I wasn’t much of a cook until I went vegan. I was really lazy. I lived off pasta and jarred sauce for years. That’s no exaggeration, I could have it night after night, and I did in fact have it night after night for most of my 8 years as a vegetarian.
Then I went vegan, and for some reason, even though I could have continued having pasta and jarred sauce (most of both are vegan, after all) night after night, it suddenly seemed important to cook. I had actually started cooking in the six or so months before, which I think shocked my mom more than me going vegan. The cooking really took off after going vegan, along with the ever growing collection of cookbooks. Including one that is wholly dedicated to vegan cupcakes.
I rely on recipes, mostly, when I cook. I have a lot of cookbooks, and I am compelled to browse through the vegan cookbooks at every bookstore I’m in. When I traveled to Argentina, where they eat even more meat than in this country, and stumbled across two vegan cookbooks, I had to get them. Even though they’re in Spanish, and I can just barely order food and make travel arrangements in Spanish. Motivation to learn the language, right? Right.
Recently I’ve been able to just throw things together, and be pretty pleased with how they turn out. Last night I sauteed some onion, garlic, purple peppers (they were organic, locally grown, and cheaper than the rest of the colors!) with olive oil and cumin, and then I added a can of fire roasted tomatoes (sorry Rich and Leanne! I know how much you love tomatoes), chickpeas, a chipotle pepper, some potatoes and some seitan…I think that’s it. I let it simmer until the potatoes were cooked.
It is pretty good! Not something that I’d expect to find in a cookbook, it isn’t that good, but it is filling, nourishing, and quite tasty. Especially the next day, somehow.
I still love making things from cookbooks, but it is so nice to know that I can take the random contents of my fridge and pantry and come up with something that is pretty good!
July 26, 2007 at 10:18 am
You seem to be doing more and more “freestyle” cooking which is a lot of fun. I think those tomatoes would have been cooked enough to be fine
I am hungry and those brownies are not helping me.
July 26, 2007 at 6:40 pm
yes, I’ve discovered that laziness and freestyle cooking go really well together! I have certain combos that work, so I keep doing variations on them. I can’t claim that anyone else would think much of it, but better than eating oatmeal for dinner, which is what I do when I’m *really* lazy!
mmm…brownies. Those are from Joy’s recipe. I need to make them again!
July 26, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Me too on the brownines. Observant LOVES brownies. Congratulations on your cooking successes! I need to look into vegan cooking. Your impromptu dish sounds wonderful.
July 26, 2007 at 8:03 pm
Darn, I wish we lived closer! It is much safer to make things like brownies when I can give most of them away!
You might want to see if your library has any vegan cookbooks (if you’re a recipe kind of person, like I usually am!). Some of my favorites include Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen for every day kind of dishes, and then when I do “vegan dinner night” with some friends (one of the things I miss about denver! I had friends who loved to do this) I usually use Voluptuous Vegan. It is really more of a menu-based cooking, so I only use it if I am cooking for more than just me. MVK is very vegetable, bean, and grain based (essentially traditional recipes of the mediterranean region, veganized where needbe, but mostly they came straight up already vegan!), so if my pantry-dinner sounded good, you’d probably enjoy that cookbook.
If you’re in the mood for grilling, and want to jump right into some of the food you wouldn’t probably find outside a vegan restaurant (silly, because it is so delicious!), Rich and I made this a month or so ago, and it was fantastic! http://blog.fatfreevegan.com/2007/05/barbecued-seitan-ribz.html
If you like to bbq, that is. Though I don’t think it really needs bbqing, other than to get the grill marks on it. Very yummy. I have been thinking about them ever since!
Oh, and a friend of mine is working on a cookbook, so she hasn’t been updating her blog often, but to get an idea of what someone with real talent in the kitchen can come up with: veganjoy.blogspot.com — if you follow the link there for the “brunch revolution”, that’s a very short lived vegan brunch thing we did last summer. Joy is amazing with food!
Now, look, you’ve got me talking about food and vegan cookbooks, and there is almost no end to the amount I can talk about these things!
July 26, 2007 at 8:13 pm
My favorite recipe
80 gallons of water
12 lbs of carrots
10 pounds of potatoes
3 pound celery
5 pounds onions
ΒΌ cup chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste
Insert self into pot with water and all vegetable turn on heat and cover for six hours.
Now if you are not a vegan you need to find a friend/neighbor who is to help with the recipe.
Everything Deb said is right on, there are also a lot of vegan recipes online but they are very hit and miss. If you get a few misses might turn you off. I also like any of the three Sarah Kramer books, my local library carries them. Though my local library is sort of on the big side.
