by Michaela Kennedy | Aug 29, 2015 | Food Guide
The Vegan lingo can be hard to understand. If you are new to the vegan world or even have been here for a while you might wonder about some of the terms we use. I remember the first time I read the word ‘nooch’ in a recipe, and vegan margarine – I would never use ‘normal’ margarine, so why would I use the vegan version? and what’s Daiya? Cheeze anyone? Let me start this” Vegan Lingo Explained” series with Nooch.
- Nooch, is nutritional yeast, with no rising effect. It’s usual not easy to find in shops, yet it’s easy to use.
- It is a deactivated yeast.
- Nutritional yeast is produced by culturing a yeast in a nutrient medium for several days.
- While it contains trace amounts of several Vitamins and minerals, it is only a significant source of some B-complex vitamins. Sometimes nutritional yeast is fortified with vitamin B12.
- Nutritional yeast has a strong flavor that is described as nutty and cheesy.
- It is a complete protein, meaning it contains an adequate proportion of all nine essential amino acid that we need to function.
- It is low in fat and sodium and is free of sugar, dairy, and gluten
How to use Nooch, Nutritional Yeast
- Grind it in a mini chopper with an equal part of blanched almonds to fake Parmesan cheese, this is great sprinkled on pasta!
- Add a tablespoon or two to risotto, quiches, cannelloni, stuffed mushrooms. Anywhere you would use Parmesan
- Sprinkle it on popcorn
- Blend it with nuts to make a vegan cheese sauce and soft or hard cheese.
As always experiment with your foods – Enjoy!
by Michaela Kennedy | Aug 25, 2015 | Snacks
Why would you want to make a homemade Nutella? Because Nutella is not vegan, yet there are some Nutella-alike products for you to buy. If you are anything like me, you will spend endless hours reading the labels – yes I know you do, you love Nutella too. So Nutella is not vegan? no, read this ingredient list for the original Nutella Hazelnut Spread:
- Sugar (may or may not be vegan)
- Palm oil (vegan but not for the environment-friendly)
- Hazelnuts
- Cocoa
- Skim milk!
- Reduced minerals whey (and that’s milk)
- Lecithin as emulsifier (soy, unless labeled “organic” it’s GMO)
- Vanillin: An artificial flavor (can contain anything)
Below the recipe is an infographic.
Home Made Vegan Nutella
This batch will be 2-1/2 cup.
1 cup = 2.3 dl.
[mpprecipe-recipe:71]
by Michaela Kennedy | Jul 22, 2015 | Vegan Soups
This healing white vegan gazpacho soup has many vitamins and minerals. It contains highly anti-inflammatory vitamin E and B and riboflavin in the almonds. The olive oil, cauliflower are also highly anti-inflammatory. The apple is rich in histamine, which lowers quercetin.
Apple cider vinegar is the lowest histamine of all vinegar. It is made from apples that have significant antihistamine and mast cell stabilizing activity. Garlic is not only anti-inflammatory but also anti-bacterial. Cucumber is an antioxidant that is good for your skin as well as an analgesic, which might decrease pain.
A healthy and cooling soup excellent to beat the summer heat.
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[bctt tweet=”Ever tried White Gazpacho? healthy and great in the summer heat.” username=”allveganfoods”]
Sources: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18433135
and The World’s Healthiest Foods
by Michaela Kennedy | Jan 1, 2015 | Lifestyle
2016 as last year is the year I hope more and more to become – and stay – vegan. In the last few years, I started my vegan research journey simply to find more healthy vegetable and legume recipes. The more I eat vegan, the better I feel, not to mention how much my awareness for animal welfare has heightened. I want to make veganism a true commitment to myself and to the other beings on our Earth.
I started out one day at a time, and here is how you can do it, too if you are struggling to go 100 percent vegan. For example, Meatless Monday is an easy commitment. So is occasionally eating vegan. The challenge is to stay a vegan day in and day out – every single meal – and do it the healthy vegan way – with an occasionally unhealthy vegan snack or meal.
