Vegan ERA |OT| Eat your veggies

[dude]

Welcome to the VeganERA OT, a thread for vegans and sympathisers. Whether it's to help build a balanced diet, share recipes, discuss Vegan friendly places - This is the place!

Veganism FAQ
Q. So wait, what is Veganism?
A. Veganism is a practice and philosophy that mainly advocates abstaining from animal products. Practically, this usually means a no eggs, no milk, no meat, poultry or seafood diet. This usually includes no honey, no gelatin, nor many other components that comes from animal sources. Veganism is usually not restricted to diet - Be it abstaining from leather, silk, animal-tested products etc.

Q. Do you even have anything left to eat??
A. No one just east meat and cheese all day - Most of what anyone eats is vegan anyway. Between vegetables, fruits, grains, fungi, nuts and much much more we have plenty left to eat.

Q. That can't be healthy
A. Veganism is considered healthy for all ages and all stages of life (including pregnancy, lactation, while sick etc.) As with all diets - It needs to be balanced in order to provide all that your body needs. B12 is the biggest risk - as it is produced by bacteria not found in plants, and it is usually recommended for vegans (and vegetarians) to take supplements or B12 reinforced food.

Q. but PROTEIN
A. Actually, there's protein a-plenty in plant food; nut butters, qinoa, soy and many more are great sources of protein.

Q. Alright I guess… But, still, WHY??
A. There are several reasons why one might choose a Vegan lifestyle or diet:

1. Ethical reasons. The animal product industry is exploitative and cruel to animals by nature. Even if one is fine with the idea of eating the meat of other sentient animals, the industrialization of the meat and animal product industries made many animals little more than commodity, and are treated as such as corporations try and maximize profits.
2. Environmental reasons. Livestock farming is environmentally unsustainable. Livestock produce accounts for large parts of air pollution in the world, more than all transportation vehicles combined.
3. Health reasons. Some people go vegan to cut on fat, cholesterol and blood pressure.

Recommended Sites and Tools
Happy Cow - Vegan restaurants near you. A life saver when traveling!
Jamie Oliver's Vegan Recepies are great
Minimalist Baker Vegan Archive
Buddhist Chef
Bosh

 

[Drelkag]

Cruelty free is the way to be. Great first post for the community.

 

[Swamped]

Awesome. Subbing (Watching?) for great vegan baking recipes. I don't eat eggs so I'm always on the lookout.

 

[dude]

Awesome. Subbing (Watching?) for great vegan baking recipes. I don't eat eggs so I'm always on the lookout.

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I don't bake much, but I have the perfect vegan pancake recipe.

 

[kaospilot]

For the love of God, I cannot stop eating rice crackers with pesto on them. My favorite "shit snack" to have at work at the moment.

 

[Spiderz]

I've been slowly making the transition from vegetarian to vegan, friends. Giving up cheese is going to be the most difficult part for me :(.

 

[Ashamoil]

I've been slowly making the transition from vegetarian to vegan, friends. Giving up cheese is going to be the most difficult part for me :(.

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Been doing the same this year (doing okay at it, but not perfect). When I go out to dinners and other events the vegetarian options seem to always involve halloumi and if there's a vegan option, it's super spartan as if I'm eating vegan because I'm on a diet. I load up on junk food I can eat at home to make sure I have ballast. :V

Current favourite convenience food: http://www.fryfamilyfood.com/uk/curry-pies/

Can't seem to go wrong with this brand, though their vegan schnitzel is a bit on the small side (four small schnitzels when you'd kind of expect two medium/large ones).

 

[dude]

Good luck to both of you! Trust me, after a while it gets a lot easier. Been vegan for 4 years now.
Others might disagree with me but I think the transition shouldn't be sudden - Go slow, start replacing things one by one until you're comfortable.

 

[Fhtagn]

Been vegetarian for 25+ years and vegan on and off in that time. What currently works for me is being strictly vegan at the grocery store and restaurants but looser when it's free desserts at work... finding the comfort zone for what I can stick to makes it easier for me to stay vegan for a higher percentage of my time, since I know I tend to fail at being super strict.

