While up north I started to experiment with a plant based diet. I agreed to cook for my daughter in a vegan way, but I had convinced myself that the whole thing was not for me. But looking back I realize that like most people who hear the word Vegan they think of food deprivation, and that's exactly what I was thinking. I told myself that I could be a vegetarian....maybe. A lot of vegetarians eat dairy and fish, so I consoled myself that when our vacation was over and I returned home, I would investigate that. My daughter was also new with the subject and had only purchased one book, and this author was a really hard core vegan nut job. She tossed the book at me and pointed at the kitchen! I started to read it and browse through the recipes and to tell you the truth I was really confused. There were a lot of ingredients that I had never heard of before but the pictures looked great! Tofu, brown rice syrup, tahini, agave necter, garbonzo beans, every other bean you can think of, quinoa, wheat berries, mochi, shoyu, tamari, vegenaise, veggie cheese, seitan, tempeh,and on and on it went. I closed the book and never looked at it again during that trip (but I did ultimately get it from the library a month later when I became more acclimated with the changes).
I wracked my brain for familiar recipes that I could adapt without the meat and dairy. The first night I made what I now call Food Court Stir Fry. The food courts at the malls usually have a Japanese chain that does a stir fry with chicken. I duplicated it without the chicken. Everyone asked for seconds!
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