Vegan MoFo is upon us! Vegan friendly relief good items: Vegan MoFo #1

Hey bloggers and readers! Last year I blogged every weekday of October in celebration of Vegan MoFo, or Vegan Month of Food. I had a blast and it really gave me the push I needed to be a frequent blogger.

What's Vegan MoFo, you ask? I quote from The Post Punk Kitchen's website:
"The idea is to write as much as you can for the month of October about vegan food. The blog entries can be about anything food related - your love of tongs, your top secret tofu pressing techniques, the first time your mom cooked vegan for you, vegan options in Timbuktu - you get the idea. There is no strict guideline for how much you have to write, but we shoot for about 20 times a month, or every weekday."

Vegan MoFo is a blog event celebrated around the world in celebration and promotion of vegan food. If you're a local reader, excuse me when I sound like I'm talking to the international community.

I would have loved to start off MoFo #1 with something home-cooked or home-baked but maybe this post will be something completely different from what other Vegan MoFo bloggers would blog about. If you haven't heard the news, my beloved country, the Philippines, was hit by massive Typhoon Ondoy over last weekend, leaving 80% of Metro Manila completely flooded and half a million people displaced. I believe the death toll is 246, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Floods have reached over 10 feet high and they have not receded in some areas. People say that Ondoy is worse than Hurricane Katrina.

The great thing about the Filipino spirit is that we want to help out in any way we can. To be a Filipino in this state of calamity means giving your all for your fellow countrymen. No dependence on the government for us, nosiree (that's a whole different rant). Everyone has and is chipping in -- whether it's through donating relief goods, cash, or time to volunteer at packing centers or evacuation centers. Classes have been called off for the week and even the kids are helping out.

Flood refugees are in immediate need of food, and fast. The usual food care package a refugee and his/her family receive is composed of rice, canned goods (usually sardines, corned beef, and / or luncheon meat), instant noodles, and water. I'm not about to get on my high horse and say they shouldn't be eating meat. When you've lost your home and are struggling to survive and get your life on track, you definitely don't have the luxury of choosing what goes in your mouth.

But if you're someone who wants to donate to disaster victims and would like to give something different, let me enlighten you: give something vegan. Not only are vegan items more nutritious than their meat counterpart, they give you more bang for your buck.

Here are some food ideas one can donate to a refugee's care package:

1. Rice -- always a staple grain in Filipino cuisine and something that easily fills you up. White rice is of course more preferable, as it cooks more quickly than the brown or red varieties.
2. Mongo beans -- this local legume is absolutely cheaper than meat and has a long shelf life. It's a good source of protein and fiber, which canned meat lacks. Best to get cracked mongo beans so they cook quicker. True, dried mongo beans need to be cooked and not all victims have access to cooking utensils, a makeshift stove, and drinking water for that matter. Perhaps soup kitchens that are popping up everyone should consider making mongo guisado over arroz caldo with chicken. Cheaper, more nutritious.
3. Canned beans -- beans in tomato sauce are usually available in most supermarkets and there are always the kind packed in salted water. True, beans-in-water isn't as tasty as anything floating in sauce, but when you're a refugee, I'd think you'd take whatever you can get. Oh and, these are cheaper than canned meat.
   
4. Crackers -- something that also fills you up cheaply. I am partial to the regular Skyflakes kind because it doesn't have milk (their wholewheat is not vegan).
5. Peanut butter -- who doesn't love peanut butter, aside from those allergic to it? My favorite brand is Lily's because it doesn't contain additional oil and high fructose corn syrup. Made from local peanuts too, so you support local peanut farmers. Peanut butter is a quick source of protein, fat, and fiber, and easily goes with crackers and bread which are cheap. I've actually once eaten rice with peanut butter once, when I didn't have access to more palatable vegan food. Not the worst thing.
   
6. Bread -- I like Olsen's over Gardenia because [a] it's cheaper, [b] it's vegan, and [c] it doesn't have an ingredients list that requires you to major in Chemistry.
7. Soymilk -- I know I know, some brands are pretty expensive, but I love the brand Soyfresh because it's in the same price line as cow's milk. Aside from 1-liter tetra packs, Soyfresh comes in individual-sized drink boxes. Something for the kids, who need as much calcium as they can get.
8. Sugar -- Most refugee parents would like to get sugar in their care packages because they mix this with water and feed it to their kids. I can't pull up a site right now but I think it's got something to do with dextrose. Or even blood sugar. Not only is brown sugar "healthier" than white, it's cheaper too.
9. last but not the least... Water.

I hope this post enlightened you.

Hey international readers! If you'd like to help us out, please visit Google's site on Help for Typhoon Ondoy victims. Scroll down to "credit card / paypal donations" if you'd like to make a monetary donation. Scroll down to "US-based drop off points" if you'd like to make a donation in kind. Sorry, I don't see any other drop off point for other countries. You can check Google's site frequently for updates. What's urgent right now is monetary donations because these will reach us faster.

