Vegan technique

Jude said:

Dee Randall said:

I enjoyed your explanation. It is a mystery to me, too, why the word,
"vegetarian" gets so much rise. There are other subjects like that that get
people a-goin'.
Dee Dee

Well, maybe they'll like my new label better. How do you like the ring
of Lenten Friday Vegetarian? =)

That's only correct if you eat fish only on fridays during Lent, in
lieu of meats.

Moron.

-L.

David Hare-Scott said:

I posted this on a vegan NG but the activity was so low I didn't get much
back.

I like to to serve good food that is according to the tastes and preferences
of my guests.

This reminds me of a story. When my son became vegan we tried hard to scrutinize the
labels of foods for non-vegan ingredients. I got so obsessed with looking for dairy
products especially that at Thanksgiving I told my wife in the grocery store, we can't get
the Butterball turkey because it's got butter in it...she looked at me like I'd just done
something really dumb (hadn't I?) and said, "Do you think the turkey is vegan?"

I then realized just how focused on dairy products I'd become. It remains a good laugh
every now and then.

Tofurky from then on. (But not for me.)

--
Rick R
[email hidden]
replace default with com to email

"Bubba" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

My preference and taste is for MEAT (like 90% of the people out there).
Would you take that into account?

Certainly, why not?

David

"Julia Altshuler" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:8-6dnR_mEolsnIvZRVn->

Quoted message said:

The quick answer to your question is tofu. The medium-size answer to
your question is _Natural Foods Cookbook: Vegetarian Dairy-Free Cuisine_
by Mary Estella. The long answer to your question is that you need
whole new recipes for familiar dishes; no single substitution or set of
rules is going to do it.

For sauces, you can usually get away with throwing a chunk of tofu in
the blender along with the other ingredients. You get the emulsion and
texture. These sauces aren't perfect at high temps, but they're pretty
good.

For places where you normally use egg foams, you might try heating agar
in fruit juices, cooling until it hardens, then blending the whole thing
to incorporate air.

Tofu sometimes can work instead of eggs in cakes. Soymilk instead of
dairy milk.

For the vegetable patties, I suggest beans.

--Lia

Thankyou for the thoughtful reply [before the floodgates opened :-) ]
I will investigate tofu and soy milk.

David

"Mark Thorson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

David Hare-Scott said:

Eggs are useful in binding foods as the protein coalgulates
on cooking. For example vegetable patties, rissoles and slices
are going to be harder to keep cohesive with no eggs.

Similarly eggs act as an emulsifying agent allowing one
to bind oily and watery components together in sauces and
dressings (with or without cooking).

Eggs have these properties because they contain lecithin.
At Whole Foods or health-food stores, you can buy vegan
soy lecithin, which can substitute for eggs. It is
available in both solid and liquid form.

Thanks I will check it out.

David

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
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Quoted message said:

David Hare-Scott said:

I like to to serve good food that is according to the tastes and

preferences

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

of my guests. If I am to cook vegetarian food without eggs I have some
problems with technique. This is probably due to my lack of experience

in

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

vegetarian cooking so I am asking the more experienced for help.

General advice: don't try and "convert" too many things to being
vegan. Simply cook things that are vegan in the first place. Indian
cooking in general is a great place to start - most of it is vegatarian
and near vegan. Replacing ghee with vegan fats goes a long way...

Good thinking

David

"notbob" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Jude said:

I'm a
vegetarian, with the exception of eating some seafood. (I've got a new
name for it. I'm a Lenten Friday Vegetarian. No meat, but fish okay.)

Yeah, I'm vegetarian, too. ...except for fish, too.

Oh... and chicken, sometimes chicken. Well, maybe some beef, now and
then ...n' pork. Yeah, pork. But, hardly ever yak. I draw the line
at kangaroo and wombat. But yeah ...I'm a vegetarian. :\

nb

Whatfor you not like roo? This is placental mammal bigotry if ever I saw it
:-)

Seriously, have you ever tried it?

David

"David Hare-Scott" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

David Hare-Scott said:

I like to to serve good food that is according to the tastes and

preferences

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

of my guests. If I am to cook vegetarian food without eggs I have some
problems with technique. This is probably due to my lack of experience

in

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

vegetarian cooking so I am asking the more experienced for help.

General advice: don't try and "convert" too many things to being
vegan. Simply cook things that are vegan in the first place. Indian
cooking in general is a great place to start - most of it is vegatarian
and near vegan. Replacing ghee with vegan fats goes a long way...

In 1994-5 DH and I cooked probably 90% Indian. He lost maybe from 220 to
185-190 during that time and I lost about 20 pounds. We started (without
trying) going to bed earlier and getting up every morning about 6 a.m. and
feeling alert. We have got away from cooking Indian now because DH at heart
is a meat-eater, but never objects to an Indian meal or Indian food.

He never liked ghee, but now since he's discovered how much he likes
(Spectrum Organic) coconut oil, that would not have been a problem then or
now.
Good luck,
Dee Dee

David Hare-Scott said:

I posted this on a vegan NG but the activity was so low I didn't get much
back.

If you're at all interested, I can point you to some vegan listservs
with lots of traffic.

Quoted message said:

I like to to serve good food that is according to the tastes and preferences
of my guests. If I am to cook vegetarian food without eggs I have some
problems with technique. This is probably due to my lack of experience in
vegetarian cooking so I am asking the more experienced for help.

