What does vegan food look like?

[Trendygirl]

I am sure I have seen this thread before but I can’t find it, sorry if it is still about.

I think that it is always good to show any non vegans or soon to be vegans that vegan food is really yummy! It is good for us vegans to see some amazing vegan food also. So we can push businesses to provide the best vegan food possible and that we don’t accept nasty tasteless food.

Here are a few sites that I have seen. The one at the bottom is a link to the site I run (of cause this thread is only an excuse to show off my cooking skills, well that might have been an incentive He! He! I’m so Cheeky).

http://www.exoticagourmet.com/gallery.htm So beautiful!

http://www.pjchmiel.com/vegan/

http://www.parsleysoup.co.uk/MainCourses/thai_curry.htm

http://vegan.meetup.com/142/photos/

[feline01]

Want to come cook a few meals in the USA? Your meals look delicious as do that exoticagourmet. My cooking ends up looking, em, kinda gross but usually tastes good. I'd be embarrassed to post photos though.

[Trendygirl]

Thanks for your kind words I eat that type of food most days but sometimes I live of corn flakes, rice crackers or rice noodles with a yummy satay (sp?) source but it doesn’t look very appetising. Some of the curries I make taste real good but don’t look nice. I would be so embarrassed to cook for my boyfriend’s mum (she is veggie Hindu). She is such a good cook and I don’t really cook traditional Indian food the proper way. But it still tastes pretty good to me, and without her influence I don’t think my cooking would be as good as it is now.

I’ve been asked by Birmingham’s veggie and vegan society to give a talk about Indian food and spices in August. I’m no expert but I guess I now more than most.

I really like the exotic link, if you think about it; its probably not that hard to make it look as good as it does. I guess its down to leaving something aside to garnish your meals with.

[feline01]

Cooking Indian food intimidates me. I try but I never get the spicing quite right. I smell my coworkers meals and the smells are phenomenal. Too bad she uses dairy.

[Trendygirl]

Yeah I know what you mean! When I first started to cook I had no idea what I was doing. Until you understand the main spices then it is totally confusing. I only know what Gujarati (sate in Indian) cooking is like but dairy is not a big thing in India. Well apart from Gee (clarified butter) but people are starting to move towards using vegetable oil. However dairy is used a lot in so called Indian food which has been designed for the western pallet. It still tastes good, shame it’s not done with dairy substitutes though.

[Kim[ba]]

TrendyGirl, those dishes look *amazing* and are very inspiring!

Cooking Indian food intimidates me. I try but I never get the spicing quite right. I smell my coworkers meals and the smells are phenomenal. Too bad she uses dairy.

Check out my Bachelor style rice curry recipe. I'm not sure what constitutes a dish as being "Indian" though. I make this often (will be eating it tonight actually). Tonight I'm going to add some bell peppers and other stuff. It's not hard.

[vegboy]

Hi trendygirl and feline01,

i am gujurati..lived in australia though for my whole life(24 yrs). However, my mom still cooks gujurati food/indian food for us every night of the week. She also does vegetarian catering etc and what I have found is most of the dishes that require ghee do so only for the buttery taste..so i replace them with sunflower oil/olive oil...and for the rest of the dairy based dishes some can made without yoghury and the others we have to miss I guess. We can though try and use soy yoghurt in place of dairy in these(something I'm yet to try) and see how it goes. Being a guy, I'm still heavily involved in cooking as I'm strict vegan(unlike my family..hmm) and so like to make the food as tasty as can be...esp via the fusion b/w western n indian cooking..e.g put indian spices in my pasta with the tomato sauce n with lasagne etc.. or then put indian curries inside vegan bread and deep fry it to give like a veggie roll etc..

Kunal

[feline01]

Would love for you to post some of your recipes, Kunal especially the curries in the vegan bread. I do order southern food from one place near my job (I love masala dosas) and they know when I call to use oil instead of ghee.

[vegboy]

hi feline01,

for the curry in bread :

make some time of curry..i like potato curry with onions..you can add capsicum too if you want..first warm up a pan, add oil, garlic, ginger, then add some boiled diced potatoes(and other veggies u want)..mix..then add some more oil, turmeric powder, chilli powder, little cumin, and if u want you can add some tandoori paste for color n taste..make sure it has no animal preservatives, colors, flavours..rem to check the code numbers ....anyway, going on....u can sprinkle little water in it..not too much...and cook til light brown and crispy...

then for the bread..u can simply use any vegan sandwich bread, or vegan kebab bread or tortilla etc but make sure they have no flour processed using L-crysteine and check all additives in it...alternatively, u can use plain roti(indian bread)...simply fill the curry in there and close them like a pocket and deep fry....HOWEVER my fav is to make indian fenugreek roti as the bread : buy some indian flour(atta), add oil, little salt and add water based on directions on pack)..and also add to it, turmeric powder, little chilli powder, and fenugreek leaves(known in india as methi leaves). mix through the dough...then roll the dough out into a kebab style bread shape...(we call this bread methi roti in india...but its orig from gujurat and there its called thepla)then put the curry in it and roll up and make sure there are no gaps/openings in the rolled up piece and deep-fry til golden brown....this type of bread tastes v. v nice compared to normal bland bread or even plain roti...finally u can also sprinkle some black pepper (small amount) or then black salt(known as chat masala in the indian shops)..

before i go, i'll leave u with a delightful dish of mine...tandoori tofu...absol amazing..marinate tofu in tandoori paste for a few hours then shallow or deep fry, adding some green veggie leaves at the end and mix aorund...i also put this as my curry in the bread...absol amazing the way the tandoori taste complements the methi roti taste..

