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!

source

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"

Becoming a Semi Vegan

If you haven't read Part 1 or Part 2 you should because this part will make much more sense to read :)

Gabe the vegan Elvis

I know Bronwyn because my oldest brother Andrew is part of the Elvis club, and her husband Gabe is an Elvis tribute artist. They are honestly one of the nicest families, very warm and funny and definite advocates of animals (and vegans). We got chatting one day after a show and I told her where I was in my food journey - at this stage I've cut out 80% of dairy because of an allergy and I've stopped buying meat from the supermarket because my cat loves killing birds (you need to read part 2 for clearing that one up!). When I was talking with her I still had a slight resistance, I had a feeling that I'd be made to question my ethics and by doing so I'd have to give up things I'd love and that didn't really sit well with me. So I listened to her with open ears but not a complete open heart - there was still some part of me not willing to change. When someone puts forward the idea of being a vego or vegan, your mind does this little check list of all your favourite food and it seems like the worst idea ever! That's how I felt anyway.

I talked with her a lot especially about how I was trying to make vego meals but feeling really discouraged because I ended up hating 80% of them. She wrote me a list of helpful resources. She linked me to a tried and true recipe her family makes once a week, explained it was easy and that all the ingredients would be those I could find at the supermarket or I could substitute anything fancy for what I already had in the fridge. This sounded brilliant. She also said it was a matter of finding foods you liked - something that has completely stuck with me and been one of the most important things I've learned. She linked me to some blogs to follow and said not all the recipes are going to gel but once you find some favourites you'll be okay. I went home made the delicious soup and thought, maybe this is possible.

Bronwyn's hand written note that I still have and treasure :)

She also linked me to some discussions and docos. I think, had I not of “watched” Earthlings, I might not be writing this blog entry. I use the word watched loosely because my fingers half covered my eyes the entire time and I think Ben and I got through ten minutes before we couldn't handle it anymore. I've always loved animals, I've always enjoyed eating them but I really separated those two things. I used to say I was a hypocritical meat eater because in my heart I knew the connection but taste always won out and I guess now that balance has simply flipped.

The most surprising thing of this all is I don't feel bitter or that I'm missing out but just how delicious my new diet has become. I honestly wasn't a huge vegetable eater before, I was more a meat and carbs type girl but now I'm all about those vegies! I can't believe I'm saying that but I am.

And guess what, you'll lose weight (until you find out you can still eat many delicious and bad things and desserts!), your shopping bill goes down significantly (opening up that spare change to exciting expensive ingredients – exotic fruits anyone?) and you’ll feel really good about what you're eating :)You will also feel like the oddest person alive when you ask if they have a vegan meal option, you will have to answer questions about why you think it's okay for plants to suffer and die but not animals, or about your protein intake and you will have to ignore when people mention that being vegan makes people self-righteous. You will probably also be scrutinised for ALL your actions – “what!! you bought fries from Mcdonalds?”

The hardest thing is other people not the diet itself. On the flip side, all my friends and family have been super kind and supportive. I still can't believe my family let me cook Christmas dinner (sans meat and dairy), I can't believe for my birthday everyone came to a vegan cafe and I can't believe, Ben the biggest meat eater of all, a few months into my diet also gave up meat when he saw how easy it was :) He did also watch Earthlings.

I'd love for everyone to be challenged to watch that doco but I realise not everyone is at that stage of the journey, I sure wasn't a few years ago. And hey some people are simply 100% okay with killing animals and eating them and that's 100% okay. I have my own idea about eventually having a farm and having a pig and killing the pig myself. Could I kill a pig? I have no idea but if I could we'd be able to have meat for 6 months and if not I'd simply have a pet pig :) I still think meat is delicious, I'm just not okay to have an animal die in a horrible way to keep myself happy when there is so much food out there to keep my happy already! That's really the crux of how I feel.

So we're at the end and maybe you’re eating some cheesy chicken pasta for dinner – that is 100% okay. Maybe next week you'll have one meat free day – super yay! Who knows but all I can say is that it's way easier then you'd ever imagine and it really isn't that odd, I swear! (this coming from someone who less than a year ago thought it was pretty damn weird and horribly restrictive and not something I’d ever find myself doing).

I've rambled a lot but I thought it would be nice for a final installment to be a practical one, with some resources, suggestions and my favourite dishes of the moment for anyone interested to try :) Thanks for reading too, it's been a wordly journey and it's nice to know at least someone got to the end of it!

read more "Becoming a Semi Vegan"

Quitting Meat

Today's entry is a small detour but important to share, it's the beginning of quitting meat and although small in length it's ultimately the beginning note to some big changes.

So I yakked on about eating/not eating dairy - paralling at the same time to this one of the most traumatic things happened to me. 

Alone upstairs in our old house I heard this horrific shrieking/crying high pitched squawking coming from below. I ran downstairs to where my eyes met with Gremlin (our cat) and in his mouth, an amazing pale faced rosella – sad story ender, the bird died. I'm not sure I can explain the horror of that exact moment. Looking back, it was lucky our neighbours were hundreds of metres away because I was a blabbering screaming mess - I'm sure an Oscar winning performance or at least deserving of a police call. I kept screaming at Gremlin over and over to drop the bird like some madman but it was all too late. Sadness turned into anger and I couldn’t even look at gremlin or speak to him yet everyone around me assured me it wasn’t his fault it was just his nature. The irony being that for dinner that night I cooked myself a chicken pasta. The irony wasn't completely lost on me and I contemplated for about 3.4 seconds whether this made sense. Chicken is delicious though so I gave myself some solid reasoning :)

My main concern at that time was to stop the bird killing (the Gremlin bird killing) we tried a few things, extra bells, a slightly earlier then intended de-sexing, keeping him in at the key bird times, dawn and dusk but despite this over the next few weeks there were still a few close call bird incidents – all good story enders but we still needed a permanently solution. That solution came in the form of a cat bib – aka the bird life saver :)

A simple invention with a velcro top to latch onto your cat's collar.

