Vegan (and vegetarian) cooking articles

Tools of the Trade: Blenders, Slow Cookers and Pressure Cookers

It’s a Whizz! Blenders and Food Processors This section gives an overview of different types of blenders and processors. But firstly, are such gadgets even necessary? The answer is: good knife skills, a masher and grater will take you a long...

Vegetable Preparation Skills - Chopping

For the newer or less confident cooks amongst you, we hope this section will provide some useful tips. Vegetable preparation is often seen as arduous and time-consuming, but like all things, it’s all in the technique! One of the most basic...

Finger Foods for Young Children, vegan friendly

Many nutritious plant foods can be prepared and served in small, managable pieces suitable to give to young children as finger foods. Here are just a few ideas: Sweet Potato Chips Warm Tofu Cubes Rice Cake Fingers spread with Nut Butters Tofu...

Vegan Baking: a Piece of (Egg-free) Cake!

One of the most frequent questions we are asked at the Vegetarian Recipe Club is how to make egg-free cakes and desserts – so here are some ideas to help you. It’s very easy to make lovely vegan cakes. As with any cake recipe, follow the...

Conversion Chart and Handy Hints

Some of us are used to converting imperial to metric (or the other way round!), some of us aren’t. However, having an understanding of each is useful because many of us still think imperial but most of what we buy is metric! It’s not so...

The History of the Nut Roast

By Helen Rossiter, Viva! food & cookery manager Nuts are a wonder food for vegetarians and vegans – packed with energy, protein and other vital vitamins and minerals. So it’s no surprise their crunchy texture and buttery taste...

Soya: Saint or Sinner?

How to find bias-free, science-based information on soya, whether it be nutritional or environmental information - or just recipes.

Two of the most common queries we get at the VVF and Viva!: is soya safe? what about the rainforests? So a couple of years back, members of each team pooled their considerable skills, put their heads together, looked...

The Big List of Vegan Food Companies

How to find all the vegan goodies you've ever wanted - check out our list of food companies and on-line stores! Each company will give you a list of local stockists while the web shops will send you products to your door.

One of the lovely things about running the Viva! Incredible Veggie Roadshows is the opportunity to introduce the wonderful world of vegan goodies to a new audience. It really does open people’s eyes when they get to try luscious chocolate...

What's That? Food Glossary of New Ingredients

Seen a recipe with a weird ingredient? Fear not - the glossary below will explain all - and in some cases, even tell you what to do with it!

You will find many of these ingredients in good supermarkets – try foreign foods, veggie, allergy-free or organic sections in particular. And don’t forget to explore your local independent health store and local Asian or Oriental store...

The Milk of Human Kindness – Dairy-Free Milks

Avoid animal milks, whether from a cow, sheep or goat. Despite cultural pressure to consume dairy, there is now a large body of respectable evidence that dairy milk, especially cow’s, is strongly linked to cancers, heart disease, auto-immune diseases – practically all of the diseases currently plaguing the West. In addition, milk production of all kinds - including organic - is inherently cruel to the mother animals and their young.

Given that most of the world is genetically lactose-intolerant, (see below) it is clear that for humans to drink the milk of another species is neither 'natural' nor necessary from a nutritional point of view. Find out about easy alternatives for calcium here.

Lactose Intolerance Over 70 per cent of people in the world are lactose intolerant and traditionally don’t drink animal's milk. They are unable to digest the sugar in milk (lactose) and so avoid milk and dairy products altogether. All...

Veggie Food for Thought - Cooking with Tofu

Tofu is the Japanese word for beancurd. It is made from soya beans, it is very high in protein and generally low in fat. It is the richest and cheapest source of protein available in the world. It comes in the following varieties: Plain...

You want me to do what? - cookery jargon explained

A handy glossary of commonly used cookery terms, useful for anyone – from absolute beginners to those with a bit of cookery experience!

Below is a handy glossary of commonly used cookery terms, useful for anyone – from absolute beginners to those with a bit of cookery experience! Al dente Literally ‘to the teeth’ in Italian! Pronounced ‘al dentay’, it...