Darienne

Good one. Yes we have vegan milk substitutes. In fact, Ed drinks a combination of cashew milk and real milk. And I've done stuff with vegan milk. But no ricotta. I'll find a vegan lasagna. Thanks for the idea. Carolyn talks about vegan cheeses...we've never tried them. I had enough troubles trying to find a decent gluten free bread when I was following a naturalist's orders. (Before I finally decided that I was neither gluten nor dairy intolerant after two years off both.) I can't imagine what non-dairy cheese could taste like.

I've never made polenta. In fact, I've never tasted polenta. I think it's way past time I did. I'll get some next week, either premade or make it from scratch, and try it out. Thanks, @Alex.

Sorry, @heidih, the conversation thing is theoretically a good idea...but not with our daughter. She's an extreme vegan and will eat what I make that is vegan, but it's not what she normally eats which has nutritional yeast and seaweed and flax seed and aquafaba and other things which we don't even consider eating. And a long lecture to accompany each ingredient on the healthiness of how she eats. Sorry. I love her dearly but... So I'm just looking for vegan casseroles which she will accept and I can freeze. (As for the recipe posted...sorry, Ed hates Brussels Sprouts.)

I'd like to restart this thread. Our daughter has become a vegan and has also started visiting us regularly for the first time in decades. And so I am now trying to find vegan casserole type dishes...not soups or salads...those we already have covered well enough...not brilliantly, but satisfactorily...but it's mains I am in search of. Preferably something I can make ahead of time at my leisure and freeze in portions. These days I simply can't guarantee being able to cook to serve the food the first time around and so what I make must be able to be done and stored before it is served. Thanks to @Dante for his posts. I'm about to make a dish found in one of the vegan cooking websites he posted, Bad Manners.

I'm a Canadian and have never asked anyone to remove their shoes in any house we have lived in. And I can't recall ever having to take off my shoes in anyone's house. And now we live on a farm and all the rugs are commercial quality so they clean easily. I ask folks to leave their shoes on if they start to take them off. And I wear shoes in the house almost all the time...slippers the other times. And would never ever cook in bare feet. But then I am the safety inspector in my house.

Now hear this: do not ever buy enoki mushrooms!!! (I guess....)

That's simple. Make lemonade.

I am winnowing. The books are all, so far, going to our local library and they'll either keep what they want and discard the others in the sale items. For me it was time. A factor perhaps of age. And also I find myself finding the occasional new and interesting recipe online. Plus I suppose we have pretty much settled down to a comfortable repetition of favorites.

Oh yes!!! and while our imported Poblanos in darkest Ontario are never huge, meaty and gorgeous, I do happen to have rather a large amount of recently gifted Poblanos from Toronto friends roasted into Rajas sitting in my freezer.

The 'whomp rolls'. I like that.

I've never bought enoki mushrooms...and I'm never going to either.

Reading Smithy's testing of various ready-to-bake rolls, I am sorely tempted to get Ed to buy a few different ones. They sound like fun with some useful possibilities. Thanks for the posts, @Smithy.

Soup has no season with the McAuleys either. Soup is our every second night supper pretty much. And that's supper=soup and maybe a piece of bread and butter. And all the soups are homemade.

Lucky you if you have decent tomatoes. Our tomato season is long gone.

Made the Bean and Bacon soup again today. Without the bacon. Dumped a large spoonful of bacon fat into the soup for taste and at the end, after pureeing half the soup, I added chopped shredded pork. Very nice. On the other hand, the shredded pork was basically under-spiced (lazy!!!), unlike my usual Puerco Pibil shredded pork. I think I prefer the bits of bacon to the bits of pork, but in true Canadian sense I will soldier on and eat the soup with pork in it.

I've never tasted kimchi but I keep reading about how important it is in a diet. OK. So I'll buy some and try it. What grocery store in Ontario carries a brand which one of you favours? And where in the store is it likely to be? Please remember, that I am sending Ed to get it. (Please don't suggest Farm Boy. We do not have one in Peterborough.) Thanks.

I'm not. I do some things in Metric...and others in Imperial. And that's that. I think I personally was just too old when Metric was introduced to make a complete switch.

I laugh at your response because honestly, I don't have any plans. Perhaps they'll appear later. We live in hope.

Some of you might laugh at me, but please remember that I am an gardening virgin basically and still unorganized (family life is a bit chaotic right now). Last week I put three leek ends in small glasses of water in my south-facing window which will be covered in plants soon I hope and I am stunned at the growth of said leek ends. Nature is amazing! The pot on the right is my still un-repotted basil plant.

Oh, I could add that I sent the celery, carrots and onions through the large grater holes on the Cuisinart food processor attachment. And that worked out just fine. And I forgot the bay leaves.

The soup is done and I do think it's quite good. Of course it's been so many decades since I last tasted Campbell's Bean and Bacon, I really couldn't say whether it tasted like it or not. I did it in the crock-pot as noted and next time I would do a couple of things differently. For one thing, it needed more salt, but that's OK. I added it at the end. But I would not again put the bacon into the mixture for the entire cooking time...and I did mine on high because I started too late to do it on low. The bacon lost some/much/? of it 'baconess' and also I realized that I did not want to purée it. So I fished the pieces out as I went along. The end result was quite satisfying. Ed thought so too. Thanks again, @lindag.

So the Bean and Bacon soup is under way in a crock-pot, just for the heck of it. Went to the Rachel Cooks site to read the notes and learned that dried Cannellini beans must be boiled for a least 1/2 hour to kill the toxic lectins in them. Who knew? Also Ed cooked 8 oz of bacon for me to use in the soup...he was repackaging bacon today so I asked him to cook the bacon. Well, 8 oz of bacon from Costco gave me exactly 3.4 oz of cooked bacon. Now that was a shock. I'm using dried Great Northern beans so I'll report back. I love bean soup beyond sense I think. And I'm having already cooked mixed beans with Puerco Pibil shreds soup for supper, a kind of a no-name whatever was on hand soup. I guess I could add...as many of them are.

Actually I have some dried white beans and just might make this soup tomorrow. Thanks @lindag.

@lindag, it was a favorite of mine also...76 years ago. It goes back that far. Good luck with the recipe. Please report back. (Do they still make it? And does it taste the same?)

It is just digital. (I had to look it up to make sure.) No owner's manual but I found a video which showed me how to use it. Fortunately I don't have to deal with a 'lock' option.