Keepers: Creamed coconut rice and raw vegetable marinade

Recently two recipes have entered my cooking repertoire. Both vegan (as it happens) they complement each other (as it happens). I want to record them with credits.

Creamed coconut rice

Step up, Claire Milne, the leading light behind the No Tesco in Stokes Croft campaign (and compadre), and the genius who came up with the easiest way to make the best coconut rice ever.

To cooked brown rice, add creamed coconut, cut small so it melts easily, and hey presto: soothing, luxurious coconut rice.

For 8 people: 3 mugs of rice for 6 mugs of water (how to cook brown rice here), 1 creamed coconut block (200g) cut in small pieces. (correction on rice proportions thanks for comment below).

(Experiment with adding cooked lentils, squash fried in small cubes, fresh herbs etc.).

Raw vegetable marinade

Step up,  Julia Guest. A filmmaker who made Letter To The Prime Minister in Bagdad during the bombing, in Fallujah during the occupation.

Julia’s current film, In Her Own Image, is an exploration of female divinity – in response to the war in Iraq as she explains at Indiegogo (where you can crowd-source/support the film). 

Anyway, food – where was I?

Raw vegetable marinade

A marinade is a sauce in which you soak your raw food (usually before cooking but in this case, no cooking required).

Which vegetables can you eat raw? Certainly not potatoes.  More info on raw food here.

I ate sliced mushroom, grated courgette, matchsticks of beetroot.

Choose veg you usually eat raw such as tomatoes, cucumber, radish, but think of others such as carrot or cabbage.

Sliver or slice or grate or anyway cut nice and slim.

Superfood dressing: tamari and cider vinegar and olive oil in equal proportions.

The marinade helps digestion of the vegetables.

Let the sliced veg soak in the dressing for a couple of hours before serving.

Would go well with the creamed coconut rice.

Sprouts and raw hummus

I was told yesterday that today is the last day of the Mayan calendar.

That means the end of 28,000 years of hierarchy and oppression.

Yippee!

And I have finally found a spouting system that works.

I bought this jar with its plastic perforated lid from Harvest, part of Essential Trading Worker Co-op.

DIY types can make their own. Or use old tights or muslin as the lovely Alys Fowler suggests.

Or buy one like mine (after years of experimentation, I can vouch that This One Works), and get loads of sprouting info from Living Food of St Ives.

First you put the dry (organic) seeds in the jar.

Add water and leave them overnight to bring them to life.

After that first long soak, you wash the seeds daily (or twice, thrice).

The seeds like being clean and wet (not soaked or drowned).

So after filling the jar with water, swill the seeds around then drain away the water (hence the natty perforated lid which makes life so much easier).

And how is this for a virtuous circle? I drain the water on the indoor plants so they get a regular watering.

After a few days, I have produced living things.

Here are some sprouting chickpeas, looking positively Lawrentian.

(DH Lawrence being one of my fave authors because he describes life on its different levels: soul, mundane etc and because: “Lawrence believed that industrialised Western culture was dehumanising…”).

So now I am going sprout-mad. Sprouts in stews. On toast with cream cheese.

Whizzed with Organico Artichoke Spread for instant hummus.

Hold on a minute. Did I say hummus?

I ask myself: WHY make hummus with cooked chickpeas when you can use extra-bursting-with-vitality FRESH sprouting raw chickpeas?

So, I substitute the cooked chickpeas for my Lawrentian darlings, add some turmeric and crushed coriander seeds (must sprout THEM one day) and of course lemon juice, olive oil, tahini, raw garlic, as in my usual recipe for hummus .

And it was delicious.

Tibetan soup at Buddhafield 2011

Buddhafield has all the wildness of a festival – live music, dance tent, cafes, workshops, healing area, fires, plunge pool, sauna; but without intoxicants.

There was so much on offer: every hour 10 simultaneous workshops and/or live gigs  to choose from.

Abundance was the festival’s theme. At first I moaned, stressed by having to choose, and being catapulted outside my comfort zone, cut off from home and the internet.

I plodded around the three field-festival site. I got effortlessly fitter from plodding.

This Tibetan soup – from the Outer Regions cafe - sustained me. So nourishing. light and warming. Perfect for rainy days and before dance workshops.

          

(Soup – something you can make quickly with what’s in the fridge. Fry onions or leeks, chilli and garlic. Slice or chop veg: carrots, courgettes, green beans, potatoes – the smaller you cut ‘em the quicker they cook. Add a handful of cooked dried beans such as butter beans or open a tin of plain beans. The trick with soup is how much water: it is easier to add than than remove. So start with two mugfuls and see how it goes. Add noodles towards the end of cooking.  Season with black pepper.)

