The snack situation on a vegan diet typically needs a little more planning than otherwise, since a lot of stores don’t have vegan convenience foods besides expensive nut mixes. Homemade snacks are your best bet, and the healthiest too, since even vegan store-bought snacks often have funky ingredients and E-numbers like flavourants, preservatives and emulsifiers – not all bad, but whole …
Coffee Naps
Spoiler alert: I’m about to share a brilliant secret to napping. The key? Coffee. Better than either coffee or naps, are coffee naps! Napping fails For a long time, particularly in my first year of undergrad, I got trapped in a really unhealthy sleep cycle. I’d get home after a long day of lectures and tutorials, too done in to …
Smoothies, Salads, Soups & Stews
I’m an avid habit-tracking (and bullet journaling) enthusiast, and one of the things that I try to check off daily is “Smoothie, Salad, Soup or Smoothie”. Even if my other meals are monotonous and dull, just having that one “S-meal” (as I call it) per day helps ensure that I ingest a wider variety of foods. A diversity of whole, plant-based …
Festive gathering survival guide for vegans
It’s the holiday season, and some of us are fortunate enough to safely share a meal with our nearest and dearest, despite corona-times. However, family gatherings around the dinner table can be stressful if you’ve recently changed your diet away from the dominant food culture. My first Christmas gathering after I shifted to a vegan diet was pretty tough: watching …
5 reasons not to peel your fruit & veg
To peel, or not to peel? That is the question of many a home cook. You know how it goes: that recipe you saved looks so simple, so quick, and then you notice that sneaky extra step: “wash and peel the potatoes” and you think “uhhh… I’ve got better things to do with my time than peel potatoes!” I hear …
Where to find ‘specialty’ vegan ingredients
Have you graduated from the “regular” categories of plant-based foods (vegetables, fruits, beans, grains)? Are you venturing into more creative vegan culinary pursuits? If so, you’ll need to start looking out for some specialty “vegan” ingredients that might be less common in more traditional recipes. It can be tricky to find these items, for the very reason that they’re not …
How to make your own nut butter
Growing up, peanut butter was a sandwich standard (of course) and I only encountered other ‘nut butters’ as an adult. Almond butter could be found in the health food aisle as an expensive alternative to peanut butter, and later we could find cashew butter and macadamia butter. Nut butters are a convenient and delicious way to get a good dose of healthy fats, and protein, …
Milk those plants
Milk. If I had known the lengths to which the dairy industry goes to convince us that we can’t live without it, the rebel in me would definitely have sought out alternatives sooner. Soy milk was the first ‘milk substitute’ I learnt about—and it’s still my favourite option: it’s high in protein, has a low environmental footprint compared to other …
Aquafaba: the best vegan egg substitute
I get a lot of blank stares when I mention this ingredient, which is understandable: it’s quite a recent discovery by a French food blogger in 2014. This revelation was transformative for the vegan culinary scene, opening up a world of possibilities: suddenly, the elusive meringue was achievable, along with chocolate mousse, macarons, nougat, ice cream and marshmallows. What is it? It’s …
Cooking from books, the old-school way
I love a good cookbook. Paging through a book of beautiful food photos is half the pleasure, and knowing all the potential that your shelf of cookbooks holds for delicious treats is a little bit exciting! Like most millennials, I only really started using the internet for *literally everything* as an adult. I was a bit of a bookworm growing …
13 ways to eat more beans
I’ve talked about how important it is to eat beans (or other legumes) every day: they’re a super important source of protein, fibre, iron and many other good things. But when we’re not used to the idea of eating beans regularly, our imagination might not stretch much further than emptying a can of beans into a bowl. We forget that there are hundreds of …
Tips for eating out (or ordering in)
Avoiding animal products when you’re cooking at home is relatively straightforward, once you’ve got the hang of reading ingredients while shopping, and you’ve got your vegan shopping list favourites. Eating out (or ordering in) is a different ball-game though. If there’s a 100% plant-based eatery you can order from, that’s definitely the easiest! Apps like HappyCow or abillionveg make finding these places a breeze. …
How to prepare tofu
Want to know how to prepare tofu? You’re in the right place. I was once at a swanky wedding where the bridal couple had insisted on having a vegan reception dinner (kudos!) much to the parents’ disapproval. What was served up? A big block of tofu with some sauce poured over, and a side of steamed broccoli. Hahahaha. I guess the chef …
How to make food taste good
Whether you’re part-time or full-time plant-based, tasty food should be a priority. After all, it’s the most immediate pleasure that brings us back to eating regularly. But we’ve got to find that fine balance, limiting unhealthy foods and focussing on an abundance of whole, plant-based foods. So if we can get healthy food tasting good, we get the best of both worlds, right? I’ve …
Vegan baking substitution guide
I’m going to share a secret with you. The best way to create great vegan recipes is to take your favourite non-vegan ones, the ones that were handed down from your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents… and swap out the animal-based ingredients for vegan alternatives. Most of the time you can get away with straightforward swaps (e.g. cow’s milk can pretty much …
How to substitute eggs in baking
Oh, eggs. The baking ingredient with the most complex and interesting properties: no wonder pastry chefs everywhere rely on them for their beautiful creations. But fear not, vegan culinary geniuses have cracked the secrets*. The trick is to understand why chicken’s eggs play such a big role in baking, and then to find egg substitutes that best mimic the most important …
What every vegan kitchen should have
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve mentioned nooch or miso only to be met with blank stares. While they’re by no means staples, and I can definitely live without them, here are some magical foodie discoveries that make plant-based cooking so much more interesting and flavourful (I’ll assume that you already have the staples: whole grains, vegetables, legumes, fruit, nuts/seeds): Nutritional yeastAka nooch. Of course, the first …
Save money on your grocery bill
A lot of people think that plant-based eating is expensive. Makes sense, with companies (big and small) doing their very best to market their products to a fast-growing target audience. So you’ll see all kinds of vegan products advertised, from vegan cheeses and burgers to imported superfoods and nutritional supplements. What’s less visible, though, is the simple whole foods that …
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