I have always loved to cook. I remember as a child I had a kid’s cookery book with cartoon pictures of curly red-haired children creating culinary masterpieces. I cooked everything in it from peppermint creams (which I always made with blue food colouring for reasons that remain a mystery) to mashed potato (I would probably have dyed this blue had I been allowed), from chocolate crispies to pigs in blankets. It should be noted that I have also always loved to eat – and one of the great pleasures of cooking and baking is cookie dough and cake batter! 
(in cooking mode)
I couldn’t honestly tell you at what point I decided to start experimenting with vegan food. I’d been vegetarian on and off for years by then and lactose intolerant to boot so I guess it was a logical step in some ways. I’d also spent many years not looking after myself very well, eating junk in the middle of the night and surviving on coffee – even vegetarians can be pretty unhealthy!
Everyone always sees the vegan diet as rather limiting. “What do you eat?” they ask. Well tons of things actually. These days there are so many vegan alternatives. Fifteen years ago you could get pretty foul tasting soya milk from health food shops and that was about it. Now I have a vast array of dairy and egg free food to choose from; sausage rolls and mayonnaise, sour cream and ice cream. And while I’m not going to pretend that you can’t taste the difference, they don’t taste half bad. Apart from vegan cheese – that’s pretty horrible. The only nice tasting non-dairy cheese I’ve ever eaten came from a supermarket in Hobart which I think may have been called Eastlands (Tasmanian readers please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong). I have never seen it anywhere else in the world.
Far from constricting me, veganism opened up a whole new realm of culinary creativity. Learning to bake without eggs, discovering nutritional yeast (which is the nearest thing you’ll get to parmesan and makes a great “cheese” sauce), sampling the many variations on milk alternatives: rice milk (foul), almond milk (delicious), chocolate flavoured soy milk (I could quite happily die drinking this ambrosia) and “veganizing” all my favourite recipes.
And then I met Himself. A man who will not be veganized!
I got a query from a reader the other week asking me how you maintain a vegan diet when you live with an omnivore. Well the answer, in my experience is, like everything else in any relationship, compromise.
I have never been one to try and enforce my beliefs on others, so that’s where that compromise started to kick in. Over time Himself and I agreed on how things would work for us. During the week we are vegetarians, eggs may play a part in the week and Himself will have cheese and milk. At the weekends we will occasionally have fish and Himself will invariably cook himself bacon or sausages!
The best trick, I’ve found, is not to tell your omnivore partner what you are cooking. Let them think it’s some amazing surprise and they usually enjoy it. The first time I gave Himself tempeh I cooked it with sweet potatoes and spices and he didn’t even notice it was something he hadn’t had before!
What we are both passionate about is where we source our food from. Everything is as locally sourced as possible and it is all free-range and organic. Our eggs for example come from a farm of such opulent luxury that the hens have a practically palatial existence. I kid you not.
All of this said I do strongly believe that in the West we eat far too much meat and far too many animal bi-products. We expect it as a daily right rather than a treat. Even Himself agrees with that. And so dear reader I still bake without eggs, I still cook vegan at least 5 days a week and I never ever drink milk. Just as we must compromise in our relationships to co-exist with each other peacefully, I think we must start to compromise in our diets to co-exist with the rest of the planet peacefully. Start your meal planning with fruits, vegetables and grains as the main food source and work up from there. See where it takes you! I will keep updating the Recipe Page with more vegan goodies for you.
(Vaguely related, for those of you who have asked, the Cupcake Page is coming soon. Basically I am on a search for the world’s best vegan cupcake recipe. When I have found it I am going to get my own TV show and take over the world. A kind of Vegan Masterchef for the sweet of tooth if you will 
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I am intending to do post over the next week or so about using dairy and egg replacers in ordinary cooking and baking so if there are any particular things you would like to veganize drop me a comment or an email dear reader!
