One of the worst things I found about Veganuary was that a lot of the meals are trying to replicate meat or animal products in some way, and it's just not that good. I don't care how you cook it,...
One of the worst things I found about Veganuary was that a lot of the meals are trying to replicate meat or animal products in some way, and it's just not that good. I don't care how you cook it, cauliflower does not and never will trick me into thinking I'm eating chicken wings. Vegan mac-n-cheese was... OK, but you can tell it's using plant milk as a base. Quorn has come a long way in the last 10 years, but you can't beat the consistency mouthfeel of a really truly sausage. Vegan and vegetarian food is (in my humble opinion) at its finest when it's not trying to trick you into thinking you're not eating plants, but straight up owning the fact that it contains no animal products.
All that being said, I think that "plant forward meals" is a really great way to approach reducing one's meat intake (an easy thing we can all do to reduce our impact on the climate). Relegating meat and animal products to a smaller part of the meal, as a flavour enhancer for example, is such a good idea. The biggest hurdles to this are always a) finding meals that you actually enjoy, and b) that are straightforward enough to make on autopilot without needing a recipe every time. The problem I have is that all of my autopilot meals are meaty/dairy-y, and I've yet to find simple, memorable, and delicious plant-based options.
I've been vegetarian for a few years now, and while I do sometimes go for the substitute (today for lunch I had Mr. Noodles and cut up a veggie dog into it, so, you know) I agree with you that...
I've been vegetarian for a few years now, and while I do sometimes go for the substitute (today for lunch I had Mr. Noodles and cut up a veggie dog into it, so, you know) I agree with you that it's generally best on its own terms.
For brainless staple meals, I think that (American-Mexican? Mexican? I don't know, I'm Canadian) stuff like taco, chili, burritos - those do quite well with just a replacing the meat with beans and adding a bit more fat if necessary. Similar principle for stir-fry; just use tofu and add a bit extra of something for savoriness, such as MSG or sesame oil or mushrooms.
(Tofu is one of those things that has grown on me ... a lot of people say it has a neutral taste and just soaks whatever you put into it, which is mostly true, but I also think I've eaten enough of it to be able to tell good tofu from bad tofu. Good fresh tofu has a kind of pleasant taste on its own IMO! It's actually often incorporated into non-vegetarian dishes in Asian cooking, so it's not seen as just a meat substitute or vegetarian thing the way people seem to perceive it in the west. Tofu doesn't have to be a concession or settled for!)
Indian cuisine is also very often vegetarian and while making from scratch can be tricky, nobody's gonna judge you if you just grab a jar of sauce or a pre-mixed spice blend or some pre-made curry paste. Lazy dinner for me is sometimes just dumping a jar of curry sauce onto some chickpeas and spinach, cooking it, and eating it over rice.
I'm very much inclined to agree with you. There are lots of world cuisines that suit vegetarianism quite well - I'll have a peak around for some decent Mexican stuff. I'm a big fan of a chili! I...
I'm very much inclined to agree with you. There are lots of world cuisines that suit vegetarianism quite well - I'll have a peak around for some decent Mexican stuff. I'm a big fan of a chili!
I love Indian food, and make (if I say so myself) a banging saag paneer curry. It's a little faffy, particularly if I wanna make naans from scratch as well. But very well worth it.
Since I started cutting back on meat I’ve learned that burritos are nearly the same without any meat - as long as you’ve got some good cheese and guac in there.
Since I started cutting back on meat I’ve learned that burritos are nearly the same without any meat - as long as you’ve got some good cheese and guac in there.
Sadly eating less meat doesn't have much of a CO2 impact. I say this as someone that has reduced his meat consumption significantly to limit my carbon emissions. On average my meat intake comes...
Sadly eating less meat doesn't have much of a CO2 impact. I say this as someone that has reduced his meat consumption significantly to limit my carbon emissions. On average my meat intake comes down to a few ounces of fish or chicken per week. But I know it's really just a desperate attempt to do something, anything, to reduce my impact. The amount of CO2 reduction from a movement towards eating less meat is minuscule and will never be consequential in a world with emissions from fossil fuels.
