What are some good bulk vegan recipes?

October 20, 2008 8:04 PM

I hate to cook. What are some delicious recipes you like that are simple to make, easily made in bulk and still taste good left over?

I work in a restaurant and order take out all the time, so I never really have to cook. I want to save a little more money though and start making my own meals but I'm at a loss because I've never really done a lot of cooking. I love to bake, just not cook. I want stuff that I can make in large quantities that I can heat up and eat for a few days to lessen my time spent in the kitchen. One catch though, I'm looking for vegan recipes, but a lot of recipes can be tweaked to be made vegan. Thanks!

posted by MaryDellamorte to food & drink (29 answers total)

Rice and beans made in a rice cooker. I make the rice with veg broth and some tomato sauce. Add some garlic powder and seasonings. When the rice is about done, I add a can or two of kidney beans. Super easy, pretty tasty, and makes a lot of food.
posted by All.star at 8:18 PM on October 20, 2008

I was going to say spaghetti and meatballs until the last part of your question, so now, I guess, spaghetti and something that isn't meatballs.
posted by papayaninja at 8:30 PM on October 20, 2008

I make a big pot of this soup, or a variation, most weekends, and it lasts me the week through. I use less canned ingredients and more fresh, but it works well no matter what you do. It freezes pretty well too. It's a pretty flexible formula; don't have corn? Use rice or potatoes. No collard greens? Spinach, chard, broccoli or any tougher green will do. It's pretty well foolproof and tasty, my two favorite qualities in a food.

I do suggest a splash of liquid smoke though.
posted by lekvar at 8:38 PM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I just sautée a mess of garlic, diced onion, green peppers, parsley, and chicken tofu with a bunch of dried oregano and basil, then add 2¼ cups water, bring to a boil, add rice and curry powder, and cook till done. A little more minced parsley on top to cut the curry's sweetness and it's delicious alone (hard not to eat it all at once!) or as a soup base.
posted by nicwolff at 8:55 PM on October 20, 2008

Can you make vegan chili? Soups would be good for this kind of thing. I make taco soup: a can of corn, a can of black beans, some salsa, some broth/stock, and some tofu.
posted by runningwithscissors at 8:59 PM on October 20, 2008

Wild Mushrooms and Angel Hair Pasta

Makes four servings. The secret to the dish is using as many varieties of wild mushrooms as possible. The wilder, the wilder.

4 cups assorted fresh wild mushrooms, such as chanterelles, shiitakes, or portobellos
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 tablespoons creole seasoning
1/4 cup chopped green onions
2 tablespoons minced shallots
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 cups tomato sauce
1 pound angel hair pasta

1. Place the mushrooms in a large bowl and toss with the oil and 3 tablespoons of the creole seasoning

2. Heat a large heavy dry skillet over high until very hot. Add the mushrooms, cover and cook for 2 minutes. Uncover and cook, shaking and tossing the skillet, for 2 minutes. Add the green onions, shallots, and garlic and toss well. Stir in the tomato sauce and simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water according to package directions. Drain. Fold in the pasta and the remaining creole seasoning and heat for 2 minutes.

4. To serve, mound 2 cups of the pasta and mushroom blend.

5. Enjoy! Then pat yourself on the back for a job well done.
posted by netbros at 9:14 PM on October 20, 2008

Curries, stews, chilis, spag bol.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:42 PM on October 20, 2008

There's a lot of great answers here, thank you. I'm not that experienced with cooking so specific recipes or links to specific recipes are needed. If someone says "stew," I wouldn't know where to start or what to put in it or how to cook it.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 9:46 PM on October 20, 2008

Cook two pounds of pasta. While you do so, blend a couple of jars of roasted red peppers with three or four cloves of garlic, 1 tsp sugar, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp oregano, and some crushed red pepper if you like that. Then blend in 1/2 cup olive oil. Combine pasta, sauce, a bunch of capers if you like those. If you happen to have some roasted carrots, as we often do, you can blend those in the sauce too. Extremely easy, foolproof, and tastes great days later.
posted by escabeche at 9:46 PM on October 20, 2008

A slow cooker makes life pretty easy, throw all the ingredients into it, go to work, come home, eat.

