jamileigh17's Profile

Soy Delicious makes some amazing soy and coconut based ice creams. Their chocolate obsession flavor is the best chocolate ice cream I've ever had, milk or not. Toufutti's sour cream and cream cheese are pretty good as well (I've found they have a longer usable shelf life than their milk counterparts, and since I never go through them fast, that's ideal.) and the flavored Silk are amazing, especially the dark chocolate almond. There are a few coconut based yogurts, I think also Soy Delicious brands, and (for example) you can drain them to make a thicker, greek style yogurt. You can whip coconut cream (separated out from coconut milk) to use in place of whipped cream, or there are spray can whipped creams that are dairy free as well.

The only thing I haven't found a good substitute for is cheeses. Daiya is the best of what I've tried, but it's not for eating cold, just melting on stuff like pizza. Watch out on the soy/nut cheeses though, a lot of them contain casein, which is a milk derived protein.

Also, don't be afraid of the vegan cook books. Some of them have wonderful dishes in them, and you can always add the meat of your choice to a lot of them.

My favorite discovery is lychee. Tried it in hawaii, and fell in love with the flavor. The canned version is meh, but the syrup in the cans makes a great sake martini, and I use the lychees for decoration.

I just wipe it off with a dry paper towel real quick after I use it. If it's greasy, I use a wet paper towel, once it cools some, and call it good.

We actually have 2. The built in one above the stove that came with the apartment, and one on a lowered end counter that my GF can reach (wheelchair access is useful for us). It's actually oddly useful to have 2, because if I'm nuking myself something quickly after work for dinner (hazard of getting off at 645 at night), she can toss her food in the lower one, and we don't have to wait for one to be done before the other starts.
Those drawer ones look nice, but seem crazy expensive for a microwave! Too bad! (We're designing a condo kitchen for when we move in a few months, so I'm researching!)

I have an electric one, and I love it. It took a bit of getting used to, but it's definitely easier than roasting something in the oven on a work night when I want to throw something in and not have to stand there stirring constantly.

Slightly different, but same concept: I often will forget I have something in the oven til I can smell it. So I leave the oven light on, and set a noisy timer. Even if I don't need the timer for cooking itself, it reminds me to turn things off when I'm done/put the leftovers away.

I snagged one of the nonstick sear dutch oven sized ones on Amazon one day for ~70. It's become my go to pan for pretty much everything other than eggs (And that owing only to the fact I have a dedicated egg pan due to my GF being deathly allergic to them!). I initially cringed at even that sale price, since most of my other pans are either clearance rack rescues or hand me downs from my mom (who must have the latest and greatest always in her cookware, so they're not exactly bad pans either), but after this? I'm considering slowly replacing all my other skillets at least with that line.

I just wait til it annoys me, and then spray it with the green cleaner I get. Gets the job done, and there's no funky fumes to mess with.

I generally substitute half instant coffee, half dark cocoa powder for the espresso powder. The dark cocoa cuts the sharpness of the instant coffee pretty well (at least in what I've used it in, which is, I'll admit, pretty limited to cookies!)

My local grocery store has several pans with lids (complete with handles). I'd gotten one of them last year since I needed another cupcake pan anyway, and it was so useful, I snagged two more of different types.