All posts in Cuisine and Beverages

Meat Free Monday – Try this!

by on March 7, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages with No comments

If you haven’t tried Stellar Winery’s range of organic vegan wines already, you really should. The wines are produced from organically grown grapes, they are vegan-friendly and Fairtrade certified. They don’t add sulphur to their wines which make them ideal for people who have sulphite sensitivity.

They have a range of wines at Woolworths under their in-house organic label and in other stores their label is called Live-a-Little and Heaven on Earth (available from Pick n Pay, Wellness Warehouse, Ultra Liquors and Spar Tops).

Alcoholic beverage producers are not required by law to list the ingredients in their products, so it is difficult to tell whether there are animal products included without contacting the manufacturer. Unfortunately a lot of our South African wines are not vegetarian or vegan and contain animal products which are included during the clarification process (or “fining” process), which may include, albumen (from egg whites), casein (milk protein), gelatin (animal skin and tissues) or isinglass (from the bladder of the sturgeon fish).

If you are interested to find out more about which wines are veggie friendly download the Woolworths vegan wines list here, and take a look at another list of other vegan wines here. Stellar wines are the only wines I know of that are actually labeled as being vegan.

Clos Malverne Le Café Pinotage 2010

by on March 3, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages, Wine Reviews with No comments

Suzanne Coetzee, Winemaker at Clos Malverne, is not alone when she says that the new coffee-style Clos Malverne will appeal to a much wider audience with its vivacious, versatile and velvety character.  This style made famous by Bertus ‘Starbucks’ Fourie is fast becoming de rigueur amongst younger wine drinkers and those who are new to wine.

Coffee ‘flavoured’ Pinotages owe their mocha character to a combination of certain fermenting yeasts and high toasted oak staves or barrels, usually the former as this helps keep the end price down.  The Clos Malverne Le Café Pinotage 2010 owes its coffee character to the eight months of maturation on heavily toasted French and American oak.

Le Café Pinotage 2010 is a rich dark plum colour and overwhelms the senses with its mocha-java and chocolate.  There is a spicy undertow of cinnamon and roasted coffee beans that lingers in the smooth aftertaste.  Lovely berry fruit in perfect balance with its soft, well-balanced tannins.

Ready to drink now – it is a versatile food partner with anything from venison through beef, lamb and pork. Made for venison and will even match chocolate and berry desserts.

The wine is available at around R86 per bottle, directly from the cellar or at selected wine outlets.

If you would like to read more about wine, visit my website www.michaelolivier.co.za or www.crushmagonline.co.za which is my free online digital magazine.

Meat Free Monday – Proposed Tax on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

by on February 28, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages with 1 Comment

According to the Support Meat Free Monday website, studies conducted in Sweden have shown that a climate tax on meat, milk and eggs could help reduce Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7%. The research done at the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers Institute of Technology have established that reducing consumption of meat, milk and eggs lowers the amount of harmful methane and nitrous oxide gasses which are produced by animals, this would also increase the land available for bioenergy production. The idea is to redistribute farmland and use it for technologies to produce green energy. There are currently taxes on petrol but no policies exist for food related greenhouse gas emissions, this means that we don’t pay for the costs that food is causing to the environment. They are hopeful that introducing a tax such as this one will result in a change in eating habits. They have calculated that if consuming beef were replaced with consuming beans that emissions would decrease by 99 percent and the beans require 20 times less land to grow an equivalent amount.

Here is a MFM recipe for delicious plant based choc chip cookies.

Ingredients:

  • 1 teacup of margarine (animal product free – use Cardin available from Spar/Checkers)
  • three quarters of a teacup of brown sugar
  • one quarter of a teacup of treacle sugar
  • half a teacup soy milk or rice
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2  teacups flour
  • half teaspoon of salt
  • teaspoon of baking soda
  • three quarters of a teacup of dark chocolate (dairy free – buy Woolworths Dark Organic Chocolate) made into choc chips

Method:

Preheat oven to 180.  Chop the dark chocolate into chips/small pieces.