REM to use sunflower oil or olive oil and not ghee !!

Beware..this is my recipe...my mom makes it differently and much better tasting than mine..i just love experimenting with food so mix n match stuff around..so it may not be to e-ones liking..if so, then mix n match to ur taste

Hope you like it..if not, my apologies..

bon appetite.

Kunal.

[FR]

*drools*

[citameht]

Should I care what food looks like? Maybe... my cooking probably looks a little weird, tastes predictable, but it does the job if you need it.

If green lentils wouldn't add another half-hour of waiting, I'd use them to add "a little something" to some of my foods.

[Vora]

OMG ! I' m drooling all over my keyboard ! *_*

[Tigerlily]

Post pics of your food creations.

Here is a salad I made, very simple and yum.

Kale being cooked! It looks like so much when it's raw.

My kale and caramelized onions I had for lunch. Mmmmmmmm!!!

And here is a Middle Eastern salad called "fool" made from fava beans and other goodies.

Sorry about the bad image qualities. I still don't know how to take pics and resize without losing some of the definition.

[Cumin]

What a great idea! Perhaps it will spawn some nice recipe threads too.
I'll get my camera going in the kitchen.

[FR]

That "fool" salad looks soooooo good!

[Tigerlily]

That "fool" salad looks soooooo good!

It's the best. Fava beans, green onions, tomatoes, any other finely chopped veggie, lots of garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.

[maya]

Nice presentation Tigerlily. You should put together a cookbook.

[Tigerlily]

Hahaha, nah. I can't make fancy stuff.

I'm waiting for Mr Flibble and CC to come. They are wizards in the kitchen.

[Cumin]

As promised - here is tonights concoction: Artichokes&Rice

Brown & Wild Rice, Brocolli, Cabbage and Roast Artichoke hearts.
I'll reserve judgement on it until tomorrow.

[Tigerlily]

Why has my thread merged with this one? It's too different topic ideas!

[Blueshark]

It's the best. Fava beans, green onions, tomatoes, any other finely chopped veggie, lots of garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.

Hehe My cousins husband (from Egypt) cooked that for me over xmas. Was great, gave me a tin to. Very nutritious.

[Cherry]

Here are a few sites that I have seen. The one at the bottom is a link to the site I run (of cause this thread is only an excuse to show off my cooking skills, well that might have been an incentive He! He! I’m so Cheeky).

http://www.exoticagourmet.com/gallery.htm So beautiful!

http://www.pjchmiel.com/vegan/

http://www.parsleysoup.co.uk/MainCourses/thai_curry.htm

http://vegan.meetup.com/142/photos/

Cool Thanks. Wish I'd taken a better picture of the thai curry now though

[Roxy]

Remember my nachos? I tried to resize this AGAIN so it wouldn't be so massive.

[ConsciousCuisine]

I have to resize things too...I can't post anything else!!! I have dozens of pictures!

[Roxy]

Yes......but you're making a cook book and I'm sure there are going to be pictures in there for us to drool all over.

[aubergine]

Remember my nachos? I tried to resize this AGAIN so it wouldn't be so massive.

Those Nachos look sooooo good!

[Tigerlily]

What kind of vegan cheese did you use?

[Roxy]

Veganrella. I shred it myself.

Veganrella melts really well and I think it tastes good when melted but not so good in it's ordinary form.

[Tigerlily]

Ah, too bad I can't get that here.

[Roxy]

You are making me worried for my vacation

[Tigerlily]

Oops, sorry.

Don't worry, Ch'Town's buses have park benches!

[Roxy]

Hopefully won't need a bus too often lol. I hope I can walk around town and for the rest of the island we have arranged for a rental car. Just booked it today actually, through Hertz.

[Tigerlily]

Yeah you can walk around town, unless you wanna visit the neighbourhoods out near the highways.

[Roxy]

Is there anything there?

Oh and by the way - I made my Asteroids this afternoon but I'm not posting a photo LOL because they look like little dollops of dog poo but oh boy -they taste good!

[Tigerlily]

Anything in the residential areas? Not really, unless you wanna see lawns and houses and stuff.

[Roxy]

I've just been looking at some restaurant menus around Charlottetown and wow - they hardly even cater to vegetarians!

Good thing we have a fully self contained apartment.

[Tigerlily]

Yeah, it's not a vegetarian area at all.

[gertvegan]

What does vegan food look like?

See here.

[Tigerlily]

http://www.fatfreevegan.com/images/b...an-burgers.jpg

Wow, those look sooo meaty!