Vegan Eats Guide 3

My food folder has filled up with photos so it's time to share what I've been eating in the past year (or bothered to take photos of!)

Burgers!

So easy and super versatile! I either purchase vegan patties from my local supermarket (and I live in non-progressive town :p) or you can easily google patty recipes :) I still make my cashew sour cream once a week and this goes on lots of things including burgers and pastas and wraps

For Christmas, I got inspiration from my Australian vegan foodies fb page and made a roast :) I simply bought a vegan roast from the supermarket and then did some fancy stuff like smoother it in stock and Rosemary, wrap it in spinach and encase it in puff pastry

How cute are the puff pastry stars! I did steal the whole idea from the group and I think (hope!) Christmas was a food success!

A pineapple tofu dish.

I've gone through some poor weeks and in that time I've gotten to know lentils and tofu and rice really well :p  Down the road they sell pineapples from their farm for $1 and tofu and rice is cheap - so it's doable to eat delicious things on the super cheap! Just need to find what produce is cheap in your own area and make it work!

Then there are the "treat yo self" moments! It's funny because not being able to buy junk food all the time and having to go out of my way to source delicious junk has definitely been beneficial for my health and when I do get something like a delicious doughnut (or two!) it's such a good treat moment!

A new discovery this year was chickpea "tuna"! It's a pretty good substitute and just takes a little fiddling around to get some good flavours :) Vegan Mayo and red onion are obviously key :p On the mayo note, I can definitely recommend veganaise! I also use, mustard, pickles (and juice), salt and pepper + lemon juice.

This year from my vegan foodie fb page I learnt that burger rings are vegan! Your health may not appreciate this but another discovery (for us Aussies) was the Coles brand dark chocolate - eep so good!

I made a black forest cake - also not great for your health but pretty!

Another tofu and rice dish, this time with capsicum and shallots and toasted sesame seeds. This year I've fallen in love with sesame oil + soy sauce + toasted sesame seeds! Super easy and filling meal

A vegan lasagna, I think this is a good dish to bring to friends/family that are meat eaters as it doesn't step too far away from comfort zones and hey it's delicious :)

More tofu! My favourite way to cook tofu is put some oil in a cast iron pan, get it really hot, have your strips of tofu cut and ready to go, pan fry each side until crispy and add some soy sauce last minute to get some flavour and more of a golden crust!  I think I actually stole that from James Aspey's FB page :P After cooking the tofu I usually sprinkle over the top some sesame oil or just let the tofu soak into the other flavours of the dish.

Some more, treat yourselves! 

For my birthday Ben and I took a road trip to a vegan bakery (the giving tree at Kingaroy) and I can only say good things about the place :) :)

The best kebabs in Brisbane, from No No's Redhill. Sometimes it only takes a simple question to see if a place can make something vegan for you!

I'm also stoked that the sunny coast got their own Moo Free Burgers!

This year I'm still loving pasta, trying out some new flavour combos, above is roasted cauliflower and chickpeas, spinach and capers :)

Above is a butter cauliflower curry, I made using this recipe. I want to try and master this dish and get the flavours 100% perfect, I don't think I've got the knack just yet!

And wraps are always an easy option for me!

Its been around two years since I became vegan and the one word that comes to mind, two years on is...EASY (the lifestyle just keeps getting easier). When I first started, it was hard. I felt like someone yanked away all my favourite food and left me with some unappealing dregs. I look back and kind of laugh about how I felt, not because it wasn't valid or a reality at the time just because now I eat such an amazing variety of foods (which I love, I just previously wasn't aware of). I often get asked “why did you go vegan?” and before answering I'll make sure to give people an out. I ask them, “are you sure you want to know?” I might even give a couple of outs, before I start talking :P It's a subject that puts people on the defensive, perhaps they feel like I'm imposing my own values upon them and they need to justify their own values to me or point out how my own values are wrong because they don't match theirs. It rarely ends in a great way.

