Week two of trying out Veganuary
After a second week of trying out Veganuary, we slipped a little with a few non-vegan dishes slipping in. These two meals will likely follow through to our end approach to our meal-times. As much as we love vegan food, it doesn't work for us perfectly and have found, previously, that a meal or two per week that contains meat products works best.
To start with here's the link to week one.
Diary
Day 8 Tofu Tikka Masala with Brown Rice
This was mostly from a jar by Sharwood's vegan range. So we just added the brown rice ourselves. We added onions and red peppers as well. The dish was very nice and was eaten by all. Pudding was a pear and almond (marzipan) cake with Plantlea's Double Cream; scrumptious.
Day 9 Pizza and Vegetable Chips
We tried a vegan pizza from Lidl and added some extra coconut derived cheese to it, alongside having vegetable chips. The pizza itself, was nice enough but the addition of the cheese really did not work with our bellies and we felt not well shortly afterwards. The chips were nice, if quite strange. They were parsnip and carrot, so quite fibrous compared to potato based chips.
Can't say we'd buy these again when we're short on time. We'll try something else instead.
We tried Lidl's Almond and Chocolat Mousse cake for pudding, which was delicious. Thoroughly recommend that.
Day 10 Pumpkin Chilli
Adapted, loosely, from Dirty Vegan's 4/5/6-Bean Chilli. This is page 118 of Dirty Vegan by Matt Pritchard.
Day 11 Roasted Veg, Korma sauce and Rice
This just used a pre-made Sharwoods korma sauce that we picked up at the same time as the Tikka sauce. It was very nice and worked well with the roasted veg (carrots, pumpkin and parsnips). Rice did a great job mopping up stray sauce.
Day 12 Non-Vegan dish
We had a non-vegan dish for dinner, though breakfast (porridge) and lunch (jack-fruit sausage rolls) were. The dish was King Scallops with Beetroot and Apple.
Day 13 Pasta and Pesto
A bit of a cheat-day again in flying out the pesto and pasta. This pesto was seaweed and basil from Shore. Delicious and filled everyone's belly.
Day 14 Pritchard's Vegan Sausage Casserole
Dirty Vegan, p. 154. We used Tesco's Plant Chef (or whatever their vegan menu is, not Wicked Kitchen) as they're cheaper than McCartney's sausages to see if they would be good enough or not. They were. Very good casserole recipe too.
Day 15 Non-Vegan dish
This was beans, pie and chips. Shant comment more on that.
Looking back on the fortnight
I think we've been quite successful, so far, in attempting to shift more of our meals Veganwards. It's beginning to affect our lunches and breakfasts, which were broadly vegetarian to begin with, there's been a distinct reduction in the meatier aspects of the diet. For the coming fortnight, I am hoping to solidify this 1 or 2 day non-vegan aspect and to keep the diet as vegetarian/vegan as possible. Hopefully we can reduce the reliance, accidental though it is, on buying stuff from the shop.