When? July 8, 2008
The National Animal Rights Association was officially formed one year ago, on 1st July 2007. I should qualify first, that I am not affiliated with them in anyway, but I received their yearly review. They have achieved such a great amount of positive change over the last year, that I wanted to share. If you are interested in getting more active in protesting for animal rights, they are now a well established platform, and are always looking for more support. You can get more information on their upcoming demonstrations and other events on their website. 
A highlight of their activities over the last year:
“N.A.R.A.’s Year in Review from 1st July 2007 - 1st July 2008″
EVENTS ORGANISED:
- 83 Demonstrations
- 103 Leafleting Sessions
- 13 Information Tables
INFORMATION DISTRIBUTED:
- We have sent out over 60 information packs (e.g. Fur Packs, Circus Packs, Vivisection Packs, Vegan Starter Packs and Campaigner Starter Packs)
- And we have distributed a total of over 44,000 leaflets
FUR FREE SUCCESSES:
- Brown Thomas & BT2 stores nationwide
- Sharpsville (Temple Bar, Dublin 2)
- Flip (Temple Bar, Dublin 2)
- HelterSkelter (Temple Bar, Dublin 2)
- The Real McCoy (Temple Bar, Dublin 2)
- Flairline Fashions (Pamela Scott & Richard Alan stores nationwide) *awaiting confirmation in writing
FOIE GRAS-FREE SUCCESSES:
- One Pico Restaurant (5-6 Molesworth Place Schoolhouse Lane, Dublin 2)
- Bleu Bistro Restaurant (Joshua House, Dawson Street, Dublin 2)
- L’Ecrivain (109a Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2)
- South Bar and Restaurant (Beacon South Quarter, Blackthorn Road, Sandyford, Dublin 18)
OTHER SUCCESSES:
- Citi Bar & Lounge (Dame Street, Dublin 2) have now stopped using snakes as ‘’student night” entertainment
- Decor (Wexford Street, Dublin 2) have stopped selling horns, animal skulls and fur rugs
NEW CAMPAIGNS STARTED:
- Vegan
- Foie Gras
- Horse Racing
OTHER CAMPAIGNING NEWS:
- Our official website was launched in November, and has already gotten over 3200 hits.
- We now have both Myspace and Bebo pages
- We’re getting regular media and press coverage of our events, and interviews on our campaigns
- Almost every day now, we are contacted by new people wanting to join our group
- As part of our new Go Vegan! campaign, we are now sending out Vegan Starter Packs on a weekly basis
- We are now supplying activists all over the country with campaign materials, and helping them to set up groups in their area.
- Recently a branch of N.A.R.A. has been set up in Co. Limerick
Personally, I’m not a rights protester. I can’t, however, argue with the positive results that have come out of NARA’s campaigns over the last year, but it would be interesting to see how the people’s rather than companies perceptions have changed. There are a couple of issues at stake here. Protesting, and petitioning has indeed removed fur from shops, stopped foie gras being sold in Dublin restaurants,rescued snakes from being used in nightclub acts and has resulted in other positive outcomes. I would hope that this change in action will be reflected in a change in perception by the people that shop in these places. I can’t be sure. Say a women likes to buy fur, not just likes, but sees it as some sort of symbol of success, or power, or something else she feels qualifies her. Will she stop, buy something else, or will she go to a different shop? Personally, I am more interested in talking to people about my beliefs, having a conversation and presenting my argument. Changing perception and social belief, rather than changing actions of commercial businesses. Protesting does not seem to lend itself to getting the argument and reasoning across. Still, that’s my trouble with protesting, not with this organization. I applaud their successes, and hope that some of the rest of you who sympathize with them may find an outlet through helping them protect animal rights.
