If you want recpies send me a PM... been a chef (several times much as I dislike it) and veggie for... 7 years... plus, I must say, the U.K. has some superior non- meat products to the U.S. and i'd be happy to send them over (We have dry mix burger which are just ridiculously nice and even my many meat loving friends enjoy too)
You don't have to stick to egg plant (I beleive it's called up where you lot are... aubergeine to the rest of us) & Tofu...
Halloumi, an awesome cheese that will fry without melting and has a great texture to it, if you have the nandos chain in the U.S. (I assume you do) they do burgers with grilled halloumi, pineapple etc. in a bun, very nice.
Beans obviously... don't have to be bland... dress them up nicely.
Meat Free substitutes, alot are made of Soy, bad for the forests but, tasty none the less.
Eggs, try other kinds of eggs you'd be suprised, Duck Eggs are far richer, quail more delicate, great for salads
Tomato based dishes, not a type of food but god damn if the italians didn't love veggies, take meat out of any italian tomato dish and it's still good.
Potato, good subsitute in alot of things, par-boil, add oil, herbs and your favourite spices, cook untill crisp for some awesome wedges.
Salads... no need to be bland, add capers, olives, dressing, tomato, cucumber, avocado, fried bread (croutons... dunno if the U.S. uses that word) sweetcorn.. beans anything.
Yeast extract (Marmite to U.K. Users) Great to add a meaty flavour to things, especially combined with smoked paprika
Herbs & Spices... your best friends for flavour.
if anything im the opposite, more of a meatatarian, as due to the meds im on (Warfarin) i cant have green leafy veges or anything with vitamin K as it stops the warfarin working
Not so, my father takes Warfarin and has for the past 5 years, as the usual cook, you can easily not have meat and be perfectly healthy... cranberries and things are what he has to avoid, also my brother is a vegan and had to take it for almost a year... i'm not trying to change ya, just saying that if you didn't want to eat meat, it's perfectly feasible to not and take the medication.
hardcore vegetarians that preach being vegetarian like it's a religion scare me. why be so passionate about what other people are eating? eat what you want, yo! but I don't want to accept veggie jesus.
As a vegetarian... I fucking hate those guys... my brother and his girlfriend are both vegans and constantly preach which is why I no longer converse with them, they ruin it for the rest of us, if I come across that way... please tell and slap me... then go pray to the flying spaghetti monster with all his noodly appendages
Do you know how much shit have to hear all the fucking time about me being a vegetarian? It never ends
I don't say shit intill I am annoyed to do so which usually gets me to try and convince them that they should eat their pets, by the way you should if you have any eat your pets
I hear that... I always get asked to explain myself, like I should have prepared some excuse for it, I just say leave it but it'll go on for a while, I don't wanna come off like a millitant dick and they have the arguement "because it tastes good" to back themselves up... I don't make people explain to me why they decide to date complete dicks or have annoying habits, just let it be... I don't question why they eat meat do I... now I sound like a veggi bastard... you see what you meat eaters (and alcohol) do
devnulljp wrote:McSpunckle wrote:Obviously, everyone has fries-- which I guess would be vegan.
So there. Fast food's still in! w00h!
Not really. I know that McD's fries are full of beef tallow, and I'd guess the rest are too. Even cheese isn't veggie friendly, much to the surprise of many who haven't thought about it -- rennet, the enzyme mixture they use to coagulate the milk is extracted from the stomach lining of calves. There are some traditional cheeses that don't use calf rennet and others that now use recombinant enzymes produced in bacteria, but for the most part if you eat cheese you're eating stuff made with calf stomach extract.
I'm always surprised by people who don't know where gelatin comes from too. I've also met vegetarians who eat black pudding (or did until they found out what it was).
It's a sliding scale and there are many different reasons for being veggie.
Fast food isn't even food in any real sense of the word anyway though. For the most part, it's fried shit on a stick (or in a bun) pumped full of flavourings that were made in a lab somewhere.
Agreed, I must say, living in the U.K. it makes the whole ordeal alot easier, everything veggie now has begun to be market with a symbol from the vegetarian council to say so, all products using meat products that could use alternatives have begun to phase out the meat to open up there markets... hell most people don't even realise alot of beer/ larger & wine isn't vegetarian but I see more cans and bottles adding the labels to say they are... gotta be tougher for the 'Macho' U.S...
Even small private owned chip shops use vegetable fat now... and your point about being called every name under the sun for being a vegetarian... i'm hoping that stigma soon ends... being told to cut my hair all the time (being long) and i'm some kind of girl for not killing or scarring some animal with every meal... kinda grinds after a while, much like I assume every other segregated culture has found (although, not to such harsh extents)
smallsnd/bigsnd wrote:even in my coffee i still prefer soymilk...
Doesn't it curdle? Not that I like it, every time i've tried to use it in coffee it didn't work... unless you warm it first.
Not really but some times it seems that way 
