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
The way Jamie Oliver cooks has always been one of my favourites; he makes it look easy and his energy is cool. What I didn’t know was that he also has a nice selection of vegan recipes.
You can find his recipes at http://www.jamieoliver.com/. Not only can you sort recipes alphabetically by date or popularity, but you can also filter your search by ingredients, kitchen, difficulty (I love that :D), course, and occasion for dish type.
I did a search for “not too tricky” and found “Briam”, which is a Greek dish traditionally eaten with feta – I made the dish with vegan feta – it was delicious and easy to make.
Teenagers are hungry all the time – being vegan or not.
The trick is of course always to have something healthy in the fridge or freezer. We don’t want it to be too expensive either.
Not only for teenagers but I also like to have something just “to grab”; it is nice not to have to cook a full meal from scratch, but just something healthy and filling.
Here are some great suggestions:
Snacks
Having snacks around has been the best way to keep us all full between meals, or instead of meals when we run out of on time. The old wisdom that snacking ruins your appetite mysteriously doesn’t seem to apply to teenagers and young adults. Try these Simple and Satisfying Vegan Snacks.
Cook in Quantity
I keep vegan taco meat in my freezer and an extra bowl of pasta salad in the fridge when possible. Label the leftover containers to make them easy to find, especially if your wayward teenagers are as bad at feeding themselves as my brother is. Pre-cooked quinoa and wild rice are also excellent in salads and wraps.
Veggie Burgers and Veggie Dogs
Veggie dogs, or not-dogs as we call them in my family, are another easy and filling food. Paired with sprouted buns and homemade ketchup, burgers and dogs are an excellent treat, especially for those less inclined to cooking. Making the veggie burgers yourself can be pretty easy though, if you have a little more time than money, and store-bought has never tasted as good to me as what I make myself.
Cooking vegan you’ll need loads of tricks to cook or at least that is how it looks in the beginning. After you have some experience it gets easier and easier; still when we find recipe with milk, honey, butter or cheese we don’t give up, we just replace the foods. I think we have all tried to make our own cheese some with good result and some with lesser result, here are some good suggestions.
1. Make Your Own Honey Replacement
You don’t have to be a bee to make your own honey. Just mix 1 ¼ cups of granulated sugar with 1/3 cup of water and you have one cup of vegan honey. Replace the honey in a recipe with an equal amount of your homemade sweetener.
2. You Don’t Need a Churn to Make Butter
Believe it or not, making your own butter is pretty easy. You just need some specialty ingredients like lecithin, coconut oil, and xanthan gum and a mold to shape the butter in. Vegan butter can be made with soy milk or for a soy-free version, try my cashew-based vegan butter. You can even make it fancy by adding your favorite herbs or using cocoa butter to make a heavenly chocolate-flavored butter.
3. Avocados Can be Used as Butter
There’s a trend going on right now for avocado toast. Just mash up some avocado and season it with your favorite herbs, spices, or even hot sauce and spread it on your toast as you would butter. Besides toast, avocado can substitute for butter in baking or in puddings. Just be aware that you will taste the avocado, so be sure it’s a good match for your recipe.
One way to save money and get your food wast at a minimum is to know how to store your veggies correctly. Nothing worse than finding veggies that either are dry or gone half-rotten.
The “secrets” are
Keep the fridge clean (use non-toxic cleaning products once a week)
– Maintain a low temperature
– Wash your produce before and after storing it
– Switch out the towels on a regular basis to make sure nothing is lingering
– Use a towel made from anti-bacterial fibers like bamboo
I decided to enrich some potato mash recipes with protein this week. How can we do this? Beans are a fantastic way to add protein and extra nutrients to any dish. Then I asked myself, which beans contain the most protein? Soybean is at the top of the list. But I’m not keen on soybeans because the non-organic ones are GMO, and I can only buy from China – at least where I live in Finland. I have never been comfortable buying from a country that far away, for some reason. So, which ones are next on the list? I wasn’t sure, so I used the usual trick: Google.
Second on the list is navy beans. For you who are not familiar with that name (as I wasn’t), it’s a small white, oval bean, with the latin name Phaseolus Vulgaris.
When my significant other did the shopping list, I asked him to buy “white beans”, which is the term we would use here. He bought butter beans, which, in his defense, are also white. The protein content in cooked butter beans is 9g per 100g, so all was good with the protein content. The mashed potatoes also turned out well. My partner, who is an omnivore, loved it without noticing the butter beans. I added a few veggies and it was a healthy main meal.
