Tempeh

A fermented soybean product similar to tofu, tempeh will have to be another meat substitute to try.  It's a whole soybean product which gives it a higher protein, fiber and vitamin content relative to tofu. It also is firmer than tofu. I imagine I'll be making recipes like this yummy-looking baked tempeh with veggies!!

Substitute cheeses

I'm doing some homework on various substitutes to try during my vegan month, and Daiya cheese will have to be on the list.

And what about vegan parmesan, sliced American and cheddar, as well as cream cheese? I will try to find these.

Nutritional yeast is also used frequently by vegans and vegetarians, often as a substitute for parmesan cheese. I wonder what it'll taste like over steamed veggies!!

Oprah

Just thought I'd post a link to the episode of the Oprah show that was my main motivation, the show that got me to seriously start thinking about doing a vegan challenge for myself:

The "Harpo Goes Vegan" show clips & articles.

Ellen D.

I have always been a huge fan of Ellen Degeneres. Her humor is unique and fantastic. Her social consciousness is inspiring. And she's vegan.

I figured certainly the Ellen show's website would have information about this, perhaps with a list of resources to get me started. Indeed, her website has a whole section on going vegan. This has been a great starting point, other than of course googling the word "vegan". I particularly found her FAQ section helpful.

As is always the case when you start surfing the internet, once you click on one site you start seeing links that broaden your search more and more. So with her sites as a starting point, I'm sure I'll discover more and more helpful sites and blogs for all things vegan diet. I'll be posting those here on my Resources widget.

Seitan

Just thought I'd quickly post on what will be one of my first vegan experiments: making seitan.

In starting my food research on vegan alternatives, I quickly learned about seitan. Called the "vegetarian meat", seitan is a dense wheat product made from vital wheat gluten. I have eaten a "mock beef" wheat product in Chinese cooking which now I'm wondering if it's basically the same thing. Probably is. Seitan can be cut in chunks, sliced as thinly or thickly as you want, cooked in stews, fried... from what I'm learning, you can pretty much treat this stuff like it's meat. And MOST importantly to this lover of making everything from scratch: you can make your own seitan from scratch.
 
I've found many recipes, so I can't wait to start experimenting with making it. Here's one at About.com. And here's one from The Vegetarian Resource Group.

I can't wait to try this "Country Fried Seitan" recipe from VegNews. This looks delicious in its own right.

The Plan

OK, so how am I going to do this.

I figure if this is going to be my 31-day Vegan Challenge experiment, then I ought to treat it as such.  A control, endpoints to measure, a hypothesis... the works. Since I'm in the science field, this shouldn't be too difficult to design. :-)

Why

I've been an addict to the rotisserie chickens you can get at grocery stores around dinnertime for a long time. I'm big on eggs and an absolute Greek yogurt addict as well. Recently I've taken a loving to making my own butter. And let's not get started on the virtues of bacon. Not to mention that I have a cake business on the side and worship all things baking more than any other cooking category.

So what am I doing planning to go not just vegetarian, but flat-out vegan, for 31 days?