I also like rice cooker cooking - rice, mushrooms, some meat, some broccoli, peas, whatever. throw it all in the rice cooker, with some seaoning, turn it on. For extra protein, crack an egg into it near the end of the cooking process.
posted by tomble at 9:54 PM on October 20, 2008

Soups of any kind are the answer to this. Unlike other cooking methods, you suffer no penalty for choosing vegan ingredients. They are designed to be cooked in bulk. Most importantly, however, they are actually better as leftovers. In fact, I recall reading an article about a local soupery that actually would cook up an entire soup and then, instead of serving it that day, would chuck it in the fridge so the flavors could intensify and merge. It wouldn't get served until a few days after it was made.

Pasta e fagiole is a super easy option. You can eat it right away and it does taste better a few days on. Basically, just heat up 2-3 cans of white beans in a pot. Then add 2-3 cans of vegetable broth (you can use water, but broth makes the flavor a lot better. I'm guessing bouillon would do the trick her as well). Finally, add macaroni to "taste", by which I mean if you like a lot of pasta, go ahead and add a lot. Cook until the pasta is tender. Season well. This tastes pretty good on its own, although you can liven it up a lot with dried herbs and spices (think oregano, basil, cayenne, hot red pepper flakes, etc) and garlic. This can be made flexibly up to very large portions and should keep for a while in the freezer. To reuse, reheat thoroughly and add a drizzle of olive oil to "wake it up."

Once you've made around 5 soups or so you can make soups on your own without a recipe. Well, let me amend that somewhat. You can make decent soups if you don't go crazy like I do and put every last weird thing from your fridge and your pantry in the pot just to try it out (who knew salted black turnip didn't go with tomatoes and black beans...although, predictably, the soup tasted a lot better after a few days in the fridge). So when someone says "stew" right now you're confused but in a month or so you should be able to whip one out, really.

The secret to decent stews is to always start out with onions, and add carrots if you have them as well. Very few stews are harmed by the addition of onions and carrots. Once these have gone in, choose the "base" of your stew. If you want it to be beany, you have lots of options. I'd start with canned, since they're oh so easy and save you the time and trouble of preparing beans from dry. I buy dry beans all the time and then they sit in my pantry unused because I never have the patience and rarely know for certain that I will be cooking a meal the next day. So just buy canned. The exception is lentils and split peas, which you can cook relatively quickly without soaking. Another option for the "base" of your stew is a collection of vegetables. These can really be anything, although generally it's best if they're things that are best appreciated in bite sized pieces. I wouldn't put string beans in a stew, generally, for example (although some people do). Tofu is really excellent in stews, particularly stews with a strong tomato component. What's truly marvelous is to freeze the tofu, thaw it, and then press it to squeeze out all the water. The ice crystals expand to create tiny holes throughtout the tofu, turning it into a giant stew sponge.

For umami tastiness, stews and soups often turn to meats (or occasionally cheeses -- for vegetarians, throwing in a piece of strongly-flavored hard cheese is an excellent way to get that "meaty" taste, and really really adds a jolt of flavor to the paste e fagiola recipe above). Since you don't have that option, you can use dried mushrooms or seaweed or a splash of soy sauce. Cooked tomatoes supposedly also add this flavor. A tablespoon of tomato paste near the end of cooking can add a nice smooth richness to a soup, particularly one that already has fresh or canned tomatoes in it.

If you really have no time at all, you can make what me and my friends termed "Hurricane Soup" (so named because we made it during a rainstorm we experienced as a result of a hurricane further out by the coast. It did knock out our electricity for a while, but it's not like we were totally out of provisions...): basically, it is an assortment of canned vegetables and beans thrown together: 1-2 cans of beans, 1 can of corn, 1 large can of tomatoes, 1 can of random vegetables [you can substitute frozen vegetables as well] with plenty of salt and pepper, a little olive oil for flavor, and perhaps some cumin or other favorite spices. Basically just heat, stir, and serve.
posted by Deathalicious at 10:10 PM on October 20, 2008 [5 favorites]

Oh, and since you're a baker, I suggest you google "vegan meatloaf". I've never made it so I wouldn't recommend one recipe over the other, but it's really great, and you can gently fry leftover slices in a griddle for a tasty breakfast or lunch.