Mix the margarine with the sugar until smooth, add the rice/soy milk and the vanilla essence. Once you’ve mixed that, pour all the dry ingredients in and combine well. The mixture should look quite creamy and not crumbly. If it is looking crumbly, add a little more soy/rice milk. Now add in the chocolate chips and mix so that they are evenly distributed in the mixture.

Take off small bits of the mixture and make into balls. Put the balls onto a greased baking tray and squish down lightly with a fork to form a cookie shape. Put into the oven for 20 minutes, the cookie dough may appear to be a bit squishy still, but that is okay because they harden up when they cool. Remove from the oven and cool.

Enjoy!

Stuffed hamburger press

by Chris M on February 24, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages, Style with 2 Comments

I came across this beauty whilst looking for cool kitchen toys and I had to share it as I think it’s a really clever idea:

These babies go for just $12, but when trying to visit the online shop, I received an error. You can try yourself though.

Going Super Hero Green with your Dog

by on February 24, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages, Pet Care with 2 Comments

Going “green” has been on the top of many companies and individual’s marketing agenda for the last several years. The latest “fad” is MFM – Meat Free Mondays.

With the growing popularity of going “green” through one’s diet, especially after the recent Oprah show where 364 of her staff went Vegan for a week and were really transformed on it.

The long and short of it, is that the quickest and largest impact in going “green” is through your fork and pallet and not wasting billions on energy efficiency. My hard evidence to back this is as follows: I own and run a Renewable Energy Company in addition to my Dog Whispering and transformation business. My Renewable Energy Company deals in manufacturing, installation and managing Wind Farms around the world. I do work for the Masdar Green City project, submissions to the UN, banks etc…. When doing all the statistics, the numbers, time and energy :

Just 4 dogs going onto a Vegan diet offsets more Green House Gas Carbon Emissions than a US$2 million wind farm project that will supply enough electricity for 500 medium sized homes. In basic math, it costing R33,000 a year to feed those 4 dogs on a vegan diet reduces your carbon foot print more than a R16 million rand wind farm. I know that it sounds crazy but simple accounting and auditing shall be able to verify that for you.

Just your one dog eating dry food emits more harmful Green House Gases that you driving a Hummer all over the place for a year.

This accounting includes not only the gas emissions from a heavy meat based diet but also the water consumption and sewerage treatment associated with the production of that meat. Remember, of the total sewerage in the world – treated and treated – 80% of that is from livestock farming.

The Water Footprint Network has calculated the volume of water needed to produce many common foodstuffs.

Product – Litres of Water

  • 1 sheet of A4 paper  – 10
  • 1 slice of wheat bread- 40
  • 1 apple- 70
  • 1 cup of coffee – 140
  • 1 litre of milk – 1000
  • 1 kg of barley – 1300
  • 1 kg of rice – 3000
  • 0.5 kg of chicken – 3900
  • 0.5 kg of cheese – 5000
  • 0.5 kg of pork – 5000
  • 0.5 kg of cotton – 11000
  • 0.5 kg of beef – 16000
  • 0.5 kg of leather – 16600

But dogs are carnivores and should eat meat everyday you hear? The truth and reality is that dogs are scavengers and in a non-domesticated environment they eat meat 1-3 times a week. The rest is berries, twigs, insects, soil, fruit, vegetables. When they take down a kill, the first thing they consume is the contents of the stomach of the herbivore.

Naturally I’m prescribing a balanced and formulated fresh organic vegan diet, which is available from us but you can also make your own like many millions from around the world. I also recommend that you read the two posts on my blog and then for a list of meals to cook and share with your dog, click here. There are over 50 simple delicious recipes with more being added on a weekly basis.

