Merry Widows

One of the cool things about living so near London is we can nip in by train and do lots of amazing things and then be back home home at a (semi) decent hour. The other thing is that going to watch a BBC television programme or Radio recording is FREE if you know how to apply on line for tickets which we do. So even though we don't own a telly we love to go to recordings because you watch them on BBC-i player later on.

Last night we went into to London and saw the filming of a pilot called Merry Widows about 3 generations of women on the day of the daughter's husband's funeral. It was set in the Lake District and starred the hilarious Miriam Margolyes as the slightly dotty, fond of a drink granny who lost her husband in Borneo whilst she was pregnant with the daughter played with love to be a grief martyr funnyness by Michelle Gomez whose husband died of a virus that she thought was man flu. It was set on the day the grand daughter (played by Natalie Casey) buried her husband--slightly shell shocked trying to find a place to grieve for her newly dead husband killed in Afghanistan while Laurel and Hardy are joking it up about their widowhood in the kitchen .

it was good and funny and sad and poignant with a spoiler I won't reveal in case it gets picked up a series. I hope it does. But at least we were there to see the pilot.

These are a few of my favourite things

I could eat my own body weight in wasabi peas. Fact. But I have discovered, as you do, that they taste great with chocolate. I know, I know, just hear me out. Put about 6 chocolate chips in your mouth until they start to melt then throw in some wasabi peas and close your mouth and breathe through your nose. The taste is sweet and hot and yum. Plus your nose burns. If your nose doesn't feel like it has been scorched and your eyes aren't watering--then you need more wasabi peas in your mouth. Fact.

I scream, you scream…

We all scream for ice cream! As I have had the sore throat and earache I have been craving cool, soothing frosty goodness to slide down the back of my throat. Obviously dairy ice cream is out of the question. But never fear, there are alternatives. Swedish Glace makes a delicious soy milk ice cream, however it is loaded with sugars, fats and some artificial gunk.

Juicy Raspberry contains:

Water extract from premium graded soya beans, raspberry ripple 14% (sucrose, raspberry, water, pectin, stabiliser: E410, citric acid E330, preservatives: E202, E211), sucrose, glucose, non-hydrogenated vegetable oils, emulsifiers: mono- and di-glycerides from vegetable oils, stabilisers: carob bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, salt, colour: red beet powder, raspberry flavour.

Per 100 gram serving it has:

Calories 210

Protein 2.5g

Carbohydrates 29g

Of which sugars 28g

Fat 9g

Of which saturates 5g

Of which mono-saturates 2.5g

Of which poly-unsaturated 1.5g

Fibre 1 g

Sodium 0.1g

That’s a lot of gunk to put in your body as often as I crave a frosty treat. So what is a hungry but health conscious Spidergrrl to do? Adapt, adopt and improve!

Frozen Yoghurt is our newest discovery. You just freeze pots of soya yoghurt and then take them out and let them thaw and they are ready to eat. For this comparative exercise I will use cherry yoghurt since I was talking about raspberry ice cream. They're both fruits, right? And cherry is my favourite. Pop your pots of yoghurt in the freezer over night and then before you want to eat them take them out and sit them on the counter. In 45 minutes they are defrosted enough to be the texture of ice cream but not melty puddle-y. They really do look and taste very similar to ice cream or TCBY frozen yoghurt. Yum! It seems to work best with fruit ones—the plain vanilla one went all icy, but the fruit ones rock.  Maybe that's because the plain vanilla ones comes in a big pot and you have to divide it up into your own smaller pots. Who knows. anyway, let’s see how Alpro Cherry Soya Yoghurt compares to Swedish Glace.

 Alpro Cherry Soya Yoghurt contains:

Water, Hulled soya beans (7.3%), Sugar, (Cherries (6.3%)), cherry juice (4.6%), Glucose-fructose syrup, Tri-calciumcitrate, Stabiliser (Pectin), Acidity regulators (Sodium citrate, Citric acid), Natural colouring (Anthocyanins), Carrot concentrate, Modified maize starch, Flavouring (), Sea salt, Emulsifier (Lecithin), Vitamins (Riboflavin, B12, D2), Yogurt cultures (S. thermophilus, L. bulgaricus), Antioxidants (Ascorbyl palmitate, Tocopherol-rich extract)

Per 100g serving it has:

Calories 75

Protein 3.7g

Carbohydrates 19.4g

Of which sugars 19.2g

Fat 2.0g

Of which saturates 0.4g

mono unsaturated 0.4g
poly unsaturated 1.2g

Fibre 1g

Sodium 0.08g

Calcium 120mg

Plus 15% of your daily allowance of riboflavin, B12, D2

Wow! What a difference!

