The excitment of it all!
this is a non dead animal thread .. so b*gger off you suet lovers!

Anyway to the veggies

I've found the impossible - veggie paramesan cheese in Aus! whoopie ( calm down girl!)

http://www.vegano.com.au/vegan_products.php?cat=15

also found this for some Indian veggie meals and chicken noodle soup, without the chicken (used to love chicken noodle many moons ago when I was a murderer)
http://www.crueltyfreeshop.com.au/

cheers

Hi Ceri,

I found some vegetarian Gran Padano cheese in Coles this week. It tastes just as good as parmesan. I was over the moon as ALL of our favourite meals have it in. Now I just need to find veggie emmental and I'm all set.

Jane

Haven't seen that in Coles ( mind you a mostly shop at woolworths) , I can only get cheddar .. and not all of the time either, depends on the store itself.

I'm browsing the food sites wondering what to make for the weekend . I'm being dragged along to a BBQ ( I eat fish, but no mammal meat/products) but half of the time .. these scrooges over here won't fork out for some Prawns, it's always snags and burgers, and other dead but not forgotten souls . So all I have got to "eat" is the beer

cheers

When we went to the expats barbecue a couple of weeks ago, I marinated capsicum slices, cherry tomatoes & mushrooms in lemon juice, garlic and cracked pepper and wrapped them up in little tinfoil parcels. They took about 20 minutes to cook. We ate them with tortillas and they were yummy. Much nicer than I expected them to be.

Jane

What I normally do is make up some falafel ( it's dried soya and such, for vegie burgers.. in the supermarket on the health dried food section)

add some chilli's and other "hot" spices to it , add a little olive oil into the mixture and I add some sunflower seeds, or any other various nuts and shape them into burgers.. very tasty , My hubby is a meat eater and even he liked them (Unless he's lying to me to spare me throwing the burgers at him , and my cooking is that bad ..lol )

last ones I made were nice anyway..I can't remember all the spices I added to it .. wish I'd written it down (I have a habit of adding millions of spices and herbs to all foods..make the recipe up as I go along I'm a spice freak)

It's nice to hear that there are options of selecting food for the vegetarians

I am vegetarian my whole life. Its sometime dfficult to get stuff that you would like to have.

Thanks folks

Thanks for the info Ceri, always enjoy your posts.

I am the same, eat no meat or meat products but eat a little fish. Some restaurants near me have no vegetarian food at all, only meat or fish and chips. I daren't ask what oil they fry in.

I used to eat meat just to be an easy guest but finally had to give it up when I couldn't bring myself to feed my first child meat. Meat eating hubby said that I couldn't eat it either then and that was fine by me.

People still don't seem to like it though and I get heaps of flack over not eating meat but eating fish. Also people ie my family, think I should feed meat to my kids until they are big enough to decide for themselves.

Anyway in Oz I really miss diet yoghurts made without gelatine and quorn, although I'm not a great cheese person.

Keep up the good postings. Are you still returning to the UK or was that someone else?

Queenie

Just had to respond to your email. It was interesting to hear about someone elses experiences re; being a vegi. I haven't eaten meat since I was 12 (I'm now 34). I had my son 2 years ago and had heated discussions with my husband about what our child would eat. I didn't want to force feed him meat but my husband thought I was forcing my beliefs on to him. In the end we compromised. Our boy now only eats organic, free range poultry and nothing else. He can choose what meat he wants to eat when he's old enough to understand what he's eating. Interestingly he has turned out to be a big fish fan and loves all dishes I serve him. My friends and family all thought I was mad and probably selfish, but when they saw the amount of effort I went in to preparing his meals they soon changed their minds. I was a full time working mum and spent weekends cooking tonnes of meals for him to freeze. He never ate any pre-cooked baby food that is sold in the super markets.

Good to also read that I won't necessarily waste away when we move to Oz due to lack of vegi food options. Mind you - looking down at myself I could do with wasting away just a little.......

Yoplait juicy mango yoghurt is vegetarian. I emailed the manufacturer but I've gone and deleted their reply. I remembered that one though. Their strawberry yoghurt isn't, because of the colouring 121 or 120 (probably cochineal).

There are vegetarian options out here, but you really have to search for them, and the local supermarket might have something one week and not the next. There is a lot less choice. In the UK, practically all of Waitroses English cheeses are vegetarian, for example. Here, you might find one brand in the supermarket, and they don't have a vegetarian labelling system, so you have to check the ingredients of everything. Even vegetable lasagnes have meat stock in them. Birdseye Smilies have beef tallow on them. You have to check EVERYTHING.

Also, in restaurants, you order a vegetarian pasta and I can guarantee that they'll go and put parmesan on it.

Jane

yeah, what is it with the way they put gelatine in so much food here!?!?!

also miss quorn so much! especially the quorn pieces which made stir frys so much more interesting. All they have here is tofu and I really can't get into it. The sanitarium vege country soy sausages are quite nice but not as good as linda mccartney's!

Yay! A veggie in Melbourne! We're moving there & Mr Anya is a veggie (does not eat fish, either). I eat a lot of veggie food, too. Can you recommend any good veggie restaurants or health food shops in the Melbourne area?

We use a *lot* of pulses & pasta. Is easy to get all the different types of beans/lentils etc and dried pastas there, too? Will look out for those Sanitarium sausies....

Many thanks,
Anya & Mr Anya.

http://www.vnv.org.au/RestByLocation.htm

There ya go Anya.

There is a fantastic vegetarian restaurant on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy. It was called Veg Out. It's Indonesian type food, huge portions. Well worth a visit. The trams go up there.

Jane

Thanks for Melbourne recommendations, everyone! Looks like we won't starve!

Also someone mentioned an Indian place called Bhoj??? on here some time ago - in Southbank area. In theory, should have good veggie food so I'll let you all know once we've checked it out!

(All this talk of food's making me hungry so had better go get lunch now )

Anya.

Having spent a year as a cook on a sheep station, I know the trails and tribulations of being a lone veggie amongst the carnivorous hoardes.

But I found that the quality of fruit and veg out there meant that I could rustle up some lovely dishes. Stuffed capsicum (with couscous and roasted veg stuffing), vegetable pie, pasta with fresh spinach and a sweet chilli dressing, rice salads made with stir-fried veg...I'd whack large slices of pumpkin on the barbie which always went down a treat. You can also do stuffed, roasted veg on the barbie if you cook it in foil on the barbie first, then when it's nearly done, open up the foil and let the smoke get to it a bit. I used to make veggie quiche too that was quite famous in our parts! Plus vats of soup (pumpkin, leek and potato, tomato and veg, french onion...). I had to cook massive chunks of meat too, but the majority of it was veggie! And those big butch bush boys loved it.