(OT) Any vegans out there?

[kenjib]

Another good wok/tofu thing is stir fry. Just mix soy sauce, seasame oil, rice wine vinegar and garlic to taste and let the tofu simmer in it turning occasionally. Then add in the veggies and whatever stir fry sauce you like.

Kahuna burger

Don't forget some fresh grated ginger! Ginger + garlic = heaven. Even before you eat it, just the smell is heaven. Some hot peppers are also good to make it spicy.

My latest fad is cooking mustard greens with those flavors. Mustard greens have a little bite that works well with that - I remove stems & pre-boil it briefly before tossing it in the sauce.

There are also lots of great soups that are completely vegan. Portuguese Kale Soup is probably my favorite soup at the moment (oh man, it's good!):

1 cup white beans
10+ cups water
2 large onions, chopped
1 lb. kale, chopped
2 potatoes, pealed & cubed
6-ounce can of tomato paste
1 tsp vinegar
4 garlic cloves, minced

1. Soak beans overnight & rinse
2. Boil water, then add everything in. Cook medium-low for two hours, stirring occassionally.
3. Salt & pepper to taste.

I think soups always taste better the second day. This recipe is from "Twelve Months of Monastery Soups" by Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette. It's a fantastic book of soups, but many of them have dairy and a few have meat. Still lots of vegan stuff though.

I also have a few great recipes that work well together from "World Vegetarian" by Madhur Jaffrey. There's a recipe for Costa Rican Black Bean soup that's also really amazing. In addition, you end up with some really well seasoned black beans as a "cast off" from the process, so if you make green salsa to go with it you can make all kinds of New Mexico style black bean dishes. New Mexico rules my stomach.

Kind of a long recipe though - does it interest you?

EDIT - I think Garden Burgers are much, much, better than the fake meat ones, but they have their own appeal that has nothing to do with normal hamburgers.

 

[Pielorinho]

That soup sounds good! I'll probably be making diner on Thursday, and I'll try it out. Thanks!

Dinkeldog, if you don't like mushrooms (you heathen!), you may not like tofu either. I'm a pretty adventurous eater, so I'm all about giving everything at least one try, and if you've not trid good tofu, I think you oughtta. But if you don't, no yuba off my soy milk.

I occasionally eat meat analogs: they're not a major part of my diet, but I have no aesthetic aversion to them. Sometimes you just want something greasy and spicy and proteiny to go along with your eggs (or, I guess, scrambled tofu) in the morning. If you eat meat, sausage will do you; if you don't, you can fry up a couple patties of fake sausage, spritz them with liquid smoke and hot sauce, and get your greasy protein fix. You're not eating sausage, true, but you're not trying to either.

Definitely get a wok. Nothing like a wok to make you feel like a culinary manly man. It's a useful pan, too, no doubt - but its heft, and the sheen it gets on it if you care for it properly, are immensely satisfying.

Daniel

 

[Psion]

Vegans
Intelligent minor race originating on Muan Gwi ( Vega / Solomani Rim 1717). They were named by Solomani humans after the bright star near their homeworld. Vegans are upright, bipedal, and bilaterally symmetrical, averaging 2.2m in height. They are bisexual, homeothermic oxygen breathers with an average lifespan of over 200 years. Because of their low-gravity origin, they are physically quite weak, and are unable to live on high-gravity worlds.

Vegans are roughly humanoidal. Their head serves as braincase, and does not turn. A hood-like fleshy structure covers the head, and contains two eyes, covered by a single transparent eyelid-like structure. This is a polarized light filter, protecting the eyes from glare and also from windblown dust. The eyes can see into the infrared. Auditory organs are located in a collar-like structure around the neck. The mouth is a vertical slit in the upper thoracic region; two mandibles are located inside the upper chest, and grid food between their opposing sets of teeth. Where the forearm and hand would be on a human, Vegans have three tentacles to serve as manipulative organs. Their legs end in broad, splayed feet, which prevent them from sinking onto soft sand. The urogenital opening is a vertical slit located ventrally in the lower abdomen. There are no external differences between the sexes. Vegans are designed to radiate heat as necessary through regulating blood flow to their skin, obviating the need for sweating.

The Vegans received the jump drive about -6000 from Vilani-influenced traders, and colonised several nearby worlds before being absorbed into the First Imperium in -4404. They were severely restricted under Vilani rule, as were all races who resisted being intergrated into Vilani culture. Thus, they welcomed Terran victory in the Interstellar Wars and the advent of the Rule of Man. The Vegan Polity prospered under the Rule of Man and survived the Long Night largely intact. However, it was broken into individual planetary states by the Third Imperium, in accordance with Imperial policy: non-humans were treated as full citizens, but no interworld governments were allowed.

The creation of the Solomani Autonomous Region in 704 again restricted the Vegans. Human colonies were founded on most worlds to maintain Solomani influence there, and Solomani governors were installed on all Vegan worlds. After the Solomani Rim War, the Vegan Autonomous District was formed as a counterweight to the Solomani Confederation .

Vegan society is divided into hundreds of different tuhuir, which might be roughly translated as culture, philosophy, or tao. Each tuhuir has its own customs and traditions, and its own interpretation of the proper way to live. The civil service which governs the District is a tuhuir which oversees and mediates amoung all the other tuhuir. Although rare, heretical and rebellious tuhuir do exist. Archeology shows that tuhuir were once separate societies, each associated with a particular people and geographic location, like countries on ancient Earth. Now, however, they are mixed together in complex patterns. Tuhuir are not hereditary; when a Vegan nears sexual maturity, he or she enters a period of search, which may last for many years. Eventually the individual chooses a tuhuir; once made, the choice is for life. In practice, about 50% of Vegans choose the tuhuir of their parents; abour 0.5% find that they enjoy the search as a way of life and never join a tuhuir.

