Anyone else doing Veganuary? And year round vegans….family recipe ideas? Help and tips?

[TheRealMaryMillington]

I am going to do Veganuary this year.

Have been meat-eating since 2007, but never quite at one with it, and eat vegetarian food 90% of the time. Spells of veganism in my 20s, but never since having kids. I'm keen to challenge myself to do this again, for health, animal welfare and environmental reasons, even just a month at a time, no life-long pledges as yet.

So, looking for preferably quick/easy/affordable family recipe suggestions. I've got the curry and chilli end of things covered….these are mainstays!

And love to know if anyone else is Veganuarying?

How's it going everyone? DH is hungover and wanted stodge, DC wanting mac n cheese, omni mother who claims to eat veggie food regularly but actually doesn't all wolfed down cauliflower Alfredo tonight. Vegan family meal. Done!

I made the avocado spaghetti for lunch yesterday and it was GORGEOUS! I added some peas to the spaghetti water and wilted in a few handfuls of fresh spinach, topped with nutritional yeast. Thanks for that! Deliciously silky and rich.

Almond milk porridge with a tbsp wheatgerm in for zinc etc with raisins and a big handful of walnuts and some brown sugar on top for breakfast. Lovely.

Roast chicken for rest of the family, aubergine parmigiana as a side dish for them and a main for me (minus the cheese), Italian sautéed rice and carrots for all....getting fairly good at this cooking for omni and for me lark

Random bits lunch but it was exactly what I fancied and very satisfying. Bowl of kale crisps, slice of rye toast with mashed avocado, lemon juice and seeds on, and I defrosted and fried up one of these carrot, kidney bean and cumin burgers . Then some nuts and raisins with a cup of black tea.

I'll admit I am not doing this fully, but trying to up the number of vegan meals I have. Which basically translates to not having eggs for breakfast every day, more like 3 days a week, as my lunches and dinners are normally vegan anyway.

Please keep posting what you are having people, the ideas are great!

Sweet potato, chickpea & spinach curry with pilau rice and some bought samosas and bhajis for dinner here. DH may require added chicken.

Spanish omelette with chick-pea (gram) flour tonight.

Potatoes and onions, of course, then mushrooms, Fry's polony and sun-dried tomatoes. Topped with a couple of slices of vegan cheese and tomatoes, then sprinkled with nooch and oregano. Served with home made bread spread with olive oil from the fridge (where it stays solid).

cheat day today as I ate out - vegan sushi for lunch and Cuban food for dinner...so rice and beans, plantain, and black bean soup

I try to do 2-3 veggie/vegan days a week and this NS recipe is a treat for aubergine lovers!

I'm loving starting a vegan lifestyle. I'm allergic to gluten and dairy. So I previously ate eggs and was worrying so much but how to replace them but go figure I really don't need them.

Tonight for tea is lemon, ginger, soy sauce, agave nectar ,garlic and thyme marinaded tofu. Baked in the oven so it goes all thick and sticky. Served with steamed cavolo Nero, brocolli, roast tomatoes and white rice.

If there's any chocolate tofu cheesecake left. I will finish that off for pudding.

I'm hoping the kids eat the tofu they love tofu but I'm not sure about the lemon in the marinade. It was meant to be orange juice but I was out, so lemon it is.

Aubergine dish looks good. Quite similar to caponata which I was thinking of making with added chickpeas. I'm told this JO recipe is a good'un.

I'm also planning this spiced potato and split pea soup, looks gorgeous, I love the texture of dahl when the pulses are collapsing but still with some bite, so it looks right up my street.

A day of leftovers here. Almond milk porridge with walnuts, tinned pears and maple syrup for breakfast, leftover over curry with bread for lunch and leftover lentil & bean chilli with quinoa & salad for dinner.

I made some little crispy cake things this evening but used broken up walnuts instead of cereal for the base. Then mixed walnuts & raisins with a bowl of melted dark choc, coconut oil, golden syrup and cocoa powder and have set them in the fridge. Yum.

