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

Joyful25

kim_ley wrote: »

I agree :beer: Twinks!!!!

So I also think we should get on first name terms?
I much prefer putting a name to a user name :rotfl:

Kim_ley... you guessed it Kimberley.
Other name's I answer to are Kimbo Kim Kimbli K Kimbim Klou...
and err other's that I can't post here!

BUT call me what you like hehe!

and also most recently mummybummy but i'm afraid that one is already over used!

Well Kim you guessed my really uncovertname of Joy! I should really change it Joyful 29, but hey a girl can dream! I must admit I didn't guess Kimberley, clearly my blonde bits preventing me from thinking straight! :doh:

suep - yay! We're like the Charlie's Angels of mooncup, er, trying. I got paid yesterday so hopefully I'll get round to getting it soon.....

It's late, so it's short(ish), but I was interested in the washing results - have I dreamt it or are there, for the want of a better word, washing balls you can buy that last something like dozens of washes and they look a bit like rubber toys? I've seen tumble dryer ones recently.. I'm ashamed to say that while living with the in-laws I...don't have to do my own washing (said in quiet voice) and MIL just uses Ariel (bad MIL!!) so when I'm in The House I'll pursue the suggested but also look for these balls I'm wittering on about......

fernliebee: never mind, but thanks! I think I'll see what Twinks nut results are and go from there. I nearly bought almond butter today as my little treat, but forgot that my little treat this week was Soya Glace (which I've nearly finished).

O.W.E.I I borrowed Vegan with a Vengance from my American colleague; I was reading it at the end of last year to help with the transition and I know what you mean, although I couldn't find much else on the market other than cookery books (the t'internet's all very well, but I'm a book person). Can anyone recommend a British book that steers away from recipes and focuses on the crux of things?

Fillings!! Yuck, never nice. But a great excuse to eat goo!

On a tangent - I had to be an actual grown up, knowledgeable vegan in public last week. There's a new coffee place next door to Whitechapel Tube station and I checked if the soup was vegan (it wasn't made in-house but they checked the tub for me and told me where it was bought from) and they were interested in what spread to buy for bread to go with soup etc. and were very very nice and genuinely interested. So if you don't do it already, chat with the independents or somewhere you visit often as a non-MSE treat ((my defence was that it was a bit of a journey home and I needed something there and then, although it's not much fun eating soup on the Tube)) - as they were interested in buying soya spread and milk just from our conversation, and no doubt in the hope I'd go in there forevermore.

Aim next week is to visit a cornershop nearish to wear I work which I've found out is vegan! It's advertised as a deli and one of the owners is vegan. Is another indie but might stock products you guys could dig out in your areas?

Ooh and I don't have a Home Bargains here in Essex, are they online?!??

Night night, need to get my 40's x

twinkle_star_2

Well the almond butter was not a success . The almonds all minced down into teeny pieces but no matter how long i blended nothing resembling a paste would occur. I think this might be due to my cheapo food processor (it is a tiny multi-function one that was v. cheap) and i think it might work in a big proper one or may be a blender. One the nuts were chopped they just stuck the sides and avoided being smushed by the blade anymore.

So epic fail there...

On the plus side I made some vegan agave-nectar cupcakes for my OH's grandad and he loved them! Going to send him the recipe later. I made them with agave nectar rather than sugar as he is diabetic and agave nectar is lower GI than pure sugar so hopefully won't be as upsetting insulin-wise. :j

O.W.E.I

penguine wrote: »

Dairy products are not consumed much in China so if you get hold of a Chinese vegetarian cookbook and ignore the recipes containing egg, there will probably be quite a few left you can try.

Madhur Jaffrey's Eastern Vegetarian Cooking is a good cookbook with recipes from many Asian countries, including China. I have had it for over 20 years and it's still one of my favourite cookbooks. (There's a used copy going on Amazon.co.uk at the moment for 89p plus postage!)

Cheers - one of the main problems is the use of obscure ingredients, not freely available.

When I lived in London we had a fantastic Chinese supermarket just down from the pub...lol...so it wasn't a problem (mind you last time I went to Kilburn it had closed down - The Chinese not the pub!).