(SUPP-10, 1108; SUPP-11, 1107; MT-ENCYC, 1120)

(From Traveller Library Data)

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

Don't take this the wrong way, but blech. Also on the blech list: cottage cheese, eggplant, cooked mushrooms, and poi. I'm going with the presented wisdom of avoiding anything that pretends to be meat. Maybe tofu would be acceptable if it were burnt?

Ah, but there are so many good & interesting ways to cook tofu. I'm no longer vegitarian, but still order tofu regularly when I go out to dinner. Here are a bunch of recipes for tofu (not all vegan, but many are) I found with a quick Google search for "tofu recipes":

http://vegweb.com/food/tofu/

http://www.tofu.com/recipes.html

http://www.fatfree.com/recipes/tofu/

http://www.bhg.com/home/Tofu-Recipes.html

http://vegetarian.miningco.com/library/recipes/bltofu.htm

 

[Voadam]

I'm not 100% certain either, but I do know that Kosher butchering is not supposed to take place on sick or injured animals. The health (which stems from the care) of the animal is, therefore, obviously going to be a concern. I've not thoroughly researched the question, so I could be wrong.

I do recall Rabbi Walters, who taught the few classes regarding Judaism I took, going into some detail regarding Kosher practices and the care of animals, but the details are quite hazy. I probably have the relevant information buried somewhere in my home library.

I remember that Kosher deals with purity laws and that "unclean" (malformed or sick) animals are unacceptable for eating, but I was not aware of specific animal husbandry requirements for how they are treated while alive that would guarantee the equivalent of a free range life or prohibit a corporate mass farm cramped lifestyle.

I'm only a casual student of world religions, though. There might be strictures in both Kosher and Halal practices that I am simply unaware of.

 

[spyscribe]

Apologies if someone has mentioned this before:

If you're looking for a good general food resource try Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison. It's not entirely vegan (as she says on the cover), but it's one of those books where every recipie has a note on the side about variations to try or possible substitutions, so you're not likely to feel the lack of not being able to eat all 1,500 options.

 

[Pielorinho]

If you're looking for a good general food resource try Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone by Deborah Madison.

Good call! This cookbook is really very good: whereas Moosewood has a lot of flair to it, this book is quietly and elegantly efficient. I've never made anything bad from it, and wihle it's got basics covered (bean dips, lasagnes, pies, salads, stir fries, and so forth), it also has some unusual and interesting flavor combinations that work well with one another.

And unlike some other general vegetarian cookbooks, it has no smarminess or selfrighteousness hanging around it. Ms. Madison doesn't want to lecture you about her virtue; she just wants to cook good food.

Daniel

 

[Azlan]

And this is the crux of my problem. I hate the taste of meat. Having never grown accustomed to it, i dont want to eat it, even if it isnt meat.

You speak as if meat is an acquired taste, i.e. as if it's something you have to work at ingesting, over a period of time, in order to truly enjoy. That may be the case with alcohol or tobacco, but it's not the case with meat. For example, toddlers love eating meat, once it's introduced into their diet. In fact, they are quicker to eat meat than they are to eat most vegetables.

Give a group of uneducated (un-indoctrinated?) toddlers each a hamburger, and watch what happens with the majority of those toddlers: They'll open the hamburger up and disassemble it, and then start eating the beef patty, with little nibbles of the bread in-between, without taking a single bite of the lettuce or tomato.

 

[Thimble the Squit]

Yum!

Spicy Ginger Tofu and Kale in Peanut Sauce.
[/B]

That sounds seriously tasty!

And, on-topic (sort of), I'm vegetarian and perfectly happily so. I was vegan for three years and I was probably on my healthiest ever diet back then. When I went to university, it wasn't quite as convenient (family all veggie or vegan, wholefood co-operative nearby, etc), so I went back to being straight vegetarian. My main advice is, listen to Pielorinho and learn to cook. I'm a very good cook; it's even got me laid.

Many people claim that you can't get the necessary protein without meat but that's untrue; you just have to understand what you're eating. Pulses have only have the necessary amino acids for a healthy diet, so do grains -- but, and here's the kicker: they're exactly matched to provide, both together, a complete set of proteins. Students rejoice: beans on toast is one of the healthiest meals you can make!

If you're currently omnivorous, consider going veggie first, just to smooth the transition, both for your own palate and for your digestive system. Like somebody else on here (can't find the post, sorry), I've been violently ill from eating meat by accident; you might find yourself going the other way, becoming anaemic or suffering protein / vitamin / mineral deficiencies, through a sudden lack of meat. Take care of yourself and welcome to the veggie club.

 

[Emiricol]

That's what you think! I couldn't disagree more. Our local store doesn't stock them, they're really hard to run down and trap, and even if you CAN get ahold of one they never seem to fit onto the bbq grill without a lot of messy chopping. I'm afraid that eating vegan is a lot more work than I ever dreamed it would be.

Dang, that's the funniest thing I've read since the latest PC Picture thread!!

More seriously, though - I've considered giving up meat, but in truth I just can't resist the siren call of a good steak or a double cheeseburger.

I've gotten to the point where I eat more salad (with meat and cheese, but at least it's vegetable!). I eat more chicken and fish than I used to, so that's a good change.

But a day without meat... I get cravings and end up cooking up a whole pack of bacon. I guess in the end I just like meat-and-potato style foods.