I am grateful to Mike for making healthy refreshing breakfast every morning.

A camping-must. Muesli and fruit (bring knife to chop). Add water, so no cooking needed.

Festivals are up-and-down (like life) – all I know is I felt great when I got back.

Stokes Croft Tesco opens and butter bean salad

It’s hard to be happy about the 41st Tesco opening in Bristol (figure according to Tesco’s store locator).

93% of 500 locals surveyed had said No to Tesco’s in Stokes Croft. After over a year’s campaigning, it was bitter to see Bristol City Council bow to Tesco pressure last December.

Still, we are making the best of it.

On Friday 16 April, Tesco opened in Stokes Croft.

Friendly activists gave a Bristol-style welcome. They put a comfy sofa and lampshade outside on the pavement. Someone played a guitar.

Another strode into Tesco’s with a wad of Monopoly money. When he was not allowed to spend it, he tried to bribe a security guard with it.

A woman passer-by who also objected to Tesco’s monopoly, took up the Monopoly money-action.

On Saturday, a performer (see pic above) invited us in to ‘his’ Tesco, while outside on the pavement, stalls served free food, and promoted Picton Street’s local independent shops, in the street behind the dreaded Tesco.

Picton Street is a marvel, and includes the Bristolian Cafe, Yogasara yoga studio, vintage dress shops, an art gallery, Radford Mill organic farm shop and Licata, the family-owned Italian delicatessen.

Licata often has great bargains in olive oil and tins of beans. I am crazy about beans as they are a wonderful source of health. Licata has many variety of tinned beans, which to me = fast food.

I owe everything I know about beans to vegetarian hero, Rose Elliot. The Bean Book changed my eating habits for life.

The following recipe comes from there. Please consult The Bean Book for measurements, nutritional facts and top inventive recipes using dried beans and pulses.

Here is my sloppy fast-food version.

Gently fry sliced fresh mushrooms in (olive) oil so they are still succulent. Add a tin of drained butter beans and warm with the mushrooms. Add lemon juice squeezed from two lemons and chopped fresh herbs such as parsley or coriander. You can’t have too many fresh herbs so over-estimate. Mix it all in the frying pan, with salt to taste, and serve still warm with brown rice, or cold as a salad.

I used organic ingredients from Better Food organic supermarket, a 20-minute walk away from Tesco’s, and land cress as the fresh herb.

Rose Elliot’s recipe fries fresh cut-up garlic with the mushrooms and adds cumin spice, with coriander as the fresh herb.

PS I met a neighbour on Saturday who said she had to buy something at Tesco’s in Stokes Croft, and I am haunted by her anxious look.

So, just so you know: If it makes life easier to shop there, then do. Life’s too short for guilt and sacrifice.

I am not against people who use Tesco. I am against Tesco.

Vardo, Venice

I walk the boardwalk from Santa Monica to Venice.

The sky is overcast (yummy, just like home in England). The locals call it June gloom.

I am hungry but nothing takes my fancy.

It looks touristy and, well, not real food.

I can’t get this restaurant out of my head that I had passed earlier.

The sign had said: ethnic, vegan, vegetarian…

I don’t like retracing my steps, or leaving the ocean.

But I am glad I did.

It is rare to find somewhere where I want to eat every dish on the menu.

This is the place for me.

An oasis. Delicate flavours, vegan and vegetarian delights, raw food desserts and all ingredients organic.

I had the aromatic gently spicy dhal and spinach curries and salad, beautifully dressed with homemade vinaigrette.

followed by this sweetheart of raw chocolate with fresh mint and coconut filling.

Vardo means gypsy in Roma.

And suited this gypsy queen down to the ground.

Speedy spelt loaf recipe – not speedy roads

I am still on real bread, the topic of my last post.

Julia made the loaf in the picture above from a recipe in the Telegraph.

Apart from bread, Julia Guest, filmmaker extraordinaire, also made A Letter to the Prime Minister.

The documentary follows the British peace activist, Jo Wilding, in Iraq before and during the 2003 invasion.

Talking about films, I was round at Julia’s on Sunday to watch Life In The Fast Lane, a documentary she was involved with about the M11 road protest (1995).

The M11 sliced through three East London boroughs and tore apart communities – all for the sake of saving motorists three minutes of time.

The M11 road protest along with similar ones at Twyford and Newbury did not stop the roads being built.

However the cost of evictions – both financially and morally – eventually halted the then-mania for road-building.

