The other night my husband Paul, cousin Clint and I were discussing what (or more accurately WHO) we USED to eat. Between the three of us we could barely remember 5 home cooked meals we used to love. Seriously. It was quite comical trying to list off favorite meals we used to make. We were stumped. It took us a bit of brainstorming to come up with our list. Mostly what stood out to me, was that I liked to eat takeout pizza, which is not a home cooked meal.

There’s nothing I miss that we used to eat. Honestly. In fact, we have such a huge variety of meals we make now, it would take me too long to list them all. I had a co-worker ask me for recipes that we like and I ended up making her a 3 inch double sided binder of our favourites. Information overload much.

Funny how we get so attached to food, but it’s really exciting cooking new things. Do I have epic recipe failures, yes, but that’s no different from when I was non vegan. This has been the greatest adventure of my life and it’s all happened right in my own kitchen, in my own curious, expansive mind.

One of our new family staples is what we call Buffalo Tofu Wraps, which comes from our Plant You Cookbook by Canadian blogger, Carleigh Bodrug. The only thing we changed from her recipe is we add homemade creamy cucumber dressing – yum! We then put the wrapped tortilla on a hot pan (no oil) to get it nice and brown and crispy and we have a delicious pub night at home. Sometimes we have it with a green salad, sometimes home cut fries, sometimes both and always a pickle on the side.

Inside the wrap is tofu that is dipped in plant milk and panko breadcrumbs that I like to grind down in the vitamix as I find it sticks better and then we oven bake it on parchment paper (no oil), load up our wraps with hummus, our creamy cucumber dip, sprouts, shredded carrots, diced celery and red onion. So, so good!! Who misses the strange grizzly meat texture anyways? Not this girl. I certainly don’t miss that ‘popping’ sensation that came from eating certain animals. Yuck.

Anyways, we had to laugh, if you had told us as non-vegans, we would be pounding these Buffalo Tofu Wraps like it was our last meal, we never would have believed you! So you’ll have to trust this chronic food addict, vegan food IS DELICIOUS. It’s just a bit of trial and error to figure out what you like, but a good place to start is trying foods you KNOW you already like. I suspect most of you already eat certain veggies, pasta, grains, fruit etc. as this isn’t vegan food, these are simply whole foods that we ALL enjoy. Brainstorm what whole foods you already enjoy and make a new recipe using those ingredients. 

Swapping is a great idea as well. Swap BEANS for beef in chilli as an example. Generally, swapping out the animals for beans/lentils, tofu, tempeh, edamame is great, but I hope you know that all plants contain protein. Check out this article from Switch 4 Good that lists out plant protein ideas along with the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) calculation for how much protein we need and here’s a list of ALL the articles tagged with ‘protein’ on T. Colin Campbell’s Nutrition Studies site to learn more.

Peace, love & plants,

Michelle 😊

p.s. I shouldn’t even say VEGAN food, it’s just food! I would imagine most items on this plate are items you already EAT and if you don’t like tofu, swap it for chickpeas. If you don’t like carrots, swap them for shredded cabbage. You HAVE to cater to your own tastebuds and what you like. The options are endless.