[All photos from the NARA official website]
Category: ommnomnom, organisation, protest | 1 Comment
When? July 6, 2008
As a vegetarian, pizza was one of our favorite take-outs, in fact I’d say that pizza was easily Nick’s favorite food before we started trying to be vegan. We’d go a week vegan, have a pizza, then start over again, another couple of weeks, another pizza, until we finally went out to Pizza Hut to have our “final pizza”. Since then, we’ve been making our own at home, experimenting with making cheese sauces out of Nutritional Yeast and Soy Cheese. Nothing bet that damn tasty Dominos base. A little bit of googling revealed the dough ingredients:
- - Wheatflour, water, salt, sugar, vegetable oil, yeast, ascorbic acid, cornmeal
I had been toying with the idea of ringing and asking for a pizza without the cheese, wondering is it even possible, would they laugh, will I need to give a huge explanation, maybe even lie and say that I was lactose intolerant? Mostly, I was put off ringing out of the fear of getting laughed at. About a month ago I bit the bullet one night when the presses were sparce and I was too hungry to be creative. The phone call was a complete success, no laughter, on questions, no problem! And the pizza, well.. great! Something felt missing, as was natural, but they seemed to compensate for the lack of cheese with double of all the veggies that we ordered!Yum. And the sweet bar-b que sauce meant it was super flavorsome. And yes, the bar-b que sauce is also vegan. Barbecue Sauce Ingredients:
- - High fructose corn syrup, tomato paste, distilled vinegar, molasses, brown sugar, salt, modified food starch, spices, mustard bran, natural flavour, onion and garlic powder, colour, lemon juice, preservative (E211)–M
Category: ommnomnom | 4 Comments
When? July 5, 2008
NursingDegree.net have recently posted an article on their site entitled 57 Health Benefits of Going Vegan. As Billy at Vegan Talk says, it’s exciting to see veganisim being discussed on a nursing website. Recently Oprah’s 21 days of ’spiritually conscious’ cleanse threw the vegan lifestyle into the spotlight. As probably one of the most influential women in the media, she has hopefully shown how rewarding, and accessable Veganism is. With this new support of the Nursing Degree Network from a more medical perspective, hopefuly some more people will be able to weigh up the positives.
Some of the highlights discussed are the nutrition benefits from eating a diet of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, nuts, beans, and soy products. In particular they dispel the myths that vegans lack protein. As it is, most Americans (and I’d say the rest of the Western world) in fact have too much protein in their diet. Beans, nuts, peas, lentils, and soy products are all great ways to get the right amount of protein in a vegan diet.
They go on to discuss how you could potentially avoid a number of diseases by switching to a healthy, balanced vegan way of eating. In addition to good nutrition and disease prevention, eating vegan also provides many physical benefits such as longer life, better skin and hair, reduced allergies and weight loss. Now I can’t vouch for the last one, since becoming vegan I’ve stayed around the same weight, but regularly bake vegan treats and love to cook too much for my tummy’s good! However I have had far less trouble with my asthma, dust allergies, and sinus troubles. I used to be constantly stuffed up and blowing my nose, now it’s only in the mornings that I have sinus trouble. Even around hay and horses, my eyes aren’t as itchy as they were before, and I recover a lot more quickly.
In addition to the health benefits a vegan lifestyle and diet also is hailed as helping the environment to avoiding serious bacterial infections. Finally they end with a list of resources to show how a vegan diet isn’t all about being healthy, but can also be tasty and fun. I defiantly recommend taking a read of the list.
[via Vegan Talk]
Category: health, ommnomnom | 2 Comments
When? July 5, 2008
Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net
Category: ommnomnom | Leave a Comment
When? July 4, 2008
So why did you become vegan? Or even vegetarian? I’d like that my path from vegetarian and inevitably vegan stemmed from a deep moral belief in saving animal lives, or other earthlings as they’ve been called. Even that I could have seen the wider benefit that such a diet would lend a more positive climate and social cognition. I had friends who were vegetarian back when I was an omnivore, and yet, I never stopped to think. I never really considered where this lifestyle choice came from. Originally I gave up meats, out of a dislike for anything but processed meat. It seemed pointless, so I decided to stop. Still, I would have been classified as a pescitarian, but an inquisitive pescitarian. Wanting to learn everything about vegetarianism, I began to research, and quickly learned that fish could indeed feel. That they could feel themselves drowning, how in the past did I convince myself otherwise? It seems so obvious now.
The path to veganism started with leather, and a nagging (also recently vegetarian) boyfriend. How, in good conscience did we continue to buy a product that results directly in the death of an animal. After watching those videos, Meat your Meat, Earthlings, we ate up all the information we could get, a further side to the picture emerged. Factory farming, egg laying chickens that were sold for stock, male chicks culled at birth, veal, milk cows sold for cheap meats, and all that waste that comes from animal farming. It was time to start thinking about and make a personal change. We both decided to go vegan, and I’m glad I’ve had his support, it’s made the experience more of an adventure that a test. I do have a silly belief that things in Ireland aren’t so bad as those shocking videos. That the farming must be on a smaller scale, and of course there are those organic free-range options. If the entire system is to change, we have to make a statement in how we live. Slowly, my boyfriend and I are seeing that for us, that is not enough, that the exploitation of another species is unnecessary. We have been living healthy and happy lives, and I have found something more in myself because of it.
