So not done a Vegtember blog for a couple of days, was busy playing Mafia 2 on Sunday, and I was knackered after work yesterday. So below are the recipes from my vegetarian meze platter on Sunday. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures as was a little big rushed so apologies for that.

All these dishes were very nice, but it didn’t quite work as a main meal; I have to confess I was busy thinking about how much better it all would have been with a nice Lamb Kofte kebab! I think if I do it again I will probably do some sort of a Halloumi based dish (maybe even veggie kebabs) or Felafels to be a centre piece.

However whilst it didn’t work as a meal it was excellent for packed lunches today and yesterday and I was not in any way bored of it despite having eaten it three days running. I still even have some of the humus left which I am going to have on my sarnies tomorrow!

Interestingly today George Monbiot has written an article in the Grauniad that seems to cast some doubt as to the importance of a project like this. Basically that article asserts that potentially meat production isn’t quite as bad for the environment as it was possibly previous feared to be.

On the other hand it clearly, even within the context of the article, is worse for the environment than vegetable production. Also the thrust is on the basis that if massive changes happen that totally shift the way meat production is done it won’t be so bad. Two chances of that happening, Slim and none. Slims out of town right now! (gold star to the first person to get the reference). So Vegtember will continue unabashed, And I will continue to be sanctimonious at least for the rest of the month!

Due to mis reading a recipe I misread before going shopping today I am going to be making a Capn’ Ralph original tonight of Ricotta, Courgette and Broccoli Rissoto. Probably won’t be able to blog the recipe until after I get back from London.

Humus

1 Can of Chickpeas.

Tahini

Juice and zest of 1 Lemon

2 cloves Garlic

Big handful chopped Parsley

Salt

½ tsp Paprika

½ tsp Cayenne Pepper

1 tsp Cumin

Now I hope you are paying attention because this represents complicated, tricky nuanced cooking that should test your skill to the limit. As Greg from Masterchef would say “Cooking doesn’t get any tougher than this”!

Drain the chickpeas (but keep the liquid), whap everything else into a food processor/blender. Whush it all up and add the juice from the can until it reaches the desired consistency. Erm…. thats it!

Tabbouleh.

150g Bulgar Wheat

spring onions

Half a Cucumber

2 big ripe tomatoes.

Handful fresh mint

Handful fresh parsley

Juice of 2 Lemons

Salt

Pepper

Olive Oil

Right cook the Bulgar wheat and drain leaving to cool. Meanwhile finely dice the tomatoes, cucumber, chop up the spring onions, parsley and mint. Mix in with the cooled wheat, lemon juice, salt and pepper and a liberal splash of olive oil. Et Voila, another really taxing recipe I know.

Baba Ganoush

This is my kid brother’s recipe and I followed it religiously so this is literally copied and pasted from the email he sent me. This isn’t traditional but a variation he has come up with. It was very nice.

“1 aubergine, halved lengthways

2 cloves garlic, sliced

75-100mls creme fraiche

Squeeze of lemon juice

Chopped parsley

Smoked paprika

If you have a griddle pan (if not, use the grill, but it’s loads better with a griddle), brush the halves of aubergine all over with olive oil and griddle each side for about 10-15 minutes. On the flesh side, cut in a criss-cross (gonna make you JUMP!) down to the skin, so you can scoop out the flesh. Put in a food mixer with the garlic, creme fraiche, lemon juice and parsley and whizz for a few seconds. Sprinkle liberally with smoked paprika.

I reckon it would probably be good to leave the skin on the garlic and cook it up for 10 minutes or so with the aubergine for a nice, milder, roasted garlic flavour, but I haven’t tried that yet.”

Saturday was always going to be tricky for me. It is my normal “bacon buttie” day. I have already said I am a massive carnivore and bacon is probably the foodstuff I love more than anything else in the world. So my first Saturday of Vegtember was one in which I intended to keep myself very busy, and my mind firmly off the topic of various pig related products.

My new toy!

Lots of the vegetarian recipes that people have sent me call for the use of a Griddle pan, a kitchen utensil I had long desired but did not own. Given that I am doing this for the Environment I set out on a mission to get myself one, not for me you understand, I bought this for the greater good! Picture attached, isn’t she lovely!