For 30 years I ate meat and animal products which honestly didn't align with my values (I was happily in denial) but being vegan definitely does align with my values and thus it's easily one of my top, positive, life changing decisions. Not only have I noticed my health dramatically improve (diary didn't agree with my gut) I also rarely get sick any more (and I used to get sick a lot!) I also find myself being way my thoughtful and compassionate to animals which makes me feel good about myself, which makes me a happier person (my big life goal) *breathes out!* I'm sharing my story because if it wasn't for others sharing their journey I would still be eating the same food I did for those 30 years not knowing there was this other way I could live and I could be even happier for it :)

You can see more food ideas here and here

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The Beginners Guide to Eating Vegan

When I started out on my Vego/Vegan journey I made some horrible dishes, I still make horrible things from time to time due to experimenting but a lot less frequently now and you know what I actually make things I really love eating :) 

I'm still finding my feet but this guide is for those who are complete newbies and wouldn’t have a clue where to start – that was me a few months ago!

I've also learned along this journey that there’s a lot of smart vegan bloggers out there so if you're ever missing a certain type of food, a google will probably come up with something amazing :) For now though I'm going to write the main things I miss and what I did to overcome them :) 

The Beginners Guide for Eating Vegan

Can't live with out cheese? Neither could I until I found Nutritional yeast, I first bough it online (it comes in flakes) and then I found that my local food store stocks it (I live in a small town too!). The cost is about equivalent to a block of cheese, it unfortunately doesn't have the same texture but has a lovely taste and I obsessively sprinkle it onto nearly everything! (I call it my MSG). There's also non-dairy cheese available.  At the moment I'm loving Bio Cheese, whose main ingredient is coconut oil.  It looks like a regular block of cheese and even though the taste isn't 100% it's pretty damn close and it melts - woohoo!

Need that awesome salty cheese like feta? I found that substituting olives usually does the trick. I have a fridge full of delicious pickled/marinated things :)

Missing Bacon? Semi dried tomatoes or liquid smoke have been filling that bacon void for myself. I won't lie they're not the same but I haven't missed bacon as much as I probably thought I would.

Craving that heartiness of meat? I've been loving those Portobello mushrooms of late, they're great at absorbing flavour! I'm also on a roast veggie stint too, especially roast pumpkin – so creamy and hearty. There's heaps of fake meats too, haven't completely explored that World but Ben and I get our vegie hotdog fix once in a while, we also visited a Chinese restaurant with fake meat and apart from the shape and slight texture I honestly couldn't tell the difference - you can see my "chicken" dish above!

What do I put on my bread now I can't have butter? AVOCADOS! I've also recently got into making my own butter bean spread (I pop in some balsamic vinegar too) and thickly spreading that onto fresh bought bread – soooo good! In Australia we also have stuff like Nuttelex, a nut based margarine which is also good substitute, especially for baking.

BUT I LOVE MY COW'S MILK! Milk subs are easy, supermarkets should stock a whole range of alternatives or you can even make your own milks by grinding up your source (like almonds) and simply adding water :)

But I can't have chocolate :( but you can! Most chocolate over 70% will just be made up of soy milk and cocoa butter – which isn’t butter, which I mistook when I first started this journey *face palm*

Accidentally vegan – This list is by PETA and is a list of items you can buy at the supermarket that ARE vegan but aren’t advertised as vegan, I was linked to the Aussie one but I'm sure there would be other versions too :) The aussie list is around 5 pages long and I get a bit overwhelmed looking at.  Also on my journey I found this website, the Vegan Mentor Program, since I'm now almost over the finish line I think it's a resource better put to use by others. Had I known about this from the outset though I totally would of signed up!

Okay, now the fun bit!

WHAT CAN I MAKE?

Below is a list of my favourite recipes at the moment but it may come down to you having to do your own googling to find recipes that are more in line with your tastes and craving :) Just don't get discouraged if you make something and you hate it, keep going! 

