Philosophical Vegan Forum

Say hi to the new vegan. It's been a long time coming.

My biggest problem now is the recipes. I'm a fairly dab hand in the kitchen. I don't mind "improvising" all the remaining vegetables into something unique to get rid of them before they rot. Last week I boiled up two pounds of rice, threw in some chopped cabbage, carrots, etc., and bobsyouruncle I ended up with a pretty damned good casserole. A lot of pretty damned good casserole, actually.

But there's two main problems:

First, a lot of the vegan recipes I'm running into read like this: Take 1 package of this "vegan" textured-protein corporate-processed crap that we're peddling as being good for you despite it being filled with salt, fat and sugar.

Second, I'm still thinking in the nonvegan cooking fashion. There are discontinuities. All my "instincts" are wrong. I see a vegan recipe that, I swear, hand to my heart, has something like 20 ingredients in it, and I'm shaking my head. "I'm not trying to land on the Moon. I just want to make something to eat for dinner. Roasting a chicken involves one ingredient. Why does this look like it will take me slightly longer than I have left to live to assemble all these ingredients? Do I really need 1/8 teaspoon of freshly chopped parsley? Will the whole damned thing collapse if I use parsley flakes?"

Can anyone recommend a relatively low-stress cookbook with little or no "corporate" subliminalism and ingredient lists that don't stretch to infinity?

Hi Alex, welcome!

I know what you mean. Too many recipes require special ingredients like egg replacer, vegan butter, etc. and they don't provide other options. The reason is that these are lazy recipes where somebody just converted an old recipe over.

I usually don't use cookbooks, although I'll sometimes look things up online (mainly just for something tricky like cookies, when I have a time limit and can't afford to have a failed batch).

The post punk kitchen usually doesn't use many exotic ingredients, aside from nutritional yeast.
http://www.theppk.com/

Still usually too many ingredients, though. At least, usually easier to find stuff.
Most of the time, you can leave these things out, or sub in dried for fresh with regard to herbs.

Take, for example, the green lasagna rolls on the front page:

http://www.theppk.com/2014/06/green-lasagna-rolls/

12 oz lasagna noodles (needed)

For the white sauce:
1 cup cashews, soaked for at least 2 hours (needed, not-roasted cashews, but you can also sub 'raw' almonds, or almond meal, if you want)
1/2 cup water (needed)
2 teaspoons cornstarch (needed, but you can usually sub another kind of starch)
1/2 teaspoon salt (needed)

For the pesto: (you can skip this entirely, and use tomato sauce instead, but that kind of defeats the purpose)
2 cloves garlic (needed, you can use the stuff from the jar)
3 cups fresh basil, loosely packed (You can use one cup of dried basil and about 1/4 cup water, but substituting this is a bad idea. If you can't get fresh basil, your best bet is to use tomato sauce instead)
1/2 cup pepitas (shelled pumpkin seeds), plus extra for garnish (use can sub almonds or cashews for in the sauce, and optionally sliced almonds or sunflower seeds for garnish)
1/3 cup olive oil (If you have to, you can sub canola oil, but not recommended)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast flakes (you can leave this out)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (Doesn't need to be fresh)
1/2 teaspoon salt (needed)
Several dashes fresh black pepper (needed, but doesn't need to be fresh)

For the ricotta:
1 14 oz extra firm tofu, crumbled (Don't use soft tofu (it's too wet), but 'firm' tofu would be passable, you can also sub in smashed white beans [canned or well cooked] and cauliflower if you need to)
1/4 cup pesto (you can sub a bunch of dried basil and Italian seasonings, about 2 tablespoons)
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (you can leave this out)
1 tablespoon olive oil (you can sub canola if you have to)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice (Doesn't need to be fresh, bottled is fine)
1/2 teaspoon salt (needed, but you can use half-salt)

For the spinach:
2 tablespoons olive oil (You can sub canola oil if you have to)
6 cloves garlic, minced (needed, fresh is better but you can use the stuff from a jar)
10 oz baby spinach (Frozen is fine, and it doesn't need to be "baby")

Just as an example.

We'd be glad to help you find or modify a recipe to make it simpler.

Generally, if you start with whole grains, and add legumes and vegetables, you'll have a pretty good meal.
If you eat rice, make sure to eat it with beans of some kind. White/brown rice is one of the only whole foods that is low in protein (beans, most vegetables, and other grains are all pretty high in protein, even potatoes have quite a bit; white/brown rice is kind of an exception to the rule -- black or wild rice is fine).

NOW we're talking! Thanks. This is exactly what I'm looking for. I'll comb through it in greater detail over the next few days.

No problem. Just let us know if you need any help or advice.