Peanut Butter Cookies, Phase I

I have an embryonic cookie idea in my brain right now, and these were the first run. They’re no good for my ultimate purpose (still a secret), but they’re plenty good in their own right, so I figured I’d share them with you all. Enjoy!

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour*, or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup peanut butter. I used P.B. & Co’s White Chocolate Wonderful.
1 cup maple syrup or agave nectar
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/4 cup vegan sugar, on a small plate or piece of wax paper

Preheat oven to 350F degrees.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate, larger bowl combine the peanut butter, maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla. Stir each mixture, wet and dry, until combined.

Pour the flour mixture over the peanut butter mixture and mix until just combined, about 10-15 strokes with a wooden spoon.

Let sit for five minutes, then give it one more quick stir, just a stroke or two. Pour 1/4 cup of sugar onto a small plate.

With your hands, roll the dough into balls and roll through the sugar, just to coat the cookie. Place each dough ball onto the prepared cookie sheet and smoosh it down with your thumb. Or a fork, if you must be traditional.

Bake for 10- 11 minutes - keep an eye on them and don't over bake, or they will be dry. Let cool five minutes and transfer to a plate or cooling rack. These are tender, a little crumbly, and delicious. I deliberately undercooked them a little (no salmonella risk here), and they had a nice, chewy center that way. Good stuff!

*Spelt flour will give these cookies a darker color, but it works well - and it's gluten-free.

Good news (??) about the Canadian Seal Hunt

The bad news: 70,000 helpless baby seals were bludgeoned to death on the ice. The good news...that's only a fraction of the quota, and maybe the market for the bodies and skins of dead seals is disappearing? Check it out here!

I honestly don't see how people can bring themselves to do it. Gratuitous baby harp seal:

New Scientist: Why Japan's whaling activities are not research

June 17th, 2009

by Nichola Raihani and Tim Clutton-Brock

Link: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227136.100-why-japans-whaling-activities-are-not-research.html

In 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling to allow stocks to replenish. However, this ongoing ban allows member nations to grant themselves special permits to kill whales for scientific research, with the proviso that the whale meat is utilised following data collection.

Only Japan holds a special permit. Its current research programme, which started in 2000 and is run by the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), proposes to kill more than 1000 whales a year in the Antarctic and the western north Pacific. The stated objectives are to determine the population structure and feeding habits of several whale species, including endangered fin and sei whales, in order to "manage" stocks.

Japan has already been widely criticised for its whaling, which is generally seen as a thinly disguised hunting operation. But with the 2009 IWC meeting looming, it is worth rehearsing the arguments against scientific whaling.

Although Japan's early results produced useful information, recent advances in non-lethal techniques such as biopsies mean that data can now be obtained without killing whales. Similarly, it is no longer necessary to kill whales to work out what they have been eating, as this can be determined from DNA in samples of faeces.

The scientific impact of the research is also limited. Relatively little research is published in international peer-reviewed journals, compared with research programmes on other marine mammals such as dolphins. According to the ICR, scientific whaling has produced 152 publications in peer-reviewed journals since 1994. However, just 58 of these papers were published in international journals. The rest were IWC reports or articles published in domestic journals, largely in Japanese. Most of the findings are not circulated among the wider scientific community, and the failure to subject papers to impartial review renders the value of much of this literature questionable.

Whether the results from scientific whaling are useful for stock management has also been questioned. The Scientific Committee of the IWC has explicitly stated that the results generated by the Japanese Whale Research Program in the Antarctic (JARPA) "were not required for management". Independent research shows that the data may overestimate whale abundance by up to 80 per cent (Marine Ecology Progress Series, vol 242, p 295).

Finally, given that there is considerable variation in the capacity of different whale populations to recover from stock depletion (Marine Mammal Science, vol 24, p 183), the value of the research for understanding populations outside the Antarctic and western north Pacific - which may one day be reconsidered for commercial whaling - is limited. This fundamentally undermines the justification for scientific whaling.

Nichola Raihani is at the Institute of Zoology in London

Tim Clutton-Brock is Prince Philip Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Cambridge

Conquering Tofu

Tofu seems so simple. I found a relatively concise, if somewhat unappealing, definition at soyfoods.org:

Tofu: Tofu, also known as soybean curd, is a soft cheese-like food made by curdling fresh, hot soymilk with a coagulant. Tofu is a bland product that easily absorbs the flavours of other ingredients with which it is cooked. It is rich in both high-quality protein and B-vitamins and low in sodium.

Mmmm...curdled soymilk with coagulant. Of course, tofu, when prepared well, is totally delicious. Even raw tofu has (to me) an appealing fresh, bland flavor that is full of promise. But it is notoriously difficult to prepare well.

