Going vegan......old style?!

Murrell

twinkle_star wrote: »

I like the idea of completely pumpkin themed food. Maybe it shall be done.

Also, does anyone know, or can think of, some ideas for using up a huge packet of miso? I cannot remember why I bought it:o and though I like miso soup there's only so many times I can eat it. I'm sure it can be used in sauces or something but I really don't know. Thanks.

There is a pumpkin thread (although not vegan) may give you some ideas.
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1225879

Vegweb also has lots of pumpkin recipes. I have also seen threads on the selfsufficientish website listing recipes that perhaps could be veganised.

I don't know anything about miso as i've never tried it, but the vegan book called raw which I have out of the library at the moment uses miso in a lot of recipes. I don't know if what you have is a jar of white or black miso or a soup mix. But if its just miso paste, perhaps having a look at a few raw sites may give inspiration. Other than that perhaps oriental recipes, sorry not really any help.

Sandra
x

Zahava

Thanks everyone for the heads up on the pure cream cheese I have been brave and tried it and……..I am in agreement with you all, it must be the worst thing I have ever tasted nothing like how I remember cream cheese tasting, however the good news is I made a carrot cake and used it as a frosting with the amount of sugar and vanilla I dumped in it, it was actually very nice not like “normal” frosting on carrot cake but a very good vegan alternative even my mum liked it (and she turns her nose up at anything vegan) in fact I left the cake with her and two days later when I popped round for tea…no cake left, so it must have been good. (success). Here is my recipe for anyone who would like to try:

Carrot cake

2 cups sugar
1.1/4 cups vegetable/sunflour oil
2 cups self raising flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1. ¾ baking powder
4 bananas
3 cups grated carrot and chopped nuts (walnuts, pecan nuts are good with it)

Preheat oven to 160 degrees (350 degrees f)
Cream together sugar and oil
Add flour, salt cinnamon, nutmeg and baking powder
Mash bananas to a paste and stir in along with carrots and nuts

Bake in a greased and floured tin for approx an hour until well risen and golden, turn out and leave to cool

Icing

8 Oz vegan cream cheese (the whole pack, I use tofutti or now pure)
2 oz margerine (I use tomor kosher margarine)
5 oz icing sugar (recipe says 4 but you need more if using pure cheese)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat all together until a thick consistency and spread over the top of cooled cake add chopped nut over the top.

Justamum

Zahava wrote: »

Thanks everyone for the heads up on the pure cream cheese I have been brave and tried it and……..I am in agreement with you all, it must be the worst thing I have ever tasted nothing like how I remember cream cheese tasting, however the good news is I made a carrot cake and used it as a frosting with the amount of sugar and vanilla I dumped in it,

So far I've not found any of the Pure cheese substitutes, and it looks like I'm not actually missing anything!

Thanks for the cake recipe - I was just telling my mum the other day that I wanted a nice, moist carrot cake recipe. It seems to have quite a lot of oil in it - does it taste oily at all? Also, how many carrots did you use? - I've never got on with American recipes which ask for cups of solid ingredients (flour, sugar, liquids etc are fine).

My mum used to make a carrot cake years ago with a cream cheese frosting on top, but added lemon juice, which is another idea for the topping of this (or orange would probably be nice too)

Zahava

Hi Justamum,
No, the carrot cake didn't taste oily at all (well to me anyway) and I think I used about 4 large carrots, the only problem I had was that the frosting was a bit runnier than it should be and I'm not sure how to remedy that, orange juice and a bit of orange peel shredded over the top would go really well with it, I must make some more soon.

This will be my first vegan christmas, does anybody have any idea's? I hate there will be huge tubs of sweeties and junk around, I've gotten so good at saying no but I'm worried that I'm going to cave in, although I did see in Waitrose today that the mini mince pies are vegan (they have little stars on the top) so that will help. Is it anyone else's first vegan christmas?

suep

Well Xmas dinner is just a roast isnt it, there are plenty of recipes for nut roast on any of the vegan recipe sites that goes for xmas pudding and cake too. You can still have chocolate and sweeties, again on sale either in health food shops or online vegan stores like http://www.veganstore.co.uk/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=1&Category_Code=500

Kittikins

Yippee! So pleased that the Waitr*se mini mince pies are vegan, they're the bestest ever (so sayeth me and DD!). I've been doing LL for a while but due to a slipped disk and mega painkillers, have to eat 'real' food for a while....so am now determined to stop eating carp and work out how I really want my life to be, not put the weight back on and hope that I can have a happier relationship with food.

