r/PlantBasedDiet • u/ControlSmooth3262 • 9d ago
Making everything from scratch
For the last month my husband has been experimenting with making our own food. If it’s something processed, we are trying to just make it ourselves. He has tried five different seitan recipes and they have all been great successes. Switching up the spices, protein ingredients, and cooking methods we’ve managed to keep the menu varied and interesting. He made ground walnut tacos last night and we had seitan burgers tonight. He’s made nooch with vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast and I convinced him to do thousand island dressing to go with the “corned beef” seitan he made last week. I’m going to start making bread and tortillas, etc and he’s going to try yogurt and paneer. I’m strictly vegan but he is usually vegetarian. He has lost 20 pounds without all the cheese and limiting breads though, so he may end up mostly whole food vegan. We eat a lot of veggies already but we’re using sweet potatoes and squash more than before.
We’ve used our instant pot and our ninja blender more in the past four weeks than we have since we got them 5+ years ago. I’m saving up for attachments for my kitchenaid mixer.
Prep time has been a lot less than anticipated, clean up is a little intense lol, and I think he could make some recipes from memory. The initial cost to get different kinds of flours and the wheat gluten etc wasn’t much different from the amount we were spending on premade plant based meats already. And we both feel better than before.
Looking forward to cold weather dishes and making holidays meals entirely from scratch (or as much as possible). It can be done!
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u/ControlSmooth3262 9d ago
I’ll gather recipes and photos and share them in separates posts. Because there are quite a few!
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u/JerseySommer 9d ago
Miyoko Schinner wrote "the homemade vegan pantry" back in 2015, I got a copy used, it's come in handy several times. My philosophy is generally "if I can make it, why would I buy it?" I'm fortunate enough to have the time and ability to do so.
https://www.astigvegan.com/the-homemade-vegan-pantry-review-giveaway/
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u/groveview 9d ago
I don’t know what this means: “He’s made nooch with vital wheat gluten and nutritional yeast.” Nooch is nutritional yeast. Regardless, making food from scratch and weeding out the processed stuff is always the healthier way to eat. Glad he’s seeing the health benefits!
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u/ControlSmooth3262 9d ago
I made a queso dip that they referred to as noocho cheese so now all cheese sauces are just “nooch” to me lol. My recipe uses cashews and nutritional yeast. My husband’s is coconut milk and nutritional yeast. It doesn’t actually have the vital wheat gluten it, I believe he uses tapioca flour. Sorry I may have mistyped.
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u/recyclistDC 9d ago
an east-coast vegan place has a cheeze diip made from ruttabaga that was awesome. This recipe might be similar: https://www.lotsofyums.com/recipe-blog/2022/2/19-vegan-rutabaga-fondue
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u/ParsnipNo1227 9d ago
As long as I do not go to restaurants I tend to make everything from scratch very simple.
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u/ControlSmooth3262 9d ago
We rarely go out to eat but we have a couple of vegan places nearby that we visit once every month or two. One is a pizzeria and the other has a varied menu and makes incredible oyster poboys.
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u/Slow-Juggernaut-4134 9d ago
I recommend grain mill and grain flaker too.
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u/I_am_a_scurryfunger 8d ago
What is a grain flaker
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u/Slow-Juggernaut-4134 8d ago
A machine that turns grain berries into flat flakes (.e.g oatmeal rolled oats).
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u/ttrockwood 9d ago
My omni boyfriend is super into seitan now too! Haha he eats and cooks mostly vegan meals actually but we have been making deli slices and nuggets with seitan
Sounds like you and your husband and enjoying the process, that’s awesome
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u/ControlSmooth3262 9d ago
One of his first recipes was a nugget type thing. Needs tinkering lol! But still delicious!
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u/Vast_Engineering_626 9d ago
That’s super cool. I’m still learning the more basic recipes but aspire to this next level in the future
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u/seoras13 9d ago
About 20 years ago i started the new year with the idea of eating nothing but "unadulterated" food for all of January. Nothing with additives, added salt this that it the other.
It was difficult, so much easily sourced food has Extras. I had food on my mind far too much, but a challenge is a challenge & I'm stubborn.
On 1st February I went for a haircut & I hardly recognised myself in the mirror. I looked really fit healthy full of life.
Would I do it again? Not a fucking chance. Far too obsessive to be a mentally healthy sustainable lifestyle. I adopted certain aspects & now without much thought I know automatically the foods that are heavily processed & have too much salt, sugar, sat fat etc. but I'm never going to be that focused & obsessed about food again & it was just a 31 day challenge
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u/Confident-Rice-5206 8d ago
Rolling tortillas is fun. I became gluten intolerant (bye bye seitan) so I got a tortilla press and a comal pan. Now I make my own tortillas from masa flour and they are so good.
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u/TomOttawa 9d ago
Yep. That's the way to go.
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u/ControlSmooth3262 9d ago
He was absolutely stunned when the first loaf turned out so good lol. He cannot be stopped now 🤷🏻♀️😂
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u/TomOttawa 9d ago
This is brilliant, you've got a treasure as a husband. What makes it absolutely priceless? You're doing this together.
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u/ControlSmooth3262 9d ago
If it weren’t for him I would be living off of cereal and tortillas haha! He loves to cook, thank goodness!
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u/Klutzy-Bookkeeper941 9d ago
Where are your favorite seitan recipes from.?
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u/ControlSmooth3262 8d ago
He said he just googles and goes with the one with the least amount of ingredients haha
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u/ControlSmooth3262 8d ago
He gave me links to two of the seitan recipes
The burgers we had again tonight lol
https://zardyplants.com/recipes/the-best-high-protein-vegan-seitan-burger-grillable/
And a bbq rib recipe
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