Archive for the ‘Veganism’ Category
Monday, July 18th, 2011
April 2011: This new title from Scoffer Publications is now available!
Veggies Scoffer includes:
Anecdotes from 26th years catering at the frontline
Perhaps you were at J18 or M40 RTS street parties, the G8 in Stirling, Glastonbury or on Hatfield Peat Moor? You may even have stood with us in the snow at Molesworth US Airforce Base in the winter of ’85!
What was your favourite Veggies Event?
Recipies from Veggies events.
Have you been fed by Veggies at camps or gatherings, festivals or fairs, weddings or birthdays, or any other events?
Veggies Scoffer includes recipes from…
- Climate Camps
- Peace News Camp
- AR Gatherings
- Radical Routes Gatherings
- Veggieskool Catering
- Peoples Kitchen
Be your own Veggies
- How to set up a Veggies group
- Trailers / street stalls / indoor fairs / event catering
- Cooking with Veggies Mixes
Guest recipies from other campaign caterers, including Anarchist Teapot, Green Garden Cafe, Something Fishy, Fairfoods, Vegan Campaigns, Shambu’s, Screaming Carrot
Veggies Tour Dates – featuring events on our annual itinerary
Veggies Scoffer is now available from our Scoffer Publications section.
Friday, July 15th, 2011
Veggie Summer Barbecue
Adapted from the Vegetarian Society Networking Newsletter (mainly by adding the ‘s’ to Veggies!)
This article recently featured in the Young Veggie pages of The Vegetarian.
We thought it was worth reprinting in time for summer in Youth Matters, too.
Lots of parties and get-togethers during the summer months centre around the garden and the barbecue. Even though barbecues are traditionally associated with cooking meat, vegetarians can enjoy a good barbecue as much as anyone else. Give these two menus a try for super-tasty summer barbecues.
Simple summer barbecue:
Veggies burgers, or make your own with Veggies Burger Mixes
Bread rolls
Simple salad garnish (sliced tomatoes, greens such as lettuce or spinach, grated carrot, sliced onions)
Condiments (tomato sauce, salad cream, brown sauce, mayonnaise, chilli sauce)
Crisps
Corn chips with salsa
Hummus with raw vegetables (peppers, carrots, mushrooms, cauliflower, celery)
Fresh summer fruit (strawberries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries)
Deluxe Veggies barbecue:
For the grill-
Marinated firm tofu skewers with Mediterranean vegetables
Peppers stuffed with tomato and vegan feta cheese
Spiced sweet potato slices
Veggies burgers, or make your own with Veggies Burger Mixes
On the side-
Hummus with vegetables
Lemony bean salad
Potato salad with chopped mint and lemon
Platter of sundried tomatoes, olives, vegan cheeses and savoury biscuits
Breads (pitta, rolls, etc)
Condiments
Toasted vegan marshmallows (from Veggies) and s’mores
Tip: Make sure that any food items that usually need refrigeration, like Plamil mayonnaise or hummus, are kept cool by either being served on a bowl of ice or kept indoors.
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
Like the Sumac Centre, Veggies’ Nottingham home, Pogo Café in Hackney, London is an autonomous, non-hierarchical 100% vegan space run completely by volunteers.
Pogo aims to encourage veganism and animal liberation by providing delicious, affordable food and useful information to the local community and beyond. They host regular film nights, plus one-off gourmet dinners, raw food parties, poetry nights etc…
Like Veggies and Sumac, they are always looking for new volunteers.
If you would like to get involved in this exciting, unique café please get in touch.
You may not have visited Pogo yet, but they are in the middle of a crisis. There is a shortage of people to take responsibility for the day-to-day running of the cafe, coupled with a gaping hole in the finances, threatening to force Pogo to close once and for all.
Now, more than ever, Pogo needs you!
- Please tell your friends in London
- Send this message out on your email lists or social networks
- Donate a pound or two via their website
If you can’t get to Hackney, you could donate the price of a coffee!
- Retweet the following message from twitter.com/veggiesnottm:
“Pogo Café is an autonomous 100% vegan space run completely by volunteers in Hackney. They need your help & support. http://vegs.us/savepogo“.
Help save Pogo – get involved!