 

[Ashamoil]

I went in abruptly at first in like February or March this year and quickly got sick of chickpeas. Having no discipline, I found what really worked for me to properly get started was to focus not so much on deliberately changing what I ate or picking up new habits (i.e. "I'm suddenly going to cook everything myself"), but rather to limit myself to things that I ate anyway that happened to be vegan, or could be made vegan with minimal difference/effort, and working from there.

 

[matthewwhatever]

Vegan for nearly 12 years here. So glad to see this thread get revived here!

Does anyone know if Fammassu made it over?

 

[darkside]

Been vegetarian for 25+ years and vegan on and off in that time. What currently works for me is being strictly vegan at the grocery store and restaurants but looser when it's free desserts at work... finding the comfort zone for what I can stick to makes it easier for me to stay vegan for a higher percentage of my time, since I know I tend to fail at being super strict.

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In the same boat. Have been vegetarian for 10 years now, have tried various times going full vegan but its a bit much for me. Giving up dairy is a -lot- harder than giving up meat.

 

[derFeef]

Signing up, hello again :)

 

[FliX]

Welcome home everyone!

 

[derFeef]

Vegan for nearly 12 years here. So glad to see this thread get revived here!

Does anyone know if Fammassu made it over?

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Hopefully he joins us sooner or later.

 

[Swamped]

I don't bake much, but I have the perfect vegan pancake recipe.

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Oooo I'd love to hear more!

 

[bye]

Sharing my favorite weekday meal in here

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Thai Peanut Veggie-Quinoa Bowl

Veggies
- 1 medium-large head broccoli, cut in florets
- 1 white onion, thinly sliced
- 1 red bell pepper, large dice
- 1 zuchinni, thinly sliced into rounds
- 2 carrot, peeled, thinly sliced into rounds
- 1/2 head red cabbage, outer layers removed, core removed, thinly shredded
- 1/2 bag frozen shelled edamame

Garnish
- 1/2 cup whole salted toasted almonds
- 1 bunch cilantro, chopped

Quinoa
- 1 cup quinoa
- 2 cups water

Sauce
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- juice of two limes
- 4 T soy sauce
- 1 T fresh garlic, minced
- 1 T fresh ginger, minced
- 1 T honey
- 2 t Sriracha
- 1 T sesame oil



For sauce:
Mix all ingredients together in bowl until smooth and combined. Taste for seasoning, might need more honey, soy sauce, or lime juice.

For quinoa:
In a saucepan add water and quinoa. Bring to boil, cover, reduce to low heat. Cook for 15 mins. Set aside, keep lid on till ready to serve.

For veggies:
1. In a large saute pan, coat the pan with olive oil and turn to medium high heat.
Once oil is hot, add broccoli and saute until broccoli begins to brown slightly. Season lightly with kosher salt.
2. Add onions and cook until onions are translucent and slightly golden.
3. Add bell pepper and cook until peppers begin to soften and get color.
4. Add more oil to the pan and then add zucchini and carrot, season lightly with more salt. Cook until they get light color and soften.
5. Add cabbage and frozen edamame and cook until cabbage is wilted. Season lightly with more salt.
6. Remove from heat and stir in almonds, top with cilantro.

Serve in bowls with quinoa on the bottom, then veggies, topped with sauce, almonds, cilantro, more sriracha

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[storaføtter]

Finally got in. Happy to be part of this group. Things have changed a lot since I became vegan 10 years ago.

I recommend Peaceful Cuisine channel on youtube for some really great videos, easy to follow recipes (asian cooking mostly)

http://peacefulcuisine.com/category/videos/
https://m.youtube.com/user/ryoya1983

Really soothing music too, super chill to watch.

Ill try to get better at sharing food I make.

 

[Lirlond]

Glad this community made it over, Sheffield is great for vegan food, it's so easy nowadays to just go anywhere and be fed lol

 

[dude]

Oooo I'd love to hear more!

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Sure thing:

Vegan Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup white flour
• 1 cup milk of choice (I usually use almond milk)
• 1/2tbs vanilla extract
• 1tbs baking powder
• 1/2tbs baking soda
• 2 Tbs oil (I use coconut oil, in liquid state. Place the jar near something hot if it's too solid.)

Directions:
Mix all the dry ingredients together, then add the liquids and mix until smooth.
Pour Mixture into heated pan, flip when bubbles appear.