July 26, 2007 at 8:25 pm
Rich, too funny!
Yeah, the Kramer cookbooks are really popular, but I have to admit, they’re just not my taste! Which is funny because we both love MVK. Then again, you don’t like TOMATOES, so clearly there is something wrong with you. :p
There are a ton of vegan recipes online, and also a ton of vegan food bloggers!
veganyumyum actually won some kind of blogger award, and there was no specific vegan category! http://www.veganyumyum.com/
She’s got a cookbook in the works too! It looks really good, actually. Another one that will be added to my collection!
Oh, another cookbook author I like is dreena burton – vive le vegan, and everyday vegan. She’s got one coming out this fall too.
July 26, 2007 at 8:37 pm
Rich, that was hilarious. Thanks for all the suggestions. I’m going to look into them. Ken, my SO, is getting more and more into triathlons and better eating habits so I think I could really surprise him with some vegan cooking. It’s not something he’d choose on his own, so I’ll have to sneak it in. I got my BS in nutrition at the Univ of TX, so I’m always interested in stuff like this. I’ve always avoided vegan because I think of myself as such a “dairy” person (meat – I can take it or leave it, but dairy always seemed like such a stretch). I’m definitely going to try it out. Thanks guys!
July 26, 2007 at 9:01 pm
That’s cool that you got a degree in nutrition! My mom was what we affectionately referred to as a “health food nut” when I was growing up, though the things we ate that were so “weird” to everyone then are perfectly mainstream now!
I know what you mean about the dairy too – I thought I’d have a really hard time giving up cheese! I found that using recipes that were completely new to me or cuisines where there wouldn’t typically be cheese (and I love ethnic foods, especially middle eastern and thai, so it was really easy in that respect too) made the entire issue sort of moot. And hummus. Hummus was my cheese replacement! (cheese and crackers was my main cheese consumption, actually)
Do give it a try, and if you ever want any recipes, dairy replacement suggestions, anything like that, just let me know! vegans are always talking about food!
There are some pretty hard core vegan athletes. Let’s see, brendan brazier is a vegan triathalete. Actually, he’s a RAW vegan, and having done 6 weeks raw at one point, I can tell you, raw food diets are way harder than just regular old vegan food! Scott Jurek is this incredible ultra marathoner, who has won what is considered the most grueling ultra five or so years in a row. And carl lewis had his best year the first year he went vegan!
heh. I sound like an infomercial!
There’s this chili I make quite a bit which seems to be a big hit with everyone, and which some friends (the denver friends again, who are not vegan or vegetarian) actually brought to a church chili cookoff, and in the madness of getting everything set up, nothing was labeled, so all their friends were raving about the chili, and shocked when they realized it was vegan! So, that might be a good one for Ken in terms of “sneaking” factor, plus it is primarily beans, so it is great for someone who needs the complex carbs, the way a triathalete does. (and cooking beans with a strip of kombu is great at preventing gas! a little vegan hint there!)
http://www.vegpeople.com/cgi-bin/gossamer/gforum.cgi?post=31072#31072
July 27, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I’ve been a vegan since 1995 and have obtained quite a lot of cookbooks but only really depend on two or three.
I believe that cooking is a very large part of our lives and our well-being – both physically and emotionally. The act of preparing our own food and consuming it with both our mouths and our spirits is good for our souls, not to mention our bodies.
Peace, love and understanding.
July 27, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Which are the 2 or 3 you depend on? I have this bargain with myself – I’m allowed to collect cookbooks as long as I actually use them. I rarely make the same recipe twice (except for certain fallbacks) because I’m cooking for one usually, and that means I don’t go through many recipes! To use my cookbooks, I have to keep trying new recipes! It is fun though.
I absolutely agree about cooking being part of our emotional life, and since emotions are so tightly linked with our physical well-being, it makes sense that the very process of cooking/preparing food and nourishing ourselves is important for both. It is a type of therapy to cook, for me, even when it is hard to get started sometimes.
Thanks RubyShooZ!
July 28, 2007 at 7:13 am
I was thinking about my cookbooks and started thinking that I actually have many but only use a few recipes from each one but I do depend on some more than others and those two or three I mentioned are:
1. The New Farms Cookbook (edited by Louise Hagler and Dorothy Bates)
2. Tofu Cookery by Louise Hagler
3. Food For Life by Dr. Neal Barnard
Some great recipes there that I use often.
I also get recipes mailed to me weekly by VegWeb. It’s free and you just have to sign up for their weekly newsletter. Their site is at:
http://vegweb.com/
I suspect you might already know of it but if not, check it out and enjoy.
Peace, love and understanding.