I am almost one week into Veganuary and I have to say things are going pretty well! If you want to have a read as to why I am participating in Veganuary then have a little read here. I thought it would be a good idea to provide a little bit of an update as to what I have gotten up to and what could be on the horizon for me throughout the rest of January!
Almost forgetting
During the weekend, Victoria and I were on a little day trip to a local town when I suggested that we both go for some lunch. We had been to that town before so we knew where we could go that could fit Victoria’s dietary requirements. But I was sure that we could go to other places, so as we were on our way there I did a little research and found a place that catered to her AND had sweet potato fries! Hurray!! Double win for us, as the other restaurant didn’t serve sweet potato fries. I then begin to contemplate my burger that I will be devouring and then Victoria asked me what I was going to have because of Veganuary… Then it hit me, I can’t just get my usual! I laughed it off at my own little bout of stupidity, but it did annoy me how quickly I had forgotten about it. Thankfully that was the only time that I forgot so far these 6 days, so that is good!
Trying big brand vegan food
There are some well-known vegan brands that Victoria cannot have due to her intolerance to soya, so I thought it would be a great idea for me to give them a go so she can at least know what they tasted like as I could relay the info to her in case she is able to consume soya again. I have a long term dislike to Quorn products as I just hate how the “chicken” tastes so bland and the mince almost made me sick once (I had cooked a big batch of Bolognese with it and my then Maltese housemate took the rest of that batch for herself). So, I have stayed well clear of Quorn for that reason and I will probably try a few of the other products to test how they taste.
But the other big brand is, of course, Linda McCartney’s range. So I was looking forward to trying a number of her products. My local ASDA has the pulled pork BBQ burger, spinach burger and sausages. I was amped. I was looking forward to a tasty burger for a couple of days and I had heard so much positive feedback from others about them. As I took my first bite, I wondered if I was a part of some bad prank. It was horrid and I had to drown that Pulled pork burger with BBQ sauce to find it. The next day I tried the other burger and I took one bite and left it. It looked great but tasted nasty to me. This then happened the next day with the sausages, just boring and poor tasting. I was very disappointed with this, but I guess I shouldn’t have had my hopes too high up for it.
Supermarket own brands are great
The one upside to all of this is that one night after yoga, Victoria and I went to the nearby Sainsbury’s and we went on a hunt for things that we could get as Sainsbury’s has been kind to Victoria before. We bought their own brand vegan sausages and I have to admit they were lovely. Far better than the Linda McCartney ones that I had tried, they almost looked like a sausage and just had great flavours that made me forget that I was eating a vegan sausage. We bought a couple of other things like Ginger cake and some other little treats for me as I feel like rewarding myself, my favourite two “snacks” are from ASDA with their coconut and jam flapjack and their rice caramel squares. Both are awesome and I think when I get the chance I will some of the ginger biccys too.
Looking for places to eat
I enjoy cooking vegan meals for Victoria (you can check out that little list of posts at the end of this one!) so I haven’t been concerned about cooking meals for us, though she did get a Deliciously Ella cookbook that we have started going through! The sweet potato and lentil stew was lovely! Anyway, the one thing I have been doing it trying to find places for Victoria to eat outside of the home. I want to find places in most towns that we can go to, so we aren’t always having to have a little worry about finding a place for Victoria (and for this month myself) to eat if we fancy going on a little night out. I have a big aim of finding over 100 places that are able to cater to us, but with Victoria’s intolerances that will be a little harder. In saying that, having a good list of places in certain towns should not be too hard. Worst case we can pop to most Indian restaurants to have a feed!
Well, that is all for this post! As I said I haven’t had any serious cravings to eat any animal products, but because I have been with Victoria for so long and have been cooking and eating vegan lunches and dinners I never really considered that to be an issue. Let’s see how week 2 treats me though! Until next time.
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Scott H Gilliland 