Uncompromising Vegan for Friends and Family

Get yer yuks out now, folks. It's okay, I've gotten my fair share of good-natured shots in, too.

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Okay, on with it, then. We're on the move again. Phoenix, this time. Downside, our triumphant return to Chicago won't be happening anytime soon. This is a long-term move. Upside, we're going to have family around again, which is absolutely wonderful. Among my wife's extended family in Phoenix are an aunt and uncle who have been vegetarian for quite some time, and for whom I've cooked while visiting before. Recently, however, they've gone full-on vegan. No eggs, no butter, no cheese... not sure yet about honey. Needless to say, this makes things a whole lot more tricky. But we love them dearly and hate the whole "no, no, don't worry about us, just feed yourselves" thing. While wonderfully gracious on their part to try not to impose, of course, on this forum I don't need to explain that that's just unacceptable. You come to my home, I cook for you.

My dilemma is that I hate substitutes. And it's not just that I hate incognito foods like soy burgers or vegenaise or tofurkey. It's that I hate the idea of compromising what a dish should be -- knowing what would make it great, and then not doing that. So I've set out with a goal of developing a list of go-to dishes that are both vegan and totally uncompromising. Dishes that not only would I not hesitate to make for myself, but also that I'd cook exactly the same way if I did. They just happen to be vegan. Needless to say, once you eliminate meat, fish, butter, eggs and cheese, this is a pretty small pool. But I know it's a resource that will be fabulously useful to me in our new home, and I've no doubt others here have been or will be in my shoes at some point. And I know that LTH is the place where others will understand and share my simultaneous desires not to compromise my food, but also to welcome my guests the way they should be welcomed.

So that's what this thread is for. Let this be a repository for vegan dishes, both recipes and general suggestions, that are prepared exactly the way we'd make them for ourselves. I'll kick it off with one of my favorites.

Cavatappi with Cauliflower, Breadcrumbs and Mint

6 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil, divided
1/2 C. dry breadcrumbs
4 cloves garlic, peeled and lightly crushed
1 head cauliflower, trimmed into small (1") florets
salt & pepper
1/3 C. chopped fresh mint, divided
1 lb. cavatappi

Heat 2 Tbsp. of the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat, then add the breadcrumbs and toast, stirring constantly, until they are a deep golden brown. Remove immediately, being careful not to burn them, and set aside.

In a clean pan, heat the remaining 1/4 C. olive oil over medium heat and, when hot, toss in the garlic cloves. Cook the garlic cloves, turning as necessary, until golden all over. Remove and discard the garlic (or, salt them and eat them immediately... oh yeah). Immediately add the cauliflower, distribute evenly around the pan, and do not stir until the underside is light golden. Toss well, season with salt and pepper, and continue cooking while tossing occasionally, until the cauliflower is golden all over and has started to soften, about 10 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and continue cooking the cauliflower, tossing occasionally, to allow it to soften further.

Meanwhile, cook the cavatappi and, when ready, toss with the cauliflower and 1/4 C. of the chopped mint. Plate the pasta, sprinkling the remaining mint and reserved breadcrumbs on top.

I've often accomodated vegans, it's much easier than one would think. Many recipes in your current reportoire are probably vegan. It's funny, the Reader ran something on FB this Thanksgiving about how awful the holiday is for vegans and vegetarians, which is just plain silly: most of the thanksgiving sides can be made vegan with just a few tweaks (and I'm not talking about subbing soy milk for cream, which I would never do)

So, typically, if I'm hosting a vegan, I make a meal with many dishes, some vegan, some not. Non-vegans don't notice that their sides are vegan, and vegans are used to omnivores and are often more tolerant than the rest of us. For instance, one I've mentioned before, my typical Thanksgiving rice changes from the regular chicken-broth-based white and wild mix to a spanish saffron rice when we need it to. I found a great recipe here, but usually, I just make the rice with wine, saffron, aromatics, salt, and water. Likewise, I do my t-day stuffing in a pumpkin anyway, and use apple cider and wine to wet it - leaving out the stock I sometimes toss in there is something we never miss...you do need to add salt, though.

Some of the food desert recipes are vegan: Koshary, Moros y Cristianos The danger with vegans is that you depend too much on legumes, though, which can get boring in a short time.

I will say this: vegan desserts are really challenging. I have yet to come up with anything better than poached pears or stuffed apples.

One question came to mind about the cavatappi: is it easy to find pasta that was made without eggs?

Khaopaat wrote:One question came to mind about the cavatappi: is it easy to find pasta that was made without eggs?

Extremely. Almost all of your standard dry pastas -- DeCecco, Barilla, etc. -- are made without eggs. It's when you get into the specialty pastas that you sometimes run into eggs. If it required hunting down special egg-free pasta, it would have violated the credo!

Dom,

Thanks for starting this thread. I am cooking for a vegan who is also gluten-free. Talk about a challenge! But with LTH input, there are delicious alternatives in store.

We in New England will miss you! But this is the right time of year to move to Phoenix. I hope your family is happy there.