A solution that works for me is to do menu planning, But, yes, there’s a but! I suck at creating a proper menu plan – you (and I) don’t want to cook three different meals and two snacks from scratch every day, not to mention the time it takes. We want a plan that is simple to follow, with leftovers for the next day and with a good combination of vitamins and minerals that make meals nutrition rich. And I want – and I bet you want, too – a plan that includes a shopping list.
Free vegan starter kit menu planners
In order to help me with this goal, I have found three free vegan planners that I have reviewed below. Let me know which one you like the best!
The good news is that there are several free menu planners on the Internet for us to use. I’ve done a search to kickstart this year for at good start at Vegan Menu Planning the healthy way. This is what I found, and more is being added.
1. 21-day Vegan Kit Menu from PCRM (Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine)
My all time favorite is the 21 Day Starter Menu. Not only do they have the menu kit with shopping lists, you can also sign up for a free account and make your own menus with your favorite foods.
When that’s done, not only a shopping list will be generated for you, but also the nutritional values in your meals are calculated. Doesn’t get much better than that. Get it here.
PCRM also has a kickstart program you can sign up for PMRC Kickstart (in English, Chinese and Spanish, there’s also Kickstart for India but in English)- they will send you daily emails with tips and recipes. And it starts the 1st of every month, so sign up Today!
2. “Eat This Much” is your personal meal planner and you will need to sign up for an account, which is free. When you set up your profile page you choose if you want to gain weight, maintain or lose weight, your gender, personal measure etc. you can even choose which price level your food budget is. Very cool – you also choose if you want metric or imperial measures! get it at EatThisMuch
3. PETA has a two week Vegan Meal Plan – it is a two-week sample menu. You can get it at PETA Meal Plan. Also, you can order a Vegan Starter Kit as well PETA Vegan Starter Kit
There you go, three free vegan meal planners for you to use.
Before I close I want to draw your attention to the good people at Veganuary, there’s no meal planning there but it’s so full of other fine vegan stuff that’s it well worth your time to check it out.
by Michaela Kennedy | Dec 19, 2014 | Snacks
Vegan tapas have called to me, and I have responded. I now have a load of new vegan appetizer ideas, or vegan tapas, to share with you. Last week was “Tapa″ week here in San Juan de la Ramba, where I’ve been staying this winter. It’s a lovely small village situated in the northern part of Tenerife, Spain.
Vegan tapas are not traditional
Ten Restaurants competed on serving the most creative tapa. All the restaurants served “their” tapa and a drink for a nice price of €2.50 ($3.10). The problem for me was, of course, that none of the tapas were vegan.
So, I decided to find good tapas recipes and recreate vegan versions for myself.
Vegan tapas to try
The start of this project was to find the recipes. Here are those that I started out with:
1. Vegan Jalapeno Poppers
2. Cherry Tomatoes and Watermelon
3. Tofu Triangles
4. Radicchio Cups
5. Dessert tapas – blueberries 😀
Let’s take the dessert first – I’ve never heard of tapas for dessert, despite having spent some time in Spain. I don’t know if it’s even a thing, but vegan desserts as tapas, well, I’m all for it!
The jalapeno poppers are too hot for me, but my “tasters” love them! So, if you are into hot stuff this is for you. making sure to remove all the seeds and the inner vein helps, as well as choosing your variety of pepper.
The cherry tomatoes with watermelon are just lovely with a nice mild taste. They can be served as palate cleansers and are great for a hot summer’s day.
For the tofu triangles, I used coconut oil, plus I added nutritional yeast and served them warm – a great “snack” taste, salty!
Radicchio cups are so packed with goodness that I can eat them as a meal. These are festive party pleasers
All the vegan tapas I tried were so delicious and well worth the effort – not that they are hard to make, but tapas often need a bit of prep time. I like to make up a batch or two and they will keep for a few days in the refrigerator if they last that long.