Pogo Cafe is on Veggies Directory:
http://www.veggies.org.uk/directory/detail-129-.htm
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
According to the radio and TV news today (1 June 2011) Oxfam has warned that the cost of basic foods such as maize will double in 20 years. Barbara Stocking, Oxfam’s Chief Executive, says that “We are sleepwalking ourselves into ecological disaster.”
The following comment is by HIPPO (Help International Plant Protein Organisation), a British vegetarian charity supporting poor communities throughout Africa.
“The only thing we disagree with is her time-scale. We know that in Kenya the price of maize has increased by more than 50% since we left at the end of March – two months, never mind two decades. At that time we were paying 2200 Kenyan shillings (about £17) per 90-kilo bag. Now it is 3500 shillings (about £27) and increasing. Beans cost twice as much. Admittedly some of the present increases are due to speculation on the food market but will they come down again? And they come on the top of what had already been a 50% increase in the previous year. Four years ago we could buy maize for less than 1000/- a bag. Imagine how this affects the poor, who already have to spend all the money they have on food. Now they simply haven’t got the money to be able to eat. The rising cost also makes it increasingly difficult for charities like HIPPO to continue to help them.
“Oxfam cites a number of reasons for the impending disaster. The one that they consistently fail to address is the most serious one of all, which is simply that more and more meat is being eaten in the world by more and more people and farm livestock consume about 10 times more food than they produce.
“In fact farm animals should not be considered as food-producers at all since they are overwhelmingly net food consumers.
“The world’s people are eating more animal-based foods every year whilst the world’s population is growing rapidly. Meanwhile the remaining wild areas of the world are rapidly being destroyed to feed farm animals, e.g. the vast clearance of the Amazon rainforest to grow soya for feeding to the cattle, pigs and poultry of Europe, leading to changes in the world climate, especially in the patterns of rainfall. Trees are the ‘pumps’ that recycle water back into the atmosphere.
“HIPPO has been saying this since its foundation in 1999 and some others have been saying it for even longer. But even taken all together we are but a David to the Goliath of the worldwide meat and dairy industry. That is why we are sending you this email, asking you to take its message to heart and to pass it on, please.
“The world as a whole needs to consume less meat. As individuals our best contribution is to eat none at all. We can use the money we save to help the poor!”
———-
Veggies adds:
Since 1984 Veggies has been pleased to support the work of Vegfam in ‘feeding the the hungry without exploiting animals’.
The fragile environment cannot support two populations – humans and their food animals. Vegfam raises funds to eliminate hunger, thirst, malnutrition, and starvation, helping people in over 40 countries, by financing sustainable, self-supporting plant food projects, fruit and nut tree planting, irrigation and water wells.
We have sponsored and distributed Vegfam fliers and raised funds through a premium on the sales of bottled water and donations from our ‘samosas for social change‘ project.
You can help us to help Vegfam by using the Everyclick search facility, to raise funds for Vegfam whilst surfing the web.
Meanwhile, for more information on the work of HIPPO (in comparison to that of Oxfam) see our article Don’t Send A Cow – Plant a Tree!
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011
Growing With Grace
Well, not actually ours, but Growing with Grace is looking for investment to save their stock-free organic farm!
Former Sumac volunteer, Eleanor Fairbrother has recently become a grower at Growing With Grace, an organic farm in the Yorkshire Dales.
The farm is an amazing place, with 2 acres of glass houses. It supplies organic vegetables to local people via its shop, box scheme, and wholesale to other retail outlets. It is committed to its stock free status, with all its fertility coming from an onsite composting scheme of the local green waste.
Growing With Grace is also committed to environmental stewardship, using biodiesel made on site in its tractors and delivery vehicles, and promoting biodiversity in the greenhouses with permaculture techniques, including a spectacular forest garden under glass (with peaches, figs, and nectarines!). It is also committed to co-operation and non-hierarchy, having been a workers co-op since its inception, and now being a community co-op.
The farm has been in financial trouble for 2 years, after a failed take over by a larger social enterprise, but it now has a bunch of new directors who have changed it from a workers co-op to a community co-op, reorganised the business plan, and are now doing a share issue to raise funds to save the farm.
Growing with Grace needs around £60,000 to make it financially viable and has until the end of July to get it!
They are asking individuals / groups to buy a £100 share in the farm (or more if you want!). You will then be part owner of the farm, and able to vote at AGMs etc. The farm will be able to get back on its feet, and will be able to get back to full production and profitability. Copies of the share issue prospectus, and an application form are available in PDF form on our website.