The moral of the story, would you eat your dog’s dry pellets? Why not, the nutritional content and information looks amazing? If got had intended for dogs to eat dry dog food, he would have dropped it from the sky in packets J

The advantages to your dog being on a vegan diet over a dry food processed diet (yes, even the vet’s kind) are as follows:

  1. Dog’s that follow this plant based diet live a minimum of 30% longer. This means that an adult powerful breed dog like a Rottweiler or German Shepherd male that would normally live to the age of 8 or 9, shall now have the capacity to live to the age of 13 -17 years of age.
  2. Greatly reduced risk of Cancer and organ failure.
  3. The dogs no longer pass or burp fowl smelling odours or gas.
  4. Dogs require drinking 8/10ths less water.
  5. There is a 31% decreased risk of a heart attack.
  6. The dog’s hydration and cooling levels during the heat is far more adaptable and manageable.
  7. The dogs are fitter and are able to walk much further distances.
  8. No longer over weight.
  9. No skin irritations or rash
  10. The dog’s behavioural conditions are a lot easier and manageable to direct and balance.
  11. The dogs have whiter and stronger teeth and bones, as well as are significantly less susceptible to calcium deficiency disorders.
  12. Puppies grow longer, taller, larger and more muscular than their parents.

Oprah’s Vegan Challenge – The Results

by on February 14, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages with No comments

This is part two of last week’s post. Oprah and 378 of her staff members took on a challenge to adopt a vegan diet for one week; this meant no animal products, no meat, no fish, no diary, no eggs. These are the results and they speak for themselves, lots of weight loss, a general focus on what we are actually putting into our bodies and for some – great health benefits. I would say an overall success!

The video refers to a whole bunch of vegan convenience food that we don’t get in SA – for us the best is to go to your local health store and check out what they have there – Frys (veggie burgers and hotdogs, etc), Natures Choice (mock cheese), Free Food (for frozen meals), Organix (yummy veggie burgers!), Earth (for tofu products), and lots of other goodies (but in truth, you don’t need these convenience foods, they just make the transition away from animal products slightly easier as the concepts they promote are familiar).

You can watch the video here.

Allée Bleue L’Amour Toujours 2007

by on February 7, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages, Wine Reviews with No comments

Not the cheapest little wine in town at R140 a pop, but it is a flagship, has a good label and is of excellent provenance.

Made by the talented Gerda Willers, former winemaker for Allée Bleue, the Allée Bleue L’Amour Toujours [love always] of the 2007 vintage has just been released.

Grapes come from Piekenierskloof in Citrusdal area, Hermon and Stellenbosch

An unusual Merlot driven blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and healthy dollops of Grenache and Shiraz and a splash of Petit Verdot.  The latter never ceases to amaze me how it makes its presence felt in the form of violets on the nose.

Tank fermented and then a year in French oak barrels, 60% of which were new.

Lot of sensual stuff going on here.  Bright deep red in colour.  The Cab backbone of ripe raspberries is softened by the suppleness of the plummy fynbos whiffy Merlot and the poached desiccated fruit of the country cousin Grenache.  Spice from the Shiraz and violets from the Petit Verdot.

A generous lush-to-the-senses wine, the Allée Bleue L’Amour Toujours 2007 will age well to 2015.

The latest edition of my free online digital magazine Crush! has been released.  Please go to www.crushmagonline.com and subscribe to get your free copy.

Oprah and 378 of her Staff go Vegan for one week!

by on February 7, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages with 3 Comments

This story really caught my attention! Oprah and 378 members of her Harpo staff took on the challenge to go vegan for one week. No meat, no fish, no milk, no eggs, in other words nothing that comes from an animal. They signed on to do this for 7 days. Kathy Freston, New York Times best-selling author of Veganist , led them in the challenge.

Here is a summary of part one of the show:

Have a great Monday!

Knorhoek Estate Konfetti Brut Rosé

by on February 1, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages, Wine Reviews with No comments

Perfect in time for Valentine’s Day is the launch of a pink bubbly from Knorhoek Estate in Stellenbosch.