The second way we indulge in frozen goodness is to make banana ice cream When ever bananas get over ripe and are brown and speckled, peel them and cut them into chunks and then freeze them. When you have 3 frozen bananas then you can make ice cream for  two people. This is where the frozen yoghurt can help ease your cravings--it can take a while to get enough bananas saved up for this. But when you do have enough bananas saved up it is totally worth it.

Banana Ice Cream

Put all the frozen banana chunks in a metal bowl or pot. Add a drizzle of maple syrup and a blop or two of yoghurt (not frozen--just from the fridge) and a pinch of sea salt--smoked if you can get it (smoked sea salt gives it caramel tones)  then use you immersion blender to pulverise it until it is the consistency of ice cream which doesn’t take long. Then add a handful of nuts--walnuts make it like maple walnut/pecans like butter pecan--and pulse quickly to chop and incorporate into the ice cream. Serve immediately. 

Some people do it in a food processor but I found that always made it melty and gloopy. I like the metal pot because it gets super cold--so cold the metal almost burns your skin--and it keeps the bananas from melting and retains their creaminess with no gloopy bits. But that’s just me. If you wanna try it in the food processor then go for it.

These are 2 of the ways we keep cool in summer. What do you eat?

The volcano in my ear…

…Has finally erupted. I am on anti-biotic tablets now with cotton wool in my ear. It feels better already albeit a bit messy. I am also temporarily deaf on that side, but that could be from the cotton wool. Without the cotton there is an unpleasant ringing in my ear, but that will subside within 24 hours.

When I was seeing my doctor and he was trying to sort me out some anti-biotics he absentmindedly asked me if I was on the pill (anti-biotics make the pill less effective so they advise back up birth control) and then suddenly he slapped his forehead with his palm and said, “No of course you are not. I remember…hysterectomy…gigantic fibroids….heavy as a bag of sugar” and I swear his eyes were as big as saucers and he trembled as he said it . So yeah, that’s me. Giant fibroid girl. Thanks for remembering.

 Anyway, during my confinement I have had way too much time on my hands and have had to resort to  pondering questions like “What was the other hit song by Rick Springfield besides Jessie’s Girl? The answer in case you care (and even if you don’t) is I‘ve done everything for you (you‘ve done nothing for me). Why should anyone be thinking of Rick Springfield, you ask? Well it was because I was remembering a girl I went to school with whose name I will not mention but who we shall call DD as those were her initials. DD was completely in *love* with Rick Springfield  when we were in junior high. She wore nothing but Rick Springfield concert shirts and  I’m sure she even had one made up at the mall that said DD loves Rick (and I believe Rick loves DD on the back). Every day right after lunch she was overcome with illness so that should could go home and watch her beloved Rick as he played Dr Noah Drake on General Hospital. The office got wise to her scheme and refused to send her home but she kicked up such a fuss at home--refusing to eat or saying she’d kill herself or whatever it took--that her folks bought her a VCR so she could record General Hospital. “So, what’s the big deal?” you ask. “We’ve all got one of those gadgets these days.” Well honey-child, you must remember this was the 1980s when all that technology was brand spanking new and quite expensive. We had only just started fazing out 8 tracks and Beta Max in 1982. If you don’t know what those are then you are seriously too young to be reminiscing with me. Anyway, they spent like $800 to buy a video recorder and all was well. No more missed school for DD. But then it happened--duh duh DUH!

DD went to a Rick Springfield concert and was on the first row. She was so close she could touch him and probably did. But then it happened. Rick was a bit phlegm-y from all that singing and  he SPAT into the audience. Right in DD’s hair. Now if anyone gobbed in my hair (famous or not) I’d be pretty pissed, but not DD. She was delighted. And proceeded to walk around with a big old glob of Rick Springfield loogey on her head. And she proudly told everyone what it was and why she didn’t plan on washing her hair again. This probably only went on for a few days but when you are in junior high and can actually, truly die of shame it seemed longer to me. I recall the guidance councillors calling her in for a friendly chat. Ditto the kindly Christian PE teacher. But to no avail. Eventually she did wash her hair and eventually she went off Rick Springfield.