I would heartily recommend getting yourself a vegan or vegetarian cookbook. Once you've used one for a while you can get a real grasp of cooking and start off on your own thing.
posted by Deathalicious at 10:13 PM on October 20, 2008

I've been doing a lot of Asian-style cooking lately, so here are some suggestions in that vein:

My friend says that curry made with soy milk keeps forever. I made mine with coconut milk, and it lasted about a month (and still counting) stored in the fridge for two weeks and then the freezer after that. (But maybe it can be stored in the fridge longer... I'm not sure.)
I usually make chicken curry, though... so not sure how useful my recipe would be.

here's what I do for chicken curry:
---
Ingredients: onions, garlic, whatever dry spices/chillies you want, curry powder, coconut milk, potatoes, chicken, tomatoes (I hesitate to specify the amounts because I vary the amounts depending on the type of curry I feel like eating and I've made this so many times I've forgotten the original amounts in the original recipe (which I've lost)... but when I cook for around 5 people I use about two big onions, maybe 3 T garlic paste, two sliced green chillies, maybe 1/3 cup curry powder, 250ml coconut milk (1 can), 4 potatoes, 2 tomatoes, 1 chicken...)

1) I fry chopped onions, chopped garlic, and the rest of the dry spices I want, in a pot...
2) then I add in chicken, and fry that along with the onions, garlic and spices...
3) I add a little bit of water to curry powder, just enough to make a curry paste (not curry liquid); then I add half of the curry paste to the chicken-onions-garlic-spices in the pot, and fry it all together;
4) I peel and cube the potatoes, and rub them with salt
5) I dump in half the coconut milk, and add maybe 1 cup of water (or more, depending on how many potatoes there are), then dump in the potatoes
6) I cover the pot (to wait for the potatoes to soften)... when the potatoes are done or almost done, I chop up the tomatoes and dump them into the pot too.
7) Towards the end, maybe about 10 min before serving, I pour in the other half of the coconut milk.

Along the way, I keep adding sugar and salt to taste. If the curry gets too salty, cut up another potato and put it in (without salting it beforehand), and it should absorb the salt. If the curry feels too spicy or too curry-powdered, then that can be alleviated with more coconut milk.

I suppose you could substitute chicken with something else, to make it vegan...

---

Maybe spring rolls, too? They're very versatile - you can fry them, or steam them, or just eat them fresh/cold (provided you don't put anything like raw meat or raw egg inside of course). Filling can be almost anything - carrots, cucumber, chives, onions, wood's ear mushrooms, shitake mushrooms (or just any sort of mushrooms actually), shallots, egg (this is useful if you're frying the spring rolls, because they help prevent the filling from leaking out during the frying), rice or mung bean noodles, etc... I add fish sauce, soy sauce, salt, pepper, sugar, rice vinegar and some shrimp paste to the filling as a marinade.

basically what I do is something like this:
---
Ingredients: spring roll wrappers, whatever-you-want-for-filling (er...see the list above), 2 eggs

1) Make the filling: chop up any combination of the stuff on the list, or whatever else you want to eat in the spring roll. Dump it all in one bowl. Crack an egg and dump that in the bowl. Add salt, pepper, any kind of sauce/paste you want, etc. Mix it all up.
2) Soak the spring roll wrappers in warm water to soften them (I use spring roll wrappers made of rice and tapioca... I think they're Vietnamese; you can get a whole stack of them for about $1 or $2 at any Asian store).
3) Crack the other egg and dump it in a little bowl
4) Spoon a bit of the filling onto the middle of a wrapper, and wrap it (like you would a burrito, kinda... basically, you fold up the bottom, then fold over the two sides (sort of like making an envelope), and then roll it up to the top - I found this link that shows you how to wrap a spring roll, step by step... she uses flour as her "glue" though, but I suppose the general idea is the same...this wrapping method works for both rectangular wrappers and circular wrappers). Dipping your fingers in the egg-in-the-bowl, you can use the egg as "glue" to help "glue" the edges of the wrapper in place, to keep it from un-wrapping. If you plan on eating the spring rolls fresh and are squeamish about raw egg, then you can omit the "egg-glue" part.
5) Now you can fry or steam the spring rolls... or just eat them fresh. :)

They're really fun to make! And one big bowl of filling (I mix mine in a salad bowl) can go a really, really long way.
-

My roommate also makes sushi (and the ingredients for the spring roll fillings can actually double up as sushi ingredients as well). I think she just uses nori (the seaweed for sushi), rice, and whatever other leftovers we have... and she has a little sushi rolling mat. I haven't really tried making sushi myself, but it's another option you could explore. It's good lunchbox/bentobox food, too... if you want a healthy lunch option on the go.
posted by aielen at 10:43 PM on October 20, 2008 [1 favorite]

I suppose you could substitute chicken with something else, to make it vegan...

