non vegan making vegan dinner

[uther51]

hello i living out west and i have grown very fond of a girl and while I am not vegan she is and wants to make me a vegan dinner but i would like to catch her off guard and make her a vegan dinner. there is a problem my house is FULL of diary and meat products, not only that but i have recently lost my job. so if anyone out there can please help me with making a vegan dinner out of some of the vegan ingredients that i could find around my house i would be very thankful.

[Billy]

Nice thought! You could help us by letting us know what vegan ingredients you have round your house?

[Sluggie]

Hi Uther. That's a lovely idea. It's hard to know what to suggest without knowing what you keep in your store cupboards.

How about pasta (make sure it doesn't contain egg) with a vegetable based sauce. Onions, tomatoes, garlic, olives and mushrooms, perhaps. Lentils, beans or chopped chestnuts will give it more substance. Add a splash of red wine and tomato puree for flavor.

[uther51]

Well, i know i have an assortment of vegetables, Green Cabbage, Iceberg Lettuce, Carrots, Tomatoes, and then the fruits are Bananas, Peaches, Jalapanos (sp), and then i also have natural peanut butter and some noodles but im not sure if they have eggs in them or not.

[Marrers]

Add a splash of red wine and tomato puree for flavor.

But don't use any wine - the stuff you have in probably isn't vegan!

[tipsy]

it will say on the pasta label if it has egg or egg white in it.

pasta sauce is cheap. trader joes has vegan meatballs in the freezer secton that are good! (it says vegan right on the front)

or do a stir fry with your veggies and a side of rice or pasta!

firm tofu is also pretty inexpensive and you can add that to the stirfry (buy the plasic sealed block, not the one in water... less prepwork!)

(im assuming youre near a TJ's there everywhere out here! forgive me if youre not!)

its nice of you to make the effort for her!

[harpy]

Bit late I know, but another time you could steam the cabbage, carrots and some other veg lightly, cook the noodles (if they're vegan), and make a sauce with peanut butter, water and some of the jalapenos. Mix everything together and you will have a nice noodle dish which can be eaten cold.

Here's an "official" recipe for that type of sauce

http://vegetarian.about.com/od/sauce...eanutSauce.htm

[BlackCats]

Harpy - that sounds delicious, but I don't have any noodles in the house!! - unfair.

[harpy]

Harpy - that sounds delicious, but I don't have any noodles in the house!! - unfair.

You could always make a thick version of the sauce and dip raw vegetables in it - like satay, yum.

[BlackCats]

mmm

[Canadian_F_H]

i've had a lot of practice with this... consequently for the past 2 years, about ~2/3rds of my meals have been vegan...

the trouble with cooking "vegan" when you are used to non-vegan seams to me to have been the erroneous thought that one must over compensate for the lack of meat/dairy... i feel like i've had to learn to cook all over again. i don't recommend starting off with a meal that traditionally would be very dependent on meat... i've been very dissapointed with at least half of all meat/dairy substitutes... but at the same time there are plenty of meals where meat and dairy played little role in the traditional form anyways, so they are good places to start...

salads, spagetti/marinara, soups, stews, curry, bean chili...