But here’s the kicker: She always pretended it NEVER happened. I mean we were all there. But she would swear when we were seniors that we must have been thinking of someone else. She would say “Who?” when we would mention Rick Springfield--like she had no idea who we were talking about. Then we’d say, “Oh DD you simply must remember. You were obsessed. You wore nothing but Rick Springfield shirts, your parents bought you a VCR so you could tape General Hospital! Dude you wore a glob of his spit in your hair!” And she would look at you right in the eyes, cock her head to the side like she was thinking hard, then shake her head slowly and say, “No. That wasn’t me. I never watch the soaps.” And the rest of us would fall about because we knew it was a bunch of hooey.    Maybe it was trauma-- the ball of phlegm hit her head so hard it caused amnesia. I don’t know. I personally think a person should remember (and laugh) at their silly/embarrassing childhood exploits so I’ll start us off.

These are just a few of my embarrassing moments.

I was truly in love with Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett in the 1970s and spent many hours deciding which one I was going to marry because they both were obviously going to want to marry me. How to choose? A few years later, just to show my disdain for the whole idea, I drew big red zits and green snot running out Shaun’s nose on my album cover. Had I had a Leif album I’m sure I would have done the same.

In the 4^th grade when filling out a form at school about what I wanted to be when I grew up I wrote “Disco Queen.” 

My older friend TH (who was forever leading me astray) told me that when I was 10 we were going to run away from home and live in a shack in the back of the soybean field  behind our houses and she would home school me because she was 2 years older. We would have a battery operated portable telly from Sears and because I blubbed agreed we could visit my folks on weekends. She made me do 4 hours of fire drill practice from my tree house one boring summer afternoon. She timed me and made me keep going until I had my time down to 30 seconds which included packing a big bag of provisions. I was so gullible back then I thought that word wasn’t in the dictionary.

I once wore my bra backwards on a bet in the 6^th grade to see if anyone noticed. They didn’t. This is probably due to the fact that I had no boobage at all and had no business wearing a bra in the first place unlike my 2 friends DD (not that one, another DD) and EG. DD was a tomboy and refused to be needing to wear one because she wanted to play sports. EG knew *exactly* what she was up to and all the boys were around her like bees on honeysuckle. 

The first real conversation I recall having with the boy who became my close friend (and is still my bestest friend today) was at the choir Christmas carolling concert. We were standing by the fire to warm up after carolling in the neighbourhood awaiting our steaming mugs of hot cocoa to arrive and I rather wittily remarked, “Do you want a weiner roast? Go stand in the fireplace.” Ho ho ho a cheap sexual allusion makes the world go round. It is surprising that he is still friends with me after a crap chat up line like that, but I am thankful he is. Thanks DW.

These are just some of the silly/embarrassing things I did before the age of 12. The list of silly things after the age of 12 could fill several volumes--WA HA / hoo ha 6:00 and all that jazz. LM if you’re reading this you know what I mean. KS if you are reading this ask your brother “What do ya think of them carrots?”  Nuff said. 

I'm hoping my ear drum will rupture

Not as horrible as it sounds. I've had an earache for several days and last night the pain was agonising. This morning with a hot compress I managed to shift the pain  a bit and then there was the curious sensation of water in my ear--a sure precursor to my ear drum rupturing. I am hoping it will go ahead and happen because then the pressure in my eustachian tube will go away. The down side is I'll have what looks like snot running from my ear hole for about 24 hours but the reduction in pain and pressure is worth it. Don't worry, I've been through this before. My ear drum has ruptured twice of its own accord and one I had it lanced to relieve the pressure--huge mistake. I realized this the moment someone had to hold my head in a headlock to keep me from moving. Plus when the scalpel nicked my ear drum it hurt a million times worse than a rupture on its own. So here I wait, hoping it will go ahead and explode or I'll have to see the doctor.

