how to replace nightshades part 4: tomatoes

In my little series on how to replace nightshades, I have left the hardest for last. Tomatoes perform a variety of roles in cooking. Raw, they provide a nice firm texture and a fresh, tart flavor. Cooked, they provide thickness, acidity, sweetness, and hearty flavors for sauces, soups, curries, spreads, pasta, and countless other dishes.

Tomatoes are probably the hardest nightshade to replace for two reasons: 1.) tomato products come in so many shapes and forms that they are useful in all kinds of recipes, and 2.) they are often a substantial part of the dish they inhabit. Think about it: tomato sauce, tomato salsa, minestrone soup. Tomatoes are not just ingredients in these recipes, they are the base of these recipes. But all is not lost! When you encounter a recipe with tomato in the ingredients list, ask yourself: what is the role of the tomato in this dish? Is it acting as the dish's acid? sweetener? thickener? is it, in the case of a salad, there for texture and color more than for flavor?

Before I start discussing replacing tomatoes, I want to introduce you to your two new best friends:

Umeboshi Paste

Tamarind Concentrate

On the left, umeboshi paste. I only know the Eden brand kind, and I get it from a health food store; you may be able to find some at an Asian grocery store, or you can just order it online. Umeboshi paste is made from a tart Japanese plum that is pickled in brine and then ground to paste. It is incredibly salty, and though it looks expensive, one little tub of this will take you months to finish off (and it keeps for years in the refrigerator). Umeboshi paste provides a bit of the texture cooked or reduced tomato products provide, as well as all of the zing and near-sweetness tomatoes have. Stir a little (meaning maybe half a teaspoon) into any recipe that would otherwise have tomatoes (cooked recipes are better, but I've stirred some into mango salsas), and taste to see if you want more. Reduce the salt in the recipe by a little. If you really, really can't find it, you can use a little umeboshi vinegar (which is easier to find, but not as good a tomato replacement) in its place.

On the right, Tamarind Concentrate. I like the Laxmi brand, but you can find this in any Indian/Southeast Asian or Latin American grocery stores, or in a well-stocked grocery store's "ethnic food" section. Tamarind concentrate may also seem a little expensive, but a little goes a long way, and though you should keep it in the fridge once you open it, this too will last forever. (I have used tamarind that has sat in a fridge for about a year. The sugar in it crystalizes around the edge a little, but it was fine to eat.) It resembles molasses in appearance, but is much much tarter. It has a little sweetness to it, but is mostly sour. Any time a recipe calls for tomato paste, I use at least half tamarind paste to make up for it, because it resembles tomato paste in terms of taste in a recipe.

If you want to substitute effectively, those are essentials. Below I will list how to substitute for (most) tomato products.

Replacing Raw and/or lightly-cooked Tomatoes

For the most part, raw tomatoes are often present in recipes to help add a bit of tartness, crispness, and color. To achieve similar flavor, you can use an under-ripe mango. I know this sounds crazy, but hear me out: an underripe mango has not ripened enough to be sweet, and it has a tartness and near-sweetness reminiscent of a tomato. Sliced, the fruit's texture is also similar to a thick slice of tomato. You want a mango that has only the tiniest bit of give when you squeeze it with your fingers--it shouldn't feel soft by any means, but it shouldn't be as hard as rock. Peel it, and either slice or cube it. This is perfect for sandwiches, salsas, and cold salads. You can also ad it last-minute to stir fries, but if you cook it too long, it will become sweeter. In a cold salad (grain, pasta or vegetable), you can also substitute raw zucchini or summer squash for raw tomato. Diced it small and add a small amount (about 1 tsp per tomato replaced by zucchini) of lemon juice to the recipe. Also consider substituting or adding cucumber, which provides the same watery, crisp texture as raw tomato.

For lightly-cooked tomatoes, like the kind you might have in an English breakfast or on Eggs [Tofu] Benedict or Florentine, lightly sautee sliced or fileted zucchini in a small amount of olive oil and vinegar over high heat until it begins to soften and brown on each side.