This report by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) shows new roads are not evaluated. And grandiose claims for reducing traffic appear not to have been realised. For instance, according to Countryside Voice, the CPRE magazine (summer 2006), the Newbury town centre peak-hour traffic flows are almost back to pre-bypass levels. And, “the actual damage to protected landscapes is even worse than expected.” [added 2012]

So while we were watching Life In The Fast Lane, we ate Julia’s homemade squash-from-her-allotment soup with the amazing bread. It was delicious – tasty and healthy.

I was blown away by Life In The Fast Lane:

- the local residents who helped patrol the squat including the 93-year-old resident made a squatter in her own childhood home

- the anguished cries of schoolschildren as the 250-year old chestnut tree was torn down by a digger (reminiscent of a scene from Avatar) and despite the protestors’ beautiful tree-top home

- the spectacular London rooftop shots of squatters who locked-on themselves to chimney pots with concrete and handcuffs to stop being evicted.

It was a real insider’s view of a mega-squat resisting the onslaught of so-called progress.

The M11 movie put me in mind of the eviction of the Tesco squatters.

Julia writes: “I make this with fresh yeast from the Better Food Company and less flour. Let it rise for just over an hour in the tin, then bake it.. but no kneading at all. I use a mix of any seeds I fancy…and the quantities vary. I also add a little olive oil to stop it sticking – as well as coating the tin in oil and then a coat of small seeds. Baking only takes about 30 minutes.”

Check out Julia’s inspiration, a spelt recipe by Xanthe Clay in the Telegraph using dried yeast and requiring no kneading or proving, and an earlier one by Rose Prince that ditto is fast.

For further inspiration visit Real Bread campaigner and master baker, Andrew Whitley, and author of much-recommended Bread Matters.

And for my real-life experience of Julia’s recipe see my blog on Easy-to-make spelt loaf – it works!

Surely a quick-to-make loaf is a better use of speed than an unnecessary road?

Last meal at the No Tesco squat?

Stephan rang me from the No Tesco in Stokes Croft squat.

I had just taken a picture of this Tesco bag blowing randomly on a branch in a car park in Portishead.

Stephan said tonight’s Sunday communal meal may be its last.

Last Tuesday, a repossession order was granted to Tescos plc – the ‘conscious squatters’ lost their court appeal to keep the site for the community.

I call them ‘conscious squatters’ because they look after the old Jesters comedy venue site with its bar and stage and share it consciously, hence the squat’s screening of Food Inc, last night’s Cosmic Cabaret and its regular Sunday night communal meal.

They have been occupying the premises ever since we locals heard Tesco has a planning application on the site. Even though there are 6 Tescos within a mile [see comment below] and 31 in Bristol.

I would much rather have this cosy communal space the squatters have created than another soulless supermarket.

Yet any minute now, eviction papers could be served. The squatters then have 48 hours to leave.

Here is Stephan’s Project Flowers at the squat. Note the framed flower drawings.

“Flowers represent positivity,” Stephan explains. “In a way we are all like flowers.”

He created the project so everyone could take part in it.

Food is like that – something we can all take part in.

Tonight the squat served the most amazing vegan meal for over 50 people in return for donations only.

My plate of varied inventive coleslaw (raw cabbage, slivers of kiwi, finely cut celery, herbs, seeds, and cardamon), vegan chilli stew, potato curry, beetroot and spinach leaves and a mound of brown rice. Followed by homemade fruit crumble and dairy-free custard.

The funny thing tonight turned out to be networking-central. I caught up with five different lots of friends from different parts of my life (including dance, work, family and food).

The No Tesco in Stokes Croft squat is creating community.

It is budding, at the beginning of its spring growth, fertile with plans including a food coop to make local healthy food affordable for all.

It would be no joke if the squatters in the old Jesters comedy club were evicted.

Food Inc at No Tesco squat

Last night the squatters screened Food Inc (my pic above) at the No Tesco in Stokes Croft squat on Cheltenham Road in Bristol.

The comfortable friendly squat is on the same premises Tesco wants for its 32nd supermarket in Bristol – as opposed to to the real food, whole food, local food market we locals want.

The perfect setting to see Food Inc, the documentary by US investigative journalist, Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation.

The US farmer in the picture above, sitting on his horse surrounded by cattle in verdant nature, is an illusion.

“If people knew the truth about their food, they wouldn’t eat it,” says Eric Schlosser.

So the truth is hidden.

“If there were glass walls on mega-processing facilities, we’d have a different food system in this country,” says the farmer from the local organic Polyface Farm.

Farmers who speak publicly about what goes on behind the huge industrial shed-doors get their contracts terminated.

