make your own damn vegan restaurant food.
seriously. it’s (usually) not that hard and you’ll realize it’s often better. what’s more, learning to make amazing vegan dishes that you might assume are just not reproducible at home will make you feel good about youself, cause members of whatever gender you prefer to be more attracted to you, give you lustrous hair, strong nails, white teeth, and make you better at sports and polite conversation.
don’t get me wrong, I love dining out and do it pretty often; I’d never claim to hold a candle to some of the folks who get paid to prepare food on a daily basis.. but there are a lot of ways to promote veganism and educate people in a positive way; making and sharing incredible vegan foods that others might never expect is one of the easiest (and usually most welcome) ways to help people become more vegan-friendly and perhaps even consider the philosophy behind a vegan lifestyle for themselves.
here are some tips:
1. start with what you know.
using agar takes some practice. nutritional yeast can be an acquired taste. I didn’t get to know the subtle nuances of ingredients like these right away and neither will you. pick a few ingredients that you are already comfortable with and do some research to find recipes that feature them. if you’re lost for ideas, ask friends for their tried and true recipes or check some cookbooks out of the library. get cooking.. and once you have some of those recipes mastered,
2. improvise.
yep, don’t be such a baby. this is a big step, I know, but suck it up and start playing around with your recipes. get to know how ingredients interact, how foods work and don’t work together, what flavors seem complimentary and what techniques improve certain dishes. unfortunately, this means you actually have to experiment. experiment means variable and uncertain results. you’re going to make some mistakes. maybe a lot of them. if you do, no one’s going to make you wear a scarlet V for spitting out your food. there’s a saying about an omelet and eggs somewhere in the recesses of my non-vegan memories..
3. level-up.
with your accumulating culinary experience points, you can now begin experimenting with new and scary ingredients and practice some intimidating techniques. identify a dish you love, (from a favorite restaurant or the freezer aisle), but would never imagine making from scratch at home. scour the interweb, especially recipe sites, (like this one), and the million vegan flood blogs out there, (start with those “Nutrition” links), for recipes; you never know who might already have figured out the secret to Cinnabon cinnamon rolls or the famous No-Name from Grasshopper. if you need hands on instruction, enlist some moral support from friends who can show you the ropes in return for some of the end product. you’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll be able to turn out some serious quality vegan delights.
trust me, the people in the backs of restaurants don’t have magic fairies making all that good stuff, they just have a little more experience, possibly more nerve, and probably some larger kitchen appliances than you do. you can change the first two.