Tofu makes an absolutely perfect alternative to any kind of meat for a curry. With a curry, the whole point is that the protein, whatever it might be, absorbs the flavors of the curry mixture, so avoid fake meats, which generally are already flavored with spices. If you can manage to find seitan which hasn't already been heavily flavored with soy sauce that'd also be an okay option, but really tofu is fantastic.
posted by Deathalicious at 11:06 PM on October 20, 2008

roasted vegetables are delicious. Get whatever veggies you like, cut them into chunks, toss them into a casserole dish with a little olive oil, lots of salt, pepper and chopped garlic, then into the oven at about 375 for about 1/2 an hour. Make a big dish and you can re-heat them whenever you want more. You can use different spices each time for variety; oregano, rosemary, curry, montreal steak spice...

Good vegetables for roasting: mushrooms, zucchini, yams, tomatoes, potatoes (but they should be cut into smaller pieces than the rest of your veggies, or they will take longer to cook) peppers, spinach, carrots (get the baby ones and you can toss them in whole) broccoli onions...

you can also add cubed firm tofu, or sliced tofurkey sausage. it's easy, healthy, and yummy
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 11:13 PM on October 20, 2008

We eat a lot of vegetarian stuff. Standards during the week being.

+Mushroom w/Tomato pasta.
Brown 2-3 whole garlic cloves in a few tablespoons of Olive Oil then remove garlic.
Add 200-400g of mushrooms (chopped). white button mushrooms are ok but a bit bland. you can add some dried prochini to add flagour.

sweat the mushrooms for a while until they soften. (5 mins)
then add a can of tomatoes cook for another 5 mins or so.

Add past that you put on before you started.

-
+ buy a ceramic 'one-pot' (oven proof ceramic pot with lid - you can get them from Asian grocery stores usually).

Add a mixture of chopped vegetables, pulses and grains whatever is on sale at the supermarket.
anything from potatoes, squash, fennel, carrots, celery, pumpkin, swedes, peas, beans, dried red lentils, barley, brown rice, chopped onions, celery leaves.
Add some spices like -A couple of bay Leaves (always),
star anise , some garlic,

cover the vegetables with water and/or a can of tomoatoes and stick it in the oven for 2-3 hours. (check on it occasionally).

there you go: no mess / no fuss vegetable stew.
posted by mary8nne at 2:49 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

If I wanted to make something easy that would last for several meals, I'd go with minestrone soup. I usually use beef stock and pancetta, but you could use vegetable stock and leave out any meat. Minestrone recipe. It serves 6, but you can have some for dinner right away, then keep the rest to have for dinner or lunch later in the week.

It's dead easy to make a giant pot of it, it's basically a case of chop up ingredients, put in pot in the order described by the recipe. You don't even have to chop things up very well, any old how is just fine.
posted by harriet vane at 4:23 AM on October 21, 2008

I'm pretty sure I got this recipe here at Askme, from a similar question. I've made this several times, always to rave reviews. It's dead easy and makes a ton:

(my variation is to add Cumin, about half a tablespoon)
http://zenhabits.net/2007/02/health-tip-try-eating-vegetarian/

Zen Habits three bean vegan chili

1 package Morning Star Meal Starters (or any ground beef replacement)
one 14.5-oz. can each: black beans, pinto beans, and kidney beans
one 14.5-oz. can corn
one 29-oz. can each: stewed tomatoes & tomato sauce
half a yellow onion, diced
half a green bell pepper, cored, seeded, and diced
2-4 cloves garlic, diced (depending on how much you like garlic)
black pepper, salt, chili powder to taste
olive oil

Dice up the veggies first, because the cooking will go fast. On medium high heat, heat up some olive oil, then saute the onions, then the garlic and bell pepper. Throw in the Meal Starter ground beef replacement (still frozen is fine), and let it brown. Add a liberal amount of chili powder and black pepper, and a bit of salt (I never measure, sorry).

