Vegetarian Chatter #2

[luna moth]

I love Planet Parenthood!

here goes:

1/2 cup quinoa, soaked then boiled in 3/4 cup water
While it's still hot, add 3-4 cubes frozen spinach.
1 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp tomato paste
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground oregano
1/2 tsp ground fennel seed
1/2 tsp sweet paprika
salt and pepper

3 x frozen puff pastry sheets, each cut into 4 squares. Put an egg sized dollop of quinoa mix on each pastry square and spread it out sausage style across the middle. Fold the two sides over, and place on baking tray.
Bake at 210 for about 25 minutes - there was a massive storm coming when we did it, so I didn't really notice the time as we were running around closing windows and moving cars

[luna moth]

What's everyone's plans for Christmas? I'm just doing a menu now - it seems to be 50% dessert I've just got a few family members coming, but they're staying here, so they can do the hard work while I sit on the couch and feed and bark orders at them all.

[meow]

Thanks for the sausage roll recipe!

We're going to my SILs place for xmas lunch. She's a decent cook and used to be vego (I never understand how people go back to eating animals??) so she always makes us good food I always make a decadant summer fruit salad on xmas eve for breakfast the next day too.

[*Ash*]

Hi! We are having lunch with my parents- so it will be a totally vegan Xmas! I won't have to watch people eating turkeys or prawns. And more importantly, my children won't have to watch it. So far we have:
Nutroast with lemon and garlic stuffing
baked vegie salad
garden salad
trifle- sponge cake, raspberry jelly (gelatine free), fruit and soy cream.
Plum pudding with soy cream/ soy icecream
dark choc rocky road.
So, we are about 50% dessert too!
Fruit salad for brekkie sounds like a good way to start the day meow, and I totally agree- I can't understand why someone would start to eat animals again either. How can you forget or deny all the knowledge you have about suffering?

[luna moth]

I think we're doing:

Baked BBQ tofu
Focaccia
Panzanella with chickpeas
Pumpkin and rocket bean salad
Baked mushrooms
Grilled asparagus

Trifle (snap!)
Peppermint choc ripple cake
Butterscotch fruit cake

Boozy woozy Kahlua rum balls

It's my sister's first vegetarian Christmas - She might bring something non-vegan, but unlikely. So hopefully that's not all too hard. Will get started tomorrow, and it should be good.

Fruit salad is a lovely idea for Chrissy breakfast! How do you make it decadent?

[*Ash*]

Yum, I am loving the sound of your lunch Audax! With the Kahlua rum balls, do you use Kahlua instead of rum, or both?
One day, I will have to get your Peppermint choc ripple cake recipe. You make them into cupcakes too, don't you?

I hope your gorgeous girl has a lovely first Xmas, and I hope you enjoy sitting on the couch feeding and snuggling her, while others do the hard work. And I hope your sister enjoys her first vego Xmas.

[meow]

Fruit salad is a lovely idea for Chrissy breakfast! How do you make it decadent?

Just by spending a lot of money and buying all the 'just in season' stones fruits etc.

Your lunches sound wonderful! I've never had a fully veggie, special xmas lunch as we're always surrounded by family and ham, chicken etc etc. Last year we were on our own in NZ so we made our own lunch- but cooking in the campervan it was pretty basic!

[Peach*]

Holey Moley, look at all the excitement Ive been missing out on! Firstly OMG


Huge congratulations Audax!!!!!!!!!
Oh My goodness I am so excited for you! I cant believe you have your little Spawn finally! YIPPEEEEEE! And a little girl too, Im so happy for you

How is everyone else going? Ash, how are you? Can you please post your nut roast recipe? I made one for the first time last week and it was so awful I threw most of it out and I NEVER do that with a meal. Also just wondering, when you weaned your Bubs did you put them onto extra soy milk or just more food? DD is only having 1-1 1/2 boob feeds a day now and Im concerned about her diet(I have no idea why I second guess myself, she's monstrous)

Cherished, how are you gorgeous lady? how is your little man? WHat have you been getting up to? I miss chatting to you!

Meow- I understand what you mean. I do find sometimes I crave the taste but Its the cruelty thing for sure that reminds me why I went vego. I was reading a rubbish article the other day about this woman who was wondering how to explain to her kids why they ate meat and she began by saying how she used to be vego and then just *had* to eat a bbq chicken when she was pregnant., urgh it was so annoying to read! ANyhow Im rambling on here...

Sibbie, I hope you find some good vego options around your place soon
Arimeh, How are you ? SOunds like you have been making heaps of delicious meals!

