Your vegetarian favourites!

My 19yo sister is moving in with us! YAY! (Well, I say that now lol). For about 6 months til she gets on her feet again.

She's a vegetarian - allergic to animal protein. Which makes dinners a bit hard, as she can't eat any meat, and also gets sick from cheese, milk, eggs, butter... and all those lovely things. Of course, I could just get her to make her own meals, but I'd rather just cook for us all.

SOOOOO....... your favourite vegetarian meals. My sis has never learnt how to cook with tofu or any of those things... she usually just eats plain vege's... but she has just had the implanon put in and bleed for 3 weeks, and is really anaemic, so I'd love to cook some high iron meals for her.

What are you're favourite vegetarian recipes?

hey leasha, perhaps google for vegan recipes. most vegetarians eat either dairy and/or eggs, and since your sis can't eat either, she'd be a vegan. roast veges, vege pastas are good, cut the core out of a capsicum and stuff with tomatoes, mushrooms, onions and cooked rice. drizzle some olive oil over the top and roast. makes a good main if you want to just cook something for her and make something different for yourself. check out your local library for vegan recipes too. good luck sweetie! oh and risottos are good to be vegan too.

eta: leavy green veges are high in iron, as a good old baked beans. so make stir fries, with a little tofu and lots of veges. make sure to use rice noodles and not yellow ones, they are egg. just look at the ingredients. good luck!

Cook some brown rice in the microwave, and for the last 5 mins add in diced carrots, capsicum, peas, corn etc. Then serve with wilted silverbeet. - this is also a great side-dish for your family with steak or lamb.

Stir some relish through the rice for added flavour. Dead easy :D

Otherwise there's Eggplant parmigan (without the cheese though, or soy cheese?) - just cut thick eggplant slices, salt them and then grill/fry and top with tomato sauce - you can cook chicken parma for your family and eggplant for your sis at the same time.

Dahl... indian lentils... I make mine with a paste from an indian shop & just use a 1/2 fried onion and the lentil paste & mix with water. I serve with rice. High protein & iron meal :)

Also, I do a hearty lentil soup. Vegetable broth, lentils, carrot, broccoli, potatos and rice.

Vegetable dumplings.
* Wonton wrappers
100gm silken tofu
1 cup cabbage shredded
1 handful chinese greens shredded
3 eschallots chopped finely
2 tbsp soy sauce (or tamarind if not soy able)
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp chilli
1 tsp honey

Put all the ingredients except the wonton wrappers into a wok on high & cook until soft. The tofu should be like scrambled eggs...so not really formed at all. When the veges are soft turn off. Lay wrapper on some baking paper, put 1 tbsp mix inside & fold over (wet the inside 1/2cm of one side to seal it). You can either put them in the onion (spray the tops with oil, or brush vege oil on) or shallow pan fry or even deep fry.

I use tofu alot, in stir fries especially with rice noodles or with noodles. I find if you want it to keeps its shape you could buy the organic firm tofu & make sure you season it well (lots of soy sauce & sweet chilli).

Two faves from me:

1. Sweet potato, chick pea and spinach curry. I make this either thai or indian style - both work.
2. Mexi-beans - sauted diced vegetables, add kidney beans, taco seasoing, tinned tomatoes and mush it all up. Serve either in burritos or taco shells.

Hope this helps!

Ruth

Vegan cooking is wonderful! it's easy to adapt whatever you normally make if u stock up on items to replace meat/chicken: so you can still make stirfries and curries and pasta dishes.

In the supermarket you can usually get tofu - i would recommend Pureland tofu: cube it and marinade in soysauce/ sweet chilli, it's ready to eat or will survive further cooking, so toss it in stirfries. whatever's left goes in a water filled container with lid: change the water everyday and it'll keep for ages.

Some supermarkets sell tempeh (tempeh is very very high in protein and iron that the body can absorb easily), but i don't know if you'll get in Beerwah. The bigger Coles stores stock it. The only one thats really edible is the spicy flavour (red packet). spray oil in a frypan and brown it in thin slices; serve as is with sweet chilli sauce, rice and salad. or chop small to use in fried rice or stirfry.

Both tofu and tempeh work well in coconut based vege curries (use a packet mix or make your own from coconut milk, vege stock powder, soy sauce, sweet chilli, curry powder, any veges you like).

and finally, stock up on fake chicken/ beef etc from the frozen section of the larger Asian grocery stores. some good ones to look for are Lamyong Vegetarian Soy Slices (tasty alternative to chicken) and Natural Foods Vegetarian Beef balls/chicken Nuggets. Chinatown in Brissy has em.

hey any questions at all PLEASE ask me, more than happy to help!

I am a vegetarian but not really into all the tofu etc I usually eat the sanitarium products they have sausages, mince, roast rolls, imitation chicken and bacon they have loads of stuff and you can get them at most large supermarkets and if you live in a small community perhaps ask the local supermarket if they can get it in for you, I have not been game enough to try the roast or mince yet but the sausages are great for casseroles and with gravy or on there own with vegies and I really love the soy rashers ( bacon ) I tend to get aneimic often but if I eat these foods and plenty of them I can usually stay pretty well balanced, have a look in an organic food store as they tend to have alot of vegetarian/ vegan foods etc and from my experiance have loads of advice to help.

good luck with it all.

Alisia - there was a thread on vegetarians and protein a while ago - I've found it here

She needs to be aware that if she is purely vegan that she will need to keep an eye on her B12 levels.

Good luck with the cooking.

We usually have vegetarian meals once or twice a week - just to break up the monotony.