Replacing Tomatoes in Cooking

I have some bad news for you: if a recipe calls for an entire can or more of diced, crushed, stewed, peeled, ground, or pureed tomatoes, I can't help you. One can or more of tomatoes means that they are a significant part of the recipe that you are better off looking for a different recipe. But don't give up hope; lots of dishes that call for those ingredients are also available nightshade-free. For example, though minestrone soup usually calls for diced tomatoes, I have seen recipes without any. (Search engines' "advanced search" option lets you find recipes that don't include a word [like tomato].) You can find variations on curries that call for cans of tomatoes that instead call for a little tomato paste or a single chopped tomato (both of which are easier to substitute). Be creative, and don't despair.

First and foremost, if you're anything like me, you probably miss the occasional thick pasta sauce. I have a recipe for tomato-free marinara here, and you can find many others by a simple internet search. It may seem like a lot of work, but this stuff freezes well, and will help you out if you're missing this basic comfort food. You can also buy Nomato's nightshade-free marinara, barbeque sauce, or ketchup.

Mostly, though, in cooking, you'll need to replace a couple chopped tomatoes, or 1/4 C tomato paste, or a couple tablespoons of ketchup. Remember that tomatoes are primarily in these recipes to add some tartness, a hint of sweetness, and thickening properties. This is easy! And you have a variety of options. If the chopped tomatoes are supposed to remain whole throughout the recipe and not create a sauce, like in a sauteed pasta dish, you can substitute and equal amount of zucchini for the tomato. If the chopped tomato is supposed to cook down into a paste, treat it like tomato paste in a recipe, which you can substitute with:

• Canned pumpkin puree, butternut squash puree, or sweet potato puree. Obviously not the kind with spices in it. These thicken a recipe, and with a tiny addition of vinegar (or ume plum paste!) also provide the sweetness and acidity of a tomato.
• Umeboshi paste. I described this above, but this is great for adding to a tomato-textured thing, with tamarind to create the perfect fake-tomato paste taste, or by itself if you're just trying to replace the taste of tomatoes (like in salsa and other sauces, or curries).
• Tamarind Concentrate. Again, I discussed this above, but it's great for adding the zing you miss with tomatoes to a variety of recipes. It is especially good in seitan, or other recipes in which tomato paste serves as a moistener and flavor enhancer. Works especially well with umeboshi paste. Tamarind and a little sweetener of some sort is the best substitute for ketchup in recipes.
• Molasses. Molasses have such a strong, distinctive flavor that you only want to use a tiny bit of them, unless it's for something like BBQ sauce, which benefits from the taste of molasses. Combine this with one or more of the other options in recipes where tomato paste is added as a moistener and flavor enhancer.
• Peanut butter. I know how crazy this sounds, but in certain recipes, especially in seitan or meatloaf-imitations, peanut butter adds a nice texture and interesting depth of flavor. Plus, it acts as a thickener.

The bad news with these is that with the exception of the purees (which still need you to add a bit of vinegar), they need to be used in some combination. The good news is that you can mix and match, and you can work on your ratios according to taste (ie, if you need 3 Tbsp tomato paste, you can use 2 T tamarind, 1 T peanut butter, etc). You'll need to do some experimenting, but at least you no longer have to overlook some of your old favorites.

In the case of sundried tomatoes, I know, I miss them too (especially the oil packed ones! yum). Consider using olives in their place.

And with pizzas, while non-tomato marinara can do the trick, if you're anything like me, you'll come to a new appreciation of white pizza. And of pesto as pizza sauce.

Tomato dishes are so ubiquitous that few of us can imagine comfort food without them. But like I said above, be creative, and don't despair! Nightshade-free doesn't mean comfort-free. You have options.

One final note on avoiding tomatoes. As with peppers and potatoes, tomatoes can sneak into unexpected foods. Many fake meat products, especially veggie hot dogs, bacon, deli-style slices, and Italian-flavored sausages, use tomato paste for color and/or texture, so as always for the nightshade-free vegan, read ingredient labels carefully before buying fake meats. Sweet-and-sour sauce, many other flavorful Asian stir-fry sauces, and barbeque sauce almost always contain ketchup or tomato paste, as do most homemade seitan recipes, so check ingredient labels and be sure to ask about these things if you're at a restaurant or friend's house.

how to replace nightshades part 3: potatoes

Potatoes were not the hardest nightshade for me to give up (peppers were, because I used to LOVE hot sauce), but they were one of the first things I was desparate for which to find a suitable replacement. My mother is Irish in descent, and we had some potato product on the dinner table easily 5 nights a week. Potatoes, and recipes that contain them, are tied in my brain and in my mouth to the feeling of family, home, and comfort.

