Hello, I am interested in starting my family toward more meatless meals. My husband would freak if I had us all go veg right now but I am thinking the more I sneak in the easier it will be. He doesnt need meat at every meal like some but dropping it all is intimidating I think. Also I have to be gluten free so the whole family eats dinners that way so imagine taking out two possiblities lol!

My question is this... how did you make chicken salad from chickpeas and make it so good, tell me please!!! This sounds like something perfect for our lunches as we love chickpeas. Please please post or pm me!

Exactly! Have you ever had a chunk of chicken with no seasoning? Blech.

I think of the holiday dinner parties I've had and why everyone loved my cooking. It wasn't the turkey itself, it was the cajun spices I injected into it and the chardonnay gravy they poured over it. Same for the brisket at Channukah - stuffed with garlic cloves and brined in red wine. The meat wasn't the center piece, the seasonings were.

Now that I've done some research on vegan and vegetarian recipes I'm learning so much more about this style of cooking than I ever thought possible. It would be boring if all you ate were salads and tofu. Once you get the hang of it you realize that you didn't need meat in any of your favorite dishes. I use chopped mushrooms in place of chopped meat for stuffed pasta dishes like ravioli or shells. I'm Sicilian so I got the sauces down a long time ago for those. I made rolled tacos with chopped mushrooms and spinach last week that were awesome too. I'm just learning that tofu does not have to be the main ingredient of my dishes. I rarely use it now.

Originally I just wanted to go vegetarian, actually pescetarian and not vegan. I'm finding so many great vegan recipes that it's pretty rare now that I use any sort of animal product. I haven't eaten any fish in a long time either. I think cheese for our pizzas last night was the only animal product we've used in at least two weeks.

I wouldn't be so quick to diss tofu. Baked tofu (with whatever seasonings you choose) is oh so good. Tofu is kind of my nemesis though, it took me a year of being vegan before I even tried to make it myself. I still rarely use it but I want to use it more often because it is pretty cheap and can be really good.

With my husband and I, I went vegan overnight (literally, I had a steak the night before) and he was vegan at home. When we would eat out or he would eat out for a business trip, he didn't try to be vegetarian or vegan until about 3 or 4 months after I stopped eating animal products. I haven't been perfect since day 1 but it wasn't because I didn't enjoy my food but mostly convenience.

As for chickpea salad, this is the recipe I modified and used for inspiration.
http://www.ivu.org/recipes/snacks/dolphin.html

Oh I'm not dissing tofu! I actually like it a lot and used terriyaki baked tofu sliced thin on my pizza last night. Delicious! One of my favorite "quick" dinners is curried tofu over long grain brown rice with steamed veggies. Mmmmm.

I just have to be careful because I have a goiter and if I eat too much soy, my thyroid expands to my ears. No joke.

Has anyone tried making their own seitan? I got the recipe from Vegan Dad and made "pepperoni" with it last week. I took some to my co-workers and they couldn't believe it wasn't real meat!

I've made seitan lots of times! Earlier this year I was in a seitan making kick. It is so easy.

Where is the pepperoni recipe?

These are the recipes I've used in the past
http://www.everydaydish.tv/index.php...ow&category=25
http://www.everydaydish.tv/index.php...ipe&recipe=109

Here it is! http://vegandad.blogspot.com/2008/03...pepperoni.html

I brushed a little olive oil on it before baking it on pizza and it really was as good as the "real" thing! My daughter LOVES pepperoni and that was a toughie for her to give up. Now she's happy :)

One thing I'd look at is really the 'free range' meat because honestly 'free range' really doesn't mean what most people think it means. Unless you are buying from a farm and seeing the animals, most 'free range' is completely unnatural and still very tramatizing to the animals since they are kept in close confines. For chickens, it generally means they aren't in cages which is good but that is really where the good ends. The also generally never get to go outside, never touch dirt, etc.

Honestly, vegan food is fairly cheap and no it isn't all tofu. As I said, it took me a year of eating vegan before I even tried to make tofu. You may not have time to cook and may resort to some other things but for me, vegan food doesn't generally take much time to cook. I don't cook every day either but I have found making leftovers for the next day saves a lot of time.

I wasn't offended, I just have to say I've never found what I eat to be boring.

Exactly. Point being when people say they get bored or can't give up flesh due to taste (won't, not can't but I digress from that), it's the seasoning and flavoring not the actual hunk of dead animal.

I am hopeful that the conversation inserted regarding someone's thoughts about their former life as a vegetarian and follow-up comments are winding down.

I do appreciate our original poster's concerns about what her individual impact can be on so much more beyond herself. As a Quaker, it is a large portion of my faith-based practise to really reflect on just that. Each individual's concern that leads to changing or maybe reinforcing that individual's own behavior.