Everyones Xmas menu's sound great, mine is not so exciting. This year for the first time ever mine and DP's family are celebrating together...and its at our place. We are the only people who can manage a meal without a slaughtered animal so DP's folks are bringing their own meat and Ive got disposable plates and cutlery for them to use. I feel really bad at the waste but I dont want meaty residue on my plates.. Selfish I know.
SO everyone is pretty much bringing a plate and I am making

Trifle (double snap!) found cottee's jelly is vego and way cheaper than the one in the health food section I had used before.

Rice paper rolls(I love them haha)
Rocket walnut salad
coleslaw
easy stuff really that will be quick to make so I can enjoy plenty of festive wines
Last month I made a new meal almost everyday from a few recipe books I have, a few duds but I got a few great recipes, the best by far was moroccan tagine, SO good! Just sucks that its more of a wintery meal I think.

Hope everyone is going well, and has a great christmas

[Sibbie]

Hi everyone!

This thread makes me sooo hungry... everyones festive foods sound soooo tasty
I'm soooo craving trifle... mmmm. I love trifle.

We aren't big on the xmas front here... I did go to Mum's place for late lunch/early dinner yesterday and she made a pretty big effort to make interesting food for me

We had:

Byriani Rice (I can't spell, and it's late... Indian style rice)
Cinnamon-ey spiced sweet potato
Baby Spinach, Parmesan salad w/ caramelised balsamic dressing (yum!)
Coleslaw
and everyone else ate the usual bbq meat (which in my family involves about 4 different kinds of meat)

Doesn't sound that interesting but it was a huge stretch for my mum who usually only makes one pot wonder recipes So it was nice.

How many of you guys are vegan? I feel kinda half hearted only being vego, but at the same time I don't know if I can be vegan just yet kwim? I don't think I can go the whole hog (pardon the expression ) in one go... did you do it gradually? I am thinking of starting at home, and just eating vego if I'm out or at someone else's place... do you think that sounds like a reasonable way to go about it? I don't want to overwhelm myself as I am only new to this... but as I said, I feel really half hearted being vego but not going all out and being vegan..

Anyways, I've just moved into my own place so I'm hoping I'll be motivated to post more as I'll be cooking for myself... Maybe we could start off with a "what's for dinner?" in this thread to keep it moving a bit more?

I'll go first... I won't go with tonight's dinner (because I was slack and didn't eat properly) But the other night I made myself Burritos with a beans instead of the usual mince, and had a LOAD of veggies on it. I didn't have sour cream so I used natural yogurt and it was way tasty, I was surprised. I had it two nights in a row so I used up the left overs lol the perils of being single *rolls eyes*

Hope everyone is well not feeling too horrible from eating too much over the last few days :P

[Peach*]

Hi Sibbie and Everyone else
Urgh, I am SO SICK of christmas over eating! That is the bad thing about having xmas at ours(apart from my house being trashed) is all the leftovers being in my fridge and pantry. All the stuff I never eat and I havnt stopped in days and days. I sent DP to work today with the last of it all to share around so I wouldnt be tempted.
Anyhow the day went well and along with what I had on my menu I also made a roast vegetable and brown rice salad and Pumpkin, spinach and pine nut salad. Almost everyone ate the rice paper rolls(suprisingly) but man, there was just too much food.

How was Everyone's day? Apart from Sibbie I mean It sounds like your Mum did well. To answer your question Im not vegan but we dont drink milk, have rennet free cheese occasionally and buy free-range eggs, so the animal products we buy we try to be as ethical as possible with. There are meals I think are easy to be vegan with though, for example with burrtios we have guacamole instead of sour cream, etc..
Are you enjoying living by yourself? I was soo slack when I lived on my own-with cooking I mean. I can barely remember cooking myself a single dinner! I guess the good thing is when you do cook there is leftovers.

Dinner tonight, not to make you all envious with the sheer gourmet-ness of it all.... baked beans cold from the tin with a fried egg on top. Was still hungry so had brown rice with a splash of soy haha I am definately the lazy one in this thread

[*Ash*]

Hi Sibbie! I will type out my cherry cake recipe and post it here soon. It is yummy, but I have found an even better cake. One of the best cakes I have ever eaten. It is called chocolate and nut struesel cake (vegan) - it has walnuts (or pecans), non-dairy choc chips, cinnamon, brown sugar....It is awesome. My DH and I and our kids are vegan. I have been a vegan for almost 15 years. My kids are life vegans. I was a vego first, and I gave myself a few months to transition. I found the hardest food to give up was cheese, it is almost addictive, I think. But now, 15 years later, there is a much larger range of vegan foods available.We sometimes buy a brand of soy cheese called Cheezly. But, in all honesty, we just got used to eating foods without added cheese. Your mum sounds awesome. We used to frequent an Indian restaurant in eastern Sydney that made the best vego biryani rice. My mum nearly had a heart attack when I told her -at 16- that I was going to become a vego. Now, years later, my sister, mother and father are all vegan! Never underestimate the positive influence that you can have on people just by role modelling a healthy existence and cooking delicious food!