Potatoes are ubiquitous, used in all kinds of cuisines for everything from making a soup creamy to binding veggie burger ingredients to taking the center stage as a baked potato. If you find yourself missing potatoes, or have a recipe that has potatoes as an ingredient, consider some of the following substitutions.

Replacing Potatoes

Each of the following vegetables (almost all of which are roots) is a good potato substitution for different reasons, and for different forms of potato, so mix and match at will.

Sweet Potato: Despite the name, sweet potatoes (also called yams) are not actually related to potatoes. Which is good for those of us who can't eat nightshades! You can bake sweet potatoes, mash them, turn them into fries, and fry them up for hash browns, all like you can with potatoes. There are varieties of white sweet potatoes that are starchier and less sweet than the orange tubers you probably think of when you think of sweet potatoes; those work great as replacements for potatoes, but brown quickly when the raw flesh is exposed to air. Japanese yams are also whitish (with purple skin), starchier, and less sweet than most sweet potatoes.

Taro Root: While taro root can be difficult to come by, and I've never actually seen it organic, most Asian markets have some in stock. They come in two sizes: large, which aren't as sweet, and baby, which are smaller than your fist and a little sweeter. Boiled and mashed, it makes a great substitution for potato. You can also chop it up and include it in soups and stews, but it gets grainy if you overcook it. Taro root is sweeter than a potato, but not as sweet as a sweet potato. Roasting it for chips or fries brings out that sweetness a litle more than boiling it. I have recipes for mashed taro and taro patties here.

Cassava/Yuca/Manioc/Tapioca: These are four names for one root. Cassava doesn't keep long, so if you find it in a store, its skin is likely to be covered in a thick wax. It can be difficult to find, though grocery stores that stock Latin, Caribbean, and African ingredients often have them, because all of those cuisines use cassava. Cassava can be fried, sauteed, baked, boiled, and mashed. Let me tell you, though, overcooking this baby results in a starchy, gluey texture. Tapioca starch, also made from cassava, is a great replacement for potato starch.

Sunchoke/Jerusalem Artichoke: Sunchokes have a bright flavor, and don't ever get as mushy and grainy as potatoes, which can be a real asset in dishes in which you want your potato-like substitute to maintain its shape and struccture. Use them in soups, stews, and "potato" salads. You can also grate them and use them as hash browns, but they cook down a lot. I have a recipe for potato-style sunchoke salad here.

Celeriac: Celeriac, or celery root, has a distinct flavor of its own, but it is a tasty root vegetable in its own right, and you can use it in place of chopped or diced potatoes in soups and roasts--and even as oven fries, as I posted in this entry.

Turnip/Rutabaga: Like celeriac, turnips and rutabagas have distinct flavor, but give a nice, earthy, root-vegetably flavor and texture for use in almost any recipe where you'd use chopped or diced potatoes. I have an entry about what I do with turnips here.

Bread/flour/starch: I know this sounds crazy, but wait: in recipes like blended soups, where potatoes aren't the main focus but are there to make a soup creamy, you can substitute a large piece of bread. Simply remove the crust, then blend the piece of bread in a blender or food processor with a cup of water and/or a cup of the broth, then stir back into the soup. Also, many recipes, like potato pancakes (latkes; I have a recipe here for sweet potato ones), gnocchi, or veggie burgers, call for cooked potatoes. This is because potatoes are very starchy (much more so than sweet potatoes), and the starch in them acts as a binding agent. For each 1 cup cooked potatoes you replace in these recipes, add 2 Tbsp to 1/4 cup flour, depending on desired stiffness. You can add more if your dough (or recipe) doesn't stiffen as much as you'd like, and you can experiment with also adding some cornstarch or other starch (like tapioca).