I have found with time, that it gets so much easier. Once you know where you can buy alternatives, and go out for a meal with friends, you wonder what took you so long to make the change. Nick and I still get a buzz out of finding a new vegan option. We’re currently looking into some of the internet information supporting and against the fact that Tesco donuts may be vegan. How great that would be, how little it would have mattered back when we were omni. That brings me to an interesting comment that I received on my Spud Snacks blog where I talked about Tescos vegan margarine Pure.
I have to say, it gave me a jolt to see that they had began catering for vegans (or at least lactose intolerant people, but it was win win). I read the ingredients, everything checked out, and we’ve been using it ever since. What I did not know was that the cultivation of one of the ingredients, Palm Oil is has been hailed as one of the largest threats to the endangered species, the orangutan. Not only that, the Rain-forest Action Network have got people to go out into their local supermarkets to spot products with Palm Oil. Over 500 so have been registered with www.theproblemwithpalmoil.org
Here’s a wee video describing in better words that I can the trouble with Palm Oil
.
Some of the highlights include the deforestation leading to the loss of habitat for plants, animals and indigenous communities; global warming; basic human rights have been neglected, with locals losing their land or working for those large corporations that run the plantations. Workers are apparently often forced into “debt peonage,” which has been considered by the Rainforest Action Network as modern-day slavery. More information can be found on their site.According to the Pure company:
As a company, we are very aware of environmental concerns such as those you highlighted. Palm oil is an important food ingredient, however, there is much concern that not all palm oil is being produced in a sustainable way. We are keen to understand and to keep abreast of the situation and are affiliate members of the ‘Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil’ (RSPO) through the Margarines and Spreads Association (MSA). In 2004, the RSPO was established to address these issues and promote sustainable production and the use of palm oil. Members of the RSPO, who are involved in all aspects of palm oil production and usage, are actively promoting the use of sustainable palm oil and endorsing the principles and criteria of the RSPO.
Our oil suppliers estimate that we should be able to buy palm oil that is traceable to a sustainable source to RPSO criteria within two years. So at this stage we are unable to make any guarantees about the source of our palm oil.
At least they are honest. They are indeed tackeling one of the main trouble with the crop, but to what extent will that solve the bigger picture. I honestly can’t answer. As yet, there are still two years to go before they can even vouch for where their Palm Oil came from. So what do we do? Or, rather what do I do? My first thought when I read the comment alerting me to this issue was. Oh no, I need my buttery spread. Pretty soon after, this seemed quite funny. Like an omni stating they couldn’t give up their steak, or a vegetarians addiction to cheese. I’ve managed to do both, so far. Why can’t I give up Pure? Unfortunately, that does leave me with another problem. The email from Pure also stated:
We do not have an alternative to palm oil currently. When making a spread, a hard oil must be combined with a soft oil to produce a solid product. The hard oil can either be a soft oil which is then hydrogenated to make it hard (also known as a hydrogenated oil) or a naturally hard oil. The only hard oils available are palm and coconut. We choose not to use hydrogenated oils in any of the Pure range, as these are undesirable in the diet. Instead, we use palm oil in the smallest possible quantities in order to produce a solid spread. Most, if not all, other spreads contain palm oil and this is labelled as ‘vegetable oils’.
Vegetable oil may actually mean palm oil, and in fact often does. I will have to start emailing the sources of products we use that contain vegtable oil. I am aprehensive of finding out the results. So what if the baking margarine I use that contains palm oil? Can I go without, should I? I don’t know yet. After Palm Oil, what about the other large corporations are responsible for environmental and social destruction, or the other ingrediants that are indirectly not vegan? I am tackeling a small part direct injustices as I can. My thoughts at the moment are that it is those indirect ones that will be more difficult to tackle, espically when the reward is not as present or immediate. I am glad however, that I have been made more aware of something that would have slipped right past.
Category: consumerism, ommnomnom | 2 Comments
When? June 25, 2008
I love puff pastry, anything light and fluffy that you can fill with gushy food and tasty sauce is awesome. This is the second time that Nick and I made these, and unfortunately we bought the teeny wee puff pastries instead of the large ones. Still, they tasted great, and I’ll defiantly make them for the next dinner party. They’re super omni-friendly and easy to make buckets of.
