Hello veg*ns!

I haven't posted in the Vegetarian Chicks forum before, mostly because I'm a lurker and don't post a lot. I switched over from being an omnivore to eating a vegan diet about 8 months ago after watching Earthlings. The change has reinvigorated my love for cooking, which feels like an art again and no longer a boring task! I love getting creative, and have the luxury to do so as the sole consumer of my mostly disastrous attempts at creating yummy things. One of the perks of being single! Probably also one of the reasons I am single, who would want to date a mad kitchen scientist?

So, with that little introduction out of the way; what is your favorite vegan meal? What do you whip up when you want something (kind of) healthy and delicious? I'm not looking for recipes — although they are certainly welcome — just new ideas to add to my repertoire. It doesn't actually have to be a complete meal either, it could just be an interesting ingredient that is not commonly used, but which you find useful. Anything I can make a mess with!

I too have loved trying new things since going vegan. My go to meals when I want something quick:

-Eggplant spaghetti- where the eggplant replaces the meat and I use miracle noodles.

- Tofu scramble- It's just so easy

-Chilli

- Chickpea patties

When I have extra time I'll make seitan bacon or a tofu silk pie.

Ooh, I have to try the eggplant spaghetti thing! I love spaghetti! I'm trying to avoid eating too much soy, and I'm always up for trying new meat replacements in my favorite foods. If I could eat tofu/TVP only once or twice a week I would be happy. Tofu scramble is also one of my go-to quick meals. It's super easy and really tasty!

Next week I'm going to try my hand at making seitan! I ordered the ingredients Wednesday (small town, can't find ingredients locally) and should be getting them Monday. I've heard so many good things about it, and seen how versatile it is and I can't wait to start messing around with it!

If you like spicy things and can get your hands on rye bread, you should try my favorite breakfast sandwich sometime. I don't think rye bread is commonly available in the States though, so you could try making a sub version or something. Just put a bunch of jalapeño slices, olives, tomato, red onion and iceberg lettuce in it! You can leave out the jalapeño peppers if you don't like your breakfast too spicy, it's still delicious and tastes like something out of Subway.

I do like spicy. I will try that sandwich. We have rye here, I just don't like it unless it's a rueben. I will try it with a tortilla though.

I try not to eat soy in other items so I can eat the tofu. Soy is in so much these days. I don't understand when that started.I try to find the non-gmo sprouted variety but I think I may start making my own.

I did make seitan sausages before and they came out pretty good. The best recipe for freezing later I found from the youtuber Vegan Zombie. I don't care for the drop in the water and boil kind. I made "beef" stirfry with it yesterday and it was delicious.

Hi!
I have a lot of faves, many from cookbooks and from vegan blogs. If you want to get some vegan cookbooks the ones I recommend are by Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, especially The Vegan Table and The Vegan Baking Bible. I also have a Millenium cookbook for when I feel like putting some more time into a meal.

One of my current favorites is polenta - sometimes I make it from scratch and sometimes I get the pre-cooked kind in tubes that we have in stores here. Either way, you can then bake it in layers with veggies/sauces, or lightly fry it (cut it into fun shapes!) then top with anything, really - I've put braised mushrooms then made a faux "cream" sauce out of cashews, silken tofu, basil and garlic to go on top.

I'm not vegan, but my brother has been for 5+ years now so he's made some things for me, and me for him, and my mother has made quite a few things too... And still, my absolute favorite is macaroni and cashew "cheese". The sauce is just soooo tasty. It's not necessarily a "healthy" meal as there's quite a bit of fat in it but it is so filling and delicious. I thought it was the recipe from The Vegan Table, but that's not it. Not sure where my mom got it! It's a great side dish for holidays. Mmm.

Easy recipes I make if I'm having my brother for dinner are grilled portobella mushroom burgers (just marinate and grill!) and black bean soup.

He also makes a killer bean chili and is big on roasted veggies. My mom recently re-discovered potato gnocchi, thank goodness because they are delicious, served with marinara and "meat"balls made from chickpeas, similar to falafel but with italian seasonings.

@Mizzthingaling, rye bread is probably a bit of an acquired taste, but it should be delicious with a tortilla too! I hope you'll like it. I don't know when the soy craze started either, but it seems to be in everything these days in various forms, especially soy lecithin.

I just finished my first batch of seitan, and it looked really good! I made a jerk marinade from a recipe I found online (I'll post it below), and I'm leaving the seitan in it over night, so I won't really know how it turned out before tomorrow. I'll look up Vegan Zombie on YouTube, thanks for the suggestion!