Next up was to record my latest Video Blog about Vegtember (see below) this Video is about using your local greengrocers rather than the supermarket. I had an unexpected technical problems (my camcorder has seemingly died) so I apologise about the poor picture quality in the “talking head” bit. The camcorder on my phones seems excellent out doors but grainy and horrid in doors. Shall have to look into this in advance of my video about Farmers Markets next week.

Needed to attack the ice monster in my Freezer for the rest of the day so was unable to do any substantial cooking for the rest of the day. So for dinner I just ate the leftover Peanut and Tomato sauce from the other day.

So survived Saturday without going on a meat c razed rampage to the local bacon store. Decided that given the food I am having so far is all pretty healthy I am going to treat myself to some cheese on toast as a bacon replacement next Saturday.

Will be another blog later as I am cooking a load of vegetarian Lebanese Meze for chow tonight.

Day two of Vegtember and I am jonesing for a curry. Now I think it is fair to say that it is very much a western thing that all curries have to contain meat. Mostly on the subcontinent the food will be predominantly vegetarian. I love curry, and I think that cooking vegetarian ones this month will probably improve my skill as I will be less likely to rely on the meat and think more about the flavour.

This recipe is another of my kid brothers (thanks Dan!) slightly adapted to my tastes.

Brothers Spinach and Mushroom Curry

Mushroom and Spinach Curry

Ingredients

250g Mushrooms

340g Tin of spinach (Much, much easier and cheaper than fresh, and personally I think it works better in curries. Make sure it’s ‘Leaf’ and not ‘Chopped)

2 onions

3 cloves garlic

Thumb sized piece of Ginger, peeled and very finely chopped or grated

1 Chilli

10 Cardamom pods

About an inch of Cinnamon stick

2 Bay leaves

1 heaped tsp Cumin

1 tsp Garam Masala

½ tsp Turmeric

½ tsp Chilli powder

Handful of Sultanas

150ml Reduced Fat Creme Fraiche

Chopped Coriander

Method

First up chop the onions, and fry with the garlic, ginger and chilli (I used Sesame Oil), for about 10 minutes. Heat up the mix to get the oil nice and hotr and then chuck in the spices and bay leaves, mix up quickly to make sure the onions get well covered. Then turn the heat down again and cook for a few minutes.

Next up add the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes until they start to soften. Add about 200ml of water and bring to the boil. Then add the spinach and sultanas and cook for about 15 minutes. Once most of the water has evaporated add the Crème Fraiche, chopped coriander and heat (being careful not to curdle the Crème Fraiche).

Serve with rice, naan and some hot pickle.

My brother reliably informs me that as with most curries it is much better then next day having been warmed up. Also he says you can successfully bulk it out with new potatoes cooked in Tumeric. He tends to serve it with Dhal and his take on onion bhajis. Both of which I will cook later in Vegtember.

Enjoy.

So, the first day of Vegtember. And I frankly woke up pretty excited about the whole thing, I’d already made my vegetarian lunch for today last night. I had humus, cherry tomato, cucumber, red onion and romaine lettuce sandwiches. Not particularly adventurous but very nice and a good way to ease myself into Vegtember.

Having had a frankly busy day I wanted something pretty easy for dinner. So I decided to plunk for a traditional old family recipe. Pasta with peanuts and tomato sauce but using my little brothers twist of putting in halved green olives. This is a really easy recipe to cook, really tasty, really satisfying and crucially for me is great to take with you to work the next day for packed lunch.

So my crazy plan has now started in earnest. Really pleased that people seem to think it is a good idea, so thanks everyone for all the nice comments on H2G2, Facebook, Twitter, in work etc. And I know a fair few people are also planning on having a Vegtember now!

Spicy Peanut and Tomato pasta

Spicy Peanut and Tomato Pasta ft. Olives

Ingredients.

