Chocolate Brownies

I’ve never had too much of a sweet tooth, but there are two things I love: good chocolate and good ice-cream. As for the latter, I have found fantastic ice-cream made of rice milk at La Saga. (Un)fortunately the price for a 400ml box is around 8 euro, otherwise I would buy it all the time ;) Good dark vegan chocolate is not difficult to get, my favourite brand available in Belgium is New Tree. Yesterday I have finally dared to try and recreate the fantastic chocolate brownies we had at the Candle 79 restaurant in New York in spring this year. The recipe is available in their cookbook 'The Candle Café Cookbook', which I bought there but which you can also buy online, for example at the Book Depository.

I have to say they taste fantastic! I took some to work today and needless to say, all I brought back home was an empty plate ;)

Miso soup

Today was my first attempt at making miso soup at home. I have found so many different recipes online, all of them listing different ingredients, that I’ve just decided to stick to two of the really essential ones – miso and tofu – and improvise. In the end this is the ingredients list I used:

2 ltrs of vegetable bullion
200g of shiitake mushrooms, sliced
375g of tofu, cut into small cubes
150g of smoked tofu, as above
1 large leak, sliced
2cm piece of fresh ginger, crushed in a garlic crusher
1 bunch of coriander, chopped

1 bunch of flat leave parsley, chopped

A few handfuls of fresh spinach

3-4 tbsp. of miso paste (I used dark barley miso)

Freshly ground chili to season

rice noodles to serve

First put the mushrooms into the boiling bullion, after 3-4 min add all the remaining ingredients, except for the coriander and parsley. Let it simmer for about 10 min and then add the herbs and the chili. It’s a super-fast and super-tasty soup, I’ll definitely be making more of it soon!

Pumpkin stuffed with pistachio, saffron and apricot pilaff

It's not officially autumn yet, but you can already feel it in the air. Even though I was born in autumn, it's not my favourite time of year. I love the colours and the rare days when it's warm, dry and sunny, but at least in Belgium much too often autumn = rain, rain and more rain.. Well, there's no better way to forget about the rain than having some nice warm comfort food. I had never used pumpkin in anything else but soup before, but when I saw the picture of this dish in The Complete Book of Vegan Cooking, I knew I had to make it. It came out even more tasty than expected, a great combination of sweet and spicy.

According to the recipe, it serves 4-6 people. Well, we were only two and my pumpkin weighed about 1.3 kg, still we almost ate it all for dinner yesterday. It was that good!

coconut-peanut chickpeas and vegetables

This is a very simple recipe, that I first made a couple of months ago. Unfortunately it is so good that we ate it before I remembered to take a photo of the vegetable stew served over basmati rice. The last time I made it for some of our non-vegan friends - they really liked it and asked for the recipe - can there be a better recommendation for a dish? ;)

The recipe comes from One Thousand Vegan Recipes by Robin Robertson, one of my favourite cooking books. The serving suggestion in the book is to serve it over basmati rice. Which is what I did and it was delicious! The first time I made it, we didn't manage to eat it all, so I kept it in the fridge and just reheated the next day, it was still great, if not better (after all the flavours have really blended nicely)

The Emotional Lives of Animals by Marc Bekoff - Would you do it to your dog?

The Emotional Lives of Animals - A Leading Scientist Explores Animal Joy, Sorrow and Empathy - and Why They Matter is a very special book. The author, Marc Bekoff, is one of the leading scientists in the field of cognitive ethology - the study of animals' minds and behaviours observed during field work, as opposed to during laboratory experiments. It is a truly fascinating piece of writing.

It seems that at least in the developed nations, at the beginning of the twenty first century, we have finally managed to accept that animals feel pain. But do they have feelings? Can animals love, can they be happy or sad, can they feel embarrased? To anyone who has ever lived with a cat or a dog the answers to these questions are obvious. Of course they do. Still, many scientists and common people are very unwilling to admit that, especially when it comes to animals other than our companion pets. The reason for that is simple - admitting that the animals that we eat, that we kill for clothing, that we keep for our entertainement in zoos have feelings is very uncomfortable. Once we have accepted this, we should revise the way we treat non-human animals. This seems to be unthinkable for most.

Bekoff presents a lot of evidence to prove that both human and non-human animals share the same emotions. Moreover, he claims that some, if not all, animals act according to a certain moral code, yet another characteristic that used to be considered as possessed by humans only. His evidence comes from biological research, for example from identifying certain areas in animals' brains that are similar to ours and thus responsible for feeling similar emotions (did you know animals can also suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?). But the bulk of his research is field studies - observing animals in their natural environment.