Officially my new favourite band

We’ve been watching reruns of our favourite 80’s alternative comedy The Young Ones and I mentioned to my mate Clare that I heard that Ade Edmonson who plays Vyvian (the one with the orange mohawk/metal stars on his forehead/likes mindless violence) had a band. Clare jumped up and down and squealed and said they were brilliant and the next day brought me a CD of The Bad Shepherds called Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera which is ancient Cumbrian for One, Two, Three, Four! The album is awesome! What they do is take all your favourite punk/alternative songs from the 70’s and 80’s but—get this—play them on folk instruments like the mandolin, uillean pipes, penny whistle, bodhran and celtic fiddle. It is a perfect reimagining of these songs in a cool folksy way with reels and jigs inserted between lyrics. Clare has now taken up the mandolin, how cool is that?  

The CD Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera features these songs:

1. I Fought The Law/Cockers At Pockers
2. Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
3. Rise
4. Whole Wide World/Hag With The Money
5. The Model
6. Humours of Tullah/Teenage Kicks/
   Whisky In The Jar/The Merry Blacksmith
7. Once In A Lifetime/Pinch Of Snuff
8. London Calling/Manchester Calling/The Monaghan Jig
9. Up The Junction
10. Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera!
    (Fraher's Jig/Coppers & Brass/The Old Bush/Rip The Calico)
11. God Save The Queen/Mountain Road

Their new CD By Hook or by Crook which I soon will have features these tracks:

1. Anarchy in the UK
2. Sound of the Suburbs
3. Making Plans For Nigel
4. Friday Night, Saturday Morning
5. Ramones Medley
6. Panic
7. Ace of Spades
8. Ever Fallen In Love With Someone
   (You Shouldn't've)
9. White Riot

If you like punk music or are stuck in 80’s nostalgia but also love folk music—check them out. You will not regret it.

Are you achin’ (Yup Yup) for some bacon (Yup Yup)

…..He’s a big pig, you can be a big pig too, Oy! Enough of this witty banter from The Lion King.

Someone once said that bacon is the gateway meat. Bacon was the hardest meat for me to give up when I began to think about where food really comes from and decided to stop exploiting animals for my own purposes. I loved the salty, crispy  feel of it. The smoky flavour. The sometimes maple flavour if you were lucky to find maple cured bacon. The savoury-ness of it. After I stopped eating it for a while I would find that the smell still really got me salivating but watching it fry up in a pan with all that fat and grease made my stomach turn. There is nothing that really tastes of bacon that is not made from slaughtered animals and I am not willing to go forgo my morals just for a momentary pleasure. But when you think about it--what is it that was so good? Salty, crispy, smoky, maple, savoury. Could that be replicated in a way that was satisfying to one’s taste buds and one’s moral code?

In quick succession 2 blogs that I visit showed the same recipe for gluten free/soy free vegan bacon made from adzuki beans and buckwheat groats (which despite the name buckwheat are actually gluten free.) One claimed to have adapted it from the other blog so I decided to try it and do a taste test. When I was a wee nipper one of my favourite magazines was Consumer Reports because I loved how they tested every product and rated the results. The recipes were fairly similar--both had the same amount of adzuki beans and buckwheat and the method for preparing them the same. What was different was the other ingredients. One had more maple syrup, tomato puree and smoked paprika than the other, but they both had the same amount of  liquid smoke, salt and oil. One had tamari (soy) sauce and the other had some rubbed sage. I decided to do up both and compare.

The first one I chose was the version from The Ordinary Vegetarian’s blog http://www.ordinaryvegetarian.com/   who adapted it from No Meat Athlete’s blog.  

This is version one:

Amazing Homemade Vegan Bacon
(adapted from No Meat Athlete)

1/2 cup dried adzuki beans, or other small red beans
1/3 cup whole grain buckwheat groats (not buckwheat flour)
1 tsp onion powder
1/3 tsp garlic powder
1/3 tsp rubbed sage
1/2 tsp thyme
1-1/2 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp liquid smoke*
3 tbsp pure maple syrup
1-1/2 tbsp coconut aminos (if no need to be soy-free, sub bragg's, tamari, or soy sauce)*
1 tbsp tomato paste
1-1/2 tbsp nutritional yeast (optional)
1 tsp coconut oil (may sub any oil you prefer)
1/2 tsp salt

Rinse the beans and buckwheat, place in large bowl covered with several inches of cold filtered water; let soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Drain and rinse the soaked beans and buckwheat.  Place in the bowl of a food processor fitted with an s-blade, along with all of the other ingredients. Pulse several times to combine, scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and continue pulsing until uniform, but not completely pureed.

