Day 22 – Friday 22nd April 2011 – Good Friday

Good Friday

Cauliflower & Batter

In my family, usually the tradition on Good Friday is to not eat any meat.  You’d think this would be good for a Vegan!  Well, the other part to the tradition is that instead of eating meat, my family just pigs out on seafood.  Seafood is the forgotten meat for a vegan.  These past few weeks my cravings have mostly been for burgers or pizza or red meat.  But today made me realise how much I  actually miss seafood…

Cauliflower Fritters with Red Cabbage Coleslaw and a Spiced Avocado Dipping Sauce

We had some relatives over for dinner so I thought I’d cook up a vegan dish to have while everyone gorged themselves on seafood.  Using the Jamie at Home cookbook, I made some Curried Cauliflower Fritters.

Cauliflower is a fairly bland vegetable, but when covered in a batter that’s been spiked with spices like Cumin, Coriander Seeds and Chilli, then deep fried, it tastes amazing!  I highly recommend trying the recipe.

I also decided to blitz up some avocado to have on the side as a dipping sauce.  Some yoghurt with garlic or some aoli would’ve been AMAZING with these fritters.

Food Consumed

Breakfast

• Protein milkshake with berries and rice milk.
• Toast with Marmite and Nuttelex.

Lunch

• Grainwaves and leftover protein milkshake.
• Soy snacks

Dinner

• Cauliflower fritters from Jamie at Home cook book.
• Bill Granger’s red cabbage coleslaw (totally vegan!).
• Spiced avocado dipping sauce.

Tags: Vegan Bet

Day 21 – Thursday 21st April 2011

Cinnamon Toast

This morning I went to yoga with The Snowboarding Marathon Running Academic.  I figured since I was being a healthy vegan, and had to train for the half marathon, yoga would be a way to keep in shape after all the running I’ve been doing.  As a vegan, I felt right at home with all the yoga-hippies.

Afterwards we went to Hoochie Mamma Cafe in Newtown to have a breakfast coffee.  I had a soy coffee, again, which tasted fine.  I also got the Cinammon Toast without butter, but obviously there was meant to be butter.  I ended up getting a whole load of cinnamon powder up my nose.  It tasted fine, but it really did lack the butter.

Today I also had some Soy Good Chocolate Soy Ice Cream.  It tasted good, but even chocolate can’t wash away the taste of soy milk….

Food Consumed:

Breakfast

• Yoga
• Cinamon sourdough toast without butter.
  

  So Good Ice Cream

• Soy Flat White.

Lunch

• Leftover falafel with vegetables.

Dinner

• Leftover Falafel Roll.

Other Items Consumed

• Be Natural Trail Bars.

The Disgruntled Vegan

Tags: Vegan Bet

Day 20 – Wednesday 20th April 2011

The Falafel Breakthrough

Falafel Night!

Tonight The Disgruntled Corporate Lawyer came over for dinner and we finally perfected the falafel recipe.  The key is the Non Egg Binder!  This is the brand I purchased:

No Egg

Adding the equivalent of two eggs worth of No Egg meant that the falafels didn’t disintegrate into the oil.   With a light dusting of flour the outside of the falafel were crispy.  However, due to the fact I totally blitzed the chickpeas in a food processor, the texture was a bit too fine, comparatively to the awesome falafel at Fatima’s on Cleveland St.  We added some tabouli and some hummus to some lebanese bread and the falafel were perfect!

Shaping the Falafel

Cooking the Falafel

Food Consumed

Breakfast

• Wholemeal toast with Marmite and Nuttelex.
• Pineapple juice.

Lunch

• Leftover vegetable dish made by The Mother of the Disgruntled Vegan with rice.

Dinner

• Homemade falafel roll.

Other Items Consumed

• Soy flat white from Mecca Coffee, Harris St, Ultimo.

Tags: Vegan Bet

Day 19 – Tuesday 19th April 2011

Soy Coffee = Warm Bean Cocktail

This morning I had a soy flat white from a café in Newtown.  When I had my first soy coffee last week I thought it tasted

Veggie dish made by the Mother of the Disgruntled Vegan

pretty average, but the one this morning just tasted like a normal coffee.  I guess I’ve come to the realisation that soy milk coffee really doesn’t taste as bad as normal coffee.  I had some Be Natural Trail Bars for brekky.  These Be Natural ones are excellent because there are no animal products and they are delcious.  Really good to eat on the run. 

 The Mother of the Disgruntled Vegan made some veggies tonight, with beans and sweet potato and other veg, with an awesome sauce made up of Soy Sauce, Garlic and Brown Sugar.  It was good not having to cook my own vegan meal for once! 

Food Consumed

Breakfast

• Soy flat white
• Two Be Natural Trail Bars

Lunch

• Still going through the left over Rice Noodles.

