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

kate83

Amaranth is another grain to look at, the seed is another complete protein like quinoa and you can also eat the leaves.
They grow in this country (i'm trying this year) and according to wikipedia the plants are so vigorous you can supposedly get upto 1kg of seed from each plant!

Seeds are available from here if anybody's interested in growing either amaranth or quinoa
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/grains.html

twinkle_star_2

Hello again,

Well yesterday we had another vegan first for me - fake cheese! My OH decided he wanted pizza for dinner so whilst I was out I picked up a block of Cheezly (a brand of fake cheese). I got the super-melting edam flavoured style but there are other flavours of both melting and non-melting available. Back at home I made some pizza dough (flour, yeast, water, salt, sugar, olive oil), roasted peppers and onions and made a quick tomato sauce with lots of garlic, passata and red wine.

Pizzas were constructed minus cheese and then the cheese was opened...

Well, it was very soft and kind of gooey but crumbly. I tried a bit on its own and it was vaguely cheesey but with a strange texture.:eek:

However we persevered. I decided to grate the cheese to get the optimum melting conditions as I knew that even though this was the melting variety it, fake cheese is never terribly good at melting. When it came out of the oven I wasn't terribly impressed by its meltiness but it tasted pretty good in combination with the rest of the ingredients. :rolleyes:

One of my housemates then came home and sugested that I melt the cheese first in a suacepan with a little soy milk and pour the liquid cheezly over the pizzas. I was a littl unsure but once I spooned the resulting concoction over the pizzas I could totally see the logic. Using this method we got pizzas that looked a lot more like the real thing and tasted perfectly nice:j. Totally impressed (although I still wouldn't eat it raw).

So there you go. Pizza for vegans. Who'd have thunk it.

lolabug_2

I often make pizza and put small daps of tofutti cream cheese all over the top instead of cheezly. The cream cheese goes slightly crispy on the outside and all melty when you bite.

Vegan cheese takes a while to get used to but I rather like chedder style cheezly 'raw'..most other brands of hard vegan cheese are pretty vile though in my opinion.

twinkle_star_2

I really like the idea of using the cream cheese. Shall definitely try that next time!

bluemoon_3

Another recommendation here for Bryanna Clark Grogan's books and website. I often say that Bryanna's books (especially 'Nonna's Italian Kitchen') practically taught me to cook!

http://www.bryannaclarkgrogan.com/page/page/579094.htm

Try the links on the left for 'Vegan Feast Kitchen Blog' and 'Free Recipe Archives'.

There is a thriving vegan blog presence too so there's loads of everyday recipes out there on the net. One of my faves is 'Fat Free Vegan Kitchen' and she also has a list of other vegan blogs: http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2005/12/blogs-i-like-veg-blog-search.html

BTW, do try homemade pizza without any cheese substitute - drizzle some olive oil on to moisten it a bit. I sometimes use cheezly or parmesano (in the shaker tub), but mostly I make it with just olive oil and a sprinkle of salt over the top and it's really nice!

Good luck with it, Twinkle. DH and I have been eating a vegan diet now for 8 years and I'm always finding new things to make. Tonight it'll probably be a long-term standby - Bryanna's Puttanesca recipe which uses Miso to replace the anchovies. (Scroll down on this page http://veganfeastkitchen.blogspot.com/2008/04/home-from-seattle-vegfest-2008.html if you're interested!).

thriftlady_2

Wow, I'm impressed with all the wonderful sounding meal ideas on this thread.Thanks particularly to Murrell for the sandwich ideas:T I'm not even vaguely tempted to become vegetarian let alone vegan, but it seems I actually cook quite a lot of vegan meals. I especially love Indian pulse dishes -so cheap;)

I notice miso mentioned which I also use. Beware, some brands contain fish sauce;) I have one from Clearspring which is animal free. I got it at Sainsbury's.

Murrell

Hi,

For more recipe ideas there is some american vegan online cooking channels that can be watched on youtube and one off videos on youtube.
These are a few, but just entering vegan in youtube will bring up lots more.

http://www.everydaydish.tv/
http://www.youtube.com/user/hippygourmet
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=81855E94DAC39C50

Hope these are helpful
Sandra

andrina_nightshade

There's been a lot of great recipes and advice on offer here - many thanks

I've been a vegetarian for a little over a year now, but I always try to spend at least 2 days every week eating vegan food - it stops me from falling back on cheese as a protein substitute, which I did back at the start, and caused me to put on half a stone :eek:

Falafels are wonderful - I love the spicy ones from Cauldron, as I'm not yet brave enough to attempt my own. They go really well with tomato and red onion, fried in a little olive oil.

Lentil soup is a staple of my diet - I make a huge batch every fortnight or so, but I try to vary the vegetables from time to time. Not to mention any excess lentils can be made into a daal curry

My other dietary staple is mixed bean chilli - my favourite combo is green lentils, haricot beans, black-eyed beans and kidney beans, but you can put anything in it (although I can't stand butter beans! :lipsrseal)

Now, if I could just discover the secret of veggie marshmallows, my life would be complete

lolabug_2

Vegan marshmallow kit ;-)
http://www.veganstore.co.uk/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=1&Product_Code=185&Category_Code=

chalkysoil

how lovely for me to find this thread! :j I've been vegan since 1978. I'm not really in to cooking (lazy, sidetracked, impatient!!) but have been inspired by these posts.
re pizzas- sometimes I put scheese blobs on top of the other ingredients, but often I use avocado. I love hot avocado.
Making soups became a success once I discovered an electric hand blender. I cook, cool, whizz, reheat. Sometimes I save some chunky bits before blending to add at the reheat stage.