@JayZeeJay, I'll look up those cookbooks! One of the problems I usually have with cookbooks is they always use a lot of ingredients I can't easily get my hands on. I don't mind so much, because I like experimenting on my own, but sometimes it's nice to just have simple instructions to follow. Thanks for the suggestions!

I had never heard of polenta before, and had to look it up. It looks interesting and doesn't sound too hard to make, so I might try to make some!

@nonameslob, macaroni and cashew "cheese" sounds delicious, I'll definitely have to try that!

I have yet to try portobella mushroom burgers, because it's so hard to find the mushrooms here and I forget to look for them every time I'm out of town. I had to look up potato gnocchi. It looks delicious!

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So many good ideas in this thread already! Thanks everyone! Here's the recipe for the jerk marinade I made, it's from a Finnish blog (Chocochili) so I translated it to English in case someone wants to try it. It ended up a lot more spicy than I had anticipated, and it's super delicious. I could eat just the marinade alone.

RunningWild. Thanks for the recipe. I'm going to try it on my next batch. I understand about number of ingredients in recipes. If I see on that take too much I just pass. If it is something I really want though I'll order the hardd to find ingredients on Amazon or Swansons.

We've had a couple of taco bowls this last week. They are easy meal when we make the beans in advance. Then we just add the usual: tomatoes, lettuce, onions, avocado, etc.

We have polenta in the freezer I may try to make it soon.

Mizzthingaling, yum, taco bowls! The seitan ended up amazing, and I will translate the recipe I used to make that as well if someone is interested, it's from the same blog. As for hard to find ingredients, I order online too if it's something I really want to try (e.g. seitan). I found something else I REALLY want to try: vegan Twix bars, and the recipe doesn't even call for a bunch of weird ingredients. Vanilla extract is the only really hard to find ingredient, but I know of one store in the capital that imports it and I'm going there next week, so I'll pick some up. Needless to say this isn't even a sort-of healthy recipe, but I'm a chocoholic and this looks delicious!

Hi!

Have you looked at the newest chocochilli cook book? There is another seitan recipe in there Ill dig it out for you later as I borrowed it from the library if you havent. I've found that seitan also freezes pretty well so its worth making a good sized amount up.

Ive just had my dinner and I love it. Pressed and cubed tofu marinated in some miso soup. I then used the miso to cook some black quinoa and also added a little ginger and harissa pasta during cooking. I did fry the tofu but its not necessary, all tossed together when cooled with fresh spinach, spring onion, cashew nuts and some edamame beans. I think Ill have it a lot over the summer, its so filling.

My absolute favourite though is potato and almond soup. Those Lappish finger potatoes peeled and boiled with veg stock, almonds salt and pepper then blended with some oatly creme fraiche. I love it so much.

Are you on pinterest? We should try and meet up sometime, a Finnish vegan meet

SuomiSara, I haven't taken a look at her new book yet! My friend borrowed her old one from the library, but I haven't thought to go see if they have the new one. Have you tried the new seitan recipe? It would be really nice if you could share it. I bet the book has a ton of nice recipes, I should go see if it's available in my local library. I think I'll make a bigger batch next time, like you suggested, and freeze it.

I've never had miso soup, and as usual you can't find the ingredients in my town, so I have no idea what it tastes like, but I'm sure it's delicious! I guess I could pick up the ingredients next time I'm in Helsinki. The ingredients for the potato and almond soup I could find locally though, so I might try that soon, it sounds tasty. I love potatoes!

I don't have a Pinterest account unfortunately. :/ A Finnish vegan meet sounds like fun though.

The miso was from Lidl and the black quinoa from Prisma. I rarely go to the "specialist" shops. What can't you find? Ive seen miso in my small local s market too. Edamame beans are in the freezer section

Ill go find the recipes in a bit

Thanks for the tips! We do have a Lidl here with a tiny section of oriental foods. I think I need to take a closer look next time I go! I don't know why I haven't thought to look for it there. The Edamame beans I could probably find in our S-Market then, too, because it's pretty big.

I think I'll try the new seitan recipe tomorrow then, I was going to make some anyway.

My this winters favorite is red lentil soup. Cook lentils with parsley. Add sauteed ginger and garlic, tomato paste, coconut milk, salt+ pepper and Tabasco sauce to taste. So fast & easy to make and tastes good both warm and cold.

One pot pasta I think.