Vegan schmegan

[CWS4322]

I have been busy cooking vegan dishes for a friend. Also been stripping carbs out of recipes for another friend. I have been having a lot of fun doing this. Wondering if this would be a fun thread...example, I made a roasted sweet potato beet carrot chickpea curry with coconut milk and the beet greens. I was inspired by a Thai chicken curry recipe. I have made it twice...delish. I do not measure, I cook by taste and flavour profile.

[PrincessFiona60]

This does sound like a fun thread. I'm always altering my recipes for low carb.

[larry_stewart]

Just out of curiosity, is the low carb friend a vegan as well ?

[Caslon]

I'm shocked at my niece, she was a vegan, but is not a vegan now. She's back to eating things with eyes.

(Quote from somewhere): "If god meant us to be vegetarians, why did he make animals out of meat"?

[Aunt Bea]

I think that it would make for an interesting thread but the vegan thing sort of makes me chuckle. I remember my grandmother serving complete meals from the garden during the summer. When we ran out of butter it became a vegan meal but we thought we were just out of butter.

[JustJoel]

“I’m not a vegetarian because I love animals, I’m a vegetarian because I hate vegetables!” Mark Twain
This might be a paraphrase, but it always makes me chuckle!

[caseydog]

I am both a meat eater and a vegetarian, depending on the day and season. In June, when I can buy an abundance of fresh fruits an vegetables, I can easily go days without eating any meat, just because I am too busy stuffing myself with really good, fresh fruits and veggies.

In January, where we are now, fresh fruits are mediocre, at best, and veggies are hit and miss. Cows, chickens and pigs can be "harvested" all year long, and taste the same all year long. Besides, it is cold, and when it is cold, cooked animals taste their best, IMO.

Now, back on-topic, I also do my best to cook foods that my guests need to/want to eat. Low carb is easy, IMO. Gluten free, would require more research on my part, but if I had a guest who can't digest gluten, like my young cousin who has Celiac disease, I'd do whatever it takes.

Vegan seems like it would be harder out of fresh vegetable season. I do enjoy a challenge, so I would probably jump in, as long as I had the time to research it and make something good. It would definitely be cooking outside my comfort zone.

Bottom line, I want anyone who eats my food to enjoy it. If they don't it won't be because I didn't try.

CD

[CraigC]

Any PETA members here? I've always been and didn't even know it!

[buckytom]

I support PETA. People Eating Tasty Animals, that is.

[CraigC]

Originally Posted by buckytom

I support PETA. People Eating Tasty Animals, that is.

Exactly!

[Mad Cook]

Originally Posted by CWS4322

I have been busy cooking vegan dishes for a friend. Also been stripping carbs out of recipes for another friend. I have been having a lot of fun doing this. Wondering if this would be a fun thread...example, I made a roasted sweet potato beet carrot chickpea curry with coconut milk and the beet greens. I was inspired by a Thai chicken curry recipe. I have made it twice...delish. I do not measure, I cook by taste and flavour profile.

I have a vegan friend too. She is also allergic to anything with citric acid in it which means a wide range of fruits including lemon and tomato are no-nos, chocolate, hazelnuts, coffee and something else which, of hand, I can't remember. ("I have a little list and nothing must be missed")

Fortunately we've been friends since Noah's flood and I enjoy her company when she visits so it isn't a great chore to feed her. However, when we team up with the coeliac friend and the one who's allergic to eggs and all nuts it gets a little complicated!

It certainly would be a useful thread.

[larry_stewart]

Ive been vegetarian for 30 + years .
Ive gotten really good at converting most recipes to its vegetarian counterpart.
My wife just recently became vegan, which means now I have to convert vegetarian to vegan.

Being vegetarian has kinda been my driving force to learning new cuisines and trying ingredients I may have never tried if I weren't.

Now with this recent vegan hurdle, I have to learn to be even more creative, and Im up for the challenge.

What I have done is registered with Purple Carrot (https://www.purplecarrot.com) , A company that supplies you with the ingredients to 3 vegan meals a week. everything comes proportioned already, and just has to be assembled and cooked. ( like a vegan version of Blue Apron).

I joined this more for getting new recipe ideas than any other reason. It provides me with recipes that I may overlook if I were searching myself. kinda like ab unbiased recipe source. Some of the recipes are great, some are good, and every now and then there are a few stinkers.

About 1 year ago I actually visited the Purple Carrot Kitchen ( Outside of Boston), where I met and hung out with the owner, toured the facility, spent time with the chefs and got to cook with them as well. It was kinda cool to see the behind the scenes of a place like this and find out the process of recipe selection, criteria , trial and the journey the recipe takes from selection to finally being delivered to the customer.

They also have a list of all their past recipes on their website ( a little difficult to find, but its there somewhere).

Sometimes its not necessarily the whole recipe I like but a certain spices, or flavor profile or a specific vegan ingredient . The way I look at it, is as long as I learn something from each box, then its a success for me.

[Rocklobster]

If the whole world went vegan, we would be committing genocide on millions of animals...how cruel is that?

[Vinylhanger]

If God didn't want us to eat animals, he would have made them out of eggplant.

[CWS4322]

Originally Posted by larry_stewart

Just out of curiosity, is the low carb friend a vegan as well ?

No, she's not. I am no complex carb, no added sugar, so she and I kind of eat the same.

[CWS4322]

Pf, maybe you can mark my vegan curry as a recipe and add link from here?

http://www.discusscooking.com/forums...ml#post1536765

[CWS4322]

Thought I pop in for a few minutes. The vegan dishes I have made lately were palek "paneer" with tofu, those fish tacos (served in lettuce wraps) with cauliflower green rice, a mung bean stew, sweet potato hummus, and eggplant bacon. This week I am making more eggplant bacon and going to try homemade paneer with coconut milk. What vegan/vegetarian meals have I missed???

[JustJoel]

Originally Posted by CWS4322

Thought I pop in for a few minutes. The vegan dishes I have made lately were palek "paneer" with tofu, those fish tacos (served in lettuce wraps) with cauliflower green rice, a mung bean stew, sweet potato hummus, and eggplant bacon. This week I am making more eggplant bacon and going to try homemade paneer with coconut milk. What vegan/vegetarian meals have I missed???

I’m not sure, but I don’t think a vegan diet allows for fish...

[CWS4322]

The "fish" sticks are made from chick peas, cauliflower, and chick pea flower. I added finely chopped jalapeno peppers, Mexican seasoning s lime zest. Made a "sour" cream cilantro sauce to layer in the bottom using a cashew yogurt I strained to thicken.

[dragnlaw]

What would happen if a Vegan went on a Paleo purist diet...