1 onion

2 tins tomatoes

Hefty squeeze of tomato purée

Garlic

1 or 2 chillies

1tsp Cayenne

1tbsp peanut butter **

10-15 pitted olives, halved

1tbsp red wine vinegar

Thyme

Marjoram/Oregano

Method

Very simple to do, fry the chilli onion and garlic until soft but not caramalised. Then chuck everything else in and cook until reduced to your desired consistency. Serve with your favourite type of pasta (Fusili for me) and some salad AND/OR bread.

Best Peanut Butter Ever!

** Have to give a shout out to one of my favourite ingredients which is Meridian Natural Crunchy peanut butter with no added sugar or salt. It is mint, and great for cooking and on toast. Can get it from t’interweb or health food shops and it is well worth a purchase if you ask me.

So on waking up this morning I realised that it’s happening tomorrow, a whole month without eating any meat. And although Vegtember hadn’t really started yet, I had already started getting rid of all the meat in my fridge so had a vegetarian packed lunch today.

So therefore I thought I had to go out with a bang tonight and have something that’s both meat, and treat. Steak it is them. Now steak is not my very favourite food, I’m a big fan for sure, but there is other stuff that I like more. However the something about steak, something meaty, like it’s the top of the carnivore foodchain. Steak is lets face it “The Daddy”. So I felt my last supper prior to Vegtember had to be a steak.

I must say however that it left me a little bit worried, I like to think I’m a pretty tidy Cook, but I never been able to cook steak to my satisfaction. For some reason despite being a rare to medium rare eater when ever I cook steak myself I seem to burn into oblivion so ends up resembling a dead old Dr Marten boot.

But despite all that I knew the gods were with me today, I knew that I was going to cook a perfect steak. I wanted the meal to be simple not least because I was working relatively late. So what I went for was the steak, with thick and chunky sweet potato chips, roasted cherry tomatoes and some naked lettuce.

As it is all pretty simple, I shan’t bother putting the recipe up but a picture of my dinner, my last supper (meaty), is attached. I’m sure it is unlikely that I will win any awards for my skill at plating up, no gourmet restaurants are going to beat a path to my door. but when you’re cooking for yourself it’s all about the taste.

Mmmm... Steak

I finally did it, I finally nailed at home a beautifully cooked steak just how I like it, just when I’m not then be able to do it again for ages. Oh well lots of culinary discovery to come during Vegtember I’m sure. And it is always nice hitting a home run with something you cook.

So just leaves it to start soaking some chick peas (making Humous tomorrow) and then Vegtember starts in earnest. I miss the steak already!

So what is Vegtember then? Put simply it is a Vegetarian September, Why? Well my union the CWU is part of a green project called Climate Solidarity. This is a coalition of a number of Trade Unions which includes the PCS, the NUT, the UCU, ourselves and the charity COIN. The idea is to set up a number of climate change action groups in which individuals will look to reduce their personal carbon footprint at home or at work.

The CWU’s national youth committee is one such action group, and as a result I needed to come up with an idea for what I was going to do. Based on the “Meat Free Mondays”, recently espoused By Caroline Lucas of the Green party; I decided to do something around eating less meat. To make it a bit more interesting rather than just not eating meat once a week I decided that I was going to give up meat for the whole of September. I will document my experiences here at Lunchtime Legend, and also with V-Blogs on my YouTube channel, which I will also post here. See the first of which below.

I am a massive carnivore, I love to eat meat and it features in almost all of the food that I cook. So I anticipate that this for me is going to be something of a big and difficult challenge. However it’s a challenge that I am really looking forward to, I have no doubt that by the end of the month I will be absolutely jonesing for a bacon sandwich mind you!

Despite not having any problems with people eating meat, and not being in any way a conscience vegetarian, I do recognise that there are problems with the way we consume meat in Western Europe and North America. Meat production requires very intensive farming, considerable amounts of agricultural land, and associated problems that range from the ethical treatment of animals to the usage of antibiotics and genetic engineering.

I have no intention of giving up eating meat permanently, however in common with most people in the West I think for the good of the environment it would be better if I ate less.

I anticipate that there are likely to be other associated benefits from Vegtember. Firstly I imagine that my diet is likely to become a bit healthier, whilst many in of its self is not inherently unhealthy there are many ways in which it can be. Recent research shows that processed meat can have health implications if consumed too regularly, and things like sausages and bacon whilst delicious can be very fatty.