To be honest it's more of a signaling thing. It lets people know I take climate change so seriously I changed my diet because of it. But simply by living in a developed nation we're all complicit in climate change.
It's multiple tons of carbon per year, it's not nothing. If you're in Europe, it can be almost 40% of your carbon footprint, and even in the US it's still as much as a fifth. While it's not a...
It's multiple tons of carbon per year, it's not nothing. If you're in Europe, it can be almost 40% of your carbon footprint, and even in the US it's still as much as a fifth. While it's not a majority of emissions for many people, carbon emissions are death by a million cuts, and animal agriculture is pretty far up there. It's a lot worse than the entire airline and maritime shipping industries combined, for instance, and people fret about those to no end.
Like I said - I'm still cutting back quite a lot. With things as complicated as this the math on CO2 impact can flip flop between wildly different values as we discover and reconsider...
Like I said - I'm still cutting back quite a lot. With things as complicated as this the math on CO2 impact can flip flop between wildly different values as we discover and reconsider interconnected aspects of our economy. People who take that uncertainty and throw up their hands to say it can't be determined so they'll just do as they please don't care about solving the greatest problem facing our species. Eating almost no meat (or better yet, none at all) is definitely the right thing to do.
I'm just pessimistic in my calculation of how much it's actually doing. Neither I nor anyone else should pat themselves on the back for just cutting back on meat. We need to push legislators to adopt nuclear power. If possible we should install solar panels. Most importantly we need to push for a broad economic restructuring to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.
Oh yeah, I totally agree with you, I just think you were being a little too down on the impacts of a plant based diet. It's not sufficient, but it's still very substantial, and about the biggest...
Oh yeah, I totally agree with you, I just think you were being a little too down on the impacts of a plant based diet. It's not sufficient, but it's still very substantial, and about the biggest thing an individual can do.
That's probably cutting out as many airplane flights as possible. If you don't ever fly then short of getting significantly involved in local power production you might not have agency to do much....
and about the biggest thing an individual can do.
That's probably cutting out as many airplane flights as possible. If you don't ever fly then short of getting significantly involved in local power production you might not have agency to do much.
What I'm trying to point out is the difference between "biggest thing an individual can do" and what will actually be consequential, even at scale.
I’ve been a vegetarian for abour half my life now, and I wholeheartedly agree. I’d much rather have real food than kickoffs, although the latter are ok in small amounts. I’m still curious about...
I’ve been a vegetarian for abour half my life now, and I wholeheartedly agree. I’d much rather have real food than kickoffs, although the latter are ok in small amounts. I’m still curious about lab grown meat the most.
As am I. I'd be very curious to try it. And to be fair, the veggie alternatives (for some things) have improved a whole bunch over the last few years. My partner works for a company that...
I’m still curious about lab grown meat the most.
As am I. I'd be very curious to try it. And to be fair, the veggie alternatives (for some things) have improved a whole bunch over the last few years. My partner works for a company that specialises in the various protein and starch powders used for making those kinds of substitute, and they're always bringing home bits and bobs to try.
So as a follow up question for you (and @autumn and @rogue_cricket), do you have one or two recipes that became a "staple" for you to make during your time in "Veganuary" or lifetime as a...
So as a follow up question for you (and @autumn and @rogue_cricket), do you have one or two recipes that became a "staple" for you to make during your time in "Veganuary" or lifetime as a Vegetarian?
I've never particularly been interested in Tofu, but rogue_cricket's comment has at least opened a passing interest again. May turn out to be similar to how I used to despise mushrooms and now tolerate (to slightly enjoy!) them in most dishes where they're incorporated.
One staple I keep coming back to is a red lentil coconut tomato curry (or soup). I like it because it's tasty, filling, and easy to prepare. Most of the ingredients are either staples that I have...