Finally, as a word of warning to people who are new to avoiding nightshades: potato starch, like paprika and cayenne, is really sneaky, and works its way into all sorts of things. Almost all store-bought gluten-free flours and baked goods contain potato starch, as do all powdered egg substitutes (like Ener-G or Bob's Red Mill), so be careful about eating baked goods whose ingredients you don't know. Other ubiquitous ingredients that can sometimes be potato-derived are maltodextrin and "modified food starch." Both are usually from corn, but be careful. Also remember that some vodkas are distilled from potatoes. Some nightshade-free people can digest potato vodka, others can't--know what you're drinking. Most brands' websites mention whether theirs comes from grain (usually wheat or rye) or potato.

how to replace nightshades part 2: peppers

The group of vegetables that is "peppers" encompasses a wide variety of peppers. While most of the peppers we know and love (or fear) today have South American origins, now peppers of some kind can be found in almost every world cuisine, on every part of the menu from appetizers to desserts and drinks.

For the record, peppers and pepper are not the same thing. Table pepper, or peppercorn, whether black, white, pink, green, or sezchuan, comes from a completely different plant. Peppercorn is safe for people who can't eat nightshades.

Because of their light flavor, peppers are easy to replace in almost any recipe. I'll divide this replacement guide into two parts: replacing bell peppers, and replacing hot peppers.

Replacing Bell Peppers

Bell peppers come in a variety of colors, including green, red, orange, yellow, white, and purple. Green bell peppers are actually less-ripe red peppers. They are crisp and watery when raw, and have a light, subtle flavor that, when ripe, is almost sweet.

To replace chopped or sliced bell peppers in raw recipes, consider using a fresh cucumber, seeded if you like. For small chunks (like chopped small in a pasta salad), you can use zucchini or yellow squash. Also in salads, you can use diced, sliced, or julienned carrots or celery. All of these provide a watery crunch without too much extra flavor (though celery and cucumber would add a bit of extra flavor).

For cooking, remember zucchini, your best friend for replacing eggplant?

Zucchini is also an ideal candidate for replacing bell peppers in cooking. You can chop it or dice it into similar sizes, and unpeeled, it adds the same color as a pepper. You can use green or yellow zucchini, and yellow summer squash.

Other substitutions for bell peppers in cooking include carrots and celery, as I mentioned above, and the stems from leaves of chard. That's right! You can save chard stems and chop them up to use in various dishes. Pink chard stems will leak some of their color in a dish, though, so your stir fry might get a little bit of a blush.

Because their delicate flavor usually cooks down and drowns in a strong sauce, bell peppers don't usually lend a lot of flavor to a dish, so often skipping them altogether is fine.

For people missing fire-roasted red peppers: I've never tried fire-roasting a zucchini, but I rather suspect it'd be almost as awesome as fire-roasted peppers.

Finally, many people (including restaurant servers, ugh) forget that Paprika is powdered red pepper. Often, it is only in recipes for garnish, color, or for an extra "oomph" that you may not need, so if it is a small amount (1/4 tsp or less), leave it out. Ground pink peppercorn is a pretty replacement if it's just for looks. You can also consider using a tiny bit of tamari to up the umami factor of your dish. If there is more than 1/4 tsp paprika, consider what the paprika is doing in the dish. Is it adding a tiny bit of sweetness and/or warmth? If so, add a tiny amount (I'm serious. Tiny. Smaller than a pinch) of ground cloves. Cloves lend a hint of warmth and sweetness to a dish--but a little goes a long way! If a recipe calls for smoked paprika, it's usually just for a smoky flavor. Invest in a bottle of liquid smoke (it's cheap and totally worth it), and use that instead of smoked paprika. Replacing it one-for-one usually does the trick (ie, 1 tsp liquid smoke = 1 tsp smoked paprika), but taste test and add more liquid smoke if you like things smoky. (An additional quick warning: paprika, sometimes listed as "paprika oleoresin," is often used as a coloring agent in red or pink things, particularly meat substitutes, so watch out for it!)

Replacing Hot/Chili Peppers

Lots of people who can eat nightshades still can't or don't eat hot peppers. Because chilis are used so sparingly in cooking anyway, if you don't like spicy things, you don't need to substitute for hot peppers at all: just leave them out. Volume-wise, they aren't a significant percentage of the final dish.

However, a lot of us like(d) spicy foods and miss hot sauce terribly. For people like me, who used to pour hot sauce on everything and add extra cayenne to all her curries, replacing hot peppers is a necessity.