Additionally being able to eat meat sometimes makes me quite lazy about how I think about what I’m going to eat. Knowing that I can easily pick up some fast food, or bought lunches from the local supermarket or the canteen at work means I don’t always prepare healthy lunches in the way I should. Fast food, and prepackaged convenience food is usually high in fat, sugar and salt and in all honesty it would be good for me to eat less of this.

Not what is normally in my shopping basket!

The other big benefit I am hoping to see is to save some money. In preparation for the start of Vegtember I went to buy a load of things I expect to use when cooking vegetarian food, I was amazed by the relative economy compared to my normal shop. And as I expect to be eating much less take away and convenience food I’m sure that I will necessarily save some money.

Clearly individuals will not be able to address the problems of climate change only by moderating individual behaviour. And I think it would be both wrong, and improper to somehow suggest that people are individually to blame. Individuals are unable to exercise influence into how our economies are organised, how our energy is generated, and how we move people around. But despite this individuals can be part of a movement to change. Our individual consumption levels of resources and carbon in the West is unsustainable. Projects like climate solidarity will look to help people move on to a more sustainable footing.

I hope that at the end of Vegtember I will have improved as a cook, lost a bit of weight, saved a lot of money and reduced my carbon footprint. And whilst I fully intend to go back to eating meat at the end of Vegtember my plan is that through the lessons I learn this month I will have a healthier and more balanced diet in which I do not consume as much meat.

I’d like to give an acknowledgement to James Ramsden, author of my favourite food blog, off whom I totally stole this idea (though he did it much more extreme than I intend to, going totally Vegan!).

P.S. I dont see how I can do this without using Nam Pla, so I won’t be 100% kosher vegetarian unless someone can suggest to me a suitable vegetarian alternative.

Have you ever had that feeling when watching a film, that it seems like it was made specifically with you in mind. I did, earlier today, when I went to watch Scott Pilgrim versus the world. It was amazing, really, really great.

Now I have to make a little bit of a confession here, I’m a bit of a nerd. Alas it’s true I really am. I have a passing understanding of the rules of “Advanced Dungeons and Dragons”, I know how the rank structure of the Federation in Star Trek works, and I am really really looking forward to categorising all my books and comics when I get round to putting my new book shelf together.

Knowing this, and having been a big fan of the source material having loved all six volumes of the Scott Pilgrim comic books. I must say I was a little concerned that the film might frankly have been a little bit nerdy for most people. Seeing the early numbers in terms of box office receipts that Scott Pilgrim has so far produced in America possibly seems to bear this out.

But, I don’t really think that that is a fair assessment of this film. There is a fair amount of nerdy stuff in the film, but this is more than outweighed by the super-cool hipness and trendiness that seeps out of every pore. Imagine if The Fonz, and Samuel L Jackson’s character from Pulp Fiction had a kid, and it had liquid nitrogen for blood, then it still would not be as cool as Scott Pilgrim. I can’t imagine anybody not enjoying this film and if anything I think it’s more likely that the coolness of the movie will put off us nerds, than the nerdiness will put off the normal people.

The plot is your basic boy meets girl, boy meets another girl he likes better, boy has to defeat the “seven evil exes” of the new girl in order to date her; that has been done so many millions of times before! But I have to say Edgar Wright manages to put a very interesting twist on this hackneyed old tale of fighting exes to win the girl!

Hipster cool films tend in some respects to live and die by their soundtrack, and Scott Pilgrim is a film in which bands and music go a long way to drive the plot (The eponymous main character is in a band called “Sex Bob-Om” in a Battle of the Bands competition). And Wright has absolutely nailed this aspect. I can’t remember how I imagined the various different bands in the comics sounding; but now I can’t imagine any of them sounding any different from the movie. I suspect the soundtrack has given me a staple in Spotify for me for quite some time to come. Put simply it ROCKs!!!! (well sometimes it beeps in the electronica bits).