One staple I keep coming back to is a red lentil coconut tomato curry (or soup). I like it because it's tasty, filling, and easy to prepare. Most of the ingredients are either staples that I have in my kitchen anyway or stuff that will keep for a long time too - I always have your standard garlic/onion and ginger, plus some kind of curry powder, and the canned tomatoes and coconut milk and lentils keep basically indefinitely in a pantry.
I've used this recipe from Bon Appetit as well as this recipe from Feed Me Phoebe but honestly there's tons of variations online. They'll call for slightly different spices or amounts of onion, ginger, etc., but it's the same principle in all of them: cook onion and garlic in oil; add ginger, canned tomato, spice and wait for a bit; add coconut milk and red lentils and water and wait a bit more. Garnish with something green or wilt spinach into it and enjoy!
At this point I've made it so much I can wing it. I like to make mine with the added spinach, whatever fresh spicy peppers I have around (but red pepper flakes work OK in a pinch), and extra ginger.
As for tofu, dish that really brought me around to it was a noodle dish with a crispy tofu. The dish itself was just OK, but the preparation of the firm tofu involved frying it in oil and leaving it undisturbed in the pan for 4-5 minutes on medium heat before doing anything else with it, so one side of the tofu was extra crunchy. I do this all the time now before adding tofu to stir-fry or noodles or whatever.
With a big exception to crispy fried tofu, I'm not super interested into it either. Black beans and peanuts are my favorite sources of plant protein. They can be worked into a lot of dishes.
With a big exception to crispy fried tofu, I'm not super interested into it either. Black beans and peanuts are my favorite sources of plant protein. They can be worked into a lot of dishes.
I love eggs and cheese, and they go well together. My typical lunch is fried egg on an English muffin with a slice of cheese, some Tofutti, and yum yum sauce. It’s a weird combo, but I can’t get...
I love eggs and cheese, and they go well together. My typical lunch is fried egg on an English muffin with a slice of cheese, some Tofutti, and yum yum sauce. It’s a weird combo, but I can’t get enough of it.
I also recently put together an oatmeal recipe that I like:
1/2 cup instant oats
1/2 cup oat milk
1 tbsp powdered peanut butter
1/2 tsp cocoa powder
spoonful of honey
Combine dry ingredients and milk, heat for 60 seconds, add the honey, and enjoy! The consistency is not too watery but also not too sticky.
I don’t actually like veggies that much, which is something people get amusement from haha. I am not a “healthy” vegetarian by any means.
Someone put in a lot of effort to separate those oats from that milk, and there you go putting them right back together! Anyway I also started doing basically that same recipe for breakfast...
Someone put in a lot of effort to separate those oats from that milk, and there you go putting them right back together!
Anyway I also started doing basically that same recipe for breakfast lately, but overnight (using old fashioned oats instead of instant) and served cold instead of on-demand and served hot. Tastes great, uses a ton of healthy grains, easy to whip up, keeps forever. Loving oats.
This mushroom Wellington from the BBC is very good, we just did it without the blue cheese. Tried it with vegan cream cheese and it was decent enough. Had it again after January with the proper...
This mushroom Wellington from the BBC is very good, we just did it without the blue cheese. Tried it with vegan cream cheese and it was decent enough. Had it again after January with the proper cheese and it's the bomb! I would recommend at least quadrupling the amount of garlic involved though.
Both of those are slightly involved though, not the sort of quick thing you can throw together in a few minutes. Much easier if you've a second person to assist.
I never really got into tofu because I could never make it in a way that tasted good, but I have found that soft tofu added to tomato based sauces tends to just dissipate into the sauce, acting...
I never really got into tofu because I could never make it in a way that tasted good, but I have found that soft tofu added to tomato based sauces tends to just dissipate into the sauce, acting almost like a thickening agent without changing the flavor. I did that a lot during the time I was trying to go vegan.
I'd recommend checking out some Chinese vegetarian restaurants if you have any in your area. India might have better tasting dishes, but the Chinese ones are simpler and easier to prepare while...