Dinner

• Stir fried Vegetables made by The Mother of the Disgruntled Vegan
• Rice

Tags: Vegan Bet

Day 18 – Monday 18th April 2011

Thai and Sorbet in Newtown

After going on a run with The Snowboarding Marathon Running Academic, we decided to have Thai in Newtown.  I got the tofu stir fry with chilli jam (which is becoming a bit of a staple for the Disgruntled Vegan) and made sure they didn’t put fish sauce in it.  Afterwards we went to Ice + Slice to have some delicious sorbet… good thing sorbets don’t contain any animal products, it pretty much just tasted like ice cream! 

Pea Protein

 

 I also purchased some protein today, because I had to compensate for the lack of meat-based protein and to help with the muscle recovery after training for the half marathon.  It seems that I may end up spending as much as I will get for winning this bet… 

I added the protein to one of my berry milkshakes with rice milk when I got home that night.  It didn’t taste too bad, but it was a really weird texture because the protein didn’t dissolve.  Lesson of the day:  Protein is much tastier in meat form. 

Food Consumed:

Breakfast

• 2 Be Natural Nut bars
• Pineapple Juice

 Lunch

• Leftover rice noodles. 

Dinner

• Tofu and chilli jam stir fry from Thai La-Ong, Newtwon.
• Coke Zero
• Green Apple & Ginger Sorbet, and Passionfruit Sorbet from Ice + Slice Newtown. 
  

  Be Natural Trail Bar

Other Items Consumed

• Coke Zero
• A pack of Red Rock Deli Sea Salt Chips
• Protein milkshake

The Disgruntled Vegan

Tags: Vegan Bet

Day 17 – Sunday 17th April 2011

Cooking Frozen Edamame

Today I decided to put my blender to good use and have another berry smoothie for brekky, with the usual toast with Marmite.  I went on a massive 18km run today, so I didn’t eat much before it, but ate a whole load of leftovers after.  Running’s a good way to take my mind off the not being able to eat meat. 

I also finally cooked the frozen Edamame I purchased last week.  It was really easy.  I just boiled the edamame for about 6 minutes in salted water.  Meanwhile I fried up some garlic and chilli in a pan, then tossed the edamame in the garlic and chilli and put them into a bowl.  Delicious! 

Food Consumed:

Breakfast

• Berry Milkshake with Rice Milk. 
• Toast with Marmite and Nuttelex, and a Crumpet with Nuttelex and Maple Syrup. 

Lunch

• Berry Milkshake with Rice Milk.
• Plain flavoured Grainwaves.

Dinner

• Lefover Thai green Curry, Noodles, and Spring rolls, with rice. 

The Disgruntled Vegan

Tags: Vegan Bet

The Great White Flour Debate

White Flour:  Vegan or Not Vegan?

While at The Union Hotel celebrating The Ridonkulous Accountant and The Vegetarian Politican’s 25th Birthdays, a bombshell was dropped.

It came to dinner time and I was feeling hungry so I thought I’d peruse the menu for some vegan options.  The closest thing to a vegan option was the ‘Chickpea Burger, with green chilli jam, labne, tomato, baby gem lettuce & frites’.  Mrs Ridonkulous Accountant and The Keen Accountant even went up to the bar to ask if it was vegan and whether there were any animal products in it.  Other than the labne, which is a Middle Eastern strained yoghurt cheese, everything else in the burger was vegan!  What a WIN! So I ordered it.

Chickpea Burger

A few minutes later the burger turned up at our table and I was just about to pick it up and take a bite when The Ridonkulous Accountant told me that I couldn’t eat the burger because it wasn’t actually vegan!  NOT VEGAN!  WHY!?!?   Well, The Mother of the Ridonkulous Accountant had told him that white flour isn’t actually vegan because it’s bleached using animal bone materials.  This started the argument.

I began painstakingly searching the internet with my iPhone to find out whether this was true.  I couldn’t believe it!  There were a range of websites that asked the key question:  ”Is white flour vegan?”

At first glance, the majority of websites said white flour is vegan, but there were some websites that said it may not be vegan because of the animal products used to make it white.  The most absurd article I found on the issue argued that white flour was not vegan because there may be insects in the flour from the harvesting process!

I could see the next two weeks being extremely difficult if I couldn’t have any white flour, so I thought the best course of action was to email a reputable vegan organisation:  The Vegan Society of NSW.  I agreed with The Ridonkulous Accountant that I would not eat white flour if the Society said it was prohibited.

Here was my email:

Hi,

I am new to veganism and was wondering if white flour is vegan, and if not, why so?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Vincent

The Vegan society responded surprisingly quickly:

Hi Vincent,

Congratulations on becoming vegan.  As far as I know white flour is definitely vegan.  You might also like to ask on the wall of our Facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/VeganSocietyNSW

Many knowledgable people are on that page.

Veganly yours,

Greg

I was so relieved to receive that email!  So there’s the answer.  WHITE FLOUR IS DEFINITELY VEGAN!

The challenge continues…

 

White Flour is Vegan!

The Disgruntled Vegan