Help me, vegans!

[thefourthvine]

Because of my baby's suspected dairy allergy, I have joined the ranks of the more-or-less vegan. (I can actually still eat eggs, but they aren't a huge part of my diet anyway.) And, see, I've been a vegetarian since I was ten. I know how to be a vegetarian! It doesn't require thought or effort! Whereas this veganism thing is very new and very, very hard.

Normally I'd just hit Google and research the shit out of this. But, well, I have a four-month-old baby. I don't have time to make out with Google the way I used to. So I am hoping to use the friends list shortcut - that there are vegans on my friends list who might have advice for me. Or, I guess, people on my friends list who aren't vegan but just love to Google.

Basically, here's what I need to know:

1. What are the basics of a vegan pantry? What are the special things that vegans keep around all the time, that make cooking or meals easier?
   
   
2. What are really good vegan products?
   
   
3. What are some good vegan recipes? Right now I'm relying much too heavily on fake meat, and that is not how I like to cook or eat. At least, not this much. I might as well be a carnivore! So - recipes? I especially need ones for balanced meals that are super-fast or that I can make in a crockpot. Suggestions of cookbooks featuring these things would also be very welcome.

Help? Please? Anyone? I will take links or comments or just supportive pats. I am experiencing involuntary dietary change and it's very scary!

Comments

[marag.livejournal.com]

Remember that any product that is certified kosher pareve is guaranteed to be dairy-free, including things like casein and whey.

You can check if a product is pareve by looking for the symbol (commonly a U in a circle or a K in a star/circle/triangle/etc). If that symbol appears by itself, the product is pareve. If it has a D or says dairy, then, well, that's obvious. In a few rare cases, it might say meat, but you won't see many products like that in a regular grocery store.

(Oh, if it has a P, that does *not* necessarily mean its pareve, it means it's kosher for Passover.)

This website (http://www.kashrut.com/agencies/) shows all (or at least most) of the trademarked symbols that show a product is kosher. You won't ever see most of these, but they'll give you an idea what to look for.

There are a ton of products out there that are pareve. I know this, because I buy them all the time :) Once you start looking, you'll be surprised at how many products you can buy with confidence.

[abbylee]

However, pareve kosher foods might have fish product in it, so it won't necessarily be suitable for a vegetarian (unless you're a pesco-vegetarian) diet.

[marag.livejournal.com]

True, they might have fish-based gelatin, but a majority of pareve products won't have fish either. Because of that weird "no mixing fish and meat" thing that some people follow, I believe the majority of the va'ads won't certify fish products as pareve, but rather as (say) OU fish.

Okay, I just checked and here's what OU says:

At the OU, we certify such products as ‘OU’ and not “OU Fish” only when the recipe of a product indicates that quantity of the fish ingredient in the product is very small and that there are more than 60 times as much of other ingredients as there is of the anchovy fish. This would render the fish ingredient ‘Botel’(Halachically dissipated). Thus the product is considered as if there is no fish ingredient....

The OU does not require that ‘fish’ appear on the label when the fish component is less than 1/60th. Nonetheless, “anchovies” appears in the ingredient panel and alerts those who wish to follow the more stringent opinion that the product contains fish.