When we put the bib on I realised we were making Gremlin make a forced sacrifice so I endeavoured to play my part as well. I decided that I would no longer buy meat at the supermarket, I made a pact with myself that it was okay to eat meat out but I wouldn't directly contribute. 

Gremlin with his cape aka Cat Bib.

The first month of this plan was awful. I stuck to my word but found that all my favourite dishes had meat in them. I used to be one of those people who not only said I didn't eat much dairy but definitely said, shouting from rooftops that I didn't eat much meat. In hindsight, a slight misconception on my part there :P Being a fish, seafood but mostly chicken consumer, I read online that tofu was the perfect substitute for chicken. I simply started to cook all my meals with tofu instead. I tried so many ways of cooking tofu and they were all terrible. I’m not even an advocate against tofu (the Japanese do some amazing things) but the tofu at my supermarket combined with my cooking skills were making something awful!

So here I am, an 80% dairy consumer, an 80% non-meat consumer, on a balance beam, feeling pretty disheartened by my new restrictions and diet and let's be honest contemplating throwing it all in but then a chat with Elvis’s wife Bronwyn changed everything. Next time, I'm going to be introducing that scary word...

ETHICS!

(I told you this part was short but the next part is LOOONG!- well longish so be prepared)

read more "Quitting Meat"

Quitting Dairy

I've learned something in the past few months that classification can be meaningful to people, so in full disclosure I'm just going to blurt out what I eat now and why I'm somewhere between Vegan and Vego...I don’t eat dairy, I don’t eat meat, I do eat honey and I do eat our chicken’s eggs. I still wear my leather shoes, am certain I have a woolly jumper tucked away somewhere and a bunch of cosmetics I have no idea on how they were tested – I’m transitioning, let’s say.

Pot Pie and Oblina - our backyard chickens

I've spent 30 years of my life eating meat and dairy, I've lived with vegoes and probably quietly scoffed or looked shocked when someone said they were vegan. Stuff like “what can you eat?” or “I could never ever do that” definitely came out of my mouth at some point. I'm pretty open minded but I used to think vegans were quite odd and now that I'm somewhere on the other side of the fence, it's really funny to look back because I think for most of my life I was probably the odd one. 

I didn't wake up one day and think “gosh you're odd, lets change”. It's been instead, an interesting past year, worthy of sharing (at the very least for its story value). I don't expect you to change how you eat by the end of this, I don't even want you to feel guilty about what you eat – because what you eat you probably enjoy and is also probably super delicious, I just wanted to share my story :) 

How it all began (prepare for a bit of gross-ness) 

Around a year ago I started to notice a rash on my ring finger which at its peak even spread to the opposite ring finger (still slightly baffled by that).  As someone who has sensitive skin, allergic reactions are the norm for me but this existed on the extreme end. I'd be woken in the middle of the night, unable to stop the itch, which led to raw hands and tiny blisters (sorry grossness!!). I was super self-conscious and started googling ways to mind-play it out, I figured, if I could just stop itching my hands all would be good. After failing the mental game I lathered on steroid creams (the usually fix) and yet found myself back at square one, solution-less. I decided to pay attention to when the irritation flared. It quickly become obvious the culprit was dairy and just as obvious that I was going to be in denial about it. 

The first step - cut out milk. 

Dairy free milkshakes, almond milk and a soy coffee :)

This was easy, I'd simply substitute almond milk into my morning chai or when a recipe called for cow's milk. Almond milk is a lot thinner than regular milk but I found simply using all almond milk in my tea was fine rather than using a water/milk ratio :) A year later I'm going to bold and say I even enjoy almond milk more! Butter was also pretty easy because I was never the hugest fan, they also have butter substitutes in the supermarket and of course my favourite thing ever avocados! 

Next was all those sneaky (and less sneaky) food that dairy is in. I would say my overall consumption of packaged foods has since decreased because of this, probably a good thing but at the time only managed to seriously bum me out. Thinking I could no longer have things, made me resentful and angry and just like some sort of diet I 'd break down and buy some cheesy corn chips knowing the ramifications :P I've never really been on a diet but I imagine it has a similar, denial, indulge, face-the-consequences cycle. 

I then became reduced to scouring the health food section paying far too much for a 5 piece bar of ‘dairy free’ chocolate. It tasted horrible and I found myself eventually stopping eating chocolate. Probably a good thing but when you’ve already lost so much, it sucked. Had younger Fee done a bit of research she would of found that a lot of dark chocolate over 70% is dairy free *gasp* so I’m happy to report that delicious chocolate is back in my life:)

delicious chocolate and some randomness because I wasn't sure what photos to put in here :P

Prior to this I was also one of those people proclaiming “Ahh I don't eat that much dairy”. I want to seriously backhand younger Fee because when faced with cutting out cheese I quietly wept inside. Actually I'd only cut back my cheese consumption to about 80% because god damn if anyone was going to deny me a cheesy pizza! So the itch wasn't completely gone but I'd reached a pretty good compromising place. 

Spoiler alert! I am now 100% dairy free and the last 20% was really easy, or much easier than my brain had convinced myself otherwise and simply came down to making a commitement to myself (and finding some yummo substitutes).

I'm going to put a pause in the story and place the next stage (the meat part) into another post because it’s a tangent all in itself. I wanted to start at the beginning and the beginning was a rash and next time is the story involving our cat Gremlin!

If you want to go straight to my beginners guide for eating vegan you can pop on over here!

read more "Quitting Dairy"