I'd recommend checking out some Chinese vegetarian restaurants if you have any in your area. India might have better tasting dishes, but the Chinese ones are simpler and easier to prepare while still tasting delicious. You might often find them using some form of artificial meat, but generally speaking it's the low-tech kind that's not fooling anyone and doesn't actually taste like meat by itself.
We've actually found a sublime vegan Chinese in our city, and it's really good. I think it's seitan that they use, but whatever it is, it's highly convincing. Their crispy "duck" pancakes are...
We've actually found a sublime vegan Chinese in our city, and it's really good. I think it's seitan that they use, but whatever it is, it's highly convincing. Their crispy "duck" pancakes are almost indistinguishable from the real thing!
Discovered this channel today through this short (41 seconds long, and funny enough to make me look further). I find the dry humor entertaining (definitely my kind of humor), I think his shtick...
Discovered this channel today through this short (41 seconds long, and funny enough to make me look further).
I find the dry humor entertaining (definitely my kind of humor), I think his shtick works well for his delivery. Apart from that he seems to take a less-nonsense approach to the actual video content. It's not as "cinematic" as shots coming from channels like Alex, Josh W, or James Hoffman, mostly because fancy shots of food aren't the main point. (Granted, I've only watched three videos so far. This might not be the case for the overall channel)
He takes a utilitarian approach to the advice he gives out, not buying into hype or the community surrounding certain aspects of cooking like Coffee or Cast Iron (and this is coming from someone who's a rather large James Hoffman fan :D)
As for the actual content of this specific video, he did make me think about my daily vegetable intake which lead me to realize it's been seriously lacking as of late. I'll see if I can plan out some plant forward meals for the next week or so to find a couple recipes that are keepers.
One of the worst things I found about Veganuary was that a lot of the meals are trying to replicate meat or animal products in some way, and it's just not that good. I don't care how you cook it, cauliflower does not and never will trick me into thinking I'm eating chicken wings. Vegan mac-n-cheese was... OK, but you can tell it's using plant milk as a base. Quorn has come a long way in the last 10 years, but you can't beat the
consistencymouthfeel of a really truly sausage. Vegan and vegetarian food is (in my humble opinion) at its finest when it's not trying to trick you into thinking you're not eating plants, but straight up owning the fact that it contains no animal products.All that being said, I think that "plant forward meals" is a really great way to approach reducing one's meat intake (an easy thing we can all do to reduce our impact on the climate). Relegating meat and animal products to a smaller part of the meal, as a flavour enhancer for example, is such a good idea. The biggest hurdles to this are always a) finding meals that you actually enjoy, and b) that are straightforward enough to make on autopilot without needing a recipe every time. The problem I have is that all of my autopilot meals are meaty/dairy-y, and I've yet to find simple, memorable, and delicious plant-based options.
I've been vegetarian for a few years now, and while I do sometimes go for the substitute (today for lunch I had Mr. Noodles and cut up a veggie dog into it, so, you know) I agree with you that it's generally best on its own terms.
For brainless staple meals, I think that (American-Mexican? Mexican? I don't know, I'm Canadian) stuff like taco, chili, burritos - those do quite well with just a replacing the meat with beans and adding a bit more fat if necessary. Similar principle for stir-fry; just use tofu and add a bit extra of something for savoriness, such as MSG or sesame oil or mushrooms.
(Tofu is one of those things that has grown on me ... a lot of people say it has a neutral taste and just soaks whatever you put into it, which is mostly true, but I also think I've eaten enough of it to be able to tell good tofu from bad tofu. Good fresh tofu has a kind of pleasant taste on its own IMO! It's actually often incorporated into non-vegetarian dishes in Asian cooking, so it's not seen as just a meat substitute or vegetarian thing the way people seem to perceive it in the west. Tofu doesn't have to be a concession or settled for!)
Indian cuisine is also very often vegetarian and while making from scratch can be tricky, nobody's gonna judge you if you just grab a jar of sauce or a pre-mixed spice blend or some pre-made curry paste. Lazy dinner for me is sometimes just dumping a jar of curry sauce onto some chickpeas and spinach, cooking it, and eating it over rice.
