Weekend Cooking: VeggieChallenge Week 1

As I told in my starting post, I will be participating in the VeggieChallenge. This is a Dutch initiative to make people aware and challenge them to consume less meat, fish and animal products for a month. People are allowed to set their own challenge. Like going meatless for 1 day a week, or for the whole week, it is all possible. Because I already eat vegetarian most of the time, I decided to challenge myself to eat vegan for 2 days a week in July. So for about the next 4 weeks I will post updates on how it all went including tasty recipes!

Peanut Butter Truffles

My two vegan days for the past week were Tuesday and Wednesday and this is what I ate:
Tuesday:
Breakfast: Vegan bread with mushroom pate from the store. - I didn't really like this pate to be honest and that won't be a repeater.
Lunch: Vegan bread with mashed avocado, black pepper and some lemon juice. - How I love a good avocado! Simple but delicious.
Dinner: Thai Carrot Soup from the app How to Cook Everything Vegetarian.
Snacks: Cherries and peanut butter truffles.

Apple Cherry Smoothie

Wednesday:
Breakfast: Vegan bread and dark chocolate sprinkles.
Lunch: Was supposed to be the soup from Tuesday, but a friend stayed over for dinner so I just made another sammy. This time with peanut butter and cucumber.
Dinner: Fish Flavoured Eggplant with noodles. From the Dutch book Puur Plantaardig. Those were totally yummy!! And my favorite dish of the week!
Snacks: Peanut butter truffles, cucumber and a vegan apple-cherry smoothie.

Recipes:
The recipe for the Peanut Butter Truffles I posted earlier this week as part of the Foodblogevent. Find the recipe here!

Apple and Cherry Smoothie: (serves 2)
- 1 apple, chopped
- 20 cherries, pitted
- 1 banana, sliced
- 1 kiwi
- a handful of berries (blue, red, black, rasp, whatever you have)
- Cloudy apple juice

Put the cherries in the blender first, then add apple, kiwi, banana and berries. Blend with a generous splash of apple juice to loosen.

Fish Flavored Eggplant: (serves 4) (adapted from Puur Plantaardig)
- 2 eggplants
- 500ml oil for frying
- 2 tbsp sweet chili sauce
- 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
- 4 spring onions, chopped, white and green parts seperated
- 1 tsp fresh ginger, chopped
- 1 tbsp soy sauce
- juice of one lemon
- 1 tsp sesame oil


Cut the eggplants into cubes. Heat the oil in a large wok, until the oil smokes. Fry the eggplant in the oil for about 3-4 minutes in two portions. Scoop them out and leave the eggplant on kitchen towels to soak in the excess oil. Pour the oil in a jar or something but leave a tiny bit in the pan. Add sweet chili sauce, ginger, garlic and the white parts of the spring onions and stir fry that shortly. Add the soy sauce, eggplant and lemon juice and stir fry for another 2 minutes. Lastly add the green parts of the spring onions and drizze with the sesame oil. I served them with noodles but you can also serve it with rice. 


I don't know if it was really fish flavored but the eggplant was so juicy and the combination was just totally delicious! 

Some things I encountered:
- I think it is harder trying to go vegan if your house is still full with non vegan food.
- There are so many things I want to try that it is a bit overwhelming. The vegan Mayonnaise I planned to make didn't happen yet.
- I discovered that I can go without milk products and eggs just fine. It is the cheese that I miss. In the Netherlands we don't have that many tasty faux cheeses.
- You have to make a lot more yourself, which I don't always have the energy for.
- I NEED vegan alternatives for toasties ;)
- The organic store I have access to is rather small and they don't have all the stuff I need. Like natural yeast for example. This makes an extra challenge to plan stuff. (also an obstacle to make cheezy alternatives.)

This may not sound that positive but these are just some things I ran into. I am pretty much enjoying myself experimenting. But I do hate the fact that I don't have all the resources I need and that my chronic illness prevents me from doing everything I want to do. But the latter is just something I have to live with. Sometimes I am just bummed out about it though. Anyway, I already know that now that I have taken the first steps, I will keep on experimenting after July is over. I just needed this push!

For next week I am keeping it simple. I will cook one vegan bulk meal for dinner, so I can focus on making my own spread(s) for my sammies and I have an idea for a vegan toastie. More on that next week.

This post is part of Weekend Cooking. Please make sure to check the other participants as well :)

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