It can take time to adjust to new ingredients to cook with, but I
admire your willingness to give it a shot for your guests. Ours is
not a vegan house, but I do always try to offer some vegan options (or
gluten-free options) if I think people for whom it's an issue will be
there.

Quoted message said:

Eggs are useful in binding foods as the protein coalgulates on cooking. For
example vegetable patties, rissoles and slices are going to be harder to
keep cohesive with no eggs.

I don't have much trouble with that. If you want, I can post some
recipes, but there are tons on the web, too. My very favorite vegan
"meatloaf" is a good example:
http://www.fatfreevegan.com/Meat_subs/loaf.shtml

Quoted message said:

Similarly eggs act as an emulsifying agent allowing one to bind oily and
watery components together in sauces and dressings (with or without
cooking). Dairy products can also bind sauces but such are also eschewed by
vegans.

Lecithin's a good choice, or I find that salad dressing does a fair
job of combining with vigorous whisking or shaking, or the addition of
a little bit of agar. A real godsend for me (and that's saying a lot,
as I'm a vegan) is Vegenaise, the first ever vegan mayo that doesn't
taste to me like bad Miracle Whip:
http://followyourheart.com/vegenaise.php

Quoted message said:

You can bind sauces in some cases using vegetable purees and with starches
but these rather limit your scope and will add flavours that may not be
desired in all situations.

Depends on the sauce. I recommend that you try any of Joanne
Stepaniak's cookbooks, especially the Uncheese series. (The Uncheese
Cookbook and the Ultimate Uncheese Cookbook). They're great.

Quoted message said:

Egg foams are also the basis of a number classes of foods, many (but not
all) are desserts and treats. One can give up such things altogether in the
name of health but even those who take great care with their diet may want
to have a small indulgence sometimes on special days.

Lots and lots of vegan desserts out there. I made a spice cake that
was divine, without any animal products at all:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.food.cooking/msg/b00440040a24cdc6

Quoted message said:

Can I do these sorts of things without eggs or dairy (if so how) or does
cooking vegan mean certain techniques, and hence certain classes of foods,
are not possible? .

Vegan cooking gets better and better (and more and more sophisticated)
as time goes on. When I first became a vegetarian 25 years ago,
nearly everything marketed to vegetarians was lacto-ovo and tasted
like [censored], and there were maybe two vegan cookbooks on the market
(both by the Seventh-day Adventists, and both heavily leaning on soy).
Nowadays, there's everything from diner food to gourmet vegan
restaurants. It's all possible.

serene
--
http://www.reluctantvegan.com

Julia Altshuler said:

For sauces, you can usually get away with throwing a chunk of tofu in
the blender along with the other ingredients. You get the emulsion and
texture. These sauces aren't perfect at high temps, but they're pretty
good.

As a datapoint, I really hate the beany taste tofu gives to sauces, so
I stick with cream sauces made with a standard roux and some liquid
(veggie stock, non-dairy milk, etc.) instead.

serene

Michael \'Dog3\' Lonergan said:

"David Hare-Scott" <[email hidden]> hitched up their panties and
posted news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

I posted this on a vegan NG but the activity was so low I didn't get
much back.

I really wish I could help you out but I can't. I'm a carnivore... BIG
TIME carnivore.

I doubt that. Carnivores are rarer than vegans, and I *know* you eat
some non-meat foods.

Quoted message said:

Mostly in this ng we discuss pork, beef, chicken etc. We
also discuss a lot of other things but vegetarian dishes don't come up that
often. Sorry.

Maybe you're not paying attention, sweetie. Heather and I, among
others, talk about vegetarian stuff a lot, and look at the canning
threads and salsa threads and so on -- a lot of foods you are used to
happen to be vegan, you just don't notice it because you're used to
it.

serene

serene said:

Michael \'Dog3\' Lonergan said:

"David Hare-Scott" <[email hidden]> hitched up their panties and
posted news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

I posted this on a vegan NG but the activity was so low I didn't get
much back.

I really wish I could help you out but I can't. I'm a carnivore... BIG
TIME carnivore.

I doubt that. Carnivores are rarer than vegans, and I *know* you eat
some non-meat foods.

Quoted message said:

Mostly in this ng we discuss pork, beef, chicken etc. We
also discuss a lot of other things but vegetarian dishes don't come up that
often. Sorry.

Maybe you're not paying attention, sweetie. Heather and I, among
others, talk about vegetarian stuff a lot, and look at the canning
threads and salsa threads and so on -- a lot of foods you are used to
happen to be vegan, you just don't notice it because you're used to
it.

serene

I might have mentioned this before but it still amuses me.
I had a party at my house this summer with tons of little finger foods. Most
of my friends are vegetarian and so most of the food was made without meat. I
was giving somebody a quick rundown of the food "everything but 'x' and 'y' is
vegetarian and 'p' 'q' and 'r' are completely vegan"

Another friend, not a vegetarian and truly not so bright said "so the only
thing I can eat is 'x' and 'y'???"

Yeah, sorry I didn't throw huge chunks of meat into the guacamole or stuffed
strawberries.

--
..:Heather:.
www.velvet-c.com
Step off, beyotches, I'm the roflpimp!

On Fri, 17 Mar 2006 14:19:52 GMT, The Bubbo <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

r friend, not a vegetarian and truly not so bright said "so the only
thing I can eat is 'x' and 'y'???"

Yeah, sorry I didn't throw huge chunks of meat into the guacamole or stuffed
strawberries.

Oh, some people are just too much.

serene, chortling