Now dump in the beans and corn, one can at a time, stirring as you go along, making sure the bottom doesn’t stick and burn. Add more chili powder and black pepper. Spice it up nice! Throw in the stewed tomatoes, stir, and then dump in the tomato sauce. Done! Lower the heat and let it simmer for as long as you can resist. You can actually eat it right away (prep and cooking time: 10-15 minutes) or you can simmer it for 30 minutes, an hour or more. The longer it simmers, the better the flavors will all mix together. Taste it and spice it as needed. I like to add a lot of chili powder and black pepper. To crank up the heat, feel free to add your favorite red peppers early on in the cooking process.

Serve with brown rice, good bread, or blue corn chips.
posted by jvilter at 4:57 AM on October 21, 2008

Oh, something else I like that I sort of made up.

I like to make Trader Joe's Harvest Grain Blend with veg broth (if you don't have a Trader Joe's around, just use Israeli couscous). Top it with warmed garbanzo beans and either sauteed or roasted veggies (bell pepper, onion, mushrooms, whatever you have or want). This is pretty tasty, and the reheated leftovers also taste great.
posted by All.star at 5:04 AM on October 21, 2008

Black bean salad. So quick and easy and you don't even need to heat it up to eat later.
Two cans black beans drained and rinsed
cup of frozen corn if you have it.
Chopped up tomatoes, celery, avocado, onion, whatever you have on hand
drizzle of olive oil, little bit of lime or lemon juice
whatever spices you like, I use garlic and adobo and red pepper flakes

You can also heat it up and eat it in a taco shell or with pita bread.
posted by raisingsand at 7:18 AM on October 21, 2008

My new favorite quick-vegan meal (with lots of leftovers!) is veggie and bean couscous. I saute in olive oil whatever veggies are handy (onions first for about 5 minutes) until they're as soft as I like (use a fork to grab one out of the pan and eat it to check). Add in a rinsed can of beans, and spices to taste. Spices could be veggie broth powder, a bunch of chopped rosemary, some curry powder, ranch dressing mix, or just salt and pepper - NOT all of these, pick one! Then pour in water, crank the heat to get it boiling, and finally stir in the same amount of couscous (e.g. 1.5 c water, 1.5 c couscous - it will expand a lot). Throw a cover on it, turn the heat as low as it will go, and wait 10 minutes. Fluff it up when you take the lid off, and eat. If you've got any nuts or dried fruits, those are wonderful additions too - fruit goes in with the spices, nuts go on top at the very end. Because the couscous expands so much, I always end up with even more leftovers than I expected, which is a lovely bonus.
posted by vytae at 7:46 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Soup is your friend. Make a double batch (takes only slightly more chopping time than cooking a standard recipe) and freeze individual portions in freezer jars. When you're hungry, take the lid off the jar, put the jar in the microwave, and it's chow time.

Vegetarian Soup Cuisine is the perfect book for this. Most recipes are vegan and many are hearty stews. None of them are fussy; they all involve chopping veggies and throwing them in a pot. I double the recipe, freeze the leftovers, and eat for a week.
posted by PatoPata at 8:27 AM on October 21, 2008

I like to have dried beans on hand (just the regular kind you get at the grocery store for like a dollar, Goya or store brand). I usually have pinto and blackeyed peas, as well as green and yellow peas.

When I'm running out of food, I put the beans or peas (you don't have to soak the peas so long, but I like my peas to be totally mushy and make a thick "paste" so I soak them) in a large pot of water and soak overnight. In the morning, I drain off as much of the soaking water as possible, put in new water, and go to work (if it's a weekend or I'm home during the day, I start cooking in the morning, and sometimes I start the soaking in the morning and cook in the evening - it never seems to make much difference to me as long as they soak like 10-24 hours.

For pinto and black eye peas, I drain all of the soaking water and put in about 4 or 5 cups of fresh water, some veggie broth packets, lots of fresh garlic (I use a garlic press and put in literally 10 cloves - you can crush it with the side of a knife if you don't have the press - the Asian market near me always has nice peeled garlic super cheap), some salt, some (okay, a ton) hot pepper seasoning, and I dump in whatever veggies I have hanging around, I especially like carrots and onions. Celery would be good if I had it. Sometimes I add a little olive oil and just a little lemon juice (somewhere I once heard that cooks often oversalt when they just need more acidity).