Debt is not restricted to poor farmers in the developing world. US farmers are forced to take out loans they can’t repay to meet the company’s demand for the latest  ’upgrade’.

Chickens are bred to grow fat faster. Their bones and internal organs cannot keep up with their fattened breasts. Chickens too ill to walk are processed as food.

Eric Schlosser says the industrial food system is based on the fast-food one: train workers (usually illegal immigrants) to do one mindless task, over and over again.

Neither the animals or workers’ comfort is of concern because they are temporary commodities, cheap to replace.

The self-policing food industry is close to US governments, whether Republican or Democrat. Those on the boards of farm chemical companies turn up as high-ranking officials in the FDA (US Food and Drug administration).

Most of our food is controlled by four megasized multi-nationals, from seed to supermarket.

Companies now legally own any seed they genetically modify.

Monsanto sues farmers for violation of their patents, and has a hotline for farmers to report on each other for doing what they have done for centuries: save seed.

These companies are so powerful, they can afford battalions of lawyers to fight farmers.

They lobby governments to skew the system so the poor end up paying more for fresh broccoli than ground-up beef treated with ammonia to kill bacteria such as e-coli rife in the manure-drenched animal factories.

We need to change the policies which make the bad calories cheaper than the good ones.

After the film, the squatters served parsnip and ginger soup, with potatoes and onion. It was delicious, satisfying my desire for wholesomeness and taste.

Here is my cup of deliciousness posed against a No Tesco campaign postcard which thousands have signed.

Here is the steaming soup saucepan sitting on a tea-towel on the bar of the Jesters, the ex-comedy club, which Tesco wants to demolish and replace with a soulless supermarket.

On my way home, I passed a plastic Tesco bag lying discarded on the streets.

Says it all, doesn’t it?

Please sign the petition asking Bristol City Council for a proper consultation.

And, hot-off-the-press: I am standing for the Green Party in Bishopston.

My night in Bristol’s rebel restaurant

Ra-ta-ta-tat on the big red door.

Entry into the wood panelled hall of Quay House.

Once Bristol’s customs house, now disused offices, the Quay House is squatted on behalf of Cloak and Dinner, Bristol’s rebel restaurant.

Seems criminal that such a place lies empty.

Good on the squatters, for invoking Section 6 and making such creative use of it.

For four nights, Quay house is host to what the Guardian calls the hottest ticket in town.

I pass the candlelit lounge where guests will be served gin and tonic.

Up another flight, past the red-curtained dining area, also wood panelled and candle-lit, where the diners will be served a four-course meal with vegan and vegetarian options.

Up the next flight to the brightly lit kitchen milling with volunteer helpers, which reduces to a core team of about seven, myself included.

An anarchist kitchen is the opposite of a  Gordon Ramsay one.

Amidst cries of “Table 7 just finished their starters” and “four vegetarian mains”, the kitchen is calm.

No one is throwing their weight around or shouting.

Anarchists believe – as do I – that human nature is basically cooperative.

And cooperate we did.

“Best borscht soup I’ve ever tasted,”  says a customer at the end of the night, the dreadlocked waiter reports.

Eve had made a soffrito of celery, onions, leeks – added grated beetroot and water to simmer. Blended when cooked. With Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar, grated lemon zest and sugar to taste. Indeed the best.

For starters: pillows of filo pastry filled with mashed pumpkin, carrots, wilted rocket and walnuts, served with Caerphilly cut from a truckle of cheese.

Steam rising on bean stew served on a cabbage leaf on top of potato mash flavoured with mustard seeds.

The venison comes from Fair Game in Nailsea. The young farmer shot the deer, skinned and butchered it last week. Chef Christopher cooked it with sloe gin and the bones until aromatically tender. “The venison was superb,” says another guest who visits the kitchen to praise.

Canterbury pie about to be plated. The recipe for sweetened pastry comes courtesy of Irish chef, Richard Corrigan, while apple puree topped with thin apple slices is from classic cook, Mary Berry. The vanilla ice-cream is homemade, by Eve.

The vegan option at the open window.

I make the pies, following Sarah’s  instructions, based on the available ingredients. No scales, just guess work. My sort of cooking.

Crush biscuits in a bag, mix with melted Pure organic marge (just enough to moisten crumbs). Press into a plate. Mash bananas with ground almonds and cinnamon. Drizzle melted dark chocolate, add hazel and walnuts and drizzle more chocolate. That’s it.

The banana mixture was too slurpy to cut cleanly so it became a concoction in a ramekin with chocolate and nut lattice broken to sit on top.

The washer upper working with grace all evening, backbone of the operation.