Line a 9 x 13 casserole dish or rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with baking spray. Place bacon batter in pan and spread evenly with a spatula. You may choose to spray another piece of parchment paper lightly with baking spray and press the paper on top of the mixture and flatten with your hands. Remove and discard the top piece of parchment paper, then use a spatula to spread over and fill in any bare spots.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes. Slice into 24-32 strips, whatever size you prefer, I cut mine into 1 inch by 4 inches slices (Do this by making one lengthwise cut down the center, and then 12-16 cuts across the shorter side. See photo above).

At this point freeze any strips your don't plan on eating immediately. Frozen strips can go straight into the skillet at a later date, no need to thaw first. To fry, heat a skillet with a small amount of oil and fry both sides to desired level of crispiness. You may also choose to fry slices in cooking spray, for a less crispy, but still very delicious result.

It was easy to do and cut up nicely into strips. I fried some and they were delicious--crispy, smoky, sweet and savoury. They were fairly sweet from the 3 TB maple syrup so I was interested to try the other version which had less maple and a bit of tamari which would give it a bit more salty flavour. But first I needed to use up most of version one and then when I was down to the last few strips, make version two and have a taste test.

So then I made version two which comes from No Meat Athlete’s blog  http://www.nomeatathlete.com/  . Yes I realize if this were a real test then I would have tried this one first as it seems to be the original but I had printed the other one and this one was still stuck on my memory stick so it got done second. So there.

This is version two:

Homemade Vegan Soy-Free Bacon

Ingredients:

·      1/2 cup dried adzuki beans or other small red beans

·      1/3 cup hulled wholegrain buckwheat (not buckwheat flour)

·      1 teaspoon onion powder

·      1 teaspoon hickory liquid smoke

·      4 teaspoons nutritional yeast

·      1 teaspoon smoked paprika

·      1 tablespoon Braggs Liquid Aminos (May be substituted with soy sauce)

·      1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

·      2 teaspoons tomato paste

·      1 teaspoon coconut oil

·      2 teaspoons maple syrup

Rinse the beans and buckwheat,  place in large bowl covered with several inches of cold filtered water; let soak overnight.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C.

Strain the soaked beans and buckwheat and rinse.  Place in the bowl of a food processor.  Add the onion powder, liquid smoke, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, aminos or soy sauce, salt, tomato paste, coconut oil, and maple syrup.  Pulse several times to combine, scrape down the sides and bottom of bowl and continue pulsing until uniform but not as pureed as hummus.

Line a 9×13 casserole dish with parchment paper and coat pan with baking spray.  Place bacon mixture in pan and spread as much as possible with a spatula.  To get the mixture very thin and evenly spread, spray another piece of parchment paper lightly with baking spray and press the paper on top of the mixture and flatten with your hands.  Remove and discard the top piece of parchment paper, then use a spatula to spread over and fill in any bare spots.

Bake for 10 minutes.  Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes, then slice into 24 strips, about 1 inch by 4 inches (Do this by making one lengthwise cut down the center, and then twelve cuts across the shorter side).  Remove the strips with a small spatula.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat.  Fry the bacon slices for 2-3 minutes, flipping once.  Alternatively, before frying, you can freeze the bacon, then fry when ready to serve (no need to thaw first).

The results were this: Version Two from No Meat Athlete wins hands down. It seemed to make slightly less—I got 22 not 24 strips out of it, but the results were not so sweet—just a kiss of maple—and definitely savoury/salty enough to satisfy a bacon craving. Version One was more "bready" compared to Version Two which was more "bacon-y."

I’ll be honest, no pig eatin’ omnivore is going to squeal with delight and exclaim, “OMG, dude! This tastes just like real meat bacon!” But they are good. They fulfil all the criteria of salty, smoky, maple, crunchy and savoury. They are weirdly addictive and easy to prepare as they really do cook up from frozen in a jiffy. They remind us of these Linda McCartney sundried tomato sausages that we used to buy that seem to be discontinued. They didn’t taste anything like sausages, but tasted rather like sundried tomato hush puppies--these have that same sort of flavour. They are delicious fried up on their own as a snack or beside other “breakfast” dishes.

So no, it is not exactly like bacon or even something like bacon, but they are yummy strips of vegan goodness and no beautiful, intelligent pigs had to die to make a BLT.