In a food rut and getting bored!! Help??!
Answers: Basically, I've been a veg for 1 1/2 years. We don't eat dairy or eggs either. So within those 18 months, I have tried so many recipes and revisited the ones I enjoyed so much that I am bored!!! My hubby just bought me Volomptuous Vegan for Christmas, but the recipes are so elaborate and I don't have time with two toddlers screaming for my attention, let alone the food! My kids are also getting bored and need it changed up a bit! I have all the Sarah Kramer books, The Vegetarian Mother's Cookbook, the Complete Vegan, and frequent both VegWeb.com and VegFamily.com often! I am open to new ideas and enlightenment on fun exciting foods! And FYI, I don't think the average person has issues with Veg food, it's just my and my kids' personalities (we get bored easily)! Thank you!!
I find it easiest to prepare food in advance and mix and match veggies, grains and a protein source with various sauces. I have 15 or so different sauces, dressings and marinades that I use, it really makes things easier.
I cook things in batches and freeze or refrigerate them for the remainder of the week - right now I have brown rice split into two large Tupperware containers. I do the same with quinoa, whole grain pasta, etc.
I have a lot of frozen veggies and fruits, they are easy to work in. I drop in frozen fruit into my oatmeal in the morning, they thaw and it makes the oatmeal taste good... I toss in veggies into soups or stir frys.
I bought one of those Vidalia Chopping Wizards, I use it to dice vegetables quickly. I can make home-made stuffing (celery, apple, onion and bread cubes) in less than five minutes with it, for instance.
I keep prepared baked or fried tofu.
Some of my favorite mix-and-match recipes:
rice noodles + peanut sauce + tofu + carrots and broccoli
brown rice + sesame tahini sauce + tofu + mushrooms, onions and broccoli
basmati rice + curry-seasoned sauce + cauliflower
whole grain pasta + garlic mushroom 'cream' sauce + tempeh
It's pretty quick to get dinner out most nights, sometimes (like tonight's New Year's Eve dinner!) I actually spent an hour chopping and prepping and made a vegan 'meat' loaf, sadly it was of poor consistency, it was more like a baked jambalaya, but it was still excellent.
For kids' meals (lunch mostly), the dishes don't have to be fancy. You can put celery, carrots, and raisins into a face shape, for instance. Little things like that can make all the difference.
For dinner meals, it can be difficult. Many vegetarian recipes take time to make. One idea is to, when you have free time, make a large batch of vegetable stock and put it in the freezer. That way, it will keep for quite a while, and you can have soup easily by just throwing some veggies into a pot with some stock.
The site below has what it claims are easy vegan meals. If you simply go to a search engine and type in 'vegan recipes easy' or something like that, several sites will come up.
Good luck!
And FYI, fartitude3, those are meat. Vegans don't eat meat. :-(
Have you tried vegetable samosas? Although not as good as their spicy chicken counterpart used to be, they're pretty good. Vegetable egg rolls w/ plum sauce are pretty good as well. Add a couple of vegetarian bouillion cubes to the water for your white rice or use them to make a vegetarian gravy to add some spice to potatoes or fries.
I find myself getting into a rut also. What about making a veggie pizza.....kids can help....turn it into fun.
Try doing a search for free vegan recipes. That should turn up a lot.
Have you tried branching out into different ethnic cuisines? My husband, daughter and I are ovo-lacto, but end up eating quite a lot of vegan cuisine unintentionally! Right now we're on an Ethiopian kick; lots of stewed greens, green salad dressed with lemon and peppers, red lentil stews, spicy potatoes, and the flat bread known as injera. Of course, if you don't like spice, you're kind of out of luck with this type of cuisine. But it is quick and easy to prepare for the most part!
We also have a couple of Japanese cookbooks that we really enjoy; not much dairy in that dietary path, although eggs do seem to crop up from time to time...
Good luck!
Baked Lima beans
Ingredients: A bag of giant lima beans. Couple of carrots, celery, one big onion, 2 tomatoes, some bread crumbs, olive oil, salt, pepper, tomato sauce.
Soak the lima beans over night in water.
Put beans in a pot and boil until they're almost done, but not completely.
While they're boiling, cut up carrots, celery, and the onion.
Slice a couple of tomatoes too.
Put the beans, and the veggies except the tomatoes in a pan.
Add lots of olive oil salt and pepper to taste, and some tomato sauce. Place the tomato slices on top, and sprinkle with some bread crumbs. Add a little bit of water, not too much. You can add more later if you need to.
Put in the oven and bake until veggies are soft, and the sauce is nice, and not watery.
It's one of my favourite dishes, it's not too difficult, and it's completely vegan.
In case you over cook the beans, (I usually cook them in the pressure cooker, cause they take a long time), you can put all the veggies along with the sauce in a frying pan with olive oil, and just cook them for a little while 'till they're soft. Then put everything in the pan and bake in the oven without adding any water.
If this seems confusing, email me, and I'll clarify.
BTW this is a greek recipe, and greek cuisine has tons of tasty vegan dishes. I have more to share if you want, but you can also try to find a good site on the net. (I don't know any, I use my mom's recipes, lol)
no meat lazagna,lasagna noodles,prego w/mushies, cottage cheese, then mozzarela over each layer. OH you don't do dairy! I wouldn't last a week. Remember EVERYTHING in moderation,ham,porterhouse steaks, fried chicken