The entire ensemble cast nails all of their respective roles. But in truth the real fun is had by those playing the evil exes, Chris Evans and Brandon Routh especially are fantastic and they are clearly having great fun, and especially Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells who basically steals every scene he is in. But this does not detract from the principle leads who are excellent in the main roles. There was some debate as to whether or not Michael Cera was the right man to be Scott Pilgrim. There is no debate now he inhabits the role clearly being the same guy that is in the comics; but infusing the role with his own character which I think is exactly what anybody needs to do who is acting in an adaptation of written source material. Mary Elizabeth Winstead (who she?) was pretty much exactly as I had imagined Ramona Flowers having read the comics, and Ellen Wong was great as Knives Chau, giving the character rather more weight than in the comics I reckon.

I’d really urge everybody to go see this movie. It hasn’t done amazing work at the box office so far and I think it would be absolutely tragic if a film this different, inventive, adventurous, new, and frankly awesome was not a success. Some people may want to go and pay to see Die Hard 18, Saw 471 or a Jennifer Aniston movie (surely not, but they do keep making them). But personally I just Wanna see something fantastic, interesting and new. And in the summer where I’d absolutely raved about “Kick Ass”, and “Inception” I think Scott Pilgrim may have topped them both and be the best film I’ve seen this year.

Even if it’s not a success in the cinema I am sure, in common with every single review I’ve read so far, that the film is destined to be a cult hit that people will watch for ages. In some respects it’s just going to be great on DVD or Blu-ray, I look forward to seeing something like that “homage-ometer” from the “Spaced” DVD extras to see what loving references I didn’t pick up when watching the film, I bet there’s loads.

So it’s a class, entertaining, super-cool, sexy film which even has stuff like music from an 8 bit Zelda game, for a nerd like me. It is awesome, go to see it in the cinema what you can and then buy the DVD as well dagnamit!

Following the excellent and thought provoking blog from my colleague Matt Edwards, entitled “In defence of bank charges.”,  I though I would post a blog response with a different view.

My politics is based massively around my ideas fairness, and it is on this crucial test that I think the bank charges fall down, and fall down in a big way.

Firstly the problem as I see it is the value of the charges is so often out of all proportion to the nature of the “offence”. Put simply the punishment does not fit the crime.

Where people go over their overdraft limit by a matter of pence they are charged often disproportionate fee’s. 10, 20 even sometimes as much a 35 pounds. And whilst the practice is mostly ceased now you are still sometimes also charged for the letter that is sent out. I remember once, when I was younger and frankly poorer being charged in total £50 for having been 67 pence over drawn.

This can lead to people then struggling to make ands meet the following month and often going over drawn again by less than the amount of the charges levied on them the previous week.

But I think the biggest failure of the bank charges regime is the was it disproportionately effects the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. The reality is those who have larger and more comfortable family incomes, those who don’t have most months to go searching behind the back of the sofa for change to buy milk and break, are unlikely to ever get these charges.

Further they tend, in the main, to have free retail banking, subsidised in part, by punitative charges levied on those much poorer. This to me as lefty concerned with fairness, is totally outrageous.

I think a much better system would be one where everyone paid the fair share of their running costs of their retail bank accounts, and that charges should be levied much more closely in proportion to the actual losses suffered by the bank. We all no that an automatically generated letter over a direct debit refusal costs a bank pence not tens of pounds.

And whilst banks need to challenge poor financial behaviour in customers who do not use the services correctly they should not be based on making profits.

Many of the ways in which banking system operate contribute to this happening anyhow, what is the rational logic for some card based transaction to take 3 working days to clear? If the electronic transactions were near instantaneous then it wouldn’t be possible for most bank customers to go over their overdraft limit in error. This happens for customer with Electron or Solo cards and the banks could, if they wanted, make this happen for all.

The status quo is unfair, unreasonable and regressive in nature, and people are right to question why the banking sector in retail banking in the UK should continue to operate in these ways after the taxpayer has bailed them out.

Having recently blogged about why I think the coalition is most likely going to last the best part of a whole term of Parliament. It is now time for the companion piece about why I am not even sure it would be desirable to bring down the government quickly. On balance, I really want to see the back of the coalition as soon as possible and if they fail quickly, proving my last blog wrong then I would be delighted. But if that doesn’t happen here are a few reasons why it might not be the worst thing in the world.