I've been pescetarian for 28 years and have recently been watching programmes that have put me off cow's milk, the recent Jimmy friend of JO programme with the cows swinging their poor distended udders did that, thank you! Luckily I only ever have milk on the odd bit of cereal, but could happily have juice on muesli instead of milk on W**tabix going forward.

Unfortunately I LOVE cheese and having tried some vegan cheese recently, know that this will be a real problem for me. Any suggestions?

twinkle_star_2

Hello all,

Thanks for the pumpkin links and miso ideas. Halloween was quite pleasant and I made an enormous pumpkin and vegetable pie that was very well received.

It's my first vegan Christmas too and I am totally excited.:rudolf: I want to try out a few nut roasts (as I seem to be cursed to always make disasterous nutroasts) before the big day to find one that works. I'll probably make my own mince pie pastry but shall be on the look out for some vegan mincemeat as I'm not as domesticated as all that just yet. Previously, my Grandma always made huge batches of sausage rolls and mince pies (the mince pies happen to be vegan anyway) so I'm going to vegan-ise that sausage rolls this year so I can keep up the tradition. I think I'll try Scottish Vegan Homemaker's mushroom filling for them. You can find it here. Sounds yummy. :T

On the cheese subject, I'm really not sure what will help other than an enormous amount of willpower. I'm not fond of the vegan cheeses you can get in the shops so I just tend to not bother. After a while I found that the cravings just disappear (to be fair, cheese was probably the last craving to go). I think the key to not cracking under the cheese craving pressure is eat something else that is full of good fats. Avocado, nuts and nut butters, seeds, oils, etc. Also make sure you're eating plenty so you don't get hungry (lots of beans to fill you up and release energy slowly) and keep some snacks handy if you're out (trail mix, nuts, crisps). Or you can use my patented method of avoiding temptation which is to have a beer to distract yourself! :rotfl: Hope some of that helped.

Kittikins

Thanks Twinkle, I'm liking the sound of it being beer o'clock!

I'm now happily meandering through a lot of vegan blogs, courtesy of your linkie, thank you

Justamum

Kittikins wrote: »

I've been pescetarian for 28 years and have recently been watching programmes that have put me off cow's milk, the recent Jimmy friend of JO programme with the cows swinging their poor distended udders did that, thank you! Luckily I only ever have milk on the odd bit of cereal, but could happily have juice on muesli instead of milk on W**tabix going forward.

I wonder how many others were put off drinking milk by that programme? Soya milk is ok, though some tend to have a strong taste - Alpro tastes a bit weird. The one I use is White Wave - and even my family who recently came for a visit didn't mind it in their tea and coffee (it also doesn't curdle as readily in hot drinks as some other makes). If you persevere it takes about a week to acquire the taste for it, and after that you'll hate the taste of cow's milk!

Kittikins wrote: »

Unfortunately I LOVE cheese and having tried some vegan cheese recently, know that this will be a real problem for me. Any suggestions?

When I decided to go vegan I thought I would miss cheese, but honestly don't now and it's been over 5 years so far. I must admit the vegan cheeses tend to be pretty yucky, but I don't mind the Redwood Mozzarella style one - it melts really nicely and tastes really nice on pizzas or cheese on toast (it does take a bit longer than 'real' cheese though). This is the one stumbling block I have with my DH and children - they eat all vegan except for cheese (my children do like quesadillas made with vegan cheese though).

Justamum

twinkle_star wrote: »

I'll probably make my own mince pie pastry but shall be on the look out for some vegan mincemeat as I'm not as domesticated as all that just yet. Previously, my Grandma always made huge batches of sausage rolls and mince pies (the mince pies happen to be vegan anyway) so I'm going to vegan-ise that sausage rolls this year so I can keep up the tradition. I think I'll try Scottish Vegan Homemaker's mushroom filling for them. You can find it here. Sounds yummy. :T

I'm sure that most mincemeat you get in jars is vegan as they use veggie suet. I must admit I've made my own mincemeat in the past and it does taste completely different to bought. I've got a jar of Robertson's in the cupboard from a couple of years ago which I must use up (don't think I'll be making many mince pies this year as DH and I don't want to put on any weight, and the children don't really like dried fruit )

The sausage roll filling sounds yummy - I must explore that blog too!