Festive Veganicity #8 - some links

Vegansaurus - great vegan gifts for omnis. I especially like the following advice: What I’m getting at is your gifts for the omnis in your life shouldn’t be all about your veganism. Trust me, your fam knows you’re vegan (and if they don’t, they’ll get a clue when you bust out the soy nog), you don’t have to remind them again when it’s present time. But at the same time, you can’t be buying them leather jackets! So what to do? Buy secretly vegan gifts! I tend to agree with this, although would add 'or make' in the last sentence.

Kristen H at Rage Against the Minivan suggests Occupy Christmas. Although she's not vegan, her manifesto on the subject of holiday gifts is pretty similar to mine: don't get into debt, give homemade gifts, support local craftspeople, find gifts that give twice (e.g. to charity) - you get the idea.

Finally, a post at Happy Herbivore with advice on having a frugal (and plant-based) festive season. She and I disagree on many points, not least the fact that one of us loves the term vegan and the other prefers not to use it, but I agree all the way with that post.

Sometimes a vegan just wants to eat toads!

For some reason I had massive sausage cravings this morning. (Not like that - really, you are a dirty-minded lot sometimes) Since it was Sunday, I thought I'd google around for a vegan Yorkshire pudding recipe and make some toad in the hole. Thankfully such recipes weren't too hard to find, although finding one that fitted the ingredients I had to hand was a little more faff. This is what I ended up using, although I replaced the gram flour with potato flour. That may account for the puddingy quality of the resulting dish - I don't mind that but my other half apparently thinks Yorkies should be like 'air'. (No, they are puddings, the clue is in the name. Neither of us is from the relevant geographical location to have a valid opinion on the subject though. We're East Anglians in Central Scotland, bypassing Yorkshire entirely except as a place to go through on the train.)

How to make the recipe into toad in the hole:
Place some Linda McCartney sausages (or other vegan sausages of your choice) in the oiled-up dish while heating it up in the oven. They'll defrost and brown while you're mixing the batter.
Mix the batter
Fish the sausages out of the dish and put them aside. Don't use your fingers unless you enjoy being burned.
Pour the batter in the dish and drop the sausages in it.
It needs a longer baking time if you double the quantity!

I got up just before ten, and managed to have made this, a batch of bread and the more standard bits of a roast meal by 1, and also have done my teaching prep for the coming week. Not bad!

Too Vegan To Function

No, not me, although I would find that description amusing if it came from someone I wasn't too annoyed with otherwise. I was randomly flicking through people's links (because just occasionally I take a night off from kicking arse and do aimless web-surfing for a bit) and came across Too Vegan To Function, a gem of a blog with detailed advice on being vegan in a variety of situations. It hasn't been updated for a while, but that doesn't diminish what is there.

New sidebar

My sidebar now contains a blogroll called 'vegan blogs I read'. These are the blogs I feel the need to check every day or two for updates, rather than an exhaustive list!

Link lurve: Amy Clare on human privilege at the F-Word

I have seen too many feminists (and anti-fascists and other progressive types who I agree with on so much else) be derisory about animal rights, and far too many AR activists return the 'favour' and argue that any human cause is an unnecessary drain on time or even a conspiracy to keep activists distracted from the 'real' issue of animal rights. It is often posited as a zero-sum choice for what you believe in. What you do is a different matter - it is an individual choice how each person uses their limited time and energy, and choosing one issue over another is fine in that regard, but it doesn't mean you have to give up caring about anything else even if it does take rather slacktivist forms at times. Can you tell a raw nerve has been hit?

Anyway, this is meant to be link lurve not link whinge (although that might be a useful feature sometime, haha) I bring you the following post: Amy Clare at feminist blog The F-Word asks if you have 'Checked your human privilege lately?'

A quick sample: 'Some have likened becoming a feminist to taking one of the pills in The Matrix - suddenly, you can see the world as it really is. You become aware of every instance of oppression, and when others then dismiss this oppression, it is unbelievably infuriating. I feel the same whenever the topic of animal rights comes up in conversation, and omnivores shrug their shoulders at me and declare that they enjoy meat, so why should they stop eating it? For me, this is the same as hearing a man say that he enjoys rape porn, so why should he stop watching it?'

Link love: Knocked up and vegan

To quell any rumours (and any fears on Ben's part should he see this post in google reader, haha! Really tempted to remove the disclaimer to see his reaction...) I am NOT pregnant.

That aside, Chloe Jo Davis at Crazy Sexy Life has made a post on being a pregnant vegan, which I felt like posting in case I or anyone reading my blog might find it useful now or (in my case) in the future.

Linky lurve - Barbies and bunnies!

In honour of National Vegetarian Week, the lovely Ms Vanilla Rose provides a list of ways to help animals, some of which translate beyond the Barbie arena!

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Cross-pollination

A post at my other blog, on the subject of genetically manipulating animals not to feel pain...

A health post

Before I embark on a series of cheap recipes, here's a list of vegan superfoods from the Green Diva.

Linkies!

I've added a few more links in General Vegan and Shinies. Nb: I use 'non-animal-tested' rather than 'cruelty-free' when the product ranges in question aren't exclusively vegan. If I post a link it indicates that the company has a decent range of vegan products, but that you may need to check the ingredients online or in the shop before buying.

More additions to the sidebar

A post brought to you by the part of my brain that doesn't necessarily read other people's blogrolls all the way through, with a dash of diligence and an ounce of egoism (ie the idea that anyone might actually find these links interesting! If you do, feel free to suggest more...)

Firstly, recipes and food-related resources has a couple of new entries. Veg Out and Veggie Heaven are guides to finding vegetarian and vegan resturants. Each one covers a wide range of countries. I have also added Vegan Village, a noticeboard for all things vegan; and Lembas, a wholesale supplier of vegetarian and vegan wholefoods. Lembas will deliver bulk orders within a certain radius of Sheffield, and are worth contacting if a few people are up for clubbing together to buy this sort of thing in. (Feel free to comment or email if you know of a similar company anywhere else in the country!)

The sidebar also now contains a section called 'global veganicity'. (Currently between 'other resources' and the picture of an eyeshadow, fairly far down the sidebar) Between the various sites linked, you should find something relevant to where you live or are travelling to.

The other new section is 'local resources', currently occupying the space between 'recipes' and 'other resources'. Right now it only contains local websites dealing with the areas I know about: in other words, I can vouch for their usefulness because I've either used them or been a vegan in the area before they were a glint in their webmaster's eye. Again, feel free to recommend more sites like this.

Under 'places to talk veganism' I have added Vegan Buddies, a messageboard set up largely so new vegans can get support from more experienced ones. This is the place to go if you're new to veganism, don't know many vegans, or worry about looking 'silly' because you don't know certain things. It is categorically NOT the place to go if you enjoy lambasting less experienced vegans for not being perfect!

Last but not least, VegCom has been accommodated (see what I did there?) under 'other resources'. If you need accommodation or a flatmate/lodger/tenant/(here my imagination runs dry, which is probably for the best) then this is the place to advertise.