It is essentially an ethical donation, but technically you could withdraw your money in a couple of years, and you can also expect to get a small dividend on your money from around the same time. Until they have raised enough money that they know they are financially viable, your money will be kept in a holding account, and if they don’t raise enough money to save the farm, we will return it.
Veggies adds…
As a ‘stock-free’ farm no animal products such as blood, bonemeal or slurry from factory farmed animals are used. More information on truely animal friendly farming can be obtained from the Vegan Organic Network.
Monday, January 31st, 2011
Black Combe Housing Co-op are looking for new members
Our aim is to set up a new housing co-op in Morecambe and we are looking for more members! We’re all enthusiastic about creating a supportive community and want to hear from people who would like to become part of this project with us.
We are looking for people who believe in working towards social change, in the many forms this can take, who are committed to a simple green lifestyle and who would be happy to live in a vegan house. The project is starting, so we need enthusiastic people that can commit time and energy to make it happen.
If you think you’d like to get involved or if you want to find out more, please get in touch! We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Stacey, Ian, Matt, Aurora and Rory – Black Combe Housing Co-op
blackcombecoop@aktivix.org or call us on 01524 381394
Contact Black Combe Housing Coop via Veggies Directory
Saturday, January 15th, 2011
Vegan Society, staff, trustees, local contacts and members have worked very hard in 2010 giving talks and radio interviews, meeting with policy makers, getting articles published, producing information resources and growing our trademark among other things. Here are a few highlights from the year:
Making the Connection
Environment Films in association with The Vegan Society have produced a new 30 minute film called Making the Connection. It was launched on World Vegan Day and features a variety of people including a chef, a farmer, a Member of Parliament, an athlete, a dietician and a poet.It is aimed at non-vegans and if you wish to watch the film it is hosted on YouTube. If you would like to organise a group showing to non-vegans such as in a school, university, arts cinema or at a vegan food tasting event, please contact Amanda for a copy of the film on 0121 523 1737 or by e-mail media@vegansociety.com
Great North Run Success
A team sponsored by The Vegan Society entered the Great North Run 2010 to dispel the tired myth of the ‘weedy vegan’. The fifteen vegan runners were captained by elite vegan marathon runner Fiona Oakes. Fiona ran 1 hr 20 min 51 sec, ahead of former 10K World Champion and Olympic silver medallist, Liz McColgan (1 h 25 m 9 s), six other Elite Women and seven of the Elite Men. The runners worked hard to get coverage in their local media, highlighting the benefits of their vegan lifestyles.
Natural and Organic Products Exhibition
In April The Vegan Society exhibited at The Natural and Organic Products Europe (NOPE) exhibition.c Exhibiting alongside the leaders in the industry raises the profile of our trademark scheme and the charity as a whole. The Business Development team were overwhelmed by the interest expressed in the trademark from companies attending the show.
Vegan School Dinners
We have been working on a series of vegan recipes for schools. They have been nutritionally analysed and the next stage is to get them tested. If you are able to establish contact with schools or caterers that could test dishes to serve 30 people please get in touch with Rebecca Henderson: advocacy@vegansociety.com. The aim is for these recipes to become the vegetarian option in schools.
Tesco
Following the request for our members to send comments to Tesco on how they could better cater for vegans, Vegan Society CEO Nigel Winter had a further meeting with Tesco Head Office. They received comments from over 200 people and found the information very useful. They have produced a report summarising the requests and will use this to inform future planning. They have also produced a frequently asked questions list to help their staff to answer questions. Please continue to give constructive feedback to Tesco and other companies – it’s a great way to prove (potential) vegan demand to these businesses.
Channel 4
Our CEO, Nigel Winter, appeared in an edition of Lakes on a Plate which was broadcast on Channel 4 on 4 October before Countdown. He walked in the fells with local chef Peter Sidwell and talked about Donald Watson who lived in the area. He also discussed reasons for being vegan and was served vegan onion soup on top of the very windy fell.
The Restaurant Show 2010
Vegan Society staff spoke to over 500 chefs, caterers, students, manufacturers, restaurateurs, lecturers and other catering industry workers for the three days of The Restaurant Show 2010 – the UK’s ‘premier fine-dining show’. They distributed information, such as copies of our Vegan Catering for All guide for professional caterers. They also gave out application packs for our Vegan-Friendly Promise window-sticker scheme and our Sunflower Standard Vegan Trademark for caterers. Please get in touch (media@vegansociety.com) if you would like to help support caterers where you live to start offering great vegan dishes.