If you're wandering what's happening to the non-human flood victims, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society is spearheading rescue efforts in Marikina, one of the most devastated cities in the metro. They currently have 16 animal refugees. More information on and pictures of the flood rescues here. Anyone can also drop off their pets in the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center here, while he/she attends to his/her survival. If you would like to make a monetary donation, view their instructions here. If you prefer in kind, view instructions here. Find out what they really need here. For the international readers, best to donate money.

********

Best effort to do a Vegan MoFo post every weekday in October but given that we're in a state of calamity, I'll do my best :)

Birthday buko pie

Happy happy birthday to Michael, my awesome brother who turned vegan the same time I did and has been my animal-rights fighting buddy ever since. I can honestly say that vegan life would've been more difficult if not for him. He was the only vegan I knew for the longest time (until the vegans started coming out of hibernation when they heard about my bakery) and the person I'd rant to when I'd get angry about an AR-related issue. He also convinced me to adopt our cats when I was still hesitant about keeping pets.

Here he is with my mom, my 2 other brothers Gabriel and Antonio, and the birthday pie I made for him: buko pie. Ever since my triumph with my first vegan pie, I've been dying to make buko pie.

Buko pie is one of those Filipino desserts that is usually not vegan and something that I've missed eating. Usually the pie crust is made with butter or dairy margarine, or it's got eggwash brushed on top, or the filling's made with milk. Michael requested buko pie for his birthday instead of traditional cake, and so I went on a mission to make my first buko pie.

Quick lesson: buko is the young version of coconut. While the coconut looks like a hard ball of brown hair, buko is a hard green ball. The coconut's meat is used to make coconut milk while buko meat is softer and is used fresh in fruit salad or other Pinoy icy desserts. Also, it's from the buko that we get one of the best juices in the world: buko juice.

I immediately turned to my mom's favorite cookbook when it comes to all things Filipino: Let's cook with Nora, by Nora V. Daza, the Julia Child of the Philippines. As you can see in the photo it's been well used. A lot of the newsprint pages have been splattered with sauces and the book cover had to be wrapped in plastic because it was in a serious state of disintegration. My mom bought this in 1996 for a whopping P85. For the foreigners out there, according to this site the peso was around P26.25 to the US dollar in September '96, so the cookbook would've costed a whopping US$3.24! I believe this edition was the 1969 edition with retro drawings of the dishes.


The recipe was easily veganizable. Actually I'm surprised that buko pie isn't naturally vegan. The recipe for the pie filling called for buko meat, sugar, coconut water (aka buko juice), cornstarch, and evaporated milk. Why do people insist on using cow's milk when making a coconut dessert? What's wrong with coconut milk?

I made the 10" pie crust from The Joy of Vegan Baking (you can use VeganYumYum's pie crust recipe here). The buko pie filling recipe was for an 8" pie so I just added 1/4 more of the ingredients.

You can buy buko meat and buko juice from your local coconut purveyor, usually found in markets / palengke. I bought mine from the market in BF, Paranaque, along Palanca St. for P17 per buko. The coconut guys sell both adult coconuts and bukos -- fresh as they hack open the fruits right in front of you. For this recipe, just ask your coconut guy for the juice and meat of 3 bukos. Get the meat as a whole, don't get it slivered up. While waiting for them to prepare your order, enjoy a glass of buko juice.


Buko pie
adapted from Let's Cook with Nora by Nora V. Daza

1 prepared 10" pie crust (top and bottom)

2 1/4 c. buko meat, sliced into chunks
3/4 c. + 3 tbsp. raw sugar
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. buko juice
1/2 c. + 2 tbsp. coconut milk
1/3 c. + 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. cornstarch

Preheat your oven to 400 deg F.

Place the buko meat and sugar in a medium saucepan. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the cornstarch, buko juice, and coconut milk together. Add the cornstarch mixture to saucepan.

Heat the pan on medium heat and cook, stirring continuously until thick. The consistency of the mixture should be like thick gravy. Add the mixture into the prepared crust and top it with top crust. Crimp the edges with your fingers or with the tines of a fork. Make slits on the top (or use a fondant cutter to make cute holes like I did).

Bake the pie for 30-45 min or until golden brown. Cool the pie in room temperature for several hours, then place in the refrigerator to cool down further. The pie is best served cold.

Notes on making buko pie:

1. If you want a pie with more "bite", get your buko meat malakanin. This is thicker than the usual mala-uhog type, which is softer and better suited for buko salad.
2. Keep the buko meat and buko juice in the refrigerator at all times!
3. I used canned coconut milk -- in fact I think I used light coconut milk. If you want a richer pie, feel free to use regular coconut milk or even coconut cream. If you're feeling domestic, why not make your own coconut milk?
4. I used raw sugar to keep things white-sugar free, but feel free to use white sugar. This pie isn't super sweet so it's perfect for people who aren't into desserts. If you'd like a sweeter pie, you can increase the sugar to 1 to 1 1/4 c.
   
5. The proportions of the ingredients was 1 + 1/4 of the recipe in the cookbook. The pie could actually use more filling, so if you want a meatier pie, try these proportions: 2 1/2 c. buko slivers, 1 c. + 1 tbsp. raw sugar, 3/4 c. buko juice, 3/4 c. coconut milk, and 1/3 c. + 2 tbsp. + 2 tsp. cornstarch.

