This is the inaugural September 2005 issue of the Low Budget Vegetarian
newsletter.
This is the first issue of what I plan to make a monthly email
newsletter. In each issue I want to talk about a different aspect of
low budget, whole foods vegetarian cooking. I also want to mention what
is new on the site, and what I will be talking about in the future.
For this to be most useful, it would help more than I can say, for
*YOU* to let me know what would be useful and interesting. Yes, *YOU*.
Honest. Please send me any ideas, comments, feedback, or requests you
might have. You can either send me an email message
(mailto:newsletter@lbveg.com), or you can use the comments and feedback
form on the website (http://www.lbveg.com/feedback.php).
This issue includes:
1) So why am I doing this, anyway?...
2) What's happening on the Low Budget Vegetarian website
3) About my cookbook - download version available soon
4) Food topic of the month - Dark Leafy Greens
5) Coming up in the next issue
6) A Request
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1) So why am I doing this, anyway?...
In a nutshell - I think the vegetarian cooking industry has gotten too
commercialized and too processed. I think too much emphasis is put on
expensive manufactured foods - veggie burgers, soy protein,
supplements, convenience foods, special meat replacement products,
stuff like that.
A lot of what I see out there, seems to be aimed at affluent suburban
cooks with too much money and spare time who are trying to impress
their friends.
I want to talk about plain old, everyday, inexpensive and easy cooking,
the kind you can live on.
I want to talk about cooking from scratch. I don't think it takes all
that much more time than using 'convenience' foods, and it tastes a lot
better and is a LOT less expensive. Cooking from scratch has gone out
of style, and I want to help bring it back in style. I expect this
information will get more useful in the future, assuming that the cost
of food and energy continues to spiral upward, leaving us normal folks
to have to be a lot smarter about our cooking and eating choices.
I am not a professional cook, and I have very little cooking training.
I am mostly self-taught, from cookbooks, and from nosing around in all
sorts of markets, looking for interesting and inexpensive vegetarian
foods, then bringing them home and figuring out how to cook them.
I do a lot of my shopping at Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern markets
since they have so many wonderful vegetarian foods that you can't find
in regular American groceries. So, I will be talking from time to time
about foods from other cultures - not to sound trendy or impress
people, but because they have wonderful, nutritious and inexpensive
whole foods that it is worth knowing about.
In my own modest way, this is my effort towards taking the power of
food and cooking away from massive manufacturing conglomerates, and
giving it back to ordinary people. Like me, and maybe like you.
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2) What's happening on the Low Budget Vegetarian website
This summer I spent quite a bit of time re-doing and greatly expanding
the web site. Here are the main new features.
The biggest single change is the addition of an 8 part free email
course on low budget, whole foods vegetarian cooking. In the course I
try to give you enough information to get you started on finding the
diet and cooking balance that works best for you.
I have greatly expanded the recipes section of the site, and grouped
the recipes by type. I will be adding new recipes regularly, probably
about 2-4 per month as I come up with them in my cooking.
And, there is this regular newsletter, which I plan to send out about
once a month.
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3) About my cookbook - download version available soon
I will be making the cookbook I wrote, *How to Survive as a Low Budget
Vegetarian*, available for purchase as an electronic download in the
popular adobe acrobat PDF format. That way you can print out as much or
as little of the book as you need to. The price will be $6.00 US. That
saves me printing and shipping costs, and it saves you time getting it.
The printed version is temporarily unavailable - I have sold the last
of the copies from the last printing. I plan to reprint some time in
the near future, so please email me if you want to be notified when the
hardcopy version is available again.
If you do buy the book, PLEASE take time to look over the first part of
the book. I say that because, with cookbooks, most people tend to skip
straight to the recipes. With my book, it's the beginning section
that will give you the tools to expand your cooking knowledge, vary the
recipes, and learn to cook without always using a recipe. In that first
section I give a LOT of information on cooking, shopping, meal
planning, using spices, all sorts of stuff I think you will find very
useful.