Have you ever wondered if animals can feel empathy, compassion or sadness? Bekoff tells numerous stories that confirm that they do: there's a story of two dogs, one of them gone blind and the other one acting as her guide for the rest of her days; there's the one of a blind donkey, guided around the pasture and to the water tank by her best donkey friend; there are stories of elephants desperately trying to bring back to life a member of the group that has been shot down; or a story of a grieving female fox who at night comes back to the dead body of her mate and spends longs hours trying to burry him; stories of animals who cannot get over the death of the loved ones and so they slowly pass away as well.

But there are also many happy stories. One of Bekoff's greatest interests is animal play: why and how they play. There are also great accounts of the friendship and love between human and non-human animals. He also quotes a study showing the importance of animals in children's life: those who grew up with dogs or cats were more self-confident than thos who didn't. Another study proves that children who lived with dogs were more empathic and socially oriented than those who didn't.

In the final chapter of the book "Ethical Choices: What We Do with What We Know" Bekoff goes on to briefly examine our treatment of animals in laboratories, in the food industry, and in zoos. Being a strong believer in the need to abolish all our actions aimed at using animals for our pleasure, I cannot fully agree with his call for more 'humane' treatment of animals in all these areas. I do understand however, that he is simply realistic here, even if what he really advocates is that at some point we stop abusing animals altogether. I especially appreciated the part about zoos, I think it should be read by everyone who thinks going to the zoo is fun. Most people will admit that it's not very humane to keep animals in bad physical conditions in teh zoos. But how often do we consider the emotional needs of the wild animals kept in captivity?. Bekoff tells stories of elephants who suffer and die in zoos as a result of being separated from their friends or family members.

I will finish by quoting one of the closing paragraphs of the book - it clearly shows why even if we still cannot be a hundred percent sure how close animals' feelings are to ours, we know enough to have to rethink our attitude:

'When we're unsure about how we influence the lives of other animals, we should give them the benefit of the doubt and err on the side of the animals. It's better to be safe than sorry. Many animals suffer in silence, and we don't even realize this until we look into their eyes. Then we know'

Perhaps the best summary of the book is simply the questions Marc Bekoff asks anyone who questions that there's anything wrong with the way we treat animals: Would you do it to your dog?

Sushi

When the sushi madness came to Europe quite a few years ago, I didn't really think much of it. I had tried it many times since then and I had to change my opinion, I genuinely liked it! But still I didn't attempt to make it at home, it just seemed like too much - buying all the necessary stuff and then the rolling.. It was supposed to be so difficult. Well, it's not!

Today I bought one of the sushi meal kits, which basically contains the nori, sushi rice, a bamboo mat, rice vinegar, soy sauce, wasabi paste and the chopsticks. I looked up a few recipes online and decided to go for cucumber, red pepper, avocado, carrots, fresh ginger and sesame seeds for the filling. It was delicious! Next time I'm at our Asian supermarket, I'm definitely going to buy some nori and wasabi and continue the adventure with homemade sushi.

Sunday pizza

I love pizza because it is so simple to make and the choice of toppings is only limited by your imagination. When I turned vegan, I tried various vegan cheeses for my pizzas, with more or less success. In general, I have to say that I am not a big fan of the vegan cheeses available on the market. Fortunately, after a few months, once the cheese addiction wears off, you discover you don't really miss cheese any more (which once seemed impossible;) and so you don't need any substitutes.

The most important factor for a successful pizza is top quality, fresh ingredients. I make the pizza dough in my bread machine. For many years now I have only been using dark flour for baking breads and I have to say it works very well for pizza dough as well. The recipe is very simple, for two pizzas I use: 350 grams of flour, 200 ml of water, 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, a pack of dry yeast, a tsp of salt. As for the tomato sauce, the best is obviously made of chopped fresh tomatoes, with onions, garlic and fresh or dried herbs. However, if you don't have fresh tomatoes, good quality canned ones will do. I mix it with some minced garlic, salt, pepper, fresh or dried herbs (most often basil, rosemary, thyme or oregano) and spices (paprika and chili, for example).

As for the toppings, you can really just choose your favourite veggies. Today I grilled an eggplant, zucchini, some onions, red, yellow and orange peppers. You wash and slice all the veggies and put them for at least half an hour in a marinade made of olive oil and your choice of other oils, vinegars and spices/herbs. I have quite a choice of different oils, vinegars, herbs and spices, I think this is one of the basics of great vegan cooking. So I just mix them freely trying new combinations each time.

After marinating, I grill the vegetables on a grill pan. I have to say they are so delicious that I could just eat them all before actually making the pizza ;) In the meantime I bake the pizza bottoms, so that once all the other ingredients are ready, I top the pizza bottoms with them and put the pizzas back in the oven for just about 5-10 minutes. In addition to the grilled veggies, I also added some cherry tomatoes, artichokes and capers. Today's pizza was really fantastic!