Vegetarian for 18+ now trying Vegan. Suggestions?? Advise???
Posted by binkerjen on Sep 05, 2010 · Member since Jul 2002 · 3 posts
Hi,
I've been a Lacto-Ovo for over half my life and I'm trying to go vegan. Unfortunately, I'm not the greatest cook but I'm learning. Tofu scares me but I'm determined to make a tofu dish, a tofu scramble, lasagna, just one of those great recipes I've read on here. I'm sure the regulars her have seen this kind of post her a lot but any advice to make the switch less intimidating would be really appreciated.
Jen
Im new to the vegan world myself I've been vegan for a few months.
First I started with just cooking vegetable dishes. like Vegetable curry's or a ratatouille. These dishes are already vegan so no need to use any of these foreign vegan products like tofu. I mean lets be honest tofu is not a pretty ingredient.
Now I have more confidence to make more experimental dishes, using tofu or meat replacements like a product called "gardien"
"Earth balance" is a butter substitute that has made life much easier and its more healthy then butter.
I think the best way to learn how to cook especially with new ingredients is to have them first at a restaurant so you have an idea of the finished product. So if you have your mind set on tofu I would go to an Indian, Thai, or Chinese restaurant order a dish with tofu so you have an idea of what your dealing with. Otherwise you might have cooked it to perfection but maybe your just not into tofu.
best of luck, and go cook the shit out of that tofu
Nice to meet you! Welcome!
I was a vegetarian for a long time before finally going vegan. But I was a good vegan cook at the time. Just continue to try new things, and eat a wide variety of food. There are so many good ways to cook vegan food that finding "substitutes" for what you're now eating isn't really necessary.
A good book is 1000 Vegan Recipoes, which will have you eating good vegan food for years. LOL
Don't be intimidated by tofu. Here's what I do: first slice the block into about six to eight pieces. Then put them on a bunch of paper towels on top and bottom in a plate, and wrap in a dish towel, and stack a bunch of plates on top. Leave about 20 minutes...this drains the water from the tofu and gives it room to absorb the flavor of what you're cooking.
All the best.
Thanks for the advice. I picked up some tofu and threw it in the freezer and will give the tofu scramble a try next week. I haven't had any dairy or eggs for about 2 weeks and it hasn't too bad a I made a pizza last night and it turned out well. Pizza and scrambled eggs are the big things I miss and I really just need more variety. I guess it's time to start investing in some cookbooks, I'll look for the 1000 Vegan Recipes online tonight. I will let you know how the scramble turns out. Thanks again.
Don't worry if you don't like of tofu. If you like it, there are lots of things you can do with it. If you don't like it (like me), other beans work just as well. There's nothing magic about tofu, it's just processed soybean.
There are only a couple of vegan cookbooks I like. Otherwise I get my recipes online. Vegweb is a good place, so is food.com (formerly recipezaar) because you can search a general topic and then use their Recipe Sifter to select for the vegan ones.
Thankfully there are other options to a vegan diet other than tofu. Even though tofu or soy does pop up a lot in recipe books for vegan diets and on this website. But depending on your recipe you may be ableto use other food items other than tofu. What kind of foods do you like or what would you want to make a vegan version of?
get daiya cheese for your dairy fix. Have you tried seitan? Mmmm delicious, nutritious and doesn't feel like a loogey like tofu! And lastly, get a fertalized egg, that'll end your cravings! Lol jk, I honestly don't know what to do on that note maybe start veiwing them as chicken periods or something.