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4) Food topic of the month - Dark Leafy Greens
The greens I want to talk about are the common heavy dark leafy greens
- kale, collards, mustard greens, turnip greens. They are nutritious,
have a decent storage life (stored in a loosely closed bag and
refrigerated), and are very delicious if they are cooked correctly.
Unfortunately, a lot of new cookbooks I have looked at greatly
underestimate the cooking time for these greens, and under-season them.
Undercooked and underseasoned, they are tough, bitter, unappetizing,
and they 'taste like they're supposed to be good for you'.
Greens are bitter, and most people in our culture aren't used to strong
bitter green tastes. And, if a food doesn't taste good, you won't get
around to eating it.
So, here is how I suggest preparing dark leafy greens.
In cooking any of these greens, wash them well, discard the stems, and
chop into bite-size pieces. You can chop these in advance and store
them in a closed bag in the fridge.
All of these greens taste best when they are simmered in salty water to
tenderness. That takes about 15 to 20 minutes for mustard greens,
around 30 minutes for turnip greens, and up to 45 minutes for collards
and kale. They can stand to be cooked for a longer time without
destroying them, so you don't need to worry about being very exact.
Once the greens have been cooked to tenderness in salted water, then
drained, the next stage in the cooking adds the flavor.
For seasoning the greens, they all seem to get along well with sour,
salty and hot tastes. There seems to be a cross-cultural agreement on
that, to judge from the recipes I've seen. So, for instance, simmered
kale tastes good sauteed with oil, garlic, hot red pepper, onions, and
some red wine vinegar. You can use lemon juice instead of vinegar with
any of these greens for a slightly lighter taste.
Dark greens are also wonderful with ginger, which gives them a rich,
pungent taste. Try them with just butter, ginger, salt and pepper.
Ginger is also good for digestion, so it is a good pungent taste to use
for if you don't get along well with hot peppers, although ginger and
hot peppers get along just fine.
The greens also get along well with a rich, buttery, hot and salty
taste, so you can add a some butter to your cooking oil for a soothing
rich taste.
For a cleaner, simpler taste, you can try the greens sauteed with olive
oil, garlic, salt and black pepper, and a touch of lemon juice.
The one exception to this long cooking rule that I have found, is
collard greens. If you chop them very finely, into small, thin
matchstick size pieces, I find that they work well stirred in with
other vegetables in a quick saute, or with eggs, or in a stir-fry. The
very small pieces makes their chewiness acceptable. I have even added
very finely chopped collards to cabbage salads with good effect. And,
you can chop them in advance - a sealed baggie of chopped collard
greens keeps refrigerated up to around a week - so, they make a nice
handy quick dark green to have around, to add to other vegetable dishes.
On the recipes page of the lbveg website
(http://www.lbveg.com/Recipes.php) I have recipes for Dark Greens and
Potatoes, and Collard Greens and Onions. The greens and potatoes recipe
is an especially good place to start if you are not used to dark greens
- the rich, buttery taste with the smooth potatoes is very addicting.
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5) Coming up in the next issue
For my food topic of the month, I want to talk about cooking with whole
dried soybeans. The various soy derived convenience foods get a lot of
visibility, but you don't hear much about using the humble whole bean
itself.
And, I want to talk about some things I've learned about cooking beans
this year.
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6) A Request
One of my goals this coming year, is to find good, high-quality sites
on whole foods vegetarian and vegan cooking, to trade links with. I am
going to be nosing around a lot on my own. It will also be very helpful
to me to get suggestions from you.
Any ideas on good vegetarian cooking websites to link to? Any mailing
lists, journals or blogs you like to hang out at that you think might
be interested? Any sites you think I should know about, or you
think should know about me? Please, let me know.
Thanks in advance.
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And that is all for this month.
Happy and healthy eating to you.
Regards,
Charlie Obert
Low Budget Vegetarian Survival
http://www.lbveg.com