Welcome to the Vegan Theory Club Weekly Megathread!
Question of the week:
How has becoming vegan improved your life?
Feel free to talk about anything, whether it’s vegan-related or not. This is a chill space for connecting, sharing ideas, and supporting each other.
Looking forward to hearing what everyone’s up to!
My local vegan only food truck stays winning. They were at an event last night for local artisan crafts like smithing and glass blowing. There were supposed to be 4 truck there but they were the only one that showed up. I know one wasn't there because some jackass stole their whole truck. I need to follow up on that because it was pretty shitty taking someone's means of living like that.
But as I was waiting for my buffalo "chicken" sammich last night, a family was standing next to me and was looking at the menu and the mom said "Wait, it's all vegan? Yuck!" and they left. I thought it was funny seeing people so judgemental in real life instead of dorks on the vegan subreddit pretending to be oppressed and talking about "but lions" and whatnot. In any case by the time I had my sammie eaten, the truck had like 20 people waiting on food and it wasn't letting up. They made bank I'm sure.
Ok story out of the way. Question: Can y'all share some of your favorite soup recipes? It's soup season here and I wanna change things up a bit from my chili and potato soup. Right now I'm thinking spicy black bean, something lentil, or my standby veggie mixed bean. But I want more variety for sure. I fucking love soup lol.
Edit to answer question of the week, sorry lol: Fucking goodbye gout flair-ups! Secondly, I'm a lefty of course but becoming more aware of both the ethical and the ecological issues behind factory farming has helped me further ground myself in my belief system. I fully believe that part of socialism absolutely should be animal liberation, both for stopping violent treatment and slaughter of animals but also for climate reasons. When I was first considering going vegan like 6 years ago, I was mostly gonna do it for climate reasons, but after working in the ag industry, I learned real quick how awful it really was and now do it for animal rights too. I'm 1.5 years vegan now and very vocal about it.
That reaction is absolutely ridiculous. It makes me cringe to think that there's people out there that would react in that way.
It was my first time seeing it in the wild so I'm gonna cherish it lol. They missed out on a bomb ass sandwich.
Those poor saps!!!
That's actually hilarious. What idiots. My wife often organises lunches at work and always takes people to only vegan restaurants but says nothing. Every time people are extremely pleased with the food and shocked it's vegan. I swear carnists think we live in soggy lettuce and self flagellation.
As to soups well here are some things in the style of soups and stews I've enjoyed.
https://www.loveandlemons.com/white-bean-soup/#wprm-recipe-container-62463 this and similar kinds tex mexy stuff
goulash e.g. https://www.kathysvegankitchen.com/vegan-goulash/#recipe although that is a laughably small amount of paprika.
Laksa is always a winner so make some!
hot and sour soup https://thewoksoflife.com/vegetarian-hot-sour-soup/ best fresh, it loses something in leftovers
c/w not a vegan site: https://mykoreankitchen.com/korean-soybean-paste-soup-doenjang-guk/#recipe just make the stock without the fish it's fine. That stock base can also be used for Korean/Japanese hotpot and gun/jiggae. Vegan kimchi jiggae is a surefire winter warmer.
Let me know if any of those are up your alley.
The chicken sandwich I got was good as hell too. Like it tasted like a fried chicken sandwich. You could have served it to them blind and they'd not have known. The girls that run the truck always get a kick out of people like that though.
I served my chili to my parents when they came down and my dad ate it and didn't think about the fact that it was vegan until after they went back to their hotel room. He couldn't tell and my mom even said it was the best chili she's ever had. Of course, there are some iffy recipes out there. Some TVP tastes like you are eating squishy Styrofoam (I'm still learning lol) but there are a lot of legitimately good vegan food out there.
I am grabbing all of theses recipes and will work through them. Thanks a ton. They all look great. Also omg I've been meaning to make goulash but keep forgetting so thanks for reminding me! I'm gonna look for a Laksa recipe too because a curry soup sounds right up my alley. I fucking love curry.
Some of tips for laksa:
kelp stock or ground kelp helps the savoury aspect without prawns/shrimp in the paste. judicious application of msg can also be a boon here.
Fresh galengal is key!
adjust amount of coconut milk in the stock to your taste, you can make thinner or richer broths. Don't be bound by the recipe.
I personally find mung bean noodles nicer than rice noodles. More bite.
I just went to our Asian market yesterday and now I think I need to go back lol. I think they might have galengal but not sure about mung bean noodles. The kelp sounds just good all around. In the beforetimes,
CW meat:
I was a big fan of seafood and fish
and have been meaning to try working with kelp a bit after buying some tsuyu to try to get that flavor profile. Tsuyu basically a soy/teriyaki soup base with kelp and shiitake and I think a bit of crack cocaine. It's expensive though, working with kelp directly would be cheaper I think.
I think the laksa might wait for a few months but I for sure wanna make it. I need to rotate in my potato soup since my partner devours it. And I have quite a few new soups to try. Today is gonna be the Ash Reshteh and next week I think I'm gonna try a South American style black bean.
I also loved the taste of seafood, I mean I still do I assume but well you know.
I recently discovered a company that makes mock prawns out of a jiggly starch. Somehow they taste of those weird "seafood sticks" so I've been meaning to investigate precisely what they're flavoured with and incorporate it into cooking.
Some people become disgusted with the flavours of meat, and I understand how the violent revulsion felt when realising what it really costs could bleed over. I, however, am not so lucky. Fortunately it seems food science is moving pretty quickly and we are learning how to use certain salts and synthetic amino acids to flavour kinder food.
For now though kelp (konbu specifically), mushroom, and msg is my closest home made flavour analogue. I wouldn't say it tastes of sea creatures exactly but can be a similar element in a meal.
Not gonna lie, I'm interested in a vegan imitation crab lol. Gardein makes a "fish filet" that tastes a little bit like the real thing but I think it's mostly the shape and the fry batter they use. I'm also in the same camp as you I think, I didn't go vegan over the revulsion at first. It got dialed in officially after working in ag. I am considering moving more into whole food territory though and using less meat subs, only partially due to cost. When I first went vegan, I had a goal to try and make dishes that stand on their own where you wouldn't miss whatever traditional meat component goes in. That goal kind of got put on the back burner after losing my job and getting hit with an extra helping of depression lol.
Inspiring!
My favorite soup is called Ash Reshteh and it is a Persian new year soup. This recipe is a vegetarian one but I replace the kashk with vegan soy yogurt I make at home. It is the cover image for the most recent vegan home cooks recruitment post https://cookingwithayeh.com/ash-reshteh-persian-noodle-and-herb-soup/
CosmicSans made it after I shared that recipe https://vegantheoryclub.org/post/566859
Alright looked over it and this actually seems like something my wife might enjoy too with some light adjustments. She's got a lot of food aversions and is also not a fellow vegan so it makes dinner planning a bit of a challenge.
Yeah I literally never follow recipes. This is why the vegan home cooks has a rule against it. No one makes anything how you like it and no one should feel constrained because of a recipe.
My main veggie soup recipe is basically mirepoix or holy trinity, 4 cups of veggie stock, and then basically whatever I feel like after that lol.
I was just looking over the recipe but got abducted by my wife to do a nap drive with the kiddo. I'm gonna look over it when I get home but it looks really good from what I saw!