I gave up meat because of many reasons that came again and again to me. I started inserting more and more recipes that headed me down a new direction to explore. This change seemed to really react well with my concerns so I reinforced the changes and viola. Edzard's strategy is similar to mine with a family to live with as one member makes a lifestyle change.

In the beginning, I added additional vegetarian choices to normal meals. As these became more familiar, the kids and hubby took larger and larger samples. Weirdly enough, I eventually became so much more vegetarian than meat eater (like once or twice a year) that I was impacting my relationship with my husband--after about two years I realized that the nasty smell from him was only on days he ate meat. Wow, I didn't mean to separate us on this. In my head, it was my own decision and I was perfectly happy to be the grey goose out. No problem.

Then I noticed that my sons were more often asking for no meat. My older son's always been a "baconarian"--a raw, plain tofu with huge sides of raw veggie eating fiend that can't resist bacon on a huge veggie sandwich once in a while. He's now about 95% vegetarian. My husband's daily life is mostly vegetarian with occasional fish. He'll have goat on religious celebrations according to his culture. My younger son never met a meal that wasn't his friend. He swings both ways!

I create loads of vegetarian recipes with sometimes black beans, chickpeas, or pinto beans acting as meat. Although I've become a reluctant but quite happy tofu fan, I mostly eat things that aren't too far from where they started. Can't get myself to try many of the different meat-alternative options. Probably because I'm the only openly "out" vegetarian around these parts so I don't often taste these new foods.

I just stick with beans, nuts, and tofu. (Full disclosure: I do eat cheese and eggwhites, though.) I make a mean spicy black bean and mushroom curry that's to die for (if I do say so myself). I'd say all my recipes, though, reflect what's in the frig, what calories and food groups I have left for the day, and my favorite flavors. I keep a few sauces on hand and a stock of basic spices (especially onions, garlic, ginger, and basic stuff) to have many options at the drop of a hat.

Happy veggin' folks. From one to all. ;-)

So anyhoo... back to the original theme of the post. I really am amazed at how much of a difference one person can make in the factory farming by even cutting down on meat. I had been discussing it with a co-worker earlier who proudly eats meat and veggie products at the same time. He was actually stunned when he thought about it and said "Wow, I've already eaten 3 different meats today and it's only 4 PM!"

And Nelie, I agree that "Free Range" doesn't neccessarily mean humane. I'm just saying it's at least a step in a better direction. Slaughter is still slaughter and there is nothing kind about it. At the same time for those who really aren't ready to give up the meat eating lifestyle I think they should at least demand better quality from the places they are paying for this product. Cows who are diseased and unable to walk do NOT make for good food. Same goes for chickens. It's unhealthy and torturous to the animal and it's unhealthy for whoever consumes it too. Meat is muscle.. cows that don't walk and graze don't have healthy muscle mass and it mostly fat. So even if people don't feel guilty for eating the animal, they should at least be concerned for their own health and less trusting of the "Because we say so" leaders who allow this to happen.

There are people who roll their eyes and think I'm an idiot for not eating meat. I'm ok with that. I smile with every meal I make and every bite I take because I know that I've created a treat that is healthy for both my body and soul.

lizbabe, as I pointed out earlier, even if you aren't directly eating whole animals, the entire commercial animal production involves a lot of waste from animals that are killed and can't be eaten from excess meat that isn't sold. So yes you are saving the lives of many animals over time :)

I also mentioned the 'free range' thing because a lot of people have visions of little happy chickens and cows roaming the fields when it just isn't true.

No worries, I knew what you meant and wasn't offended. Until we really put thought into it, we don't realize how much we affect these things and how many animals have been killed and tortured in our interest. It's a lot to take on and I think some of the negative attitude I've heard is because people don't want to know and feel responsible for it all. Though I work with one guy who is very right sided and he was spouting off about how stupid this new law in California is requiring that chickens at least be able to stretch their wings. He screamed "That costs money! It's a f***ing chicken!"

*sigh*

Well for me, it was not a matter of being bored with the taste, but the limited options. I still eat and love vegetarian dishes and food, I just wanted more options.

And the way I look at it too, I eat less meat than I used to before I was a vegetarian. It's a nice compromise, eating chicken and turkey but no pork or beef, and not eating meat every day.

And for the record, I do like the taste of plain chicken. :-)

And regarding free range, our government has very poor standards of what free range actually is. The FDA and the USDA have very loose standards, sometimes meaning that chickens only get an hour outside of their cages once a day. It's a very misleading term, and I think it's one of those buzz words that companies but on their products to get the more ignorant consumers to buy, same with "trans fat free." A lot of people don't do research about something before they buy it.