Ultra I am giving up on tofu. THe only way I can eat it is if I crumble it right up to nothing and mix it with veg/pulses so I can't taste the texture. I wanted to love it, I really did . Have another part block languishing in the fridge after more failed attempts.

Split I wrap my tofu in two tea towels and press with something heavy normally a chopping board or tray, cookbook and a bowl of fruit. I leave it for half an hour. Then I either bake it in 180 for twenty minutes and use it in curry akin to paneer. Or I marinade it after squishing it and bake it for around an hour in the marinade turning every 15 minutes. This gives it a good flavour and chewier texture.

Or I blend it and turn it into a dessert.

Tofu is awful unless it's really well prepared. It's definately not fast food. I've learned the hard way after many failed tofu dishes.

Tonight's was lush despite the recipe change and my dc ate it all up - although I did have to bribe them to finish it with promise of a smoothie for dessert.

Ugh I've heard you have to go to those lengths for tofu too and I just can't be arsed! Also I avoid soy products as much as poss anyhow so would have to create a truly spectacular tofu dish to convince me to eat it.

One of my two cheat days is coming up - wedding on Sunday (I obviously didn't request vegan a few months ago but that's ok) and the haggis just arrived for Burns night...

I only ever have an issue with Tofu if I get Cauldron brand. So I dont. Taifun brand is a whole different ballgame- especially the smoked one and the basil one. Totally different texture to the wobbly Cauldron stuff.

Yes but you can only buy Taifun online or in Waitrose. It is brilliant though.

I bought some in Holland and Barret by Dragonfly smoked and marinated but I've not tried it yet.

Cauldron marinated is very good but the regular tofu needs prepped as does clear spring.

It's really hard buying good tofu in major supermarkets they don't sell extra firm or firm it's usually all silken tofu and I'd love them to sell tofu puffs, all the Taifun range or tempeh it would make veganism a lot easier.

I'd love to see the reaction if the supermarkets only sold one type of meat product that needed a long prep and was a bit boring unless you but a lot of effort in. I think there'd be outrage.

It's time vegans were better catered for, supermarkets need to catch up and offer a good choice to all consumers.

Cauldron bog standard is the only one available here and I have tried pressing, dry frying, marinading overnight and I still hate it. Might try oven baking the last bit as you suggest though! I don't mind tofu & veg scramble though, scrambled egg style.
But ultimately it is a massive faff and way more expensive than some chickpeas or lentils etc so I think m & tofu will never really be friends!

Lovely soup for lunch inspired by Cornish pasties. Onion, celery, carrot, swede, potato, puy lentils sprinkling of sweetcorn cooked in veg stock with a dollop of marmite, lots and lots of ground black pepper and a bit of rosemary and thyme. Added a cube of diced frozen spinach and a sprinkling of frozen leaf parsley at the end.

Lovely soup for lunch inspired by Cornish pasties. Onion, celery, carrot, swede, potato, puy lentils sprinkling of sweetcorn cooked in veg stock with a dollop of marmite, lots and lots of ground black pepper and a bit of rosemary and thyme. Added a cube of diced frozen spinach and a sprinkling of frozen leaf parsley at the end.

That does sound good split

On the tofu debate I'm just not a fan of substituting meat with overly processed products, seems counterintuitive to me when my reasons for veganism are as much about personal health and environment as they are about animal welfare. But different strokes and all that - you should all come here, every major supermarket has a wealth of vegan products across the board available. There's a great vegan sour cream for when occasion calls for it and I can't be faffed with soaking cashews for days on end

I agree with over proccessed stuff but tofu makes a nice change from pulses as a good protein boost which is important for kids. I just wish we could easily buy tempeh which is less processed.

And I'm inspired by Splits soup, it's so cold and snowy outside I think I will make an onion soup with cavolo nero cheese style crutons and maybe a lentil bake for mains.

Do you not have any independent health shops nearby Ultra? We only have a tiny one but its good for things like tempeh and stuff, although it takes ages to get anything exciting and new in!