The Vegan Society also sponsored a ‘Vegan and Botanical Experience’ Masterclass on the Centre Stage at the Show. Fatih Güven, Head Chef from Saf Restaurants London presented the Masterclass. He demonstrated tempeh and mushroom dumplings, steamed in rice papers and served with a black vinaigrette. The invited panel of tasters, and volunteers from the audience loved the food.
The Vegan Pledge
We are receiving increasing numbers of requests to take The Vegan Pledge with over 1,000 new pledges this year. The good news is that a significant number of those people are staying vegan.
Calling Older Vegans Using Care Services
Our Advocacy Officer, Rebecca Henderson, is keen to find older vegans living in care homes as well as older vegans living in their own homes and using care services, this includes lunch clubs, day centres and home delivered meals. If you use one of these services yourself, or you know an older vegan who does, then please email Rebecca with details at advocacy@vegansociety.com
Join Us
Membership of The Vegan Society gives us a louder voice when representing vegans in discussions with caterers, retailers, manufacturers and policy makers. Thank you to all of our members for helping us to achieve so many things this year. If you are not yet a member of The Vegan Society please do consider joining (http://www.vegansociety.com/membership.aspx).
Veggies and the Vegan Society
See also Vegan Campaigning with Veggies, local contacts for Nottingham, and join Veggies supporting Vegan Outreach Events nationwide.
Contact the Vegan Society and their Local Contacts in your area, via Veggies Networking Directory.
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Vegan Recipes from over 25 years on the catering front line
November 2010: This new title from Scoffer Publications is at the early draft stage.
Please send your anecdotes, endorsements, pictures and recipe ideas.
Veggies Scoffer may include…
Anecdotes from 26th years catering at the frontline
Perhaps you were at J18 or M40 RTS street parties, the G8 in Stirling, Glastonbury or on Hatfield Peat Moor? You may even have stood with us in the snow at Molesworth US Airforce Base in the winter of ’85!
What was your favourite Veggies Event?
Send us your recollections.
Recipies from Veggies events, including gatherings, festivals and fairs
- Have you been fed by Veggies at camps or gatherings, festivals or fairs, weddings or birthdays, or any other events?
- Let us know which is your favourite Veggies Food, and why?
- Climate Camps
- Peace News Camp
- AR Gatherings
- Radical Routes Gatherings
- Veggieskool Catering
- Peoples Kitchen
Be your own Veggies
- How to set up a Veggies group
- Trailers / street stalls / indoor fairs / event catering
- Cooking with Veggies Mixes
Guest recipies from other campaign caterers, including Anarchist Teapot (yes), Green Garden Cafe, Something Fishy, Fair Foods, Vegan Campaigns, Shambu’s, Screaming Carrot
Veggies Tour Dates – featuring events on our annual itinerary
Were You There?
Please send anecdotes, endorsements, pictures and recipe ideas.
Stop Press
Veggies Scoffer is now available from our Scoffer Publications section.
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010
Ronny’s new Cheap ‘n’ Easy Vegan Cooking book has arrived!
Ten years on from Ronny’s original Cake Scoffer, this new title has another 25 amazing and yummy recipes in the same inimitable style.
The original has been the mainstay of many people’s kitchen bookshelf and this new one promises to be just as popular.
You can order one or one hundred copies direct from Veggies, (who have funded the publication of the book)!
Send £1.50 per copy + postage:
1 or 2 copies: £1.50 each + 36p;
3-5 copies: £1.50 each + 92p;
7-9 copies: £1.50 each + £1.23
(Postage as at April 2011)
Availabe in bulk for group fundraising
- 10 – 49 copies = 90p each (60% of cover price).
- 50 or more = 75p (50% cover price) + delivery.
- Contact us to check availability and delivery cost.
We will be at the Rally for Farmed Animal in London on Saturday 2nd October and can supply bulk orders free of delivery cost, with advance notice.
Or arrange collection at one of our many other events – see the diary of Veggies Events
Breakfast Scoffer, and more…
Also available, (sorry no bulk discount):
The Breakfast Scoffer – £1.50
Breakfast need never again be dull for vegans. There’s everything in here from Banana Maple Pancakes and Scrambled Tofu, to smoothies, and Chocolate Fudge Cake (for breakfast?). Just try it!
