veggies. It’s also good to pop in wraps with some salad or have at a buffet table. Tofu is mega versatile (see my article here) and the Tofuture tofu press makes preparing and marinating your own just that bit easier.

Spaghetti Bolognese

February 13, 2017 by Tofu Temptress 2 Comments

So, one of the easiest and most filling recipes I do is also one of the most flexible. I’ve written a basic recipe here, but you can experiment with different vegetables, or put in cooked lentils instead of soy mince, whatever you like. I hope it goes without saying that the level of seasoning and garlic are merely to my taste, so adjust those as you see fit too. This recipe feeds two hungry people, or more if you throw in a bit of bruschetta to start or something.

I find red onions more flavourful than white ones.

Ingredients

One small red onion

Soy mince is easy to get hold of in supermarkets.

3 cloves of garlic

One can of chopped tomatoes

1 cup soy mince

1 cup frozen mixed veg

Half a can of kidney beans

2 teaspoons oregano

2 teaspoons basil

Half a tablespoon of hot sauce

Tablespoon of ketchup

200g Spaghetti

Here’s how I do it:

Put a pan of water on to boil for the spaghetti and while that’s heating up, prepare your ingredients.

Chop your onion into half moons and mince the garlic. Pop them into a frying pan with a few splashes of water and heat them gently.

Once your water’s boiling, put in the spaghetti and cook for ten minutes or whatever the package instructions say.

Empty the can of tomatoes into the frying pan and add the mince and frozen veg. Give it a good stir.

Cooking the veg and mince only takes a few minutes.

While that’s bubbling away, drain and wash your kidney beans using a sieve or colander and add them to the pan after a few minutes.

Add your oregano, basil, hot sauce and ketchup and stir again, making sure everything’s mixed well.

Pop the cooked spaghetti into warmed bowls.

Simmer away until your spaghetti is cooked. Drain the spaghetti and make sure it’s dried off before adding to warmed bowls.

Your bolognaise should be cooked by now, so spoon it over the top of the spaghetti.

Serve with cracked pepper and maybe a grating of vegan cheese. Enjoy!

Meat Logic – Why do we eat animals? By Charles Horn

February 6, 2017 by Tofu Temptress 3 Comments

If you are a vegan, I’m sure you’ve had questions from non-vegans about your choices. Some may be borne out of genuine interest or curiosity. Some questions are simply designed to wind you up. Whatever it is, most vegans know that the more you look into animal welfare and rights, the state of the environment and even health trends over the years, it’s impossible to argue against veganism. However, it doesn’t always feel like that when confident omnis are hitting you with what they think are persuasive arguments right and left. It can be easy to get flustered and often you feel under pressure to know everything there is to know about veganism.

Is it moral to cage animals, just because we can?

Well, Meat Logic addresses the questions and assertions you may get from a philosophical point of view. It’s pretty comprehensive and covers everything from the common ‘We’re at the top of the food chain’ to the reasonable ‘People in the industry would lose their jobs’ to the just plain annoying ‘Mmmmm, Bacon’. Even if you feel like you have answers to these points, the chances are there may be some issues in here that you’d not thought of before. This book would certainly be of help to the new vegan and even for a relatively old hand like me, it was helpful. We’re always learning and it’s important to remain open to new information.

The book takes an incredibly logical approach. First, there’s a brief introduction to the relationship between philosophy and animals. This is really useful, as it lays the groundwork for most arguments. It poses many interesting scenarios, such as if beings came to this planet who were smarter than us and had the power to lock us up in sheds, would that give them the right to eat us? Animals are worthy of moral consideration because they think and feel and everything stems from that.

The book then goes point by point through each ‘objection’. It devotes many paragraphs to each one, from the easy to disprove ‘Animals are just things’ to ‘We wouldn’t have evolved big brains if our ancestors hadn’t eaten meat’ which may require a little more thought. Throughout the book the tone is calm, rational and measured. There are notes on each topic at the back of the book, giving more detail and sometimes suggestions for further reading, as well as a bibliography.

This is an extremely useful read if you sometimes find yourself at a loss during discussions. It will give you plenty of facts, but the basic principle that runs throughout the book i.e. that animals matter, should see you right in most situations. Meat Logic to me is pretty simple. Just because we can, doesn’t mean that we should.

The China Study by T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell

February 3, 2017 by Tofu Temptress Leave a Comment

People become vegan for all sorts of reasons, the main three being: for the animals (me); for the environment, and for personal health. This last one is often mocked by the omnis as they see vegetarians, never mind vegans, as being weak and ill. For some reason if a vegan falls ill it’s because of their diet. However if someone who eats seventeen bacon butties a week has a heart condition – that’s genetic.

This book studies the science of nutrition and how it relates to health. It’s not a strictly vegan book in that it does document some experiments that were carried out on mice, but it certainly advocates a plant-based diet. Now, as we know, veganism is about much more than diet. It’s a way of living that seeks to exclude, as far as is possible and practicable, animal products and animal exploitation from our lives. It’s not flippant to say though that diet is central to this lifestyle. And while you can rightly argue that a vegan diet based on whole foods is the healthiest one out there, it can be an uphill battle as mainstream media, the government and the food industry all seem to be doing their best to convince us otherwise.

The China Study is not only the most comprehensive study of nutrition ever conducted (as it says on the cover) but it’s also a look at why the information that’s been discovered isn’t more widely known. The author, T. Colin Campbell, was brought up on a dairy farm and grew up to be one of the most respected medical professionals in the world. I find this important, because all too often we are told by farmers that we simply ‘don’t understand’ farming and are their enemies. And yet here is a farm boy who ate meat, milk and eggs and when he learned of how damaging they can be, changed his diet.

The research that has gone into this book and T. Colin Campbell’s career in general is incredibly extensive. When he found that some of the top killers in the western world (including diabetes, cancer and heart disease/stroke) could not only be prevented and treated but reversed by this diet, he was askance at how governments acted. Sitting on some of the top health panels in the country, he was agressively bullied and stopped from giving out the correct nutrition information. The power that agribusiness and the food industry have over the government is, quite frankly, frightening.

There are so many conflicting messages out there surrounding diet and health that it’s very easy to get confused. In The China Study we are given comprehensive information about the thousands of studies that show a whole foods, plant based diet is by far the best one for optimum health. The China Study itself tracked the diet and health of those living in rural China who consumed mainly vegetables and had very little in the way of meat and processed food. Even allowing for many other mitigating factors including racial difference, exercise levels and environment, they showed little to no signs of the diseases that kill most of us here in the west.

There’s lots of information in this book and it’s a bit of a tome, but I found it absorbing and endlessly interesting. If anyone asks you for scientific evidence that vegan is best, give them this! (A revised and expanded addition is now available.)

Highly Recommended

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