Ingredients:
Packet of frozen vol au vents
6 large mushrooms sliced
1 regular sized onion chopped up quite fine
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Handful of parsley chopped up fine
1 glass white wine
1/2 cup water
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast flakes (If you have them, tastes good without)
1 teaspoon garlic salt
Directions:
Glaze your vol au vents and cook according to package directions. It usually takes about 15 minutes which should give you time to make the filling. In a frying pan heat up some olive oil and add the onions. Once translucent, add the mushrooms and leave to sweat out the moisture tossing occasionally. Meanwhile, whisk the flour, water, nutritional yeast flakes and garlic salt in a pot. Turn on the heat and keep stirring until it starts to thicken. Add in the wine, stir until your mushrooms are starting to golden. Mix in the mushrooms and onions . Finally add the parsley, and ladle generously into your vol au vents. Best served with some big home made chips and a crispy salad, but that’s up to you 
When? June 24, 2008
Banana is a wonderful egg replacement. Every time I bake relying on oil and rising agents it scares me a little, especially as I still do a lot of guess work when it comes to the length of time that something takes to cook. This means there is an inevitable point where I have to open the over door and take a peak, or poke a knife in. All the while losing precious heat and rise. This is probably the first muffin recipe where I have just pulled together the bits and bobs in the kitchen to create something. Something easy as well, as I only used one bowl for mixing (usually I make a terrible mess ^_^)!
Ingredients:
- 2 large ripe bananas
The best bananas to use are those that have gone completely black on the outside but are still nice and yellow inside with no visible bruising. - 1 cup loosely chopped dried apricots
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup rapeseed oil
- 1/4 cup soy milk
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
Directions:
Make sure to heat up your oven to gas mark 4 and put some muffin cases in tins first. Mash up the bananas in a large bowl. Once mashed, move to the sides so there is a hold in the center. Toss in some apple cider vinegar and the soy milk. Add the rest of the wet ingredients and mix well. Then sift in the dry, and add the apricots. Mix until “just done”. Fill the cases just over half way an put in the oven for about 25 minutes. Make sure that you poke the muffins with a knife at the 25 min mark to see if it comes out clean. If not, give them a few minutes longer.
When? June 9, 2008
This was the first time I’ve made a tart, I used to just buy them and stick them in the microwave, but most tarts, even if they don’t contain milk are glazed with it, or eggs. It was about time I started making my own. This is Nick’s absolute favorite dessert, thanks to his granny who used to bake them for him. It’s funny, I always see grannies as the type to bake tarts but mine never did. I wonder where I got that stereotype from? There are loads of vegan rhubarb tart recipes out there, but this is just what worked for me. One that I want to try in the future contains not just rhubarb but strawberry (yum yum) over at the Rural Vegan blog
For the rhubarb and sugar filling, I added some flour as I made a peach crumble from La Dolce Vegan a while ago, and the flour/sugar seemed to form a wonderful syrup. The rhubarb came from my fathers garden, so now I have tonnes of the stuff. It’s immense, particularly the leaf which he stripped off for me, it’s was pretty much as big as me!
Anyone have any suggestion of how else to eat it other than tart, and stewed rhubarb with custard (I have yet to try the vegan custard I found in Tescos)?
Directions:
Filling:
4 large stalks of Rhubarb
3/4 cup regular sugar
1/4 cup flour
3 tablespoons lemon juice
Chop up the rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces and mix with the rest of the filling. Leave it to sweat.
Pastry:
2 cups plain flour
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup margarine
1/5 cup water
Mix the flour and margarine with your hands until crumbly. Gradually add water (you may not need it all) until the dough sticks together when you squish it together. Roll out roughly and put in cling film. Leave in the fridge for about a half hour before rolling out two circular pieces. Place one in your pie dish, add the filling, then place the other on top. Crimp the edges and poke a few holes into the top. You can then glaze the top with a little bit of soy milk. I cooked my tart for about 75 minutes at gas mark 4 (Thats 350 degrees folks) but cooking times vary from oven to oven. Leave to sit for a few minutes before cutting a big slice to have with a large mug of tea. The tart was lovely, it left the house smelling great for a few hours and our tummy’s nicely satiated with a good combination of bitter and sweet.
When? May 14, 2008
I haven’t updated in about week, but I have made so many dinners in that amount of time that I just wish I had time to take photos of them all! For one, using the tofu ricotta recipe in Veganomicon I made a roasted toasted lasagna that went down a treat with all the omnivores at a bar-b-que last weekend. If only they knew there was tofu in it! It’s so funny that sense of fear I have seen in a number of omnivores when it comes to eating tofu. That particular bar-b-que/party went on until the next morning and I offered to throw together some scrambled tofu to go with the breakfast for the masses. I altered between telling them it was tofu scramble and just getting them to taste (what they believed mostly consisted eggs) and they all loved the stuff! There were a good number, who on hearing it was tofu point blank refused to eat it. It’s a strange mentality. Mmm, I also made a sun-dried tapenade, also from Veganomicon that was eaten well before the bar-b-que even got started, so I’ll make sure to repeat that recipe again and post up the results.
