Vegan recipes

Anything you make with minced beef/lamb, you can make with puy lentils. Shepherd's pie, spag bol etc.

I'll bet a lot of what you eat as veggie can be made vegan quite easily.

I love the idea of lentil spag bol and shepherds pie, thanks!

I don't think I could ever be a vegan. I absolutely hate beans & lentil type foods.

I'd literally just be eating pasta with tomatoes every day! haha.

I'm a vegan and I just google recipes for anything I fancy making - you can ALWAYS find a vegan recipe, or one that can be adapted. Try tofu - it's an acquired taste, but if you like it it's a really valuable thing to have as it can be used in almost anything from curry to cheesecake. Otherwise, soya mince/chunks are good - but remember Quorn isn't vegan. I would advise having a good look round Holland & Barrett if there's one near you, they have such a good range of 'fake meat' products. For lunch I alternate between sandwiches, salads with some sort of protein (fake meat or tofu) and occasionally instant things like the pasta or couscous Mugshots. If you have any more specific questions please ask, I'd be more than happy to try to help

Ooh, ohsheglows.com is a good one too. The enchilada casserole from there is great, my (omni) H2B loves that. And they have a cookbook out too!

Thanks InkedDoll that's really helpful. I know this is going to make me sound super unimaginative but what do you have in your sandwiches? For me sandwiches are ham or cheese and I can't get my head around them containing anything more exotic than that

Yum! That sounds amazing!

Thanks everyone for all the ideas, I am really looking forward to vegan week now!

Sometimes fake cheese, sometimes fake ham I don't think my sandwiches are especially exotic if I'm honest - you could probably make amazing vegan sandwiches but I'm lazy. My main go-to sandwiches are:

Redwood Foods 'Cheatin' sliced meat - ham, chicken etc - with onion or pickle or whatever. I don't think it tastes particularly like meat (I haven't eaten meat for about 23yrs, so the memory is fading!) but I do like it.

I do also often have the Redwood Cheezly fake cheese, I think the White Cheddar is the best

Jam and peanut butter cos I'm a child

I also mash raw tofu with vegan mayo sometimes, which makes a good 'egg mayo' substitute - Plamil vegan mayo is the one I like best

Sliced sausage - Taifun Tofu Wieners are the best cos they don't need pre-cooking, but Redwood also do some that you can eat raw

Oh and if you use margarine, switch to Vitalite - it's the best dairy free spread IMO.

Butternut squash risotto - I fill mine with onions, peppers and spinach too so it's really filling.

Pasta with a vegetable-based sauce. For a quick recipe I fry cherry tomatoes and peas in olive oil and garlic with basil and chilli and toss it through pasta - takes as long as the pasta does to cook and is super easy for after work.

For lunch I'm struggling though. Will get back to you if I have any good ideas.

If you want some cake, this is vegan friendly

http://www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/recipe_directory/m/molly_cake.html

Over the festive period H's best friend came over for dinner with his new gf who is vegan and H cooked this for us all (or something very similar):

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7732/pumpkin-curry-with-chickpeas. He did it with some home-made chapatis (also vegan - just flour, oil and water I think). Delicious!! Indian food is very vegan-friendly.

There are so many good ideas on here I might have to do vegan fortnight instead of vegan week

On a slightly different note, when I showed this thread to H he wanted to know why he was just H not DH.....It took me a while to explain that hitched isn't really a DH kind of place.....

Ah, honey isn't vegan. I LOVE peanut butter, but not eating much of it at the moment as I'm trying to lose weight. I did get some PB2 powder which is great to get the flavour in smoothies or baking without all the oil.

That sounds good Twiga! I need to remember it for when my Vegan friend comes to dinner

Yeah, I use agave a lot. I know some vegans do eat honey - the way I always see it is a personal thing. If you're eating vegan for health or allergy reasons then honey probably won't be an issue for you - if you're doing it for ethical reasons then it's gotta be a judgement call. Some vegans won't even wear second hand leather or wool, which I do, and some won't donate to charities that fund animal experiments, such as Cancer Research (I don't, which always makes for a tricky conversation or two when Race for Life comes around!) You just gotta do what feels right for you and your conscience, I think.

I love agave nectar, take it every morning moxed with a bowl of fruit for breakfast & great for smoothies, in coffee etc

https://www.vegansociety.com/lifestyle/food/recipes

/recipes/collection/vegan-recipes

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipes/vegan-recipes.aspx

Few links OP might find useful

*sits on hands and wonders what happens if InkedDoll gets ill*

But as for your charity giving, why awkward conversations? None of their business who you do or don't give money to!

I honestly don't know what would happen if I got cancer. It's not something I sit and think about (who does?) but lots of people accept or refuse a variety of medical treatments for lots of different reasons. I guess I'd just make the decision at the time. I have had to ask for alternatives to tablets containing gelatin and lactose before, but a serious illness would be a different issue. Luckily the serious condition I do have (osteoarthritis) hasn't presented any challenges to my veganism so far! As for the awkward conversations, I've been asked outright to support people's fundraising for cancer research a few times before and I've explained why. Of course I could just say no and not give a reason, but I'm terrible at that

Hola from another fellow vegan.

There are so many wonderful vegan cooking blogs you won't know what to do.

Here's a few of my favourites

http://www.theppk.com/blog/

http://ohsheglows.com - though her recipes tend to be high fat content

http://mouthwateringvegan.com - my favourite blog

http://theveganstoner.blogspot.co.uk

http://deliciouslyella.com/recipes/ - this lady is amazing and shows you how to make vegan milk, butters and such from scratch - nothing ready made!

If you're looking for vegan alternatives check out http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/cgi-local/frameset/script/home.html, great for shopping for vegan stock cupboard items and the like.

Yay, another vegan! I don't know any in real life. I was a member of a vegan group on facebook, but it got kind of taken over by an American guy who was trying to raise money for his legal costs after being caught with medical marijuana in a state where it was illegal. Not only was it not related to veganism, him and his friends were just really confrontational and aggressive and would invade every thread, and I'm a peace-loving vegan. I got bored of it and stopped posting!

When I was at college back in the 90s vegetarianism was quite fashionable, and I do still know a few veggies, but I've only ever known two vegans IRL - and one went back to eating dairy during the time I worked with her! The other was a flatmate of my ex and he was really influential in my transition to veganism. I wish I had kept in touch with him, but that was before facebook and the like.

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone for your fantastic suggestions. We had vegan week last week and it went really well. We had some lovely meals we wouldn't have normally eaten and we enjoyed it so much we have decided to try and eat vegan or vegetarian a couple of days a week from now on. Especial favorites were the jungle curry suggested by Flora and a quinoa chili, which was delicious.