Happy pie making!

A day for the animals, a hearty Indian-ish dinner, an attempt at homemade vegan cheese

A day for the animals











Photos by my coworker, Jeanette Mactal

So I finally got to visit the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center in Quezon City 2 Saturdays ago with a couple of coworkers, bringing gifts of food for the shelter dogs and cats. After the feeding activity, Anna Cabrera, the Philippine Animal Welfare Society Program Director, gave us an orientation and tour of the facilities. Let me just tell you, WOW. It's really amazing what PAWS does to help the plight of Pinoy dogs and cats, also known as askals (street dogs) and puskals (street cats). The place was brimming with 36 dogs and 184 cats (as of September 5), all looking for their forever homes. The feline quarantine area was full of days and weeks old kittens. The canine quarantine area had its own fair share of sadness. The guy up there was rescued from the dog meat trade. A lot of them were abused and abandoned by their former owners. The rehabilitation PARC gives them is amazing. It's really different when you're sitting pretty at work and at home with theoretical veganism, and when you see animal cruelty staring at you literally in the face. Hearing their rescue and rehab stories truly is a testament to the philosophy of living compassion and non-violence in one's life.

Anyway, the day-for-the-animals was made complete when my vegan brother (who tagged along at this office volunteer activity) and I stopped for awesome practically-fast food veggie burgers at Good Burger in Pasig, across Tiendesitas. It's sooo nice to be able to eat vegan fast food! Good Burger sells veggie burgers with the option to remove non-vegan items, such as mayo and cheese. They also sell chicken burgers, which is insane... I mean, I would think meat eaters would go for beef rather than chicken when it comes to burgers. I seriously doubt their chicken burgers were any good... Oh, and after the Good Burger lunch, my brother and I spent the afternoon making:


Julie Hasson's Spicy Italian Sausages, recipe here.

Excellent excellent day. We hung out with the shelter dogs and cats, scarfed down veggie burgers, and made a ton of veggie sausages.


Indian-ish dinner
On the Tuesday after the PARC visit (2 Tuesdays ago), it was so nice to sit down and have a hot hearty meal after a grueling day at the office. I was supposed to ride home with my brother on that day but it was pretty traffic from his office to mine -- he ended up arriving at my workplace at around 7:30. So we headed to the nearby mall, specifically Powerplant, for a satisfying dinner at a restaurant, particularly Wild Ginger.



Wild Ginger is one of the few restaurants in Powerplant that has good vegan options, and I'm not even talking about tomato sauce + noodles. They have legumes! I've eaten there several times but it was my first time to try their dal and spinach chapati sandwich, which was really good. I call it an Indian-ish dinner because I'm not certain Indians would use 2 chapatis to make a sandwich. It looked more like a no-cheese quesadilla. It usually comes with a yogurt dip which is easily do-withoutable. It was topped with basil, but I think it would've been better if topped with cilantro. The cumin and (I think) coriander really shone, and the dal wasn't dry at all.

I also had the Asian tomato soup -- awesome as well. It was flavored with lemongrass, a pleasant surprise, chili, and cilantro.

Soup and sandwich -- such a Western meal, yet it was Indian.


An attempt at homemade vegan cheese


Eek, I know, what a crap looking photo.

With the success at making vegan sausages under my belt, I decided to venture out and make my first vegan cheese. "Mostarella", to be exact, from the pages of The Uncheese Cookbook. I'm glad that it doesn't taste like dairy cheese. It has cheese-like qualities -- it's savoury, slightly sour, and it melts. The sourness can be attributed to my addition of tahini and a combination of lemon and calamansi juice. I'm glad I finally experimented, although the results were just alright. I guess I don't miss cheese that much that I'd want to scarf down the fake stuff. It is a nice alternative topping on toast, which I usually have it on in accompaniment to a bowl of beans for breakfast. It actually does spectularly in vegan lasagna, together with Veganomicon's tofu ricotta. By the way, that tofu ricotta is pretty good stuff in Italian-inspired dishes.

Shelter dogs and cats deserve your love too

Nothing much up in veganland, I'm just really excited to visited the PAWS Animal Rehabilitation Center, or PARC this Saturday with some officemates. For all my vegan exclamations I have not yet set foot in an animal shelter. One day I hope to put one up near where I live, but it sure is a vocation that needs a lot of dedication, hardwork, and of course, money. A farm animal sanctuary would be heaven too... I live in Southern Manila and PARC is all the way in the north -- one of the reasons why I haven't been to a shelter. While the country is brimming full of unwanted dogs and cats, we only have pretty much 1 shelter (does anyone else know of a shelter?).

Just wanted to blog about that bit... Now if you're thinking of buying a pet, I highly encourage that you think of all the unwanted dogs and cats for a moment. These all deserve a good home just as much as that pet you're about to buy. Only that by adopting a shelter dog or cat, you're doing both of yourselves a favor. Buying a pet kills a shelter animal people, please believe me. You buy a pet, a shelter animal wallows away. Another reason why sometimes I feel like I'm about to explode when people can't understand this concept and decide to buy anyway... Or God forbid, have their female pets get pregnant and sell the babies...