I'm very much inclined to agree with you. There are lots of world cuisines that suit vegetarianism quite well - I'll have a peak around for some decent Mexican stuff. I'm a big fan of a chili!
I love Indian food, and make (if I say so myself) a banging saag paneer curry. It's a little faffy, particularly if I wanna make naans from scratch as well. But very well worth it.
Since I started cutting back on meat I’ve learned that burritos are nearly the same without any meat - as long as you’ve got some good cheese and guac in there.
Good call. I've come to love a good fried mushroom and pepper filling in a burrito :D
Sadly eating less meat doesn't have much of a CO2 impact. I say this as someone that has reduced his meat consumption significantly to limit my carbon emissions. On average my meat intake comes down to a few ounces of fish or chicken per week. But I know it's really just a desperate attempt to do something, anything, to reduce my impact. The amount of CO2 reduction from a movement towards eating less meat is minuscule and will never be consequential in a world with emissions from fossil fuels.
To be honest it's more of a signaling thing. It lets people know I take climate change so seriously I changed my diet because of it. But simply by living in a developed nation we're all complicit in climate change.
It's multiple tons of carbon per year, it's not nothing. If you're in Europe, it can be almost 40% of your carbon footprint, and even in the US it's still as much as a fifth. While it's not a majority of emissions for many people, carbon emissions are death by a million cuts, and animal agriculture is pretty far up there. It's a lot worse than the entire airline and maritime shipping industries combined, for instance, and people fret about those to no end.
Like I said - I'm still cutting back quite a lot. With things as complicated as this the math on CO2 impact can flip flop between wildly different values as we discover and reconsider interconnected aspects of our economy. People who take that uncertainty and throw up their hands to say it can't be determined so they'll just do as they please don't care about solving the greatest problem facing our species. Eating almost no meat (or better yet, none at all) is definitely the right thing to do.
I'm just pessimistic in my calculation of how much it's actually doing. Neither I nor anyone else should pat themselves on the back for just cutting back on meat. We need to push legislators to adopt nuclear power. If possible we should install solar panels. Most importantly we need to push for a broad economic restructuring to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels.
Oh yeah, I totally agree with you, I just think you were being a little too down on the impacts of a plant based diet. It's not sufficient, but it's still very substantial, and about the biggest thing an individual can do.
That's probably cutting out as many airplane flights as possible. If you don't ever fly then short of getting significantly involved in local power production you might not have agency to do much.
What I'm trying to point out is the difference between "biggest thing an individual can do" and what will actually be consequential, even at scale.
I’ve been a vegetarian for abour half my life now, and I wholeheartedly agree. I’d much rather have real food than kickoffs, although the latter are ok in small amounts. I’m still curious about lab grown meat the most.
As am I. I'd be very curious to try it. And to be fair, the veggie alternatives (for some things) have improved a whole bunch over the last few years. My partner works for a company that specialises in the various protein and starch powders used for making those kinds of substitute, and they're always bringing home bits and bobs to try.
So as a follow up question for you (and @autumn and @rogue_cricket), do you have one or two recipes that became a "staple" for you to make during your time in "Veganuary" or lifetime as a Vegetarian?
I've never particularly been interested in Tofu, but rogue_cricket's comment has at least opened a passing interest again. May turn out to be similar to how I used to despise mushrooms and now tolerate (to slightly enjoy!) them in most dishes where they're incorporated.
One staple I keep coming back to is a red lentil coconut tomato curry (or soup). I like it because it's tasty, filling, and easy to prepare. Most of the ingredients are either staples that I have in my kitchen anyway or stuff that will keep for a long time too - I always have your standard garlic/onion and ginger, plus some kind of curry powder, and the canned tomatoes and coconut milk and lentils keep basically indefinitely in a pantry.