1. First up would be the state of the Labour Party finances. At the 2010 general election Labour were in a large part hamstrung by the state of their finances. There was simply no ability to compete with the millions poured into the general election campaign by Lord Ashcroft.

   Subsequent to the general election Labour’s financial position is even worse, there is no realistic possibility of Labour at this juncture being able to finance a rigorous general election campaign; this leaves the somewhat unsettling possibility of short-term timing actually benefiting the Tories rather than the left.

   There is little value in bringing down the government if we do not have some sort of confidence that it will bring forward a better one. If the left is completely unable to fight a general election and have prospects of victory because we simply do not have the money; then the time is not right to force the end of the coalition.

2. Next the Labour Party has not yet had sufficient internal debate about the reasons why we lost, the election, the battle of ideas and its activist base. I have previously blogged about how I definitely felt the Labour party have lost its way, I found it more difficult to vote Labour at the 2010 general election than I ever have done before.

   On a range of issues, from the Iraq war, to Civil Liberties, taxation policy, the Private Finance initiative, trade union legislation and how the party deals with internal democracy.

   Until such a time as the Labour Party has elected a new leader, and had its important internal philosophical discussions about what kind of party it wishes to be; then I think it is very unlikely that the Labour Party will be in a position to win a general election.

   After 1997 the Tories spent a long long time believing all they needed was one big push of more of the same to come back into power. The Labour Party has to learn the lessons of this, for the left to win we need to understand the reasons why we lost, we need to understand how we can start winning again, we need to regain a sense of the mission and purpose in the values of the party and the movement. I don’t believe the Labour Party is yet in that place.

3. Now we move on to the issue of cuts, the economy and the budget deficit. I think it’s quite easy to the left at this juncture to engage in some collective amnesia, to either forget, or pretend to the contrary, that the Labour Party had every intention of making cuts had they won a fourth term of office.

   We have to be absolutely clear that the balance of how the deficit would have been arrested within very different under a Labour government. The pace at which this happens, the balance between increased taxation and cutting spending, and where increased taxation will fall and on what gets cut, would all have been very different.
   
   

   But despite all of that cuts would have been coming. The wider left, trade unionists et al, would no doubt have been very unhappy at many of the fiscal policies that a fourth term Labour government would have engaged in. It would have absolutely been better if this had happened, no matter how unpopular this made the party, because we would not have the almost class warfare the coalition has waged on the poor.
   
   But given that the last election was lost a silver lining surely has to be the way in which right will be tarnished and tainted by the fact that it is they who have been carrying out the cuts.
   
   Further if, as is seeming increasingly likely; bad economic calls by the Tories push us into a double dip recession, or a least a slower and more sluggish recovery. Then this has to help the left as and when a general election comes naturally.
   
   

4. Lastly, and most importantly the polls. The reality is that at the moment the poll information does nothing to suggest that the Labour Party are likely to be able to imminently win a general election. In fact looking than most of the polls the likelihood is that quick an early general election would probably result in a Conservative majority.
   
   Things are close, and I am not Nostradamus, and we all remember from 1992 how badly wrong in the polls can get it. But is it generally received wisdom that the opposition need to have a healthy poll lead going into a general election. As the left does not have this I think this is the strongest argument for why the coalition hanging together, at least for the time being, isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
   
   

Almost certainly a degree of clutching at straws here from me, I don’t want the ConDemNation in power, I really wish that they would go away and us have something better in place. Every time it looks like there is going to be a close division, where the government might lose an embarrassing vote, I am obviously going to be cheering for that to happen. All the same it does in hurt to think with your head and not your heart about these things.

Special thanks to my friend Matthew Travis for pointing this out to me. It appears from this irrefutable documentary evidence that Francis Maude and Emporer Palpatine/Darth Sidious are in fact one and the same person.

See for yourself, here are some pictures of Palpatine/Sidious:-

Emporer Palpatine

Darth Sidious

Now let us compare this to Some pictures of Francis Maude:-

Former Tory Chairman Francis Maude

Apparently both Michael Gove, and George Osborne applied to become Sith Lords but were denied entry on the grounds that they were far, far to evil to actually be admitted!