Lily's Vegan Adventures

Are you curious about going vegan this year, or cutting back on animal products, but don’t know where to start?  Switching to a vegan lifestyle is a great new year’s resolution. I went vegan in January 2016 and haven’t looked back since. For the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing a series of posts to help you get started. Why go vegan? Most vegans, including myself, choose to go vegan because of the pain and suffering the animals endure in various industries including animal agriculture, entertainment, beauty, and fashion. In my case, I was raised vegetarian, so my transition to veganism was a little easier. What made me go from vegetarian to vegan was when I learned about the horrific acts that take place in dairy farms. From learning about artificial insemination to the fact that the male babies are taken away at a young age to be slaughtered for veal, I knew I couldn’t support it any longer. I won’t go into detail about the animal cruelty in this blog post, but I encourage you to r...

This cheese sauce is one of my favourite things to make. It tastes great as a mac and cheese or drizzled on top of cooked veggies. Or anything else that you enjoy cheese sauce on, really! Because I use it mainly for mac and cheese, this recipe is measured to mix with 500g of pasta. Why do I love this cheese sauce so much? It’s creamy. A couple tips I have found for making a creamy cheese sauce is to use a tablespoon of vegan butter, and use oat or soy milk. The vegan butter gives the sauce a bit of extra flavour and richness that you find in standard cheese sauce. Using oat or soy milk works best because these plant milks are a bit thicker than, for example, almond milk.  I haven’t tried using any other plant milk aside from oat, soy, and almond, but I found that almond milk was too thin for my liking. If you try a different kind of plant milk, please let us know how it worked for you in the comments below! It’s not made with cashews. Not that there’s anything wrong with cashews, b...

Today I am going to share a super easy meal prep recipe that is perfect for the colder months: Vegan sheet pan sausage and vegetables. I didn’t realize this was already a thing until I Googled it just now, but here is my vegan version. I made this recipe because I didn’t feel like cooking one day, I needed to meal prep for the week, and I had a few veggies and vegan sausage that needed to be eaten. So, I chopped up the veggies and sausage, added some seasoning, and threw it in the oven on a baking sheet. This recipe is great because it takes hardly any prep time, and once you put it in the oven, you can walk away and do other things.  I added cubed tofu for extra protein. Make this recipe go a long way by adding a side dish such as rice, quinoa, or some fresh bread with vegan butter. My favourite side to go with this recipe is turmeric rice, which I will share in the recipe below. To start, preheat your oven to 400 °F. Chop the veggies, vegan sausage, and tofu into cubes. Throw th...

Now that things are opening up again, it is time for me to go back to working in person.  There are a lot of things about going back to work that will take some getting used to - like getting out of my pajamas every day - but a big thing I forgot about was having to pack a lunch every night.  I like to make packing a lunch as easy as humanly possible, and one of my favourite things to make are chickpea salad sandwiches. Chickpea salad sandwiches are a great cruelty-free alternative to egg salad sandwiches.  They are easy to make, affordable, healthy, and they taste really good!  This recipe is one of the few things I don’t get sick of eating all week. The main ingredients are of course chickpeas, along with vegan mayonnaise, yellow mustard, green onions, and salt and pepper.  For extra flavour I like to add dill pickles, dried dill, grated carrot, and a bit of paprika.  The grated carrot was inspired by an egg salad sandwich I had many years ago at a high t...

Today I am going to be sharing a recipe on how to make roasted chickpeas.  I have added these roasted chickpeas to so many different dishes: salads, pasta, wraps, and rice bowls.  I even eat them on their own as a snack.  These chickpeas are a great way to add a plant-based protein to your meals! The recipe itself is super easy and has very little prep time.  All you need are canned chickpeas, olive oil, and salt.  I like to add a bit of this Chipotle Aioli Mix from Epicure, but you can play around with different spices. To start, preheat your oven to 400°F.  Open a can of chickpeas and rinse the chickpeas using a strainer. Add the chickpeas to a mixing bowl and add the olive oil, salt, and optional seasoning.  Mix everything together so the chickpeas are covered in the oil and seasoning. Put the chickpeas on a baking sheet and bake for 25-30 minutes, stirring halfway. Roasted Chickpeas Prep time: 5 - 10 minutes Ingredients 1 can chickpeas, 398 ml 2 ...

I haven’t done a ‘What I Ate Today’ blog post in a while, so I thought I’d make another one today (February 20, 2021).  The purpose of these posts is to show people what vegans eat and give some new meal ideas. I will also add links to any brands or recipes I mention so that you can make these foods too.  So, let’s get started! Today was a busy day.  My partner and I spent almost the entire day socializing Olive.  (If you don’t know who Olive is, she is our rescue puppy .)  Olive is definitely making some progress, but we still have a lot of work to do with getting her more comfortable with the world. Breakfast Before we set out for our first adventure, we had yogurt bowls topped with oranges and hemp hearts, and the last of our homemade banana bread (from the cookbook Fuss-Free Vegan ).  The yogurt is Riviera vanilla coconut-based, and it is definitely one of my favourites. Lunch After going to two different parks with Olive, we came back home for lunch....