Hi gorgeous Peach! I will post my nut roast recipe too. I know I have an electronic copy somewhere, so I will track that down...I can relate to your comments about excess food. We went to a Xmas eve party and one of my friends went to such an amazing effort to make vegan desserts for my family, then gave us all the leftovers! She made Almond and Fresh Raspberry torte, Panforte and Turkish Delight. By boxing day we had also indulged in the gingerbread that the kids and I made, the choc and nut struesel (BEST cake ever), the pudding my mum made, and trifle, plus my rocky road....Argh, too much sugar! I even indulged in a few liquer choccies! I ended up throwing some of the leftover sweets out. I saw that you have signed up for the 30 day 'no junk' challenge too.....I definitely need it now...

For dinner tonight (good idea Sibbie), My DD and DS1 helped me make pizzas. Even DS2 helped out. They were quite simple - capsicum, mushroom, tomato, red onion, avocado, kalamata olives, japanese tofu (cut in thin strips), with Cheezly grated on top....They were very yummy actually.

Good night!

[Peach*]

I totally agree with what you said about cheese being addictive Ash, I find its way easier to go completely cold turkey with some foods or its just tooo easy to over eat. If I start grating cheese on pasta for example I just keep going and going, then eat it and grate more! Hence 30 days junk free. I joined the gym too almost two months ago so there is no point working out hard core and still eating rubbish!

Ash I dont think I will be able to even look at your recipes for the next 30 days, they sound too tempting and delicious lol
Tonight for dinner Im making a chickpea and veg tikka masala and am going to attempt flatbreads for the first time, will let you all know how it turns out
Hope everyone is well!

[*Ash*]

Hi Peach. I love tikka masala curry. We make ours with vegies- of course!- and a legume, usually red lentils or chickpeas. I'd love to know how the flatbreads go. We are having take away from one of our local Japanese Restsurants tonight- I'm thinking endamame, curry, nori rolls (for the kids), tempura vegies (so naughty!). The last hurrah before '30 days no junk'. Oh, and I have a block of dark choc for DH and I to share. It's going to be a looooong 30 days without my beloved dark choc. I might have a glass or two of sparking white tonight. Found an awesome organic, vegan one called Temple Bruer (from Sth Aus). What are your plans?

Happy New Year everyone!

[Rainbow_Mumma]

Just jumping in here will have a proper look when I get home ... I'm not strictly a vegetarian but can't eat any meats or anything this pregnancy so maybe what you would call a pregnant vegetarian but I'd like to make it more of a lifestyle


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[luna moth]

My DH made awesome flatbreads last night with our curries. It was his first attempt and they were sooooo good.

Tonight we're having a BBQ, with adzuki bean burgers and rolls, maybe some corn cobs, barbecued miso potatoes and a crunchy noodle salad. Yum.

We went very gradually into vegetarianism, and then vegan. We dropped all legged animals first, then fish, then about two years later dropped butter, then milk, then all other dairy, then about four months after that we gave up eggs. Cheese was hardest for us to give up too, but after a while just stopped missing it altogether. At the end of the day, it just adds saturated fat and salt to your diet that you don't really need. Which is, of course, why it's so delicious.

We got some stunning chocolate vegan treats for Christmas, but I can't partake because chocolate makes Tiny Vegan very cranky. Booooooo.

[*Ash*]

Oh Audax, that's a shame about the choccies. I couldn't eat dark choc when my tiniest vegan was a little bub. He wouldn't sleep. I assume the caffeine charged him up! But I can eat it now and it doesn't affect his sleep. What is the use-by date for your choccies?!

Hi MrsS!

[meow]

Chocolate and baby sleep is a catch 22... I'm too sleep deprived to survive without the chocolate and see if it makes baby sleep more

We're having mac cheese for dinner

[luna moth]

What is the use-by date for your choccies?!

Try and get in before DH eats them all! I have hidden some in my craft cupboard, because with him it's definitely a case of out of sight out of mind, so I might get a look in. I'll try again when she's a bit older, maybe have a fortnightly treat.

Dinner last night was really yummy, I made my aduki bean burgers sort of off the top of my head, but mum insists I have to blog them, she loved them so much. Tonight is probably rice paper rolls preceded by tom yum soup.

Happy New Year to all!