Vegan packed lunch ideas?

Justamum

shandyclover wrote: »

Here is my recent discovery, the whole website has some amazing recipes, but this recipe in particular works well for lunches or ravenous teenagers who can't wait for dinner. I've taken to making up a batch of the mixture and keeping in the fridge for such emergencies, knowing that gram flour is high in protein comforts me that they are getting nourished as well.


http://www.holycowvegan.net/2011/03/eggless-vegetable-omelet-besan-chilla.html

That looks delicious - and my kind of recipe - a chuck-it-all-in-and-mix-it one! I think I'm going to have to do the same as you and have a batch in the fridge for "I'm starving, what can I eat" moments from the children/DH :T

Justamum

shandyclover wrote: »

Here is my recent discovery, the whole website has some amazing recipes, but this recipe in particular works well for lunches or ravenous teenagers who can't wait for dinner. I've taken to making up a batch of the mixture and keeping in the fridge for such emergencies, knowing that gram flour is high in protein comforts me that they are getting nourished as well.


http://www.holycowvegan.net/2011/03/eggless-vegetable-omelet-besan-chilla.html

I made a batch of these yesterday for breakfast and they were a huge hit, so thank you for the link. I converted the recipe to weights though for me as I find it easier, added extra vegetables and only 1 1/2 cups of water rather than two. I didn't put in the garlic this time as we all had appointments at the opticians and I didn't want our breath to kill her :rotfl:

Definitely a permanent recipe for my collection :T

adelight

nuatha wrote: »

With pleasure.
900g White Bread Dough (after first rise and knocked back)
250g Spinach (steamed)
450g Onions (finely chopped, or blitzed in a food processor)
450g tomatoes, (skinned and roughly chopped, quartered is fine for small toms, halved for cherry toms)
200g Walnuts (roughly chopped)
½ tsp Nutmeg (ground)
1tsp Paprika
½ Black Pepper, (ground)
Pinch salt
5 tbsp Basil (fresh, chopped, I use a good handful)
2 tbsp Oil for frying
Soya Milk for glazing

Gently fry the onions until translucent, add the spices and fry for another 2 minutes, stir through the tomatoes and walnuts, and fry for another minute. Remove from heat, mix in the spinach and allow to cool. Drain excess liquid, (I do this in a sieve set over a pan and later add the liquor to vegetable soup) Mix through the chopped basil.
Roll out the dough to about 3mm thick and cut circles around 150mm thick (use a teaplate or similar as a template) Put a heaped tablespoon of filling in the centre of the dough circle, moisten the edges, fold over and crimp with a fork. Put on an oiled baking tray, repeat until all the ingredients are used - I usually get 6 or 7 from the above.
Brush with soya milk, allow to prove for 45 minutes to an hour. Bake in a preheated oven at 200C for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Wow, I'd never heard of these before but they sound delicious. Do they travel well, seeing as the outer shell is bread dough?
I want something that can be wrapped in tin foil and put in my bag without getting completely ruined (squashed is fine by me but i hate unwrapping lunch to find it's pureed or crumbled :rotfl:) and isn't too messy/crumbly to eat and these do sound perfect.

Seakay

I admire your dedication, but your daughter is an adult and needs to take responsibility for her own decisions. I assume that she is making a contribution to the household budget as she is saving on the rent a student would normally expect to pay? Or are you paying for everything and doing all her cooking washing etc as though she were a small child? Honestly, I don't think that this is helpful for either of you; are you making everyone in the family eat vegan or cooking two sets of meals all the time?
If your daughter is living at home as a non paying member of the family then she eats with the family or pays for and prepares an alternative. If she chooses to live on fruit then she is responsible for any health consequences that this has; to be honest, she is unlikely to cause much long term damage as you have already given her a healthy start. If she is genuinely paying her way then you will have to have a discussion about altering this to reflect the added expense and work that her special diet is causing you - I assure you that very few landladies would do even that much in the real world!

MandM90

shandyclover wrote: »

Thanks to everyone that has posted - has given me lots of ideas! Sorry I didn't thank and respond to each post, my pc has issues so getting online has not been easy.

Here is my recent discovery, the whole website has some amazing recipes, but this recipe in particular works well for lunches or ravenous teenagers who can't wait for dinner. I've taken to making up a batch of the mixture and keeping in the fridge for such emergencies, knowing that gram flour is high in protein comforts me that they are getting nourished as well.


http://www.holycowvegan.net/2011/03/eggless-vegetable-omelet-besan-chilla.html

That looks like a fantastic breakfast. DW can't eat tofu so we'll have to try that! Thanks :j

nuatha

adelight wrote: »

Wow, I'd never heard of these before but they sound delicious. Do they travel well, seeing as the outer shell is bread dough?
I want something that can be wrapped in tin foil and put in my bag without getting completely ruined (squashed is fine by me but i hate unwrapping lunch to find it's pureed or crumbled :rotfl:) and isn't too messy/crumbly to eat and these do sound perfect.

