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Byron Shire
March 29, 2024

Dear pudding eaters…

Latest News

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If yesterday at Bluesfest was anything to go by, it's going to be an incredible event and with the weather holding, (so far) the Easter weekend's future is looking bright.

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A Christmas pudding – suet?

Suet or not to suet – the Christmas pudding question

My mother-out-law makes the most delicious Christmas pudding. It’s an entirely different entity than the one that my mother makes (also very delicious), which is a traditional pudding with several spices and other ingredients – including suet, which now that I’m an annoying vegan, I don’t use. Also, I’m a lazy (read: that pain-in-the-arse friend who is always too busy to do anything fun) annoying vegan, so by the time I get around to sourcing vegan suet, it’s usually too late.

My mother likes to make her Christmas pudding by the end of October – at the absolute latest, then, she hangs it in the garage for a few weeks (she says it needs to hang for four to 12 weeks) and she boils it up again a day or two before December 25 and serves it with custard – or these days, coconut ice-cream.

My mother-out-law’s Christmas pudding can be made the day before, or if you’re really in a pinch for time, it could actually be made fresh on Christmas Day, but you’d want to get up with the Sun to have it ready in time for lunch.

Not suet, 4 (or 5) ingredient Plum Pudding

2 cups fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs
(Margaret just tears up two slices of bread).

2 cups mixed dried fruit (she uses a 375g packet).

1 tablespoon freshly grated orange peel
(some call it zest).

2 cups mashed ripe bananas.

Not in the original recipe; Margaret also adds a small packet of glacé cherries.

You simply put all the ingredients in a mixing bowl (remember the foil and the string if you need to) and stir the lot together. Pour it all into an oiled steam pudding bowl with a tightly fitting lid.

Boil for three hours, checking water occasionally, because you don’t want it to boil dry, and voila! Christmas pudding so delicious you’ll turn vegan.

When I was a young lass,
a very, very, long time ago…

When I was a young lass, which was a long time ago, I used to make steamed puddings, but I didn’t have a pudding bowl. I made do with using the stainless steel bowl I mixed it in, then I’d make a lid out of a big sheet of foil folded twice in half. I’d oil it on the pudding side then I’d tie it up with a criss-cross of string – the bow made for a handy lifter that I could use with the aid of a fork to pull the pudding out of the boiling water.

Margaret, my mother-out-law, goes out of her way to find David and I vegan treats, and last Christmas she made sure her pudding was on the menu for lunch.

She says she has been making the pudding this way since 2006. She attended a Seventh Day Adventists Christmas luncheon in Alstonville that year and they served the pudding and were happy to give out the recipe. She says it’s very easy and I can tell you it’s very delicious!

So please everyone, enjoy the festive season. Be careful and safe – we love you all too much to lose you.

Signed, The Annoying Vegan

 


Lismore incumbent – Janelle Saffin MP

With just a few days until we head to the polls, The Echo asked the candidates for the seat of Lismore one last bunch of questions.

2

Lismore candidate Adam Guise

With just a few days until we head to the polls, The Echo asked the candidates for the seat of Lismore one last bunch of questions.

1

Lismore candidate Matthew Bertalli

With just a few days until we head to the polls, The Echo asked the candidates for the seat of Lismore one last bunch of questions.

0

Lismore candidate Vanessa Rosayro

With just a few days until we head to the polls, The Echo asked the candidates for the seat of Lismore one last bunch of questions.

0

Election 2023 – Lismore: Vanessa Rosayro AJP

Vanessa Rosayro, is running for the Seat of Lismore in the election at the end of next month. A dedicated vegan and animal advocate, Rosayro says the Animal Justice Party is about more than just loving animals.

5

Getting annoyed with NSW Farmers naming ‘rights’

The Annoying Vegan has become more annoyed today with what they see as the NSW Farmers getting on their high horse about the use of the words ‘meat’ and ‘milk’.

27

The annoying vegan – Iron salad

The two challenges for me as a vegan are my B12 and iron levels. I’ll save the B12 conversation for another time and talk about iron. There are two types of iron – haem and non-haem; the latter is iron not found in animal tissue and is found in many plant foods.

0

Eating vegan is no longer like Mac Vs PC

Remember back in the bad old days when you used either a PC or Mac? Those were your choices, and never the twain could meet. They were so many miles apart in operations that they were like different countries with different languages and appearances

8

Byron Bay Tempeh

There’s a reason everyone wants to live in the Northern Rivers, and a big part of that is the fresh food that’s made locally and the sustainable principles that many businesses make sure are underpinning that food.

0

Making no bones about the yumminess of No Bones

There’s nothing worse than an annoying vegan telling you about some ‘great vegan place’ they went to eat. So I am NOT going to do that – BUT, I am going to tell you about an amazing place I ate at recently. A place that sold food. Very yummy food. No Bones food.

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