Most people think of black pepper as something that just sits on the table, or just as a simple "seasoning" to add to every recipe. If you want spicy foods without the nightshades, you're going to have to start thinking differently about pepper.

First of all, buy some high-quality pepper. I'm not one of those snobs who will only tolerate freshly-ground pepper, but if you are going to use store-bought ground pepper, you want it fresh, and you want it strong. It's still relatively inexpensive, and it makes a difference. Add at least a little black pepper to any dish you want spicy; you can add generous amounts to Chinese, Caribbean, and Southern dishes.

But black pepper isn't the only way to go. There are lots of other varieties of peppercorn, and each has a distinct flavor. Check out Frontier's "Gourmet Peppers of the World" on their website. I think most major spice brands carry varieties of pepper like this. They're a little more pricy than normal black peppercorns, but cheaper than bottles of hot sauce would be. I've tried a lot of different flavors and they're all really interesting, but if you want heat that can replace cayenne or other chilis, you'll want Cubeb, Sezchuan, Longberry (okay, I haven't actually tried this, but the Frontier website says it's the spiciest!) and maybe even Pink, which isn't as hot but has a warm taste that, like cloves, gives the impression of heat.

Okay, so, ADD PEPPER. But pepper has a distinct flavor of its own, so I know, that can't be your only option. Here's where we come back to cloves. Like I said when I was talking about paprika, cloves in a dish intimate sweetness and heat, though they're not actually sweet. They are rather hot for a spice. Use ground cloves sparingly, but use them in South American (I always put it in my guacamole, in taco fillings, and in nacho-cheese-style sauces), Indian, and Middle Eastern dishes for extra warmth in a dish. Use a tiiiiiny bit at first (again, less than a pinch), then ramp up as long as the flavor is not overpowering anything else.

Other ingredients that add warmth to a dish are ginger, garlic, mustard powder, horseradish, and wasabi. Since most dishes that call for hot peppers also use garlic, try adding more garlic. For dishes that call for ginger already, try adding a little more of it near the end of the cooking time; the fresher it is, the more of a bite it will have. Dried mustard, horseradish, and wasabi can also burn you in that nice sinus-clearning way, but they have really distinctive flavors, so use them with care. (You can up the amount in a dish if they're already there, otherwise I might not try it.)

Certain people (hi, mom!) hate when recipes call for things "to taste," but since these aim to replace heat, and everyone has a different preference of how "hot" something tastes, replace "to taste." If a recipe calls for cayenne, try a 1-to-1 replacement with pepper and a tiny pinch of clove; taste test and work up from there. If a recipe calls for hot sauce, use these replacements, but also add a dash of vinegar or lemon juice, since hot sauces are usually pretty acidic.

Finally, dried peppers like chipotles, pasillas, anchos, and serranos are often dried in smoke houses, or using smoke. If you are dealing with a recipe that calls for one of these, add a tiny bit of liquid smoke (I'm telling you, it is awesome), like 1/4 to 1/2 tsp, to get a more complex flavor. Do this even if you're not bothering with the other replacements; it'll still work wonders for your dish.

If you can't have nightshades, you can't have hot sauce, and you're not going to get that same eye-watering, face-flushing shock that chilis can give you. But you don't have to go heat-less!

One final warning: processed foods often list "spices" in their ingredients, and often, "spices" includes paprika, cayenne or chili pepper flakes. Always read ingredient labels, and try to stay away from anything that lists the mysterious "spices."

I do eat food other than cupcakes

...but this is a valentine's day post, and v-day is a day that MUST be filled with chocolate and pastel pink:
More on this little fellow later. First I need to post a REAL recipe, something without sugar, so you believe me.

A couple years ago, a friend of mine studied abroad in Ghana. She visited many West African countries while she was over there, and spoke pretty highly of many of the dishes she'd tried there. I've since veganized a few - though you haven't seen them (yet), I make mean ghanian groundnut veggies and a decent senegalese stew. I love the spice combinations in North African food: Moroccan, Algerian, and Egyptian dishes are great. Pretty much all of the African cuisine I've tried, I like. But when my roommate's sister spent several months in Tanzania recently, I realized I have no idea what is typical of eastern African cuisine. So I looked ut up! and found a great website called the African Cookbook. It's not very vegan, though. So I veganized and adapted a