Vegan cooking - any advice?

Little_Chicken

Posing it here...as it's probabyly the best place.;)

I am thinking of going vegan later in the year, and wanted any recommendations for a good everyday cookbook or recipe site. Also anything about taking the plunge.

I already eat bean chilli and veggie curries, but don't think I can live on these alone! I am totally addicted to cheese and wonder how I'll cope without eggs. I've tried rice/soya milk and find those OK.

Any ideas - moneysaving or not!

Thanks. :beer:

Noopynu

I don't know if this is much help but when cooking dinner for a vegan friend i made us a jacket potato with Roasted veggies and toasted pine nuts drizzled with Basil Oil which was lovely.....
Also a lot of Indian vegetarian dishes are vegan, i.e dhals, saag aloo, gobi aloo, channa,etc

lolarentt

A lot of the Animal Welfare organisations are helpful for veggie and vegan. try the Viva site for a start;

http://www.viva.org.uk/recipes/index.html

lolarentt

..also lots of advice and links on the Vegan Society's website if you've not seen this:

http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/recipes/

Pink.

Hi Little Chicken,

There are a number of vegan threads on Old Style that may help you.

Pink

mutley_muppet

I've been vegan over 20 years.

If you miss cheese (I did at first) try Cheezly from health food shops or some Tescos.

You can buy vegan powdered egg replacer from health food stores.

Most supermakets sell vegan ice cream, yoghurts, marg, milk, custard etc.

The BBC recipe website has lots of tasty recipes. Use the advanced search option and tick the vegan box: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/advanced_search.shtml

Badger_Lady

My fave books:

- vegan cooking for one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegan-Cooking-One-Simple-Appetizing/dp/0722539231/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209405903&sr=1-1

- a vegan taste of greece http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegan-Taste-Greece-Cookbooks/dp/189776684X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209405930&sr=1-1

suzywoozy_3

We use vegan mozzarella successfully on pizzas and have done calzones without cheese for vegan friends very successfully. I like the soft vegan cream cheese with herbs but find most vegan hard cheese totally unpalatable!

floyd

This is a lovely website http://www.parsleysoup.co.uk/

The thing I find difficult when cooking for vegan friends is that some of the 'speciality' substitute foods go very much against the Old Style mentality, as they are expensive and full of salt and oil to make them have similar properties to the animal-derived version. It just takes alot more label reading to check salt levels in some of the pre-packaged things

dolly_day_dream

I am vegan and choose not to use replacements. I am lucky in that I simply do not crave them. My fave vegan cookbooks are Meals without Squeals and More Meals without Squeals from the Isle of Wight Vegetarian and Vegan society. The cake scoffer is brill for surprisingly enough cake recipes all of these can be obtained from the Viva site. I generally use vegetarian recipes and adapt if needed. Tonight we had vegetarian biryani with veg curry on top. Yesterday I cooked a roast for the family - left over veg in tonights curry - and I had the roast veg etc but not the meat. I make sure that I eat marmite regularly and have a protein serving each day - pulses, nuts, cous cous but it is easy to get enough protein each day - we tend eat more protein than we actually need in the west.

It is amazingly cheap, wonderfully healthy - I can easily get my five a day, and my conscience is totally clear about my food, both from a humanitarian and ecological point of view.

Little_Chicken

Thanks everyone - you've been brilliant - as always...