Veganism

Vegan.

Even for me, the idea of being vegan was outlandish. You can't invite them around for lunch, you don't know what to eat in front of them. They are difficult.

It still got me though. Now I've got to try and deal with it.

25.7.00

Today was my second day at being Vegan. I had a walk around Marks and Spencers (I don't normally shop there, but I was looking for worcestershire source without anchovys) and it started to sink in how little provision in ready prepared stuff there is. Nothing even in the special vegetarian shelves where vegan. No worcestershire source at all, either.

I went over to a different Hollond and Barretts than yesterday to see if they had some. No luck there, but I spotted the Quorn and Linda McCartney stuff that is also non-vegan. Feels like vegans end up being really good cooks.

Next door was GNC, and they had a lot more than I expected ! I found some source, and also loads of really yummy looking vegan icecream, soy cheeses and cookies. I just picked up some yofu yogurts though, I'll go back for icecream sometime :-)

I was collecting ingredients to make Mushroom Stoganoff today. It didn't turn out very well though. The tofu didn't turn into yogurt consistency, just went crumbly. The flour didn't seem to do the thickening thing, and I'm still not sure what a kitchen bouqet is. My mum thinks its a few spices wrapped together with some string and dropped in. This was my worst failure at cooking something yet, sadly.

When I was talking on the phone to Mum about why I wanted to know what a bouqet was, I told her I wasn't eating dairy anymore and she worried about calcium. Apparently I was born with a calcium deficiency so I'm prone to lacking it. After reading a few web pages about the issue though I'm pretty sure I'll be ok. (see this and this.) Turns out Sesame seeds are good for calcium, and I was munching a Grape Juice with Sultanas Halva while I was on the phone. It's made out of sesame seeds, which was instantly reassuring.

I'm disappointed about how dinner turned out, so I hope I do better next time. I'm going to buy some Vegan cook books, rather than rely on VegWeb.

Tomorrow I'll do the easy frying-thing. I've some tofu to use, and loads of mushrooms, peppers that need eating. Some green runner been things... I bought some black kidney beans, they need 8 hours to soak though. I wonder if I can fry them ?

I need to find out what "saute" means though. I thought it was fry, but recipes call for the result to be (with onions at least) soft and limp. When I fry onions, they go crispy.

26.07.00

Today I wasn't up in time for breakfast, so I just had lunch. I bought some pitta breads (white this time) and a tomato. I had Cheatin' Chicken bites, tomato, soy cheese slices, fried mushrooms and microwaved broccoli in them.

They were quite nice, but I'm disappointed I ended up using the bites instead of thinking of something else.

Dinner didn't go too well again. I fried some tofu chunks with cummin seeds and lots of five spice powder (trying to create a crunchy coating for the tofu). I grilled some pepper strips, boiled some dirty looking (so presumably healthy :-) ) rice and fried some more broccoli in ginger. Too much ginger, turns out.

Tofu ended up being too burntish and over flavoured, with the middle of the chunks having no substance. The broccoli didn't turn out very tasty either. I just mixed it all together and ate it.

After lunch I put soya milk (calcium fortified, non-sweetened) and chocolate flavour non-diary icecream in a blender with loads of strawberries. It wasn't a huge sucess either. Maybe it needed much more icecream and less milk. I'll try with vanilla flavour icecream next time too.

The soya milk is nice mixed with half pineapple juice though; but it coats the inside of the glass quickly.

28.07.00

Dinner kind of failed again. It's not going to well ;-) I've ordered some stuff from www.veganstore.co.uk though, which might make it easier to cook something nice. I've not been following recipes either, maybe I should.

I tried to do something with cous-cous. So I had grilled red pepper strips (which are nice) and a bit of microwaved broccoli with 8 or 9 onion rings (grilled) and a huge amount of cous-cous. I put lemon juice in the cous-cous, and then also when it'd done it looked a bit bland so I mixed in some (egg-free) mayonnaise and some tomato puree concentrate.

I ate about a quarter, then didn't really fancy the rest so I put some cling film on. I'll have it for lunch tomorrow...

Ate chocolate icecream with sweet chocolate cookies broken up and added for supper though; that was nice.

I'm really starting to like Hummus too.

I bought a 7.99 UKP discount card for GNC, which gives me 20% off. Not bad, I don't think. I'll save the 8 quid pretty soon. While I was there I bought some (3 cartons) soy milk. In three different varieties ;-) I've started drinking at least a pint of half-soy milk (calcium fortified) half fruit juice a day.

26.08.00

Wow, almost a month. Ok, actually a month.

I'm getting better at food, anyway. I've discovered peppers are great, maybe even better than mushrooms. If you cut up some red, yellow and sweet baby orange peppers, with some carrot slices (longwaysish) and broccoli and put them all in a bowl with a tiny bit of water at the bottom, put a lid on and microwave them for 10 minutes they are gorgeous. Full of juice and even the broccoli tastes yummy. Put them all in a few pitta breads with some of those chickpea balls (flofal or something ?). Or on toast, or just like they are :-)

I've some red cabbage and parsnips in the fridge, but I've no idea how to cook them yet.

I've still lots of dried beans, as they take so long to soak. I've packets of chickpeas, black eye beans, black kidney beans and several other varieties. And a packet of `wild rice'. I'm not sure what makes it wild, other than it's black in colour and takes 10 hours soaking.

Plamil Mint chocolate is nice.