Be a Reducetarian ~ a Great Idea If You Are Not Quite Ready to Give Up Meat!

Turns out I may or may not be a Reducetarian!

I came upon this word quite recently in The Guardian; it is the name fairly recently given to people who reduce the amount of meat they eat in the interests of their health and also that of our wonderful planet. Did you guess?

I think this is a great idea … not extreme, something that can be achieved over time and good for everyone (except those in the meat industry, I suppose!) and, as meat is one of our pricier foods, it even saves money!

For myself (as opposed to when working as a chef or when cooking for my real man) I have never thought that meat or fish must be the central ingredient of a meal but rather as something that that may, or may not, be in a dish. This being the case, whilst I do eat meat and fish, many of my meals contain only a little or are completely vegetarian.

I even wrote a post some time ago; How to Eat Less Meat – and Enjoy It! suggesting ways to incorporate a little meat into a variety of meals.

According to the Reducetarin Movement they are …

“composed of individuals who are committed to eating less meat - red meat, poultry, and seafood - as well as less dairy and fewer eggs, regardless of the degree or motivation. This concept is appealing because not everyone is willing to follow an "all-or-nothing" diet.” 

Read more and join the Reducetarians here.

One thing occurs to me, however …

One cannot be a Reducetarian for ever!

Surely you can only keep reducing your meat and animal product intake for a limited time; eventually you will have to stop as there is nothing else to give up in that department!  One will, of course, then become a vegetarian or even a vegan.  

This is why I am not sure of my status reducetarian-wise; I am not reducing my intake of fish and animals, I did that years ago! I am eating a small amount, as I have for most of my life and with which I am happy.  

Is there a special name for people who, like me, just eat a little meat?  I wondered about “omnivore” but as I can’t abide bananas that’s not quite right either.  I know – flexitarian, that feels about right. What do you think?

Lab Grown Meat, Dead Animals or a “Pile of Vegetables”?

I had a fabulous lunch with my friend Debbie at Archie Browns, a vegetarian café (and health food shop) in Truro last Thursday; we shared a tasting platter and it was wonderful.

Telling the chaps I “work” with about this the next day one guy said how could I be so pleased with “just a pile of vegetables?” Well really, just look at it …

Another of the guys, however, is a vegetarian and knows of Archie Browns so, of course, agreed with me.  He also made the important point that in a world of diminishing resources, a growing population, greenhouse emissions, climate change and what have we, it makes no sense to feed an animal much more food and water than we get out of it! This brings me to the second point of this post, have you seen this?

It’s Meat Jim – but not as we know it!

Scientists have been working on producing meat from stem cells rather than from dead animals and recently tested and tasted a lab-grown meatball.

This meatball was produced by Memphis Meats who grew animal muscle tissue using stem cells of cows and pigs fed with nutrients and oxygen. Based on the current price of lab-grown beef which is about $18,000 per pound it probably cost about $2,000 (plus, of course the trimmings!) but hopefully will become cheaper as they get better at it.

Some people apparently think the idea of growing lab-grown meat is yuk but then again some people don’t like the idea of eating dead animals and think that is yuk. What do you think?

If (a big if) this really works and has no hidden side effects – what a good idea! Watch a video about it here and see what you think.

Of course if you can’t wait for the price to come down but would just like to make yourself a delicious real beef burger see here. 

In Other News …

Having reviewed quite a few books I am now a member of the Legend 100 Club and will be sent books from Legend Press to review, but not necessarily foodie ones.  

To be honest I was a little discombobulated with the first one;  Fracture by Clár Ní Chonghaile, to review as this is really not my normal style of reading matter. 

How wrong I was, as soon as I read the first page I was hooked. The story is of a journalist held hostage in Somalia told from his own perspective plus that of his mother and of Abdi, a young guy recruited by the terrorist group to “take care” of the prisoner. 

The book is topical, realistic and makes one look at Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism from a different perspective. It taught me a lot I didn’t know about Somalia. The writing is excellent the characters believable and I felt sympathetic towards them. I heartily recommend it.

And speaking of reviews ... just look at this a comment on my last post.

“Hi there, just like to say that I purchased your 4 genius books for kindle yesterday - ice cream, sorbet, scones and soup. They are great! Wonderful simple recipes and a delightful writing style that made me laugh out loud at times.”

Thank you Rikki!

Genius Recipes? ~ see here

Curried Cashew Fritters - Gorgeous Use for Leftover Bread!

~  Menu  ~

Curried Cashew Fritter

Spoonful of Yogurt

Small Salad with fresh lime juice as dressing

Glass of Carlsberg

In January I was chuffed and proud to have my first magazine article published in Vegetarian Living.  It was titled Use your Loaf but I had originally called it A Baker’s Dozen Ways to use Leftover Bread and gave 13 ways to use said item.  Most of the ideas were tried and tested by me over the years but I was one short.  I had quite a few options but they were all a bit samey so I gave myself a good talking to and invented something; Curried Cashew Nut Fritters.  I was delighted with the result and, yesterday, being at a loose end lunch-wise I decided to follow my own recipe and do it again.  Thing is I couldn’t do it suddenly because it takes too long so I made the mixture yesterday and ate the little darlings today.

Curried Cashew Fritters

1 medium onion – diced

½ tbsp oil

1 tsp curry paste

120g stale bread – torn into pieces, spread out and left to dry out for an hour or so (or popped in the oven for a few minutes)

Up to 125 ml hot vegetable stock

80g or as many salted cashews as you fancy and can muster – coarsely chopped.

~   Fry the onion in the oil till soft and turning brown.

~   Stir in the curry paste and cook a couple of minutes till fragrant.

~   Add the bread pieces and then gradually stir in the stock.  The bread should soak up all the stock and be completely soft but with no excess liquid in the pan so don’t add it all at once, take it slowly. 

