How To Feed A Vegan - VibrantKate

How To Feed A Vegan - Vibrant Kate

What happens if a vegan appears in your conventional kitchen and needs feeding? Here are some helpful tips:

Snacks:

1. Fruit : It's easy. It's healthy. It's a winner!
2. Crisps. Plain ones are potatoes, oil and salt. No animal products. Some panicky people in sandwich shops have told me there is nothing for me, with a display full of crisps right there.
3. Biscuits. Check the packaging, but some are unintentionally vegan: Bourbon biscuits, Hobnobs, Ginger nuts and Oreo cookies. Wahey!!
4. Oatcakes, rice cakes, Ryvita, crumpets, hot cross buns. A little jam or peanut butter can enliven them if required (omit the margarine - most brands contain buttermilk!)
5. Dried fruit and nuts. If you provided me with a little bowl of raisins and cashew nuts I would tuck in quite happily. Did you buy a particular dried fruit for a baking project then forget about the rest of the packet? Feed them to a hungry vegan!
6. All of the above - If your visitor stays for ages, this lot would sustain them for a good while!

Lunches

I will give you three basics to start with:

1. Baked beans - with toast (most bread is vegan - check if using GF bread), or a jacket potato if you have advanced notice of their arrival.
2. Houmous - a vegan classic. If you haven't got any in your fridge, it's easy to buy.
3. Peanut butter - depending on the consistency of your peanut butter, you can put it on toast or bread. Or, buy a jar of cashew/almond nut butter and see if you get addicted yourself. If you aren't into nut butters, offer a banana sandwich. Mmmmm!

Planned Lunches

If you have a bit of notice that your vegan friend is arriving, here are some suggestions:

1. Soup. Check the packaging if it's bought soup - there are milk free soups out there. If you are making soup (hurray!!) lots of recipes don't actually need stock. If you had time, invest in some organic/vegan stock cubes or powder. Stock is always useful! 
2. Falafel. You can buy them ready made, or buy a mix and fry them yourself. I have had some super tasty lunches at my friends' houses where they have provided a feast of falafel, pitta bread, houmous, and a selection of salad items.
3. Bean Burger. Check the packaging, but some of these could live in your freezer for spontaneous BBQ's or fry ups! I made an eye-catchingly yumptious lunch with a ripe avocado mashed into a jacket potato instead of butter, topped with raw tomatoes and red pepper, with a bean burger balanced on top.
4. Simple pasta. Some tomato based pasta sauces are vegan. Alternatively you could make a nice and nutritious dish in about 15 minutes by cooking pasta with a few frozen peas thrown in, add a few walnuts, some avocado (if you have it) and a drizzle of olive oil.

And three pieces of miscellaneous info:

1. New food labelling regulations put allergens in bold, so read the ingredients and if any milk/egg products jump out at you, probably best to save that food for yourself. If it says may contain traces of milk, that is generally a legal disclaimer rather than a promise, so it is possibly ok for the non-allergic vegan.
2. There is usually a free-from section in supermarkets, so if you feel indulgent, you can invest a quid in a bar of vegan chocolate and stash it at the back of your cupboard to delight your guest. There are all sorts of cake-y type things in those aisles too, if you aren't sure about doing some vegan baking of your own.
3. Ask your vegan friend what they like or what they can eat if you aren't sure!

I hope this demystifies this for you!

Have you got any tasty and hasty suggestions to add?

-Vibrant Kate