Now I've escaped London and live in the real world, we only have an Indian supermarket up The Lye.
It's fantastic for loads of basics and exotic spices, but for Chinese stuff it's no good.
The nearest place is Birmingham (somewhere I try to avoid at all costs) and it would be just ridiculous to pay the rip-off train fare just to lug a load of egg-free noodles etc back.

I'm going to have to start producing my own chilli sauces etc!

kim_ley

isnt the www fantastic...

chinese to your door

http://www.hoohing.com/catindex.html

Lots more like it look here

Cat72

Glad this thread is still going strong. It is getting far easier to be a vegan- although eating out is still a problem.Hopefully the more people who become vegan the more choice we will be given.
Personally I cant stand the cheese alternatives and just tend to have pizza without cheese and maybe jazz it up with a peri peri sauce or barbecue sauce base.If im in a restaurant I will sometimes just ask for the pizza minus the cheese.Dominos and pizza express do vegan pizza bases.

NAUGHTY WARNING !
Im going to quickily add some naughty vegan treats, as when I first became vegan I went cold turkey on sweets. However after about 2 years of choccie & treatie deprevation I found the dark side !
Most dark choccie over 70 % is vegan ,frys chocolate ,peppermint & orange creams are vegan ( yeah !!). And the creme de la creme Booja Booja choccies, their champagne truffles are sheer luxury.
They also do lovely ice cream -I also love SWEDISH GLACE vegan ice creams. You can sometimes find them at your local health store or they might be able to order them.
I have found I can easily convert & fool my non- vegan friends into thinking this is the real milky stuff, it even tastes better.
Here are some of their range here , so now I can indulge myself vegan style.
Hope you can too x

ps promise to post some nutitional vegan recipes later to balance things out :j

fernliebee

twinkle_star wrote: »

Well the almond butter was not a success . The almonds all minced down into teeny pieces but no matter how long i blended nothing resembling a paste would occur. I think this might be due to my cheapo food processor (it is a tiny multi-function one that was v. cheap) and i think it might work in a big proper one or may be a blender. One the nuts were chopped they just stuck the sides and avoided being smushed by the blade anymore.

So epic fail there...

On the plus side I made some vegan agave-nectar cupcakes for my OH's grandad and he loved them! Going to send him the recipe later. I made them with agave nectar rather than sugar as he is diabetic and agave nectar is lower GI than pure sugar so hopefully won't be as upsetting insulin-wise. :j

Shame it didn't work well, I liked the sound of that! Ah well, back to £2 a jar treats! I buy it for my DD as good for lunch, and high in calcium, but I don't use it myself much as too expensive!

I love agave nectar, I have a bit in my porridge with lot's of other stuff! I also use it for baking cupcakes! So yummy! It was my bday the other day, and I made choc cupcakes with choc icing, and a cherry on top! So good. Also I make banana muffins and if you use brown/ black banana's they are so sweet you don't need any sugar/ nectar at all! Not sure about GI of these as I think it's better to eat green banana's as less sugar has been released

sparklewing

Well..... I tried tofu for the first time today. It was wronger than a very wrong thing on a wrong day in wrong town in the wrong county in wrongland. I made the tofu scramble thing that everyone always raves about on vegan forums. It was... wrong. I'm not sure if it was the texture. It kind of felt like eggs and I don't particularly like eggs. I'm going to try it cooked other ways but tofu scramble.... WRONG.

I also made veggie sushi which was amazing. I'm going to eat that every day.

fernliebee

I'm a bit funny about tofu tbh. I only like smoked not plain, and I also only really like it grilled so crispy or in tiny pieces. It does take a bit of getting used to. I also don't really like egg's so the thought of tofu scramble makes me poorly! You were brave to try!

greenbee

I use silken tofu mixed in with other things - tomato sauce for lasagne or ratatouille. Otherwise I tend to use smoked, red or basil tofu to add to salads for work.

fernliebee

I really need to get some silken tofu to give it a try. I hear good things about it but I'm a bit scared! ha ha! Lot's of recipe's call for it too so I'm prob missing out.

I love tempeh too but find it hard to get hold of it. A friend used to make it himself and would give it to me, but alas no more!