Converting Old Recipes!

Going vegan you learn to make new recipes you love to replace the recipes you can no longer have. Sometimes that's the case and sometimes it's as easy as replacing things here and there.
I wanted to see how far I could take this, and I'm still learning so this will be a continuously fun experiment.




Now I love old cook books. LOVE THEM! I love the look and the little bits of house wife wisdom. They are fun to read and give great ideas for entertaining. The book I'm currently obsessed with is a copy of Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. I actually have no idea how old this book is, I couldn't find a publishing date. Just it's really old and the pages are yellowing. There's even cooking stains on some pages from when my grandma or great grandma owned it. The book is also bound like a 3 ring binder, who makes books like that anymore!?! Pretty cool if you ask me.

The section I'm working on was the Meal Planing Section. Has lots of little plans all made up for you! And a lot of the food in the plans are recipes in the book. I love trying to convert a whole meal and be all house wife-y while I do it.

Since I got a job where I have to bring a lunch to work.(last job was fast food - got free salads) So needless to say I was excited! And I was only making lunch for me, so the lunch that were suppose to last a day…lasted me all week. Saved me money and time, didn't have to rush to make food or wonder what to make. Though it did get tiring after a while sometimes, but it was never bad. I'm usually very busy, so how could I complain?

Week One 

Hot Chile Con Carne with crackers

Milk or Coffee

Carrot Strips and Celery Hearts 

Oatmeal Cookies

Sounds like a pretty good lunch to me! and it was! Super easy to make vegan to. The cookies were amazing! Nice and soft and full of shortening and brown sugar! 

Oatmeal Cookies

These lasted me all week, I even had enough to share and snack on. Plus they still had a strong aroma of cinnamon and oats that even though they were 3 days old, people in the office could still smell them! I will definitely be making these again!

Next thing I made was Apple Betty Pie!

Apple Betty Pie

This pie was amazing and soooo yummy, I only ran into one issue. I've been reading around and it seems there's a talent when working with Earth Balance. This talent I have yet to master…the pie turned up oily? I'm not sure if that's the right word for it. But it looked like it was swimming in butter, if anyone has any tips working with Earth Balance please comment below! But I will be trying this out again! It was like a sugary crust on a nice apple pie! 

And last up not least Brown Bread (from a can). This was the worst thing ever! Was fun to try, but will try no more! You can find this bread in most local grocery stores. 

The book calls it Steamed Brown Bread and at first I thought it was going to be like normal brown bread. I was sooo wrong! If you like molasses you'll love it. But if your like me, you don't like it so much. The bread smelled like molasses and spices. Not yummy to me at all. But it was fun to read the instructions. Only because house wives used to make this bread in coffee cans!  When I read that part I was all "no way… I can't make this! my coffee containers will melt!" And then I started to think how cool it must have been back then. And then I snapped back and used baked beans cans. I don't even remember what I used to cover it. But it didn't turn out great, I would advise just to buy it. 

Says to eat it with cream cheese, but I have yet to have a good experience with vegan cream cheese. If anyone out there knows of a good vegan cream cheese or know of a recipe please comment below! 

But this is it for now, I still look at things here and there. But always remember try, try, try! The worst thing that could happen is you burn down your house/apartment/studio/parents house. 

So have you converted any recipes lately?