Trying to be vegan for a month

My intent behind taking part in Veganuary was probably different to most people's. To be honest I wasn't thinking of animal welfare or depletion of planetary resources, I was interested in something nearer to home - finding a project to occupy me through the latest lockdown, and making use of our allotment produce. The huge chest freezer is full with tomatoes, runner beans, cauliflower, and blackberries. In the garage sit bags of potatoes, the porch is home to recently dug beetroot, turnips and swedes, and on the kitchen windowsill I still have three squash. It's silly to go to the effort of growing them and then eat ready meals, but too often that's what we opt for. Veganuary would, I thought, be an ideal incentive to encourage me to focus on seasonal vegetables (and those frozen tomatoes).

A lot of my meals were already accidentally vegan - BBQ beans with baked potatoes, or the many pumpkin-based dishes I make, from curries to chilli - so starting with a list of these I decided to try being vegan for a whole month.

For keeping me occupied and giving me a focus it was excellent. Sticking to vegan food, I discovered, took more planning than my usual diet. 

The hardest meal was lunch. Being at home, I would normally have grabbed a ham/cheese/tuna sandwich. It's hard to find something as quick and easy. What I hit on was mashing up chickpeas to make a lazy hummus, and using it as a base for salad sandwiches, but some days I ended up falling back on jam or banana as fillings. Homemade soup was a better idea, but then I had to be sure it didn't clash with our evening meal; I didn't want chilli, curry or winter roots stew twice a day!

I wasn't an eater of huge amounts of meat before this and one idea I've certainly been shaken out of is the necessity of adding it to almost every meal. For example, I'd previously make a curry with tomatoes, chickpeas and spinach, and somehow feel I needed to add some chicken, or need to add mince to enchiladas, even if just a small amount. Now I feel I've embraced vegetables for themselves, not as just a side.

There are a lot of websites out there offering help and advice, and most importantly recipe suggestions, and another great source of inspiration was people I follow online sharing their own Veganuary journey. My favourite new meal was discovered accidentally by following one link then another and ending up with a squash and cabbage sabzi recipe on the BBC Good Food site. This fits what I was looking for exactly, as I still have autumn's pumpkins, and cabbage is doing well at the allotment; I even made flatbread from my sourdough discard to accompany it.

Something I've been experimenting with since first lockdown is using aquafaba (the fluid from chickpeas or beans) as a replacement for eggs. It gives a rather meringuey texture to cake but I like it. My attempt at making vegan mayo with it didn't work as well but I'm going to try again.

I tried as much as possible to avoid substitute meats, as it went against my hope of using our own vegetables, but I have discovered some mock-chicken pies just as nice as the meat version that I'll continue to eat. 

Has it changed my eating habits? Somewhat. It was definitely a lot easier than I expected, and I didn't really miss meat that much. I don't think I'll stay vegan permanently but going forward I will be eating a lot less meat and dairy.