Josephine

There's a relatively new vegan-friendly (nut-based) cream substitute that's actually pretty good. And it's denser and more cream-textured than the soy milk products:

http://mimiccreme.com/

Dmnkly wrote:

Khaopaat wrote:One question came to mind about the cavatappi: is it easy to find pasta that was made without eggs?

Extremely. Almost all of your standard dry pastas -- DeCecco, Barilla, etc. -- are made without eggs. It's when you get into the specialty pastas that you sometimes run into eggs. If it required hunting down special egg-free pasta, it would have violated the credo!

Thanks for the quick response! This is useful info to file away into the ol' mental database

Josephine wrote:I am cooking for a vegan who is also gluten-free.

Keeping Dom's response about egg-free pasta in mind, you could easily modify his tasty-looking cavatappi recipe by subbing the regular pasta with quinoa pasta. I did this for a baked mac & cheese (in addition to scrapping the roux and making "ghetto béchamel" by just melting a ton of cheese directly into milk, and subbing the buttered panko crust with grated parmesan) for a friend with celiacs, and was shocked at how good quinoa pasta is. I'm tempted to start eating it myself in place of the normal stuff, since I'd imagine the high-protein quinoa would make pasta dishes more filling & satisfying.

I recently discovered how nice butternut squash can be simply diced and sauteed until brown in a heavy skillet. Sprinkle on some fresh herbs - sage and thyme would be my choice - and some chopped pecans. not bad! It might be nice to brown some onions or shallots along with the squash, but it might cause the whole thing to stick to the pan. This could also be the beginning of a nice risotto using vegetable broth instead of chicken.

since I'd imagine the high-protein quinoa would make pasta dishes more filling & satisfying.

After that Top Chef Masters episode in which they made vegan/gluten free food for Zooey Deschanel, I was intrigued to try quinoa pasta precisely because of what I thought was its higher protein content. I was quite surprised to find out when comparing nutritional labels, its protein content (grams per 2 oz serving) is significantly lower than regular pasta.

it may be a more complete protein though.

Mhays wrote:Likewise, I do my t-day stuffing in a pumpkin anyway, and use apple cider and wine to wet it - leaving out the stock I sometimes toss in there is something we never miss...you do need to add salt, though.

Just FYI...

Much of the wine sold today is still fined with egg whites (a centuries-old practice), and a tiny amount remains after the fining. Vegans should make sure to only purchase wine that is unfined, or fined using something else (such as bentonite clay). However:

When the grapes are crushed, a not-insignificant amount of living things (mostly fruit flies, spiders, and bees) are crushed along with the grapes. Yes, their hulls are eventually removed, but their crushed "juice" remains in the wine -- terroir, if you will. Spend some time at a winery during harvest, and you'll see what I'm talking about. To drink wine, a vegan must decide which level of killing living things is acceptable to them. If it's at zero, then they should not drink ANY wine, because it is IMPOSSIBLE to make wine without killing a fair number of insects...

nor should they eat any wheat, corn, or soy products (or barley, rice, beans, etc. etc.)

Thanks for the heads-up about wine, that's something I didn't know. Sugar is another one, it's often not considered vegan because in some cases bone char is used in the refining process.

As for your second point, this is where, while tolerant and willing to accomodate vegans, I differ with them on a philosophical level: you can't eat without this happening on some level. Bugs get killed, bacteria get killed, animals are displaced by farming or maimed by farm equipment, or starved out because we're consuming resources on which they depend. Eating is an inherently violent and destructive act.

I'm not sure how wine differs in this way from, say, broccoli.

Mhays wrote:I'm not sure how wine differs in this way from, say, broccoli.

Or walking/driving to the grocery store.

All this talk of insect-killing reminded me...I was recently away at a meditation course where we observe the Five Precepts of Buddhism, one of which is to abstain from killing. What I call "insect taxis" can be found in all of the buildings on the meditation grounds:



Seeing the insect taxis again this year made me want to start an Other Culinary Chat thread on the creative re-purposing of food containers...

happy_stomach wrote:All this talk of insect-killing reminded me...I was recently away at a meditation course where we observe the Five Precepts of Buddhism, one of which is to abstain from killing. What I call "insect taxis" can be found in all of the buildings on the meditation grounds:



Seeing the insect taxis again this year made me want to start an Other Culinary Chat thread on the creative re-purposing of food containers...

Probably not something your average Buddhist would appreciate, but one such classic creative repurposing of food containers is to pour out the contents of a 20 oz bottle of Mountain Dew into a container (reserving the contents), slice the plastic bottle in half, invert the bottle-neck half into the other half, and pour some Mountain Dew back into the bottle contraption. The sickly sweetness of Mountain Dew attracts the bees through the bottleneck (but they're not intelligent/adept enough to find their way back out), but being trapped in the bottle permits them to drown themselves while mainlining Mountain Dew.

Enjoy at your next July picnic.

Do you want to drive a vegan crazy? Kosher dietary restrictions include being vigilant about consuming bugs that may be trapped/carried in produce. Here's a list of what to watch out for and suggested methods for removing bugs.

http://www.star-k.org/cons-appr-vegetables.htm

However, the concern in this case is about not eating bugs rather than not killing bugs, so much of the inspection/cleaning doesn't leave the bugs intact.