Wholesale from Active Distribution.
50+copies & comments: scoffer@chef.net.
- The Cake Scoffer – £1.25
One of Britain’s most experienced vegan caterers and cake engineers. If you enjoy eating vegan cakes, but are never quite sure how to make them, you’ll love this 20 page laminated and illustrated booklet packed with exciting egg and dairy free cake, dessert and sweet recipes. Includes ultimate cheesecake, three types of chocolate cake, lemon explosion cake, DIY sweets, two types of gingerbread, microwave sponge pudding and more.
Wholesale from Active Distribution.
Group bulk enquiries: mary@animalaid.co.uk.
The Salad Scoffer: Picnic And Party Food Recipes – £1.25
Ronny explains how to prepare awesome mouth-watering kitchen creations, such as: Nottage Cheese, Geek Salad, Eggless Mushroom & Aubergine Quiche, Guacamole, Carrot & Celeriac Salad, Pasta Salad, Mock Duck Salad, and much more. The essential antidote to packaged foods for vegans, trainee vegans, relatives of vegans, kitchen scientists, students, frustrated bingers and snack addicts, people with allergies, and curious cooks wanting to know how vegans “do it” without eggs and cow extracts. If you don’t fit into one of the above categories, then just buy this book anyway for the novelty value and cute pictures.
Wholesale from Active Distribution.
Group bulk enquiries: mary@animalaid.co.uk.
- Special offer: All 4 titles £6.00 inc p&p!
To order:
Send cheque to ‘Veggies’, 245 Gladstone Street, Nottingham NG7 6HX
Or order with Paypal or plastic at this /books-and-publications/ page.
Visit Scoffer Towers – Home to the Cheap ‘n’ Easy Vegan Cooking series of books
Here’s a sample recipe from the Scoffer Kitchen:
French Apple Pie
- 1 part margarine (I use Vitalite)
- 2 parts flour (I use white flour, but half and half white and brown would work.
- 1.5 cups flour (approx 12 floz)
- 0.75 cups marg (approx 6 floz)
- 6 small-medium apples
- Soft brown demerera sugar
- cinnamon
- salt
Method:
- Slice the apples as thinly (discarding cores) as you reasonably can with a knife (don’t bother peeling or showing off with a razor blade or owt) and place in a colander, layer by layer.
- As you put each layer of apples in, sprinkle the sugar over until it coats the rings of apples evenly. Leave to sit while you make the pastry.
- Rub the fat into the flour and a pinch of salt with your fingers until it resembles breadcrumbs. You’ll know you’re rubbing rightly if your palms remain clean (all those incidents with a plastic ruler on the back of my knees in Domestic Science lessons taught me summat).
- Add cold water, little by little, to the mix and clump together with your hands or with a spoon until you have a ball o’dough. Don’t over-mix.
- Either roll out or flatten with your palms onto a greased baking tray. Then arrange the apple slices on top about two layers thick. Press down against the dough firmly as you lay them.
- Dredge the top with cinnamon, sprinkle with a little more sugar if you have a sweet tooth and then bake in a medium cool (gas mark 4-5 / 180C) oven for 30 mins.
- Allow to cool before eating or it’ll take the roof of yer mouth off. Best served the following day.
Scoffer Publications are also available from:
Find these and more ‘Print and Publication’ contacts on Veggies Directory.
Friday, August 27th, 2010
All the vegan caterers deserve your support in the UK Vegan Awards. Veggies is very pleased to be amongst them!
The UK Vegan Awards 2010 are an opportunity to recognise and celebrate the products, places, companies, organisations and campaign groups who make a real difference to veganism, animals and the environment.
Voting in the 10 categories will take just 2 minutes. Please click here to vote now.
PRIZE DRAW – Everyone who votes has the chance to win a gift voucher worth up to £30. Gift vouchers have been donated by the following online vegan shops:
Vegan Essentials – www.veganessentials.com
Green Valley Trading Company – www.gvtc.co.uk
Simply add your name and email address where asked to do so or leave blank if you don’t wish to enter. We will only contact the winners.
The award and prize draw winners will be announced at the West Midlands Vegan Festival on Saturday 30th October in Wolverhampton.
Voting will end at 12 midnight on Thursday 28th October.
Please click here to vote now.
Read all about Veggies – the Award Winning Caterer