Konfetti 2010 was inspired by the many wedding functions held on the estate and some great meals in its Towerbosch Restaurant styled by that master of restaurateurs, Neil Stemmet.

An exuberant blend of Pinotage (56%), Cabernet Franc (27%), Merlot (13%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (4%) winemaker Arno Albertyn wanted the wine to light up the senses with its cheerful, candy floss pink blush.  Delicious smells of red berry fruits, it has live raspberries and strawberries on the palate and shows the class of lying on the lees for two months after fermentation and impregnation with carbon dioxide to add the vibrant bubbles.  Nice refreshing aftertaste too.

Priced for everyday drinking at R55 a pop [oooh awful pun there, Michael!] it is available from the estate only.  But as Knorhoek’s homely Guest House is ideal for families with children of all ages, honeymooners wishing to escape the hustle and bustle or to swap the boardroom for a ‘bosberaad’ breakaway with colleagues, you can drive out buy some great wine, have a good meal and then return home the next day!

For more information contact Knorhoek Cellar at Tel: 021 865 2114/5

The latest edition of my free online digital magazine Crush! Will be going out this week.  Please subscribe to get your free copy.  Go to www.crushmagonline.com

Meat Free Mondays – Huge Impact

by on January 31, 2011 in Cuisine and Beverages with 2 Comments

If you find yourself asking the question, what kind of a difference could it really make if I don’t eat meat for a day? Take a look at this schedule which details possible carbon savings in the USA from days not eating meat! (Source: http://caaa.co.za/files/US_carbon_savings_table.pdf)

I know it is done from a USA perspective, but South Africans eat plenty of meat and can also make a huge difference by participating in MFM! The more people who are involved the bigger the benefit to the planet.

Here is a recipe for Rustic Vegetable Stacks which I hope will inspire you to have a MFM.

Ingredients (for two) :

  • A large potato
  • Half of a large butternut
  • Two handfuls of washed baby spinach
  • An onion
  • A tin of chopped tomatoes
  • Dried herbs
  • Some fresh basil for garnishing and for the tomato sauce
  • Two large portobello mushrooms
  • Olive oil
  • Salt and pepper for seasoning

Method:

First heat the oven to 220 degrees. Peel the potato, chop it in half and then slice down each half to form semi-circle shaped pieces of potato that are about 1cm thick, place into a roasting tray.

With the butternut, chop off the long thin part (rather than the part with the seeds in), peel it and cut it down the middle then into semi-circle shaped slices of 1cm thick like the potato.

Place into the same roasting tray – sprinkle with a few dried mixed herbs and some olive oil – enough to coat the vegetables and put some water into the bottom of the disk – not a lot, just enough to cover the bottom of the roasting dish.

Place the roasting tray into the heated oven for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes take the tray out and flip the slices of potato and butternut over, turn the oven down to 180 degrees and allow to cook for a further 20 minutes or until the vegetables are soft.

While that is cooking, start on the tomato sauce. Chop the onion finely and place into a saucepan, add olive oil – enough to coat all the onions and then a little more. Allow the onions to simmer at a low heat for around 10 minutes in the olive oil, until they become translucent. Then add in your chopped tomatoes, half a cup of water, some dried herbs, salt and pepper and a few fresh basil leaves. Stir the sauce, allow it to start to bubble and leave it on a very low heat to simmer for around forty minutes – stir it occasionally.

For the mushrooms, clean off any dirt with a little paper towel and slice. Place into a hot pan with a little olive oil and cook them at a high temperature for a couple of minutes, they’ll shrink and go a dark colour.

Your veggies are now ready for assembly! I put the potato at the bottom with the slices arranged in a circular shape, the butternut went on top of that, then a handful of baby spinach, some mushrooms and a few spoons of the tomato sauce, a little fresh basil right on the top and it is complete!

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