Recently my ten-month-old daughter and I ditched the meat and went vegan for the week.
This wasn’t something I decided to do on purpose. We were staying at a campsite and the breakfast and dinner menu were entirely vegan and I thought ‘hey when in Rome’ or Berlin as the case may be.
I didn’t know how my daughter would get on as she’s usually a meat fiend but like her mother, she’s willing to try anything once. Twice if she likes it.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BlxOY2nhrhh/?taken-by=musicempowermentexchange
All of our meals were prepared by The Vegan Baker, Lilian Rodrigues.
Each night the food was a different theme with everything from Brazilian night to curry night and pasta night.
I have eaten vegan food before so I knew I’d like most of it but I was surprised about how much I enjoyed things like vegan mashed potatoes as I could never have imagined liking mash without milk and butter.
Saying that I will never take to tofu, no matter how much I try I just can’t. My daughter, on the other hand, loved it and ate all of mine whenever I had any in my food.
In fact, she loved it all and shovelled serving after serving into herself whenever she could. She hates plain food so I think part of why she loved the dishes we were served so much was because they usually had seasoning or sauces on them.
The desserts were also out of this world and I am going to miss them most of all. Any chance you’d move in with me Lilian?
https://www.instagram.com/p/BgHjb7WBEcb/?taken-by=thaveganbaker
Since coming home I’ve found myself more drawn to veggie options. I used to be a vegetarian in my teens and early twenties and most of the time stick to veggie or fish options anyway, but now I also find myself cutting out dairy from my daily cup of tea or coffee.
While I was at the camp both my daughter and me became very fond of the oat milk available. It was called Oat-ly but I preferred to refer to it by its slogan ‘wow, no cow!’. This is what happens when you’ve no internet access, you entertain yourself with the name of dairy substitutes.
On my last food shop, I picked up two cartons of oat milk and all the fixings of vegan curry and vegan pesto. I hope you’re happy with yourself Rodrigues, look what you’ve done to me!
I don’t know if I’ll ever convert to a fully vegan diet, at least not just yet as I still love fish but I have definitely started to incorporate more vegan dishes into my daily meals and have cut out almost all dairy.
I think part of why I hadn’t considered going vegan before was because I was afraid it would limit the amount of food I could eat or dishes I could make but after a week trying a myriad of different vegan meals I can see that that’s simply not true.
Unfortunately, I don’t think, no matter how hard I try, that I will ever be able to faithfully recreate the dishes that I was served but that’s ok… because I’m pretty sure Lilian is going to move in with me.
