1. Nostromo Red Alert: Live animals sold as keyrings

My first blog post on something else than cooking. And it's a very sad post. 

I am totally worked up about this link: Live animals being sold as keyrings in China . Yes, you have read correctly: Live animals are sold as keyrings! Animals that are permanently sealed in small plastic bags. In these small plastic bags they can only survive for a short while before they suffocate. And no, those keyrings are not designed to be opened, so that they can be taken out and survive. They are designed with an expiry date. Their life is compared to a can of tuna or a glass of cherries that expires after a while and you throw it away. They are selling living Brazil turtles or two small kingfish, sealed in an airtight package with some colored water. It really made me sick and sad to read that.

And people are buying those keyrings. Yes, rub your eyes and read again: PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY BUYING THESE CRUELTIES! Sometimes you wonder if mankind has some morals left. Probably not.

Now, how would you react? If you buy some to free those poor creatures, you support the trade and they are continuing to produce,  just to sell more. So is the solution not to buy?

But what happens to the already sealed up animals that are slowly suffocating in the plastic bags? Their lives are dumped into trash cans. If the trade dies out, luckily no others will follow the same fate, but that's not going to help those already sealed up. 

Stepehn Messenger from Treehugger already found the right words:

"Sadly, it is likely that so too will the animals which have already been sealed in their colorful, transparent tombs - gasping for the final breath of air they've been packaged with, as they peer out to a world in which their lives are considered essentially worthless. And in such a dark hour, it's hard not to believe our very humanity awaits a similar fate. "

Sick. Sad. Sickening. I wish those people, who produce these keyrings, had the same fate as the poor creatures they are torturing to death. Then they'd probably understand what they are doing to other living creatures. Just imagine living in a plastic bag not much bigger than yourself and slowly suffocating while watching other creatures outside your see-through prison. Imagine.

And sadly that's an example of how mankind considers the lives of animals worthless.Worthless to whom? Of course worthless to mankind. Only if we can use their lives to produce goods for us, or to entertain us, they are worth something. Otherwise, without any use for humans, animals are considered completely worthless. And since no one punishes the pride of creation - man - for what he does to animals, he can do whatever he wants with them. Are animals ever striking back? Do they declare war on humans for exploiting them? No.  There is no higher authority than mankind to stop us from exploiting animals.

I admit I was getting a little bit too polemic in the last paragraph. I am just adressing a common way of thinking. I will probably write an article about common views concerning animals later in this blog. Sometimes I wonder, how some humans are even capable of performing gruesome acts on animals, and then I get all angry and sad and apparently a little bit too polemic. A polemic argumentation often gets highly illogical and I do not intend to have a onesided tunnel vision.

Back on topic: It makes me even more desperate that it's actually not against the Chinese law, which only protects wild animals, and apparently these turtles and fish are not wild animals.

I hope they are going to stop this soon. 

Yours sincerely, 

- Bitch of Babylon -

2. Lunch Recipe: Cumin Paella with olives

Here I go again with another lunch recipe. I cooked this paella spontaneously today and it turned out pretty allright. 
 
I'd really appreciate comments on my recipe ideas or a feedback if anyone has tried my recipes! If anyone reads this blog – I hope some will in the future... 
The following vegalien paella is really easy and one of those student-dishes you can eat from for a few days. Just put half of it in the freezer or fridge. It's spicy and satiating and consists of many lovely vegetables. Today I cooked for 3 persons, so adjust the measurements according to the number of eaters. 

 

For 3 persons you'll need:

• 250-300 g of risotto rice or normal rice
• vegetable oil
• 2 onions
• 2 green onions
• 4-5 tomatoes
• 50-100 g of sun dried tomatoes
• 500 ml vegetable stock
• 1 red pepper
• 1 can of corn
• 1 package or glass of olives, preferably black ones
• 5-6 mushrooms
• cumin
• pepper, salt
• curry powder
  
  
  

1. Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan or wok pan. I recommend a wok pan, so you can fry some vegetables in the centre, while others are shovelled aside.
2. Pour the rice into the pan and let it fry until its golden-brown.
3. Chop the onions, the green onions, the fresh tomatoes and the sun dried tomatoes up into small cubes or slices.
4. Pour the tomatoes and onions into the pan and blend with the rice.
5. Add the vegetable stock. Let it boil so that the rice absorbs the liquid for about 20-30 min.
6. Chop the red pepper, drain the pickled corn and the olives, if they're pickled. Chop the mushrooms into quarters.
7. When the rice has absorbed the vegetabke stock, add the pepper, mushrooms, olives and corn and stir thoroughly.
8. Let it boil for another 5-10 min, stir occasionally.
9. Flavour generously with cumin. Add pepper, curry powder and just a pinch of salt (the vegetable stock is usually already salty enough). 
   