That's exactly it, ATB, in fact it's what kept me eating meat/dairy for some time. Eating healthy unprocessed foods has been a passion of mine for a long time, and whilst I didn't want to eat dairy, the vegetable fat butter substitutes and fake cheeses and commercially produced plant milks felt even more unacceptable. I am happy to replace meat with nuts/seeds/pulses but have no interest in all the quorn/facon/veggie sausages malarky. I've made a couple of soya mince bologneses using the dried TVP but that has been the exception rather than the rule.

And I'm still on the fence about fish. On the one hand I find it distasteful to think of eating something that's had to die, and I worry about over fishing and poor fishing practices, and the way fish suffocate to death, and the pollution to the seas from fish farming etc etc but on the other hand I believe it's important to have quality omega 3's (DHA and EPA) in dietary form, and whilst I eat flax seeds & walnuts etc and take flax oil for plant based omega 3's I know these are ALA and are very poorly converted to DHA and EPA by the body. And obv I eat a lot of nuts/seeds in general so I know I have a high omega 6 intake, and I've read a lot of info over the years suggesting that you want your ratio of omega 6: omega 3 to no greater than 4:1. So I don't know. I eat it very rarely now and feel quite conflicted about it.

I eventually quit dairy in August last year, but mainly by just not having anything instead of butter/milk etc most of the time and using substitutes sparingly. Hence getting into mashed avocado/nut butters/marmite etc on bread/toast rather than spreads. I have never tried vegan cheese, the only thing I use in place of cheese is a dusting of nutritional yeast at the table. I miss the idea of cheddar in a jacket potato, but tbh don't like the smell of it anymore.

A lot of vegan recipes seem to be full of processed crap which I won't buy or eat, I definitely favour a wholefoods approach. It's why I love the Oh She Glows blog, lovely inventive ideas for cooking from scratch! Often too ambitious for me though, I have a 3 year old snapping at my heels by 4.30 when I try and cook dinner. And I'm not excluding wheat which definitely makes life simpler. I think she's vegan and wheat free.

Red lentil & coconut dahl for dinner. Not sure what with.

I'm coeliac it does make things harder, and I haven't replaced bread. I eat the gluten free stuff occasionally and even more rarely cakes and biscuits and to be i honest I don't really miss it or like it much now, especially cake and biscuit.

No deli or health food stores near by, even the city is a drive away. So places deliver but as we are highlands most internet shops charge a premium for delivery.

I was given a wonderful cook book called Prashad it's full of Indian food it has some paneer recipes but I replace that with (whispers so no one quite hears me) tofu. Otherwise all the recipes are easily vegan. Beautiful recipes.

I also love a blog called vegan household and maple spice. Loads of wonderful blogs there's a good ceoliac vegan one I think it's the Scandanavian kitchen but I'd need to double check.

The kids were against the soup idea so for supper we had 3 bean chilli with wild and brown rice. Served with brocolli and cavolo nero.

I think I will make the soup for lunch tomorrow.

It's time vegans were better catered for, supermarkets need to catch up and offer a good choice to all consumers.

As a vegan old-timer, I have to say that supermarket provision for vegans has improved greatly over the last few decades. In the olden days, frequent visits to health food shops were essential. Now at least there are Free From aisles, as well as tofu, ice cream, soya milks etc.

Anyway, I'm here to speak in defence of tofu . We mainly buy Cauldron, since it's most readily available. It doesn't have to be a faff - we squeeze out water with kitchen towel, then cut into strips or cubes and marinate, before pan frying (slices) or roasting (cubes) in the oven. The longer you leave the tofu, the more it absorbs the flavour, but even if it's only a few minutes, it still makes a big difference. I use garlic, soya sauce, chopped ginger, garlic and sesame oil to make Chinese style cubes, and soya sauce, paprika, a little oil and tomato sauce for the strips, which are used as a breakfast item.

Not sure if anybody's mentioned it, but you can achieve a sturdier, dryer texture by freezing tofu first.

I was going to say the same thing about tofu, frozen tofu is a lot nicer, I really like the texture. Just make sure you chop it into desired pieces before freezing, then when you want it you can put it straight into stews/casseroles and things.

Lots of great recipe ideas here. Never heard of cavolo nero before!