Note: Sorry for the low quality pic, only one I could find on my phone. I'm pretty sure it's from an attempt with a mixture of whole and white flour. They usually look better though!

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[FliX]

Sure thing:

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Will do on Sunday. :)

I've also made this a few times, it's great, serve with loads of mixed berries. :)

 

[Famassu]

Heyoo. I made the shift, right on the heels of having had one more fairly successful pop-up restaurant day, so I felt it was appropriate the first post would be here. The first hour was dreadful, absolutely zero customers, but then the following 5 hours saw almost 50 customers, which is pretty good considering I only decided to hold it last Friday and started advertising it on Monday when I got the final go ahead that I can hold it. And by advertising, I mean posted a couple of messages on the local vegan facebook group, so pretty minimal advertising at that.

 

[FliX]

Glad to hear you are back in the fold and still successful with your endeavour.
How much paperwork is it and overall would you say it is a financial success?

 

[dude]

FliXFantatier that looks really good, I'll have to give it a try as well. I've yet to found a french toast recipe that works for me.

Glad to see everyone on here :)

 

[MrT]

Hi again! Good to see the vegan thread made it, looking forward to seeing what everyone's making/buying etc. I just got my hands on some Follow Your Heart sriracha vegenaise (not exactly widely available in the UK) and it's a total game changer. Unfortunately my wife loves it too so I'm going to have to fight her off!

 

[Deleted member 11113]

Hi everyone! Glad to see some familiar names and faces! :) I was yonder on the old site and used to have a Simpsons avatar that I can't get to work on this site. Anyway, happy to be back, and I'll be posting some recipes and links later on.

 

[Famassu]

Glad to hear you are back in the fold and still successful with your endeavour.
How much paperwork is it and overall would you say it is a financial success?

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Not all that much paperwork. Since I'm not handling easily spoiled shit like fish & chicken, I don't even have to tell any officials that I'm having a pop-up restaurant beforehand (if I served fish, they'd need to come and check that the place & my hygiene game is up to snuff), at least if I don't intend to have it running for more than a few days. Mostly just taxes and employment agency stuff. Things would've been vastly different, like, a year or two ago still, but the government did one thing right and made these kind of pop-up things easier to arrange. A no-bureaucracy-needed pop-up restaurant like mine was basically only allowed on four specific days per year. There was a country-wide pop-up restaurant day every 3 months, I think in February, May, August and November and outside of those, these things were a no-go.

I'd say it's fairly successful financially. Of course this kind of one day thing won't give me a living, but the 6 days in September actually gave me enough money for a couple of months of modest living (which is what I'm happy with). Even though this one day thing was possibly my most successful singular day (or at least the second most successful), there's a bit more excess in terms of purchasing ingredients & everything I need, so even though I technically made the most money, in the end I'm left with a bit less per day than on the lengthier 3 day periods. And of course since I'm not yet officially an entrepreneur, I can't use some cheaper bulk-alternatives (one needs a business ID thingie to use those services), so even in that way I have to invest a bit more money than I would if I had a legitimate, permanent business and could take advantage of buying cheaper bulk ingredients.

Still, this is encouraging. Even with minimal advertising, me coming out of nowhere with nothing to show for my food skillz credentials and the place I held the pop-up restaurant at being fairly unknown to the larger public, I still made a decent enough amount of money. Enough that I'd say I could make a living for myself + maybe have a couple of part-time employees if business stayed somewhere close this or even if daily numbers were a little bit less. Can't even imagine if I did better. Maybe even hire a second chef into the kitchen and expand my offerings a bit. I'd like to be able to have a daily soup and/or other kind of "proper" food on the regular, a salad bar and stuff (not à la carte, more lunch buffet style in that regards), not just hamburgers & tortillas & shit.

 

[Lirlond]

Share some photos of your food!

 

[FliX]

Thanks for the background. Very interesting. And I second the call for pictures!

 

[Deleted member 13148]

Glad to hear your pop-ups have been successful! And pictures are required!

 

[Aarglefarg]

Hey everyone.

I'm not a vegan but I am 98% a vegetarian. It is for ethical reasons in large part but also meat is generally just unappealing to me in and of itself. There is a place that discontinued an amazing vegan meal, so I stopped going for a few months but it filled a comfort need so I started going back (but less often) for its chicken variant of its old mushroom burgers.

