Vegan Recipes?

[dolphinboy]

My wife's doctor put her on a 21-day Vegan-only cleansing diet. Neither she nor I have ever prepared Vegan meals, but I get that no animal products whatsoever can be used. She went out and bought all kinds of veggies and tubers, but we don't have a vegan cookbook handy to look for recipes.

Is there a website where I can type in a list of ingredients and it spits out recipes that only use those ingredients?

Any suggestions would be appreciated besides "go out and buy a vegan cookbook". I live in a small town and cookbooks are hard to come by, although I could certainly order one over the Internet.

[dolphinboy]

bump....

[Ferret Herder]

I'm a vegetarian, I work in the medical field, and I'm... dubious of any doctor who would recommend "cleansing" of any sort other than colon prep prior to a colonoscopy. And that doesn't involve eating solid food.

Here's a website that will search the way you're asking about: http://www.supercook.com/

And I'll recommend these websites for specifically vegan recipes:
http://vegweb.com/ (vegetarian, not just vegan)
http://happyherbivore.com/ingredients/ (vegan)
http://veganyumyum.com/

I don't know how well you can use your desired method of searching on any of the veg-centric sites, but the first website has tons of recipes and might work best for that.

[Dewey Finn]

Originally Posted by dolphinboy

My wife's doctor put her on a 21-day Vegan-only cleansing diet.

I'm curious why the doctor (presumably a medical doctor) would recommend such a diet. I thought that cleanses weren't really part of mainstream medicine. And while I can see a doctor recommending that a patient modify his or her diet, I'm surprised that this doctor recommended an exclusively vegan one.

[dolphinboy]

Thanks Ferret Herder. These links are exactly what I was looking for.

Dewey Finn- Perhaps the word 'cleansing' isn't quite right in this case. Without being overly graphic, my wife has had gastro-intestinal problems for the past 12 years. Eating a normal diet she is forced to take a large amount of powerful laxatives just to be 'normal'. Doctors have tested her for lots of possible diseases, but the test results haven't pointed to anything useful.

I can say that in the week she has been on a vegan-only diet she has completely eliminated all laxatives. So something in her old diet must be causing the problem.

After 21 days the doctor wants to start introducing meat and dairy etc. to see which causes her digestive problems to return...

[VOW]

http://www.vegparadise.com/

That's a monthly webzine with lots of information on Veganism, and there are links to past issues.

You might even check out a column called "Using Your Bean," by VOW.

Oh, wait, that's ME...


~VOW

[Ferret Herder]

Thanks for the clarification; that sounds like a more logical reason for such a plan.

[SeaDragonTattoo]

Google works pretty well. Just type "vegan" first, then each ingredient, and all kinds of recipes pop up. I do this all the time... the Google cookbook than encompasses all cookbooks!

[Sam Lowry]

One website I like is Cheap Healthy Good. It's not all vegan, but a lot of the recipes are.

[Snickers]

I'm not vegan myself, but I do know that The Moosewood Cookbook is a vegetarian cookbook line - they might have a vegan cookbook that you could check out from the library before plunking down any cash. And it seems (according to the reviewers on Amazon) that the new version has notes about dairy substitutions that will probably be helpful.

[purplehorseshoe]

You can search by ingredient on allrecipes.com, including a box for "ingredients I don't want."

[OpalCat]

Originally Posted by purplehorseshoe

You can search by ingredient on allrecipes.com, including a box for "ingredients I don't want."

Oh that is so cool! I've used allrecipes.com before but never realized you could do that! Thanks!!

I wish I had more to offer in this thread, since I'm a vegetarian, but unfortunately most of my cooking relies on eggs or dairy (or both).

One easy thing you can do that comes to mind is cubed tofu* + [rotating choices of] vegetables in a stir fry. One good stir fry sauce that we make at home is 2 or 3 (I can't remember) Tbsp minced fresh garlic, 2 Tbsp corn starch, 3 Tbsp soy sauce and 2 or 3 (again, can't remember--probably doesn't matter much) olive oil. Put everything but the ginger in a small cup or bowl together and the corn starch will mix in pretty easily after sitting for about 5 minutes. If you're stir-frying frozen veggies (which we usually do, mostly because it's easier) it takes about 6-7 minutes on medium/high heat, then you add the sauce, and the ginger. Another way, if you're feeling lazier, is just to buy a bottle of teriyaki sauce and use that. We usually use a third to a half of the bottle for one (3-person sized) pan of stir-fry (which is usually one package of tofu and one bag of frozen veggies). Anyway, you can get a pretty wide variety of options with a stir-fry, so it's a handy staple.


