This post is brought to you out of strange obsessions

I went to buy a paper from WhSmith yesterday after work. It's actually the job that I did for 4 years before joining the Underground. The aim as a till monkey (as I liked to call us - strangely, none of my former colleagues appreciated the term) is to persuade the customer to take an 'extra' with their desired shop. I always managed to sell the most chocolate, sweets, Harry Potter pre-orders, etc, than anybody else in my store. Not that I'm bragging, but if the person that sold the most got a voucher, free bar of chocolate or a free book out of it, I was going to be that person. I'm not overly competitive, but I will not be beaten.

The woman that served me asked in a nonchalant voice if I'd have liked any of the selection of sweets that she had on display (if I'd worked there, I'd have trounced her) and, joking because I'm still on my Cambridge diet, I said 'Not unless any of them are vegan', which, consisting of lots of Haribo jellies and Galaxy milk chocolate, I knew they weren't - I wouldn't touch any of it, even if she took the time to check all of them.
One of the things I'm beginning to find irritating about telling somebody else that I'm vegan (well, apart from the stupid diet, I almost am), is having to listen to people listing foods that they think are vegan. Apparently fish is vegan (who knew?) and you're a vegetarian if you don't eat any meat or dairy, so is a vegan somebody that only eats fruit? Grrr. This woman, thankfully, knew what a vegan is. She asked very simply, 'So how do you get all of your nutrients? Do you eat tofu and fruit?'
Now, yesterday I was running on about 45 minutes sleep from the night before thanks to being unable to sleep after shift changes, and I looked like death on a stick - I looked awful! I also couldn't list all of the vegan 'meats'. I managed to croak out that I ate tofu, and although I haven't tried it yet, the name amuses me so much that I also said 'Seitan', more for the look on her face. And then I was stuck. I knew there were a couple more but I just couldn't remember them, so I stuck 'nuts, seeds and vegetables' on the end. She just said that I looked very healthy so I aimed an ‘ok, I’m done and am outta here now’ look in her direction and scuttled out of the shop clutching my goods.

It's been bugging me all day: Tofu and Seitan. Great. And then I forgot about it until I got home and spotted 'Tempeh' in a vegan blog. Yay! 3 down, 1 to go. Obsession reignited.

I know the fourth began with 'P' but I was stuck on the word Paneer, which I know is an Indian cheese!
Google is very unhelpful. Nobody uses it in any of the recipes I've browsed. I've searched and came up empty. So I got bored and switched off.
Two minutes later, the correct word occurred to me: Polenta. Thank Goddess for that!

My vegan 'meats':
Tofu
Seitan
Tempeh
Polenta

I’ve seen loads of recipes that use Tofu and Seitan, but none that incorporate Tempeh or Polenta. Half of me is curious to know why that is? (are they both basically a one trick ingredient?) but the other half really wants to try them (when the diet is over, of course).

Now, excuse me, but it’s time to hunt down more recipes!

Vegan Sites

I've been trawling the net looking for vegan suitable recipes for Christmas, and stumbled upon a spakly treasure trove of recipes to suit all occasions. I'll be honest, I walked into this diet thinking that it'll be 101 ways to cook chickpeas and lentils, and to be honest, there are a thousand ways to incorporate these into the foodie lifestyle, but there's so much more! You truly believe that you'll never eat another cheese scone or tiramisu dessert again, and I'm overjoyed to be shown how wrong I am!



Some of the sites thrilling me right now:

Veggie Love Planet

The Vegan Society

Vegan Village

BBC food

Veganfamily

Vegetarian Society

Parsley Soup

Veg family

Whole Foods Market

You may have noticed that a lot of the links are to the Yule section of the recipes. Enjoy and please feel free to suggest more :)

On the books front, my housemate ordered Skinny Bitch in the Kitch, which is just brilliant! I also received my copy the The Quorn Kitchen, which would have been perfect for when I turned Veggie back in June. I can still use it though - I just need to substitute lol.

I've also ordered my copy of Alicia Silverstones The Good Diet and Skinny Bitchin', which I'm anticipating imminently :)

Greetings from the Apprentice Herbivore

I made the decision on June 22nd to go vegetarian after watching a video on PETA about the cruelty in an Ohio based kosher slaughterhouse. Like most people, I knew that inhumane slaughter occurred in all slaughterhouses, but Kosher is meant to be humane, right? 

From the PETA site: workers  were using a meat hook and a knife to rip out cows' tracheas while the animals were still conscious—after the shochetim (kosher slaughterers) had cut their throats.

Read the full article here. 

Like everybody I know, I'd turned a blind eye to the ritual slaughter in all slaughterhouses, but I was truly sickened by the video, which, let's face it, you are meant to (PETA is fond of punching you with the most horrific images they can find). As a Brit, you'd hope that UK slaughterhouses were nothing like American ones. Alas, from their McDonald and KFC fast food lifestyle, the UK has followed America like a willing puppy.

I'd eaten fish and chips on the 22nd (before watching the video on the train home from the seaside). I became a vegetarian from the 23rd (today is day 96) and have moves to becoming vegan. It helps that my housemate Helen has become intolerant to lactose, but after learning just how meat consumption is directly linked to cancer and heart disease, she has gamely joined me on the green wagon. 

We are both overweight from a sedentary lifestyle of meaty, fatty, unhealthy pizza, Chinese, Indian and other general crap. So we are both on the Cambridge Wight Plan. It's hard for her - she can't drink the conveniently premade tetra paks of milkshakes and I've swapped out my powder shakes and porridge for her (which still contain miniscule amounts of milk unfortunately), so I've not launched as immediately into a vegan lifestyle as I'd have liked, although everything that is nothing to do with the diet has been replaced. I'm using soya milk and before restarting my weight loss plan I made vegan cauliflower cheese, vegan pancakes and vegan Yorkshire puddings (sooo yummy!). We are both also currently eating Quorn, which contains free range egg. I'd like to become comfortable with using tofu - I've only used the Cauldron pre-marinated pieces so far, which tasted deliciously of sausage.

I'm hoping that by the new Year, or my birthday in late February at the latest, will be the point at when I can make the change complete.

I've decided to create this blog to chronicle recipes that I've discovered and used, or created (like my Curried pumpkin and potato soup, roasted vegetable soup, vegetable stir fry or vegetable casserole that I'll post at a later date).

It will also be a place for me to link to other blogs, complain about how hard it is to get a decent sandwich in a supermarket, and how annoying it will be to be completely unable to get a soya latte or food in a little cafe in the middle of nowhere (as we discovered when we visited Newport in the Isle of Wight, and trundled from cafe to cafe - in a town filled with cafes - looking for at least a vegetarian sandwich and found only one that offered egg mayonnaise, but no soya for our coffee or hot chocolate)

On that note, thanks for reading (or skimming) my first blog post :)