Today’s recipe was last nights dinner - Paella. We had made this once before, so this recipe is pretty much ad lib. There are several places where you can find vegetarian paella recipes on the net,and they all tend to be vegan. I think of it as similar to cooking risotto, except you just add all the stock at once. This is probably going to feature largely in my kitchen this summer as it’s a light and amazingly full of flavor dish. That and it’s super easy to do, especially because you should have most of the ingredients on hand. Nick and I threw together a large pot of Sangria to go with our Paella that kept us going all night. It’s amazing how good a cheep bottle of wine can taste when mixed right. Sooo good. omm.
On to the Ingredients: 
- 250g / Half a bag of Paella Rice (You can use other types of rice if you can’t find paella rice)
- 1 cup vegetable stock
- 1/4 cup Olive Oil
- 1 large onion diced
- 4/5 cloves garlic loosely chopped
- 1 red and 1 yellow Bell Pepper sliced
- 1 courgette chopped
- 6 large Mushrooms sliced
- 1 cup frozen peas
- 1 tin Chopped Tomatoes
- A pinch of Saffron (You may substitute Turmeric if you don’t have any saffron)
- Salt and Pepper to Taste
- 1 lemon
- Optional. You can get a tin of artichokes to garnish, but I wouldn’t eat enough of them to make it work buying the tin so didn’t bother.
Directions:
In a large pot heat up the olive oil and then add the onions and garlic. You can of course do all this in a large frying pan and serve the pan to the table. Just make sure you don’t loose many ingredients when you stir! Cook these until the onions are translucent. Add the rest of the vegetables, and cook for about 5 minutes then add the peas. Cook for a further 5 minutes.
Add the tin of tomatoes, rice and safron and mix well. Then add the stock. Cook for about 15/20 minutes stirring often and adding small amounts of water if necessary. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Serve with lemon slices and a large glass of Sangria
When? May 1, 2008
Some of you have probably already seen my first attempt at these cupcakes. I made these as a birthday present for one of my friends who has is obsessed with Jager Bombs. He even introduced me to the concept about a year ago, and ever since, we always have one if we’re out in a night club (Which is not that often anymore, I guess I’m getting old. That, or because I’m broke most of the time ^_^).
The first time around: I though that the cupcake bun was too sweet, because I used the regular amount of sugar even though I swopped milk for Red Bull (packed with sugar). I also thought that the goo was rather dull, I used a green agar agar and found that it didn’t look too apatising against the dark cupcake. Finally, the creamy goo seperated when I added some red bull, giving it a shiny quality. With those aspects in mind, here are my
Ingredients:
Cupcake: 
1 can Red Bull
1/4 cup of milk
1 1/4 cup plain Flour
1/3 cup sugar
Red and Black Food color
Jager Cream:
1/4 cup Jagermeisger
4 tablespoons Agar Agar
2/3 cup Soya Milk
1 tablespoon Cornflour
Green Fool Coloring
Butter Cream Frosting:
1/2 cup Margarine
1 1/2 cups Icing Sugar
Yellow Food Coloring
Directions:
Turn on the oven to Gas mark 3, and line bun tin with cases.
Pour the Red Bull into a cup and then top off with the soya milk. Whisk briskly in a large bowl. Add the sugar, then sift in the flour. Whisk until creamy. Split up the mixture into two separate bowls and add either red or black to each. Pour a bit of the red and black mixes into each case until it is half full. Put into the oven for 25 minutes or until a knife comes out clean
While the cupcakes are in the oven, you can make the Jager Cream. Put the milk into a pan and let the agar flakes soak for about 5 minutes. Turn on the heat at a low temperature and stir the mixture at intervals until the agar is nearly dissolved. Mix the cornflour with a small amount of soya milk until it forms a paste. Add this to the agar, and mix in well. Add the Jagermeister. At this stage you may wish to taste the Jager Cream to see if you want to add more Jagermeister. Mix well with the green food coloring and leave aside to cool. I found that there were usually a few bits of undissolved cornflour when I made this, so I sifted it into a second bowl to cool.
Once the cupcakes are done, take them out of the oven and leave them to cool. They must be completely cool before you top them with the butter cream.
To make the butter cream, mix the icing sugar and margarine until it forms a stiff consistency. You may add more sugar or margarine to suit your own taste. Mix well with the food coloring.
When the cupcakes are cool, poke a small hole in the top of each and use a teaspoon to fill with Jager Cream. Then pipe the icing on top. Try not to start your icing right over the Cream, because it will not stick correctly to the cupcake.
Category: baking, ommnomnom, recipe, snacks | 11 Comments
