Vegetarian essentials!

af_thefragile

Hey, lately i've decided I'm gonna turn vegetarian.
Can't trust meat anymore (all the hormones and stuff you hear about being injected into the animals) and I feel the need to fill in more green and colorful stuff in my lunch plates!

Anyway, I know very little about food and so to start off I was wondering what ye guys think would be certain essential eh...vegetables you'ld keep in your kitchen for the vegetarian diet??

And maybe if anyone of ye could point me in a good direction for good food menus for lunch, dinner, breakfast etc.

Cheers!!

smegmar

First off it's great to hear you're making the big switch, well done.

Pasta, and lots of it.
also make sure to get your protein from eggs and nuts. if you're doing it for health reasons make sure all your eggs are free range organic, eggs are the worst for hormones and chemical feed for the chickens.

have a look out for Gelatin and other sneaky meat products they might put in your food. Guinness is also made with fish liver.

do keep a look out on this forum for the next veggie meet up, we'd be happy to share all our knowledge and tips

F4Fake

Yep, fair play for going veggie. I'm sure you won't regret it.

Along with pasta, copious amounts of rice is always a good investment. As are canned sweetcorn, chickpeas, and kidney beans (beans are also great for protein). I usually always keep fresh peppers, onions, and mushrooms at hand too. Tasty and very easy to cook with.

A good dish to start with might be a nice big curry. Thai curry paste and coconut milk (can be bought canned) simmered together until they both fuse. Throw in some chickpeas, potatoes, peppers, onions, and chilies (and whatever else you fancy). Serve on a bed of rice.
Easy to cook, relatively healthy, and tastes great.

henryporter

Well done for taking the plunge. I'd definitely recommend tofu as an excellent source of protein and a food that generally fills you up like no other. It's extremely versatile, offering menu options from the very easy sliced up, roasted in peanut oil, soya sauce and sesame seeds, to more complex curries and so on. Can be used in sandwiches, wraps, salads, also scrambled with herbs and spices for breakfast. The list is endless.

The other important thing to furnish yourself with is a couple of decent recipe books. Any of the Moosewood collective, Deborah Madison, or Dennis Cotter offers a good range of recipes. Also the Blazing Salads book that was out a couple of years back.

Best of luck with the new and improved vegetarian life!

tman

Aye, good luck with it
I personally always keep some celery and (red) peppers in my fridge. They're fecking great for snacking on (especially if you have some hummus for dipping!)

Green lentils can be good, and can be bought in a can if you're forgetful like me and neglect to leave them in to soak the night before... (they're a great substitute for mince in lasagne imo)

Couscous can be a fairly good source of protein apparently... Fecking lovely stuff it is too! (you can make a nice stuffing for peppers or aubergine with some of that, pine nuts and some other random stuff)

Always have some pine nuts in my cupboard too actually, love toasting those!

Making myself sound like some kind of health freak here when I'm really not!:D

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5

Yay good for you! As people have said rice, pasta, beans and fruit and veg are a good starting point. You should also try and find some lentil and tofu recipes, as the main thing you need to be concerned with when switching from a meaty diet is protein. Lentils and tofu are easy peasy to cook as well make sure you get a wide variety of fruit and veg in, get as many different colours of them in as you can to make sure you're getting all your vitamins and minerals. This page http://www.groovyvegetarian.com/category/vegetarian-diet/ has a lot of lists of the best veggie foods for specific vitamins you might be worried about, like calcium and iron.

Let us know how you get on!

raah!

If someone hasn't said it already then .. Kidney beans! I'm no master cook, and have really two things I can make, so I just replace the meat part of whatever dish with kidney beans and peas. Kidney beans are really nice and have iron and protein a plenty.

Welcome to teh forum also

sweet-rasmus

a fantastic amounts of ideas here i highly recommend lots of beans/peas: chickpeas, butter beans (aka garbanzo beans), kidney beans, cannellini beans, borlotti beans, butter beans.... oh, and make refried beans with pinto beans to go with salsa and mexican wraps you can buy these tinned or cook them for ~2 hours youself from their dried form (check on the packet for times, kidney beans can poison you if they aren't cooked properly).

As said, keep the fridge stocked with fresh vegetables. Try cooking a stew or bake with a butternut squash - a vegetable which should be loved more!

And I agree that cous cous is wonderful too

ztoical

Am I one of the few veggies on here who doesn't live on pasta? Can't remember the last time I had pasta.

Hit up a local farmers market if there's one near you and see whats in season, great way to discover new veggies.

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

As said, keep the fridge stocked with fresh vegetables. Try cooking a stew or bake with a butternut squash - a vegetable which should be loved more!

+1 butternut squash makes a fantastic soup.

I think a good nut roast is a veggie essential, loads of different versions online so you can tailor to your own tastes and you can have it with veggies or a salad, different sauces etc so it can be made into something new each time. Local cafe does one with a red onion marmalade that is just heavenly.

Tar.Aldarion

great suggestions, nuts, seeds, veg, it's all good stuff. raisins are nice, I put them in stirfries these days.

As for veg my favourites are corn, muchrooms, oninions, aubergines, courgettes. lalala

Tar.Aldarion

ztoical wrote: »

Am I one of the few veggies on here who doesn't live on pasta? Can't remember the last time I had pasta.

Nope, I hate pasta so much.

af_thefragile

Aww, thanks a lot guys!
Thats a good loads of info for me to get started on...
I'll probably be going to the supermarket sometime in the next couple of days and that should get me started on the vegetarian lifestyle!!


And then I can get back here and let you know how its going...

DonnieScribbles

Aswell as food, you may want to acquire some useful utensils, such as:

A wok
A roasting dish
A garlic crusher!

If you don't have them already of course! I have my own no-meat-allowed pots and pans though, because it feels wierd to cook in a meaty pan...

Stir-fries are brilliant because they are ridiculously easy. You can just throw anything into a wok and fry it up. In lots of garlic

Roast veg or tofu is also really easy. Great for the lazy vegetarian!

And I suppose the garlic crusher is optional, but sometimes I use mine two or three times a day

Tar.Aldarion

If you are a real man like me, you use a giant knife for garlic.


good luck with it, let us know the story!

sweet-rasmus

yes, let us know what you pick up at the supermarket. and what your next creation in the kitchen is you'll be giving us ideas too! i find once you recommend or discuss a food, then you can't resist but make it again yourself

tman

DonnieScribbles wrote: »

Aswell as food, you may want to acquire some useful utensils, such as:

A wok
A roasting dish
A garlic crusher!

If you don't have them already of course! I have my own no-meat-allowed pots and pans though, because it feels wierd to cook in a meaty pan...

Stir-fries are brilliant because they are ridiculously easy. You can just throw anything into a wok and fry it up. In lots of garlic

Roast veg or tofu is also really easy. Great for the lazy vegetarian!

And I suppose the garlic crusher is optional, but sometimes I use mine two or three times a day

Ah yes, I knew I was forgetting something!:o
I could never do without a bulb of garlic in my cupboard!

Tar.Aldarion

roast the cloves whole on a pizza, oh baby, heaven.