Saturday, June 23, 2012

Weekend Cooking: Veggie Challenge Starting Post

Some of you might already have seen this Veggie Challenge being mentioned on my blog in the past weeks. The Veggie Challenge is a Dutch initiative to reduce the consumption of meat, fish and products that come from animals. They do this because it can already make a huge difference if everyone would just eat plant based just one day a week. And with this challenge you can set your own goals. For example you can choose to eat vegetarian 1 day a week for a month or more days. It is all up to you. Because I am already eating vegetarian most of the time, I challenged myself to eat vegan 2 days a week during July. Right now I am already making preparations to start. Like buying ingredients that I will need and getting my information and inspiration together. I also stalked Gnoe from Graasland with some questions because she has been eating vegan for a while now. Thank you for answering all of my questions!


These are the books that I will be using most of the time. All though I also have a good share of vegan recipes pinned to pinterest. I am glad that I already own some vegan books and in addition I borrowed a great book from the library that I will be using. And of course the site from Gnoe which also has wonderful recipes. Making her Vegan Mayonnaise will be the first thing on the list! (because I wouldn't like to miss out on mayonnaise!

I will be doing this challenge mostly because I want to experiment with vegan cooking for a long time already and while I cook vegan main dishes on a regular basis, I have no clue what to do about breakfast and lunch. So I like to get myself out of my comfort zone so that I will actually go and try the things that I want to for so long.

My mini challenges:
- Make some vegan basics like mayonnaise and faux feta
- Make or try several vegan bread toppings and spreads.
- Try my hand at vegan baking
- Go out to eat once as a vegan (lunch or dinner, yet to decide)
- Make some vegan snacks
(date-coconut balls from De Groene meisjes) - Optional: make vegan smoothies or ice cream

So this will mean that most of my Weekend Cooking posts during July will be about eating vegan. I hope you will all be open to this and that you won't run away :) In fact I hope that some of you will try some of the recipes I post :) On the other hand if you happen to know good resources which can help me reach my goals, please share them with me.



Lastly, I want to share a vegan dish that I have made 2 weeks back from the website of Happy Herbivore. It is an Indian dish that is called Saag. The Indian kitchen seems to be the place to go if you want to eat vegan. I tried this and loved it! This Indian spiced spinach is so easy, yet tasty. Because the recipe is already in English and I don't need to translate, just click on the link to see the recipe if you are interested.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking. Please visit the other participants as well. You never know where you next meal might come from.

9 comments:

  1. Love your pile of cookbooks, some of them I haven't heard of before :) Your list of cooking challenges is exciting, I'm really curious how you'll find the taste and texture of vegenaise and faux feta!

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  2. I can't wait to see your vegan posts. We eat vegetarian quite often (but not all the time) and haven't ventured into vegan. Perhaps you will inspire me to go vegan once a week.

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  3. Looking forward to your vegan posts -- always interested in learning more.

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  4. i too am looking forward to your vegan pots. My nephew is eating vegan and I am trying to learn more about it.

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  5. I love the idea of this challenge. I am trying to keep meat to two nights a week during the summer (it's pretty easy because the farmers' markets are full of great veggies then), and this would be a good way to focus on that goal. Looking forward to the vegan posts!

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  6. I've only purposely made vegan dishes when 'forced' - if I'm heading to a potluck at a vegan friend's house, for instance. I'll be looking forward to checking out the recipes you post this month!

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  7. What a great challenge! I can't wait to see how this works for you.

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  8. Good luck with the challenge! I've been trying to add more veggies to my diet but because of my husband's allergies it would be really difficult to be meatless or vegan.

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  9. You've got some terrific goals for your Veggie Challenge Uniflame! And more vegan cookbooks than I own. ;) I have an online zucchini muffin recipe from Happy Herbivore on my list to try though. :)

    If you've got any more questions, feel free to ask! And ***ENJOY THE CHALLENGE*** :))

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