They travel pretty well, in my experience better than most pastries.
They are a regular lunch for me for hill walking and photo shoots. That means they go in poly bags in the outer pockets of my rucksack, and won't get the gentlest of treatments.
The secret is getting a moist but not wet filling.

VfM4meplse

OP, there are a huge variety of tasty vegan foods if you look at Indian and Chinese cuisine. It is far cheaper than a vegetarian diet, mainly because processed snacks are a minefield (milk powder crops up unexpectedly in lots of processed foods).

The one thing I constantly worried about as a vegan was my intake of calcium. I didn't like taking a supplement but struggled to get the correct intake - so ended up reverting to being a vegetarian, and buy ethical moo-juice now. I'm sure that lots of vegans have learnt how to manage thiss, but it is something to be aware of.

Iron on the other hand was comparatively easily to solve - just wilt a bag of spinach into every cooked dish!

MandM90

VfM4meplse wrote: »

OP, there are a huge variety of tasty vegan foods if you look at Indian and Chinese cuisine. It is far cheaper than a vegetarian diet, mainly because processed snacks are a minefield (milk powder crops up unexpectedly in lots of processed foods).

The one thing I constantly worried about as a vegan was my intake of calcium. I didn't like taking a supplement but struggled to get the correct intake - so ended up reverting to being a vegetarian, and buy ethical moo-juice now. I'm sure that lots of vegans have learnt how to manage thiss, but it is something to be aware of.

Iron on the other hand was comparatively easily to solve - just wilt a bag of spinach into every cooked dish!

We just drink fortified dairy free milks and we supplement too, but did as meat eaters anyway (admittedly our diet is a lot more rich in fresh veg now, so we probably don't need all round supplements anymore). Also there are a few calcium rich vegetables but every other time I research it I read something different - either that we can't absorb calcium from plant based foods or that we absorb it much better from plant based foods. If the former is true then we are much less well adapted then cows, horses etc. who manage to get everything they need from plant foods and probably need much more calcium than we do!

Justamum

MandM90 wrote: »

We just drink fortified dairy free milks and we supplement to

That's what we do too. My youngest DD likes to drink soya milk on its own, whereas DS has cocoa every night. Eldest DD is vegetarian, not vegan (mind you youngest DD keeps flip-flopping between the two :rotfl:). I know that if you eat a properly balanced diet, etc, you shouldn't need to take a supplement, but we all take one anyway just in case.

shandyclover

Seakay wrote: »

I admire your dedication, but your daughter is an adult and needs to take responsibility for her own decisions. I assume that she is making a contribution to the household budget as she is saving on the rent a student would normally expect to pay? Or are you paying for everything and doing all her cooking washing etc as though she were a small child? Honestly, I don't think that this is helpful for either of you; are you making everyone in the family eat vegan or cooking two sets of meals all the time?
If your daughter is living at home as a non paying member of the family then she eats with the family or pays for and prepares an alternative. If she chooses to live on fruit then she is responsible for any health consequences that this has; to be honest, she is unlikely to cause much long term damage as you have already given her a healthy start. If she is genuinely paying her way then you will have to have a discussion about altering this to reflect the added expense and work that her special diet is causing you - I assure you that very few landladies would do even that much in the real world!

Good points there Seakay!

3 younger daughters are vegan, DH, oldest DD and myself are carnivores, though really only eat meat 1-2 x a week. When I cook its usually vegan, when DH or oldest DD cooks (1-2 x a week) it's usually non veg with some vegan option. Somehow we all muddle through! I have told them they cannot dictate our home diet, we will try to accommodate them and their principals as much as possible, but some of it will mean effort on their part. We do buy soya milk, vegan margarine, (as well as regular butter and milk for the non vegans) and tofu and a lot of beans and pulses, some nuts and seeds etc. but I refuse to buy convenience vegan food because I feel it is overpriced and it is out of our budget. I think when DD19 originally went vegan, then convinced her 2 youngest sisters to do the same, she thought we would be doing all our shopping at trendy health stores and it would mean no sacrifice on her part! I do look for ways to adapt already in use recipes for our family's veganites when possible but warn them ahead of time if a certain recipe is not suitable and there is no way of making it so. Oldest DD is a great cook naturally and will whip up a batch of cinnamon rolls sunday morning just for fun. When there was a hue and cry last week because she made them with butter I simply told vegan daughters they would all have to learn how to make the vegan option. I respect the life choices they are making however they are THEIR choices and they cannot inflict them on others and they must be will willing to back up their principals with the effort and sacrifice involved and not expect their family to be the only ones making the changes.