~   Remove the pan from the heat, cover, cool and then chill to firm up. 

~   When ready to cook add 80g coarsely chopped salted cashews (don’t add them earlier as they seem to go soggy).

~   Divide into four little cakes and fry in a little oil till hot crisp and golden.

Obviously these are good served with the usual curry accompaniments – raita, chutney etc. I wish I had some cilantro for me sprinkle, but I didn’t.  Sorry.

With this I felt a glass of light beer or lager would be the go and luckily found a can of Carlsberg in the back of the fridge.  I don’t know if this counts as a leftover or not.

Speaking of Leftovers ...

There are 20+ plus more ideas for leftover bread in my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers plus lots of ideas for 450 ish more possible leftovers too!

And yesterday’s lunch?  I fell back on an old favourite …

This is just toast spread with a little of my favourite pasta sauce, Tesco’s Finest Whole Cherry Tomato & Chill, and then topped firstly with dollops of Herb and Garlic Boursin and then hot roasted grape tomatoes (which had a little finely chopped red onion roasted in with them) which melts the cheese to a creamy goo.  So easy, so delicious.  Red wine is a must.

Still glorious weather down here in the West Country and the flowers are amazing!  Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen many English springs in the last 20 years or so but this is great, also rather a spiffing sunset last night, seems to be full sun as well as full moon!

Curried Lentil Soup and Beyond

~ Menu ~

Curried Lentil Soup with Crisp Poppadoms 
Sparkling water – what! 
A palette cleansing crispy and crunchy Granny Smith Apple

Last night I had a simple dahl for my dinner. I made quite a lot of it as I had plans which, I have to admit, included this soup for today.

I have made curry from scratch many, many a time; grinding and blending my own spices, but when just cooking for myself (my man can’t abide spice) in a small caravan a curry paste is the way to go and Patak’s Madras Curry Paste is an excellent choice. Red lentils are wonderful things, they are healthy, delicious, cheap and quick and easy to cook. I make the dahl in 2 parts and then mix them together. The following quantity makes enough dahl for at least 3 meals for one person (or 2 small meals for 2 people or 1 meal for 3 and a bit people).

Red Lentil Dahl

250g red split lentils 
cold water to cover plus hot water as needed 
2 medium onions 
1 tablespoon olive oil 
4 teaspoons Patak’s Madras Curry Paste or to taste 
Salt & Pepper 
small bunch fresh coriander – chopped

Cook the lentils ...

~   Put the lentils into a medium sized saucepan and add enough water to cover by a depth of ½” or so.~   Bring to a boil, stir, turn down the heat and simmer till the water is absorbed and the lentils are softening.
~   Keep an eye on the proceedings and top up with hot water as necessary, continuing to simmer till the lentils have softened completely and break down into a purée when stirred, this only takes about 20 minutes or so.

Simultaneously cook the onions …

~   Peel and thinly slice the onions.
~   Heat the oil in a small pan and stir in the onions till coated with oil.
~   Add a little salt, turn down the heat, press a piece of foil or a butter wrapper directly onto the surface of the onions to cover completely.~   Put a lid on the pan and cook slowly, checking and stirring occasionally, till the onions are utterly tender.~   Stir in the curry paste and cook for two of three minutes to fragrant.

Combine ...

~   Stir the lentils and the onions together, taste, season and then stir in the coriander, keeping back a bit to garnish.

So that’s what I had last night with some basmati, poppadoms, a little yogurt (plain, not strawberry), mango chutney and a small salad. Anyhoo - today, for lunch, it was a simple matter to add a little vegetable stock to some of the leftover dahl and heat and stir together to make my soup topped with some frazzled poppadoms – see end of this post.

The rest of the dahl I shall freeze for future use. Another way I like to serve it is as a fritter, formed into a cake and fried to crisp, speaking of which … My sister and I had this on our first menu in our first restaurant back in the 70s (we were somewhat ahead of our time) and it was one of those dishes that it is impossible to take off the menu – people ordered it anyway – but we did vary it slightly over the years. Here is a menu from the early 80s showing it evolving …

A similar dahl can be made with split peas but they need several hours soaking before cooking which leads me on to ...

Pease Pudding from Up North

This dish is originally from the North East of England and, my man being of the Geordie diaspora, is something we eat fairly frequently. For a very cheap and simple dish it is delicious and makes me wonder if perhaps its not as grim Up North as we’ve been led to believe.

Soak 250g yellow split peas for about 8 hours in cold water. Meanwhile gently simmer a gammon joint till tender. Drain the peas and use some of the resulting gammon stock to cook them exactly as above to a soft purée, adding more stock as necessary. They take quite a bit longer than red lentils – say 45 minutes. 

Just this with no additions or perhaps, if you like, a little butter and black pepper ( don’t salt without tasting – the stock is usually sufficiently salty) is absolutely delicious served with the hot ham, new potatoes, fresh veggies and a drizzle of honey mustard salad dressing; the salt and the sweet are brill together. Pease pudding is also good formed into patties and fried to serve with the next day’s ham or in ham sarnies with or without the honey mustard dressing. Oh yes – you could also add some cooked onions, shredded ham and stock to make a great soup. And so we go almost full circle! Details of these two pease pudding ideas here.

A word on poppadoms …

Although it might sound romantic; one’s poppadom floating up into the blue, wafted on a tropical breeze, it’s actually quite irritating. In the Caribbean a lot of eating is done al fresco whilst enjoying the glorious sunshine or the wonderful resonant, warm and caressing night, cooled by the delicious trade winds. These same trade winds can play havoc with light and aerodynamic food, poppadoms being a case in point. For this reason I started cutting them into strips before frying – this way they not only make a very attractive garnish they are also less likely to blow away.