Vegetarian Vegetables

I am revisiting being an ovo-lacto-pescatarian/vegetarian (also, no cheese). So far this year, I haven't had any meat (except fish-not fried). This is not a moral thing; I just think it may be healthier. The problem I am finding at restaurants is that good vegetables like green beans, cabbage, greens, etc. are all cooked with meat. Or, they take broccoli, etc. and bake it in a casserole with a bunch of cheese, or they cook it with butter.
I've been eating a lot of legume dishes when I eat at restaurants, but I'm actually getting a little tired of hummus/black beans/etc. and I'm getting really tired of tuna sandwiches or variations thereof.
Especially downtown for lunch (6th and Market), it is just really hard to find "normal" vegetables.

Two questions:

1. Any vegetable advice?
2. As a vegetarian, can you eat vegetables cooked in meat as long as you don't eat the chunks of meat?

This can be tricky territory! I have been a vegetarian since 1991. I don't normally eat green beans, cabbage, greens, etc out at restaurants at all. Because you can almost GUARANTEE they have been cooked with meat. Same with most soups. However, I am a vegetarian for quite a few reasons, not just health.

Honestly, it comes down to what YOU are comfortable with. And 9 times out of 10 I am really NOT into labels HOWEVER, as someone who eats NO meat, no meat stocks, NO fish, etc. the tricky part comes when someone uses the label vegetarian when they are NOT vegetarians. Because it can make dining out or at other people's homes a bit tricky. Non-vegetarians don't think about things sometimes such as stocks or bases or cooking a ham hock in a pot of greens, but then pulling it out. OR my husband's grandmother making linguine with clam sauce just for me because I don't eat MEAT. OR someone saying I made this just for you because my neice is a vegetarian so I always pull the bacon out of the beans before I serve them, etc.

But again, it all comes down to your comfort level.

edited to add

2. As a vegetarian, can you eat vegetables cooked in meat as long as you don't eat the chunks of meat?"
Answering for me personally, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

It seems to me that a request for vegetables not cooked with any sort of meat or cheese product wouldn't be at all an unreasonable request.

a quick blanch in water, a just as quick saute in a pan with some oil, herbs and salt and pepper shouldn't take more than a few seconds (to properly cook the vegetables)

on the other hand, if you're eating in places that mass prep and overcook veg. and hold it in a steam table... that's an entirely different beast.
and if you're worrying about the health concerns for eating specific food products, you shouldn't be eating in those types of places anyhow.


point being:

any self respecting kitchen staff would be more than willing to cook veg. with no butter or meat, than cook a well done piece of meat for someone else.
It's simply quicker, easier, and brainless for a seasoned cook.
Working in restaurants is the service industry... and all about reasonable accommodation.
Busy or not, your request is simple enough that it shouldn't be a problem anywhere (and if it is, you might consider spending your money elsewhere)


All you'd have to do is ask your server.
"i don't eat meat or dairy, and would it be at all possible to have kitchen substitute some veg. cooked with just a little oil and seasoning?"



I'm not a vegetarian, but as i've mentioned before on here... I'm very sympathetic to dietary restrictions (by choice or not).
I've been lactose intolerant since i was a baby, and can't get cheese down to save my life... so i empathize.

i will say this: any food product prepared with meat, meat stocks, etc. is NOT vegetarian... even if you don't have physical pieces of meat in the mix.
...nor is gelatin (which in turn is extracted from bones in the stock making process).


Reading this thread makes me want to go eat at Zen Garden. (if you haven't... you should. It'll cover all your bases. )


as far as downtown recommendations (and to support friends in the industry); I'd be willing to bet that Chef James Lucas and his staff at Bistro 301 wouldn't find any trouble accommodating you.

This is something I've had trouble with as well, but not as a vegetarian. I was raised to keep kosher and thus don't eat anything made with any kind of pork or sausage in it. I also don't eat meat and dairy together in the same meal. Thus, I eat vegetarian when I go out quite a bit. I am constantly asking at restaurants how vegetables (and soups) are prepared. As Heather mentioned, I usually just stear clear of greens and green beans and the like. Especially being in the South. It can be tricky to find things sometimes. There are a few restaurants where the only side I can eat is a potato of some sort, not always the healthiest of options.

Sweet Surrender does serve an ALL vegetarian lunch. We use no meat stocks or meat products in the entire cafe/bakery. Even our soups are strictly vegetarian. However, the majority of our current menu does use cheese. We are about to redo our menu for the warmer months and we plan to include some vegan options that should suit your diety requirements.

And as a point of interst, there is kosher gelatin out there that is not made from bones and is not "meat" of any kind. But it's very very hard to find and rather expensive. You can easily find kosher jello at the supermarket but trying to use it as gelatin doesn't really work. The kosher gelatin is also a little trickier to use, but we do use it here at the bakery occassionally.

Well at North End Cafe there would be no problem w/ that. Even the soup du jour is veggie, and a lot of times vegan. We also offer a delicious vegan reuban, and this is from a carnivour. Everything is sauteed w/ canola, so there is never a butter issue except on your buttermilk pancakes! No one is sneaking veal stock into your meals here. If you don't eat eggs, we have a marvelous tofu stirfry for brekky, or if you do we have a falafel omelette this week. The veggie om changes on Saturdays.
Hard at work,
Nora

As a long term vegetarian, you do have to ask a lot of questions when you eat out. I've had many a server have to go check with the kitchen about exactly what is in a dish. I don't eat suops or anything else made with meat/chicken stocks, although butter is OK in my world. DD is vegan, so she really has to ask a lot of questions and often ask for some simple substitutions. Really, most restaurants will accommodate a simple request and will tell you what's in/not in the food. You just have to be vigilant about asking.