I bought garlic and cumin pide bread yesterday...turns out cumin is the taste I didn't like in other things. :( It's been good in some things but it tastes like it needs to be very finely managed. Which this pide wasn't. I can't taste any of its garlic at all.

 

[FliX]

Welcome Aarglefarg, we are not dogmatic around these parts, so you should fit right in. :)

 

[Famassu]

My phone that had all the (more recent) food pictures is kinda not working right now (blue screen of death, didn't even know phones could have them... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). Here's a falafel burger, photo taken by a friend who came by and got one.

Garlic mayo, iceberg lettuce, tomato slices, falafel and Violife's smoke flavored vegan cheese + I think I can see ketchup and "American" cucumber salad in there as well (not sure how American it actually is, it's basically diced cucumber, vinegar, some spices, ground mustard seeds & some sweetener) that were optional fillings for the hamburgers.

 

[Cats]

I've recently been undergoing the switch from catch all vegan to more hardcore vegan. I think the most overlooked thing is sugar, which in America, is basically in everything. The cheap sugars used may or may not have bone-char, so it really cuts down on a lot of products I was buying. I find I have less and less of a selection these days, but I'm still getting by. The cost is what really gets me.

 

[Type2]

Hello everyone! Long time vegetarian here that's been vegan for about 8 months now. Hoping to see some nice recipes and get further educated on my diet.

 

[Famassu]

The cost is what really gets me.

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Hmm? Are you just buying ready for use products? Because if you make even part of the stuff yourself, veganism can be dirt cheap, by far the cheapest way to live food-wise, at least if you don't have to have specialty products & shit everyday on every meal. Like, chickpeas for falafel and the flours for seitan cost basically nothing per falafel/seitan steak

 

[Deleted member 11113]

Hmm? Are you just buying ready for use products? Because if you make even part of the stuff yourself, veganism can be dirt cheap, by far the cheapest way to live food-wise, at least if you don't have to have specialty products & shit everyday on every meal. Like, chickpeas for falafel and the flours for seitan cost basically nothing per falafel/seitan steak

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I think Cats is referring specifically to the cost of sugar, since cheaper ones are usually filtered with bone-char in the US. Here in Sweden the majority of sugar is vegan, but I honestly don't think I would go out of my way to find vegan sugar. So many things involve using animals and animal ingredients, being "100% vegan" is practically impossible. I don't want to appear dismissive of trying to go as far as you can; I just think we should be careful we don't make veganism seem impossible.

On a related note, I'm reading How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach by Tobias Leenaert which takes a similar approach of being very practical about veganism. I'm not quite finished, but I agree with a lot of what he says. Essentially, he is suggesting that vegans adopt a more inclusive or flexible view of veganism in order to create a greater change. Anyone here read it? The author has a lot of presentations on YouTube if people are interested.

 

[Asa]

Whee, Vegan thread for a new ERA :)
I just returned from a little weekend holiday from Tallinn, Estonia. Paid a visit to my favorite Tallinn restaurant: V

Absolutely recomended place in Tallinn, i try to get a table everytime i visit, you should try to book a table atleast a week before hand, place is quite tiny and very popular.

Proper fine dining experience, everything is vegan, and pretty cheap. Full three course meal cost 42€ for two.
I had Rice noodle salad with peanut Icecream sauce, kale pie mashed potatoes and carrot thingy, almond cake and hot cocoa. Everything was super good!

 

[memesaf]

Yay veganism! Awesome recipes! Hi volks!

 

[dude]

Yay veganism! Awesome recipes! Hi volks!

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Welcome! Enjoy your stay and share food pics ;)

Asa Looks really good! If I'm ever in Tallinn I'll keep it in mind.

 

[memesaf]

On a related note, I'm reading How to Create a Vegan World: A Pragmatic Approach by Tobias Leenaert which takes a similar approach of being very practical about veganism. I'm not quite finished, but I agree with a lot of what he says. Essentially, he is suggesting that vegans adopt a more inclusive or flexible view of veganism in order to create a greater change. Anyone here read it? The author has a lot of presentations on YouTube if people are interested.