Darren, Saturday’s chef, sweeping the floor in readiness for his shift the next night.
His day job, The Kensington Arms, lent the linen for the rebel restaurant.

“Some people like vegging out in front of the TV. But something like this brings people together,” he says.

Cabbage in crates. Darren considers how to use them for his chef-shift.

Skye Gyngell’s cookery book, My favourite ingredients, amongst the coats.

Art by Libby in the lounge where gin and tonic is served as the punters arrive.

Happy customers.

“Most restaurants have no soul,” says a guest. He and his girlfriend heard about the rebel restaurant through Facebook. The 50+ covers a night got booked up as soon as word got out.

Each chef has £75 a night to conjure with, money made from a previous project, topped up with food donations from local food businesses.

People paid what they could afford. Last night we made £800 – to go towards the next project.

Everyone gives their time freely. I end the night with a heart full of love.

Making marmalade

Marmalade lovers, if you have only ever eaten shop-bought marmalade, you MUST try making homemade marmalade at least once in your life.

Last Sunday at 7.30pm, I committed myself to an evening of marmalade making so I could enjoy real marmalade on toast (above).

Ingredients and cost

4lbs (1.80kg) Seville oranges

I bought 1.975g  of organic Seville oranges for £5.89 at Better Food organic supermarket

4lbs (1.80kg) granulated sugar

I bought the non-organic kind at Scoopaway – 1.990g white sugar @ 1.29kg = £2.57

Sugar

Sugar is cheap compared to the fruit because it is so heavily subsidised. As a commodity, its future gets gambled on and prices look set to rise.

Would much prefer organic vegetables to be subsidised, rather than sugar.

I weighed out 4 lbs (1.8kg) granulated sugar into a pan, now warming in a low oven.

Warming the sugar makes it easier to melt into the fruit.

Softening oranges

I scrubbed the oranges and removed the stalks on each one.

They are now in a preserving pan with 4 pints of boiling water.

I have found a baking tray to cover the pan. The pan hisses.

Katie Stewart says it takes 1.5 hours to soften the oranges.

Katie (whom I once met when she won a Guild of Food Writers Lifetime Achievement Award) says 3lbs of fruit, 6lbs of sugar and 5 pints of water. In my bid for less sugar, I have experimented over the years and now use equal sugar to fruit.

Christabel who works at Better Food suggested adding orange blossom water for extra orange zing.

Haiti

Very aware of Haiti. Grateful for my life where I can calmly make marmalade. A fellow food blogger, Sabrina Ghayour is organising a Food Lovers fundraiser for Haiti. Please support this event with donations and helping promote it.

Pectin

9.30pm. I have cut the softened oranges in half and scooped out pith and pips with a teaspoon. Pith and pips (repeat-very-fast) are boiling for 10 minutes in 1 extra pint of water to extract the pectin. Pectin is crucial for helping the jam to set.

After 10 minutes of vigorous boiling, I strain the pith and pips. This takes ages as I can only get a small amount in my small strainer. The pectin-filled water goes into the preserving pan with the cut-up peel and the warmed sugar. I add the juice of two lemons.  And its flesh for good luck.

If you don’t have a preserving pan, use your biggest pan or divide amounts into two pans. You need to boil sugar-fruit-water super-vigorously for 15-30 minutes without worrying about it boiling over the sides.

Making up for lost water

The lid on the softening oranges was makeshift and inadequate, and I am paying the price: I lost precious pints in steam. I ended up (after adding strained pith-and-pips water) with 1.5pts in total. I have boldly added an extra 2pts making it up water total to 3.5 pints.

PS A few days later: And it worked! Marmalade as delicious ever.

Boiling fast to set

10.30pm. I have added the sugar to the cut-up peel and water

For some reason Jeanette Winterson is in my head. I am thinking about her organic shop in East London and wondering if she is as driven to write now she has her shop. But perhaps she arrived in my mind because Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit.

11.20pm. The marmalade has been fast-boiling for 20 minutes.

I draw it off the heat to test for a set because if you over-boil, it can lose its setting point. Who says cooking is boring? It is full of drama.

Earlier I put two plates in the freezer. I will now drip some hot jam on its cold surface and wait a few minutes. If the cooling jam crinkles when I push it with my finger – then success, it has set.

Then finally – after the second lot of 15 mins of fast boiling, that tell-tale crinkling. Joy.

The marmalade cooled while I set up a Facebook page for Foodlovers Fundraiser for Haiti, a small thing that I could do to help this cause.

12.45am. And here are my 8 pots of marmalade.

It was a palaver but it was worth it.

What do you think?