LOL - I note that mushrooms "only require washing." I suppose they don't mean morels...

Since I seem to be helping sidetrack this thread, let me get us back on: does anybody with experience in vegan baking have an alternative to eggs that meets Dom's outline above? Everything I see uses "egg replacer," and I'm not about to use that stuff.

There's a school pancake breakfast coming up; I'm planning to bring my homemade pancake mix. I'd love for there to be a way I could make it vegan: there are a number of vegan families at the school, and this means they don't get to participate in this event; I'd love to find a way. Essentially, what I need is something to act as glue to hold the grains together - the pancakes are leavened with baking powder, so I don't need leavening. Any ideas?

Mhays, for baking, soymilk, applesauce, mashed bananas are some substitutes. I don't know about pancakes but I've been experimenting a lot with no egg and no oil muffins and got some good results with just soymilk and vinegar combo. Gross results with mashed banana and soymilk combo.I have yet to try applesauce and something combo. I'm sure there are variations that willl work. I don't measure but here it goes:
dry:
flour,sugar,vanilla,salt,spices,other grains,cocoa powder,baking powder,baking soda, nuts, choc chips
wet:
vinegar = egg substitute(leavening agent)
soymilk = oil substitute
water/coffee

Dom, good luck with your move. You picked the right time to go to Phoenix. It just started getting cold here! Thanks for posting the cauliflower recipe. I like the idea of the fresh mint. I use dried mint in a lot of recipes too. It adds nice zingy sweetness to many recipes.

I will post some of my recipes when I get more time. Chayote and apple soup with fresh sage is pretty nice. You could probably use any squash.

While I'm at it, here's another one. This recipe is sooo yummy and comforting.

Opo squash and dal
-Add cumin seeds, green chiles, curry leaves to some oil. Once fragrance is released from cumin, add turmeric, red
chili powder and coriander powder. Add a little asfoedita.
-Add some diced opo squash and salt. Then, add chana dal or yellow moong dal(about half the quantity of squash
used).Add some water to cook the squash and dal.
-Cover and cook at medium for about twenty minutes.
You will know its ready when the dal is soft but not mushy. You can let the water soak up or leave it a little wet
to your taste. Add a little lemon juice and cilantro to taste.

Hi- I am a really big fan of the Tightwad Gazette books, and the first edition suggests that you substitute one heaping tablespoon of soy flour and one tablespoon of water for each egg called for in a recipie. I make pancakes all the time using soy flour in place of eggs, and the pancakes turn out just fine. You might be able to substitute soy milk for the milk. Hope this helps, Nancy

Dom,

I remember from our visit earlier this year, you were hoping to be near family. While it isn't Chicago, Phoenix is closer to the family environment where you wanted to be. Hope your wife and kids are doing well.

Any roasted vegetable dressed in sea salt, pepper and olive oil is uncompromisingly full flavored. Roasted sweet potatoes can be easily mashed with brown sugar, cinnamon and some salt without missing a beat. Squash soup with roasted garlic may not have the finishing cream, which you might enjoy, is still quite acceptable without it.

Best wishes,

I sometimes jokingly refer to myself as a meat-eating vegan. I have a dairy and egg allergy so try to eat those sparingly (not that I always succeed…) When I cook for myself, most of the time I’m cooking vegan. I depend a lot on Asian and Indian recipes as there are many that are vegan (if you use oil instead of ghee in the Indian dishes).

I like this blog for good vegetarian and vegan recipes

Everybody Likes Sandwiches

There’s a long list of vegan things at the bottom of the recipe archive.

Mhays wrote:does anybody with experience in vegan baking have an alternative to eggs that meets Dom's outline above? Everything I see uses "egg replacer," and I'm not about to use that stuff.

Ooh – ooh, Michele, I have the perfect vegan pancake recipe for you. I made these pancakes some time ago and the BF thought they were as good as regular pancakes. Fluffy and even with a bit of buttermilk tang. The only downside is that they do require some pain in the butt ingredients and they do use egg replacer. I used a powdered kind I got at Whole Foods.

Vegan pancake recipe

My vegetarian partner made a wonderful traditional Thanksgiving dinner complete with turkey but just stuck to the roasted vegetables, potatoes and squash. Roasted root vegetables are frequent meals for us in the winter along with soups.

Mhays wrote:Essentially, what I need is something to act as glue to hold the grains together - the pancakes are leavened with baking powder, so I don't need leavening. Any ideas?

I have not personally tried it, but a lot of vegan recipes use flax seed for this.

For an egg substitute, Mark Bittman suggests using 3 tablespoons of soft silken tofu and 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder for each egg. The tofu takes care of the binding, protein, and fat while the baking powder handles the leavening of eggs.

A friend recently used this formula for crescent rolls and there was no noticeable difference between them and the egg version.

Flax works well too but can add some "branniness."

Just a hint for the tofu substitution in baking. You have to make sure you use your blender to thoroughly blend the tofu. If you just mash it in the bowl, the muffins, cakes, etc won't turn out based on my experimentation.