I bring it to a boil and cook this for like 2 hours on low heat, covered (or I bring it to a boil and then let it sit on the hot burner, repeat as necessary, if I'm in and out and worried about leaving a burner on). When the beans are to my desired tenderness (I like them soft), I put in about a cup of pearled barley (just regular, from the grocery store, like $2 for a box) and make sure there's enough broth in the pan to vaguely match the ratio on the barley box. I bring that to a boil, turn it off, leave it covered and let it sit on the hot burner for about 45 minutes.

For green or yellow peas, cook a lot less time, closer to like 45 minutes, and don't add the barley. I like to cook it until the peas are mushy and it becomes really thick, like a paste almost, where you can't distinguish individual peas from the mixture. This is especially good with garlic, onions, and carrots.

Whatever it is, I like to portion it out before I put it away (you can get containers like 3/$1 at the dollar store). I usually put maybe half the containers in the fridge and half in the freezer.

So basically pick up some dried beans and experiment. I end up making it a little different every time, depending on what I have around, and I have yet to make something that tastes bad, although some are better than others. I'm not too worried about it sucking, because it's just a couple dollars to make so if I have to trash it and start again then I'm not too upset.
posted by KAS at 8:31 AM on October 21, 2008 [1 favorite]

Oh, I also add in a bunch of whatever herbs and spices I see hanging around. And if you want it more soupy, just don't add the barley - I like it thicker and more like stew, so that's what the barley does for me.
posted by KAS at 8:33 AM on October 21, 2008

And polenta! I forgot polenta. Buy a bag of polenta that has a recipe on it. (The recipe should be only marginally more difficult than "Boil water; stir.") Follow the recipe until you have soft, hot polenta in the cooking pot. Pour the hot polenta into a loaf pan (I use a Pyrex baking dish). Let it cool a bit. Cover it, and put it in the fridge. It will become a happy, wiggly loaf of polenta joy. Then, when you're hungry, cut a slice from the loaf and fry it in extra virgin olive oil. Crispy chewy corny enrapture ensues.
posted by PatoPata at 8:34 AM on October 21, 2008

You should definitely look into a slow cooker/crockpot. They are ideal for budget, large-batch cooking -- just this weekend I made a huge batch of vegan chili, the per-meal cost of which is less than $1. A total of an hour active cooking at most, and only that long because I am a slow chopper and two proud to use gadgetry. Loosely based on two chilis from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker, which is mostly easy vegan which require no prior cooking experience. It covers the slow cooker basics, too.

Outside of the slow cooker, the best bulk meal tip I have is to cook a bunch of lentils (here's good basic info) and an equivalent amount of brown rice. It's great if you're the type to get bored eating the same thing every time, because you can reheat the lentils with some different flavoring each time -- hoisin or teriyaki sauce, curry paste, onions, salsa, whatever you like -- and cook for a minute or two, then mix with your brown rice. Lentils work with a lot different flavors. Takes about forty-five minutes of watching pots simmer (pretty much no prep time unless you get fancy and put some onions in the lentils) the night you make the lentils and the rice. Dinner's ready in about five minutes on the night you're eating it.

When freezing and reheating you mostly lose texture and moisture, and very starchy foods suffer. Just about anything saucy, stewy, soupy will do well. Pasta not so much (though you can make a large batch of, say, lentil fauxlognese sauce and just worry about cooking the noodles the day you eat).
posted by fidelity at 8:35 AM on October 21, 2008

We are not vegetarians, but Fantastic Foods Vegetarian Chili is so tasty and easy. I make it with kidney beans but you could use black. I usually make a double-portion and we have leftovers. I recommend making some cornbread - Jiffy Cornbread is 50-cents a box (although again I usually use two boxes) and really hard to mess up.
posted by radioamy at 9:32 AM on October 21, 2008

Just FYI (because I only found out several boxes in, not thinking to check): Jiffy cornbread mix (though so tasty) is not vegetarian. It contains "animal shortening". Trader Joe's less-tasty but still pretty good cornbread mix is vegetarian.
posted by fidelity at 9:41 AM on October 21, 2008

This white chili recipe won the Pillsbury bake-Off years ago and is one of the easiest and best chili recipe I have ever used. i cut the chicken up first before cooking to make it even easier 9you lose the shred of the chicken, but worth it for the convenience) Nothing to it but opening cans and bags.
posted by rtimmel at 11:51 AM on October 21, 2008