CREAMY PASTA

source

I grew up eating, meat, noodles and gravy (wasn't so fussed on the meat part but loved loved love the noodles and gravy) and the other day I found this recipe above the, Creamy Butternut Squash linguine totally fulfilling my gravy missing! (you do need a blender but you only need a simple one because the ingredients to blend are soft and liquidy! Also I know butternut squash as butternut pumpkin (here in Australia) just to avoid confusion. Recipe edits: I never have fresh sage on hand so I get away with using the dried variety and I also add 1/8 teaspoon of liquid smoke and a good shake of nutritional yeast when I blend it all up - super yum! I also add a bunch of silver beat to the mix as well :)

MUSHROOM RISOTTO
  The funny thing is I've been making this risotto long before I went off dairy and meat. So it's been meat eater approved, it does take a while to cook (damn you risotto stirring!) but it's one of my favourite things to cook because Ben volunteers to stir (he says it's therapeutic :P) and we (well probably more so me) get to drink wine in the kitchen!

VEGAN BURRITOS

These Black Bean and Butternut Burritos are one of my staples, I probably make them once a week and great for when people (who aren't vegan) visit for dinner :) Just recently I've been making them with mushrooms instead, I bought the burrito seasoning from the shops and fried the mushrooms up in a pan with onion, garlic, the seasoning and some drops of liquid smoke and hey presto - a mouth watering feast! Oh and I add spread some wasabi to give my burritos a bit of a kick!

THAI GREEN CURRY

I first learned this recipe off my friend Shane when we lived together, back then it was all about the chicken but just the other day I whipped it out to see if I could veganise it (or just remove the chicken and sub the fish sauce). It was so so yummy. Would you guys be interested in me blogging the actual recipe? Unfortunately it comes without a handy link as this one is old school recipe card style!

MUSHROOM SUSHI!

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I used to make delicious chicken sushi with avo and cucumber. I cut out the chicken and my sushi suddenly tasted horrible. It wasn't until I found this recipe, Sesame Shiitake Sushi that I got excited about sushi again. Her instructions are so easy and the result amazing, so much flavour. I will say, the first time I made them adding the salt to the sushi rice water was too overpowering. The next time I didn't and they were perfect! I also didn't have shiitake mushrooms on hand so just used plain old regular

SANDWICHES

 Did I mention I'm a carb girl :P We have sandwiches quite often at our place, it's been fun experimenting with different toppings, at the moment I'm loving, avo, artichokes, red onion, capers and black pepper and it makes for an easy lunch or dinner when you're short on time.

I also love experimenting, so after a burrito night I use the left over ingredients blended up with some pumpernickel bread, tomato paste and seasonings and hey presto - sausage roll filling! I've had a few people (meat eaters included) remark that my sausage rolls taste pretty close to the original thing! As another bonus yay, most puff pastry is vegan friendly - just need to read the label.

ROAST VEG PASTA

The lucky last dish for today is something I make a lot, probably once a week (I'm a pasta lover). It's really simple, I roast whatever vegies I have on hand, cook some pasta and make sure I throw in some spinach and olives and avo + sprinkle on top loads of nutritional yeast!

I realise these recipes are super carb friendly fitting in with my indulgent taste buds but there is so much else out there to explore and experiment with. It probably does help, to own a blender and have some interest in cooking but it's not the end all if you don't either. Ben was one of those boys who could only "cook" steak. Now he's pretty much a bread eater, fee food stealer, eater-outerer and not super phased by the seemingly drastic change. Actually he has gone a step further than me and has cut his plastic buying down by 99% which in turn has encouraged me to be more mindful - I'm always amazed at the domino effect. You also don't have to rule out takeaway junk either, I still eat pizza I just ask for no cheese and when I get home put that Nutritional yeast on top (yup I'm addicted!)

I'll leave you guys with my Vegan Pin Boards for some final inspiration!

Vegan Dinners

Vegan Snacks

Vegan Desserts

Also if you have some tips yourself you want to share, I'd love to hear them :)

My own journey: Quitting Dairy, Quitting Meat and Ethics

read more "The Beginners Guide to Eating Vegan"