Since almost every post on this blog has been about cake*, I decided it was time to go back to basics and approach some vegan staples. Understanding the building blocks of vegan nutrition is what makes it possible (and enjoyable) to go, and STAY, vegan. So...on to tofu!

One of the first things to know is that there are two main types of tofu: silken and regular. Silken tofu has a softer (hmmm...silkier) consistency than regular tofu and will fall apart if not handled carefully. Silken tofu is sometimes packaged in aseptic boxes that do not require refrigeration. Because of this, silken tofu is sometimes sold in a different section of grocery stores than regular tofu, which is packed in water and requires refrigeration.

Both silken and regular tofu can be found in soft, medium, firm and extra firm consistencies. They are made from the same ingredients, but they are processed slightly differently, and are not (usually) interchangeable.

Silken tofu can be prepared in entrees (I often have really lovely silken tofu in garlic sauce at our local Thai restaurant), but is more often used in desserts and baking. My killer brownie recipe involves silken tofu. A box of silken tofu blended with frozen strawberries, soy milk, and agave nectar makes a delicious smoothie. But, in this post, I will be discussing regular tofu.

There are oodles of recipes available on the interwebs if you're interested in searching for them. Most of them require that you drain and press the tofu before beginning. Few actually explain what this means. Here's a quick tofu pressing primer:

Remove your tofu from the package and place on top of a few folded paper towels on a plate. Place another folded paper towel on top of the tofu, then carefully place a small cutting board on top of the tofu. Sometimes I use a small hand weight or a book - use whatever you like to gently press the moisture from the tofu. Check on it a few times - you may need to swap out fresh towels at some point. If you like, you can also use a clean kitchen towel (it's greener). I have the best luck when I press the tofu for over an hour, but you should have adequately drained tofu after 20 minutes or so.

Tofu is kind of like a sponge for flavorful sauces, and if the water stays in the sponge, it can't absorb much else. You've got to squeeze out the water so you can replace it...with deliciousness.

You are now ready to use your tofu in a delicious tofu scramble or maybe you could bake tofu for sammiches.

If the idea of pressing tofu just makes you want to scream, you can try this delicious dinner recipe that uses regular ol' firm or extra-firm tofu that requires no pre-pressing at all. I like this with steamed broccoli and brown rice - it's healthy, and you will want to slather this delicious sauce all over everything. You can skip the Korean hot pepper, or substitute togarashi for it (it seems to be slightly easier to find in the Asian cuisine aisle of the grocery store). However, I encourage you to find and visit an Asian market, 'cause they are every vegan's friend. There is so much inspiration to be found there. Anyways...here's this super-tofu recipe, which we'll call, "Soft Warm Spicy Tofu", based on a recipe I had at a Korean restaurant once. This is as close as I could get to that superbly prepared deliciousness.

Soft Warm Spicy Tofu

• 1 package firm tofu
  
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped scallion
• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds, slightly crushed (you can do this with a rolling pin)
  
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Asian sesame oil
• 1 teaspoon coarse Korean hot red-pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar

Carefully rinse tofu, then cover with cold water in a medium saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat, then keep warm, covered, over very low heat.

Meanwhile, mince and mash garlic to a paste with a pinch of salt. Stir together with remaining ingredients (except tofu).

Just before serving, carefully lift tofu from saucepan with a large spatula and drain on paper towels. Gently pat dry, then transfer to a small plate. Spoon some sauce over tofu and serve warm. Serve remaining sauce on the side.

I really recommend some veggies and some sort of complex carbs to complete this meal. I'm dying to try it with soba noodles and baby bok choi. Or just a bag of frozen broccoli, cauliflower and carrots? Oh, the possibilities.

* I don't really see this as a problem, actually.

Dang.

My favorite fitness instructor, Cathe Friedrich, has just made it necessary for me to stop supporting her business.

I am on her company's mailing list, so I got this e-mail this morning:

"Cathe will be in New York City on Thursday, June 25th for a media blitz to announce her partnership with Eggland’s Best(EB), America’s No. 1 branded egg, and we would like you to be there too. Cathe and Eggland’s Best will be teaming up to help Americans harness the powerful pairing of healthy fitness and eating right - just in time for summer!"

Curses!! Eggland's Best is pretty bad. They got the Humane Society to sign off on their supposedly kinder, gentler animal cruelty in 2007. The ultimate outcome of all this exposes not only why you cannot trust people who view living beings as products, but also why the idea of "happy meat" is so insane. And also, totally untrue. Oh, and also evil.

Ugh. I am SO BUMMED. I LOVE her workouts! But I HATE animal exploitation! This is harder then avoiding secret milk additives. Of course, the point of having an ethical position isn't to throw it out the window at the first hint of personal inconvenience. If you're vegan, you've gotta skip the latest Cathe DVD release unless she bails out on this partnership...which of course, I don't think she'll do.

Again: dang.