Oh dear, oh my...oh well, I'm a vegetarian and almost a vegan and I've had lots of problems over the years with Servers...not their fault...they just frequently don't know what is in the food they serve. The obvious stuff is no problem but, as mentioned before, soup stocks can be a real icky problem. I struggled to continue eating poultry and fish for many years but recently lost that battle. I'm vegetarian for many reasons but mainly because of a serious accident at age 18 that was horrible. I lived, but will never forget the sights that led me to become the vegetarian I am today. Over the years, I've had some odd experiences with fellow diners in groups, and with just a few Servers. One Owner/Cook, a German lady, became quite upset because I would not, could not, eat her spatzle with gravy. Robin may remember this German lady and her now defunct restaurant on Dixie Hgwy. To join in giving my opinion as to whether one can eat food cooked with meat bases, stock etc, I agree that for me it is a big Absolutely not!! Btw, I was under the impression that Kosher gelatin was the same as non-Kosher gelatin, but was not approved Kosher. I would be grateful to be wrong on this one! Fruit pectin can be used but isn't often. Maybe it is because the consistency is not the same. I have no problem with that, either.

Kosher gelatin is not vegetarian, it is regular gelatin that just has been blessed.

Whole Foods, Amazing Grace and Rainbow Blossom sell the Hain vegetarian "gelatin".

There's Agar, but restaurants are not going to use it because it just doesn't act like gelatin. I believe that Agar is made from seaweed, isn't it? Since I don't eat gelatin I really don't use the Agar much either since I just don't eat those sorts of things. I bought some Agar to substitute in culinary school for recipes that called for gelatin and the chefs were also interested to see how it worked. It gels things, but it does act differently. You could play with it at home.

There's Agar, but restaurants are not going to use it because it just doesn't act like gelatin. I believe that Agar is made from seaweed, isn't it? Since I don't eat gelatin I really don't use the Agar much either since I just don't eat those sorts of things. I bought some Agar to substitute in culinary school for recipes that called for gelatin and the chefs were also interested to see how it worked. It gels things, but it does act differently. You could play with it at home.

Agar is made from seaweed, but gels very firm and almost brittle. It has an entirely different mouthfeel.

There actually are numerous items you can use to gel or emulsify food products, that the average home or professional cook is unaware of; yet most of our commercial foods use them.

At work, I've been playing with a whole slew of hydrocolloids (substances that gel in the presence of water): made from seaweeds, irish moss, vegetable cellulose, etc.
The textures I've been able to achieve for some applications are quite incredible.
I have made some hot "gelatins", which are pretty incredible, you can hit the thing with a blowtorch and it won't melt.

All of the hydrocolloids i'm using (with the exception of gelatin) are vegetarian, and are mostly inexpensive (with the exception of high and low acyl gellan gums)...
but you'd need a gram scale accurate to the tenth of a gram make any use of them (they are strong gellifiers! a tenth of a gram makes a huge difference)


I'm trying to document percentages and ratios as much as possible.


If anyone would be interested in retailer suppliers (online) and applications, i'd gladly offer a bit of assistance.

Fair warning though, there's a lot of trial and error involved here on figuring out effective amounts for specific products...

I thought this thread was going to be about vegetarians avoiding eating carniverous plants like a Venus Flytrap. Bummer.

Smoketown USA on Logan advertises that all their vegetable are vegetarian with no meats or stocks! They are quite spicy and really good!

I thought this thread was going to be about vegetarians avoiding eating carniverous plants like a Venus Flytrap. Bummer.

On an unrelated tangent, I have been thinking recently about trying to grow one of those at home. I havent seen a venus flytrap since i was a young child though.

I thought this thread was going to be about vegetarians avoiding eating carniverous plants like a Venus Flytrap. Bummer.

On an unrelated tangent, I have been thinking recently about trying to grow one of those at home. I havent seen a venus flytrap since i was a young child though.

...I saw some for sale at Whole Food just the other day (as you walk in the door).

I experimented with Agar and several other gelatin substitutes before I found a vegetarian kosher "gelatin" that works for the most part like gelatin. It took me almost a year to hunt down what I actually needed, but having been raised kosher and knowing that there are lots of dairy kosher resaurants and bakeries in larger cities, I knew there had to be SOMETHING out there that worked like gelatin. The process to use the gelatin (or whatever you wanna call it), as I mentioned above, is a little different. It took some getting used to and experimenting to figure out how it worked.

And I do want to point out that kosher gelatin, whether vegetarian or not, is not just "blessed" gelatin. About 98% of gelatin is made from porcine and that is in NO WAY kosher whether you bless it or not. Kosher is not about eating blessed items. There are actual rules and reasons behind keeping kosher. That's why several products that are sold as kosher gelatin don't really work. They are made completely differently than ordinary gelatin and are not "real" gelatin.

Ethan, I'd be very interested to learn which hydrocolloids you've had success with using what techniques. I experimented with a couple of the ones you mentioned, but had trouble finding information about the best ways to use them to get the results I wanted.