    

Paella has it's origions in Spain. The Spanish kitchen isn't actually famous for being very vegalien friendly, in fact I got the impression that food = meat or seafood in Spain. I spent some weeks in Spain when I still ate meat, and I can't remember any meal, except for breakfast, that wasn't consisting of meat, fish or seafood.

But I did like paella very much when I was in Spain; the rice and that tasty potpurri of all kinds of vegetables and sauces blends really well together. So I am very happy that we vegaliens can still enjoy a spicy, mouth-watering paella that is not at the expense of animals.

I am going to have to study today, because one week from now my next term will start again. It's going to be lots of work and stress, but also lots of fun.

Enjoy your paella and tell me how you liked it!

Yours sincerely,

- Bitch of Babylon -

1. Breakfast: Weetabix in soy milk with an agave syrup topping and berries

So, what does a vegalien eat for breakfast? Well, that depends. Of course we also have that fraction of healthy vegaliens that eat a very grainy, fruity wholemeal-breakfast, but we also have those among us that even prefer an unhealthy breakfast (Yum!). 
 
Vegalien doesn 't necessarily mean healthy, that's something many people seem to forget when asking, what we (can) eat. Most people seem to think, we eat no fat at all. I've already been to restaurants where they cooked my meal completely without fat, even without vegetable fat. I have never eaten such horrible meals (imagine dried out mushrooms and dry rice without any sauce...ugh). They completely misunderstood the concept of vegalienism. And since those restaurants were really conservative, old-fashioned German restaurants, they probaly have never even heard of other fats than butter. But I digress. 
 
My breakfast routine changes with my mood. It changes with the time of the year. It depends on my timetable, for example whether I have exams (no time for breakfast), or the term has just started (not much to do, so much time for a lengthy, extensive breakfast).
I know people who have a fixed breakfast routine at the weekends. They read the sunday-newspaper, drink an orange juice and a coffee and croissants.   
I'd like to have one, too. It's kind of cool to brag with a fixed breakfast routine, I think. It sounds professional and a little bit quirky, like some really distinguished person, who really enjoys a relaxed sunday-morning (because he's been working alle week in some really important position), informs himself about the world politics and knows a lot about good food and a good life. I think a sunday morning breakfast-routine really has style. I'm going to establish one for me, too. 
 
So, what did I have for breakfast today? I had Weetabix (Thanks to lovely Great Britain, the most wonderful country in the world, for this great invention! :-* ) with vanilla -soy milk (Yummy!) and agave syrup (a replacement for honey). 

 
So what do you need to do?
Soak two weetabix(es?) in vanilla-soy milk and pour a little bit agave syrup on top of the two. You can add some fruit, I prefer some frozen berries, because the weetabix-stodge then tastes a bit like icecream. A delicious, slimy, sweet mud. I just love it!
Now you can just spoon it up in about 2 min. Trust me, I've had this breakfast 5 min before a lecture started and practically grabbed my bike while slurping my weetabix up. I recommend some tea or coffee with it, tough.
Now, that's a truly vegalien breakfast, if you ask me.

Yours sincerely,

- Bitch of Babylon -

1. Lunch Recipe: Pasta with green beans and sun-dried tomatoes

I start my blog with a guaranteed successfull vegalien dish: Pasta with green beans and sun-dried tomatoes. It's an absolutely easy, mouth-watring pasta-dish, only consisting of a few ingredients. 

 

You'll need:

• vegetable oil (I prefer rape-oil)
• green beans
• sun-dried tomatoes
• cashews
• pasta, preferably ribbon noodles or spaghettis
• chili-spice
• pepper
• paprika spice
• basil and/or nutritional yeast

I usually take ca. 400 g of green beans, about half a package of spaghettis, half a can of cashews and a package of 150 g sun-dried tomatoes for 3 persons. 
As a student living alone just cook half of the amount.
The measurements are a matter of taste: you can easily change the measurements to add more green beans or more noodles. I'd be careful not to add too many noodles, as it can easily become too dry.

1. Boil the pasta together with the green beans in a pot. First boil the beans for about 10 min, then add the pasta and boil for another 8-10 min.
2. Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan and roast the cashews in it. Then add the sun-dried tomatoes and fry them together with the cashews. Add chilli-spice, pepper and paprika spice.
3. Mix the pasta and the beans with the tomatoes and cashews and stir thoroughly.
4. Now sprinkle with basil and/or nutritional yeast.

Done. Yummy, easy and really delicious. And totally vegalien.

This blog is going to be filled with a lot more easy vegan recipes for students and articles about vegalien and not so vegalien life.

Yours sincerely,

- Bitch of Babylon -