* and you can buy it already cubed! I think it's even the same price! Not that it's hard to do or takes long at all. Btw, we usually use extra-firm tofu, but it's all a matter of personal taste. Some people like the softer tofu texture, some like the firmer.

[Chimera]

Originally Posted by purplehorseshoe

You can search by ingredient on allrecipes.com, including a box for "ingredients I don't want."

I'm not a vegan, but that is an extraordinarily useful function.

[Anna Nimity]

Fake barbeque! This is so good. Trader Joe's organic 3-grain tempeh with TJ's Bold & Smoky Kansas City Style Barbecue Sauce. I spray some oil on the bottom of my cast iron pan, add cut up tempeh and onions, saute it for awhile and then add quite a bit of barbeque sauce. I ate mine on whole grain pita bread. It tastes just like barbeque beef to me.

[OpalCat]

Originally Posted by Anna Nimity

Fake barbeque! This is so good. Trader Joe's organic 3-grain tempeh with TJ's Bold & Smoky Kansas City Style Barbecue Sauce. I spray some oil on the bottom of my cast iron pan, add cut up tempeh and onions, saute it for awhile and then add quite a bit of barbeque sauce. I ate mine on whole grain pita bread. It tastes just like barbeque beef to me.

Both Gardenburger and* Morningstar Farms makes "BBQ riblets" made of vegetable protein. They're REALLY yummy. They appear to be vegan (check the link). The closest sauce I've found to the sauce they use is Sweet Baby Ray's (which I keep on hand and add in a little extra).


*it appears Gardenburger stopped making them. A pity.

[Lynn Bodoni]

I feel compelled to say that your wife should be careful about eating any raw member of the Allium family, and possibly cooked as well. I can't eat raw onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, etc., even though I love them, and many people in my IBS group also can't eat this stuff. I can eat alliums if they're well cooked, but many people can't even tolerate the cooked ones. It's a pretty common trigger. I was surprised to find that many people share my inability to tolerate black pepper, as well.

And sometimes people can tolerate a little bit of a food, but not a lot of it. So your wife needs to be careful of that, too.

[Motorgirl]

Here are a couple I have posted to SDMB over the years.
I am not vegan (nor even vegetarian!) but I love these recipes.

Winter vegetables with pilaf
Curried Black Beans & Sweet Potatoes

[Anna Nimity]

Originally Posted by Motorgirl

Here are a couple I have posted to SDMB over the years.
I am not vegan (nor even vegetarian!) but I love these recipes.

Winter vegetables with pilaf
Curried Black Beans & Sweet Potatoes

The curried black beans and sweet potatoes sounds great. A lot of flavor in a very simple recipe. I need more quick recipes like this. I know what I'm having for dinner tonight.

[Time Stranger]

The Post-Punk Kitchen is a great site for vegan recipes. Isa Chandra Moskowitz is one of the best vegan cookbook writers around. She does run on the un-spiced side of things, so if you want some pep you may wish to ramp up the spices.

Edit: Sorry, didn't read the OP carefully enough, that site doesn't let you insert specific ingredients. But it still does have a lot of good recipes...

[DCnDC]

Stuffed peppers always go over well. It's easy and you can get creative.

[OpalCat]

Originally Posted by DCnDC

Stuffed peppers always go over well. It's easy and you can get creative.

I have a great stuffed squash recipe at home that I'm pretty sure is vegan. It's delicious... I'll try to remember to post it when I get home.

[Cartoonacy]

Look into seitan. It's a chewy meat substitute made from gluten -- wheat protein -- and adds a bit of meaty texture to vegan dishes. Here's a video showing one way to make it at home. There are other methods you can find on the web.

The woman in the video just says "flour," but it's best to use bread flour. Cake flour and all-purpose flour have relatively little gluten. Or you can see if your supermarket has "vital wheat gluten," which already has the starch removed, so you can skip the first step of rinsing the starch out of the flour.

[hotflungwok]

No one's mentioned the Vegan Black Metal Chef?
Pad Tai
Easy Meal Ideas
Tempura Asparagus Sushi
Hail Seitan
Smoothie Alchemy
Holiday Hell Roast

[OpalCat]

Not a recipe, but a word of... caution? Vegan cheese isn't quite...there yet. The shredded "cheddar" type is ok in recipes where it's mixed in and melted (but it takes longer than real cheese to melt) but if you're looking for slices for a sandwich or something, forget it. And the supposedly melty fake mozzarella on pizzas isn't very good, either. Just saying so you don't get your hopes up. Fake meats have come a long way and many are excellent. Fake cheese hasn't gotten nearly as far.