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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Vegan Eats Guide - Part 2

It's been over a year since I did my last vegan post and I thought I would share my new discoveries. I absolutely love everything I eat now that I've really found my feet :) It definitely didn't happen immediately but I'm here to reassure you that cutting out animal products does get so much easier!

So this year I really discovered the power of cashews! My big blender broke so I picked up a slim NutriBullet when the shops were having a 50% off sale and it's been great for blending up a cup of cashews. I blend up a cup at least once a week so I always have sour cream in my fridge :) So easy to do, soak a cup of cashews in water (overnight or use boiling water and soak for a few hours) drain the cashews, pop them into your blender cover with new water, add a sprinkle of nutritional yeast, salt and lemon juice and blend away! I just eyeball the measurements now but you really can't go wrong just, keep adding until the taste is spot on for you - sooo easy!

Those tacos above are made by roasting chickpeas (sprinkled with oil, paprika, salt and pepper) in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes, alongside a chopped up roasted capsicum, avo, tomato, red onion and the home made sour cream - my new addiction!

This sandwich above is a classic lunch staple too, promite on sourdough topped with avos, red onion, black pepper and nutritional yeast!

I discovered Thai food is easy to veganise too. You can just sub fish sauce by using a combo of stock mixed with soy sauce! I made that Tom Kha Gai above and it was fantastic. I've also been loving just a plain spud, covered in, yup, you guessed it the sour cashew cream, along with garlic chives, some smoked salt (if you can find a shop that stocks smoked salt, it's a game changer!) and some vegan margarine.

Eating out is still the only slightly tricky thing thing but you just need to do a little research and you'll be surprised just how many places can make you something vegan when you ask nicely :) Cupcake above is by Stormie D's in Caloundra and the burger was from Kimnat in Woombye.

Another game changer for me this year was discovering the group, Australian Vegan Foodies, on facebook. Everyday I get inspired by what others are making and I've found lots of new vegan foods that I can buy locally from our supermarket. Obviously that group is dedicated to us Aussies, but I'm sure if you do a search you could find a group for your location! I learnt about the above cake from that group and I've made it several times and it's always a hit - super fudgey - thanks Nigella!

Mac n cheese with crispy sage and coconut bacon - yes please! And some Chinese inspired cauliflower above - thumbs up from me :)

I discovered the world of spanakopita from my vegan fb group. So easy to make, you just finely chop some firm tofu, soak it in lemon juice, add in some salt, garlic, toasted pine nuts and a pack of frozen spinach (defrosted) and mixed altogether. Then that mix gets wrapped in filo pastry and popped into the oven. Not a huge tofu fan but these convert me!

Another discovery this year for me was Oyster Mushrooms - oh my goodness! When I tried out the "scallop" pasta recipe above, I got a little misty eyed. As a huge lover of seafood and someone who use to eat a lot of prawns, I really missed that option in my diet but I feel like these king oyster mushrooms have such a great texture filling a void in my life. I find that the stems when chopped and cooked in white wine and stock really have a seafood/scallop taste/feel but the tops of the regular oyster mushrooms take on a more of a chicken texture/look. The secret I've discovered is cooking the oyster mushrooms in white wine + stock water for a few minutes, draining the liquid (but keeping it to pour back over later in your dish) and then frying the mushrooms back in a super hot pan so they start to get a lovely seared texture - soooo good! Also oyster mushrooms don't do that weird soggy/sauté thing that happens with the regular button mushrooms.

Not eating animal products, means you'll get well meaning comments from others (which I was also guilty of asking!) "what can you eat?" or "how come your not wasting away?".  Now those questions are strange to hear because I love food and there is soooo much I can eat to the point where I actually eat a greater variety of foods then ever before and hence not wasting away :p

One good thing about eating out is junk food is a little trickier to find, you do have to hunt down places with vegan options, like the doughnut above from doughnut time but I kind of like that it's a special treat now - others might disagree with me on that one!

If you are starving for baked goodies, it's really easy to just make them yourself, I'm fairly confident you can veganise pretty much any baked recipe, you just need to change the milk to a non dairy option, the butter to say a vegan margarine and you can use a few things to sub eggs, have you heard about Aquafaba? Those cinnamon scrolls above I made from this recipe here

I do really enjoy cooking and trying out weird ideas, those sausage rolls I started making after thinking pumpernickel might make a good mince substitute - it does! I just use left over ingredients from when I make burritos and blitz them altogether in my blender. The picture over on the right is a quesadilla, I put a tiny bit of wasabi on the bottom base, along with lots of avo, chopped up tomatoes and red onions, coriander, pop the top on and then grill in my sandwich press, and hey presto easy lunch/dinner! You can grate some fake cheese too, like bio cheese, but I found it really isn't that necessary.

Obviously I love a certain type of food with ingredients making return appearances but my biggest advice is just to find what you like and run from there. Also, don't be scared you're missing out, I'm sure like me you'll find you're adding in lots of new things into your diet and end up truly loving what you eat :)

I've seen some incredible non dairy cheese popping up on pinterest so maybe next year's update will include my journey down that path and perhaps more exploration into cooking tofu! Wish me luck!

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