I've used this recipe from Bon Appetit as well as this recipe from Feed Me Phoebe but honestly there's tons of variations online. They'll call for slightly different spices or amounts of onion, ginger, etc., but it's the same principle in all of them: cook onion and garlic in oil; add ginger, canned tomato, spice and wait for a bit; add coconut milk and red lentils and water and wait a bit more. Garnish with something green or wilt spinach into it and enjoy!
At this point I've made it so much I can wing it. I like to make mine with the added spinach, whatever fresh spicy peppers I have around (but red pepper flakes work OK in a pinch), and extra ginger.
As for tofu, dish that really brought me around to it was a noodle dish with a crispy tofu. The dish itself was just OK, but the preparation of the firm tofu involved frying it in oil and leaving it undisturbed in the pan for 4-5 minutes on medium heat before doing anything else with it, so one side of the tofu was extra crunchy. I do this all the time now before adding tofu to stir-fry or noodles or whatever.
With a big exception to crispy fried tofu, I'm not super interested into it either. Black beans and peanuts are my favorite sources of plant protein. They can be worked into a lot of dishes.
I love eggs and cheese, and they go well together. My typical lunch is fried egg on an English muffin with a slice of cheese, some Tofutti, and yum yum sauce. It’s a weird combo, but I can’t get enough of it.
I also recently put together an oatmeal recipe that I like:
Combine dry ingredients and milk, heat for 60 seconds, add the honey, and enjoy! The consistency is not too watery but also not too sticky.
I don’t actually like veggies that much, which is something people get amusement from haha. I am not a “healthy” vegetarian by any means.
Someone put in a lot of effort to separate those oats from that milk, and there you go putting them right back together!
Anyway I also started doing basically that same recipe for breakfast lately, but overnight (using old fashioned oats instead of instant) and served cold instead of on-demand and served hot. Tastes great, uses a ton of healthy grains, easy to whip up, keeps forever. Loving oats.
This mushroom Wellington from the BBC is very good, we just did it without the blue cheese. Tried it with vegan cream cheese and it was decent enough. Had it again after January with the proper cheese and it's the bomb! I would recommend at least quadrupling the amount of garlic involved though.
This tofu katsu curry is also very good.
Both of those are slightly involved though, not the sort of quick thing you can throw together in a few minutes. Much easier if you've a second person to assist.
I never really got into tofu because I could never make it in a way that tasted good, but I have found that soft tofu added to tomato based sauces tends to just dissipate into the sauce, acting almost like a thickening agent without changing the flavor. I did that a lot during the time I was trying to go vegan.
I'd recommend checking out some Chinese vegetarian restaurants if you have any in your area. India might have better tasting dishes, but the Chinese ones are simpler and easier to prepare while still tasting delicious. You might often find them using some form of artificial meat, but generally speaking it's the low-tech kind that's not fooling anyone and doesn't actually taste like meat by itself.
We've actually found a sublime vegan Chinese in our city, and it's really good. I think it's seitan that they use, but whatever it is, it's highly convincing. Their crispy "duck" pancakes are almost indistinguishable from the real thing!
Discovered this channel today through this short (41 seconds long, and funny enough to make me look further).
I find the dry humor entertaining (definitely my kind of humor), I think his shtick works well for his delivery. Apart from that he seems to take a less-nonsense approach to the actual video content. It's not as "cinematic" as shots coming from channels like Alex, Josh W, or James Hoffman, mostly because fancy shots of food aren't the main point. (Granted, I've only watched three videos so far. This might not be the case for the overall channel)
He takes a utilitarian approach to the advice he gives out, not buying into hype or the community surrounding certain aspects of cooking like Coffee or Cast Iron (and this is coming from someone who's a rather large James Hoffman fan :D)
As for the actual content of this specific video, he did make me think about my daily vegetable intake which lead me to realize it's been seriously lacking as of late. I'll see if I can plan out some plant forward meals for the next week or so to find a couple recipes that are keepers.
Thanks for suggesting Internet Shaquille. I immediately subscribed because the humor and style fit in with my aesthetic.