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Sounds very interesting, I'd love a recommendation for a good YouTube of his.

 

[Deleted member 11113]

Sounds very interesting, I'd love a recommendation for a good YouTube of his.

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I haven't watched this one yet, but it seems like a summary of the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6xnBqylWnY

Edit: Jump to around 15 minutes if you just want to hear his views on how it is nearly impossible to be 100% vegan.

 

[nephelomancer]

Hey y'all! I never commented in the old site, but was a vegetarian for some years now, and at the beginning of 2017 I decided to go vegan completely. I have a couple of recipes I can share later (when I'm back home and have access to them) but for now I wanted to share three dairy substitute items I've come across in the last six months that I really enjoy:
1. Kensington's Fabanaise - compared to Just Mayo, or Vegenaise I think it's way better. Kensington's also has a great dijon mustard with Chablis!

2. Melt Butter 2.0 - again, my personal favorite of the vegan butters. Before I really liked Miyoko's Creamery's version, but that one was too hard to keep "fresh" tasting.

3. Miyoko's Creamery Aged English Smoked Farmhouse Cheese - hands down the best vegan cheese I've had. Miyoko's Creamery has a bunch of vegan dairy products, but really their cheeses shine. You don't get any of the nutty cashew-ness that some of the other ones have, and this particular version is actually smoked so it doesn't use that smoked oil flavoring.

 

[MrT]

3. Miyoko's Creamery Aged English Smoked Farmhouse Cheese - hands down the best vegan cheese I've had. Miyoko's Creamery has a bunch of vegan dairy products, but really their cheeses shine. You don't get any of the nutty cashew-ness that some of the other ones have, and this particular version is actually smoked so it doesn't use that smoked oil flavoring.

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Jealous! I've heard great things about Miyoko's cheeses but we (afaik) don't get them over here. I do use her recipe for "well crafted mac and cheese" often when I'm making big batches for taking to work, and it's fantastic.

We do have some awesome cheeses tho like Nutcrafter Creamery and Tyne Chease, so it's not all bad :)

 

[nephelomancer]

Jealous! I've heard great things about Miyoko's cheeses but we (afaik) don't get them over here. I do use her recipe for "well crafted mac and cheese" often when I'm making big batches for taking to work, and it's fantastic.

We do have some awesome cheeses tho like Nutcrafter Creamery and Tyne Chease, so it's not all bad :)

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For a long time I was only able to find Miyoko's Veganmozz, but about two months ago I started seeing the other cheese available. I wish I could try Nutcrafter or Tyne, but they seem to be UK only?

 

[MrT]

For a long time I was only able to find Miyoko's Veganmozz, but about two months ago I started seeing the other cheese available. I wish I could try Nutcrafter or Tyne, but they seem to be UK only?

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Yeah they're both fairly small UK producers so probably not really available outside the UK, quite expensive too so we only get them for special occasions. I guess that's fair enough for a small artisan producer tho. We also have a more mainstream one called Sheese that you might be able to source easier as I think they do have overseas distribution. They do a really nice jalapeno cheddar and a blue cheese that I particularly like.
http://www.buteisland.com/where-to-buy

 

[nephelomancer]

Yeah they're both fairly small UK producers so probably not really available outside the UK, quite expensive too so we only get them for special occasions. I guess that's fair enough for a small artisan producer tho. We also have a more mainstream one called Sheese that you might be able to source easier as I think they do have overseas distribution. They do a really nice jalapeno cheddar and a blue cheese that I particularly like.
http://www.buteisland.com/where-to-buy

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That sounds great! Thanks for the link! It looks like it is in Canada, but not the US unfortunately. :(

 

[ExpandedKang]

Is anybody going to any "World Vegan Day" events? Or even running a stall or working at one?

These kinds of things usually result in me having a full stomach and an empty wallet.

 

[Famassu]

There's vegan kebab/Döner called Vöner that is available for the first time where I live, as celebration of world vegan day. I'm thinking of going but I'd have to go alone and I'm bad at going to restaurants alone.

 

[MrT]

That sounds great! Thanks for the link! It looks like it is in Canada, but not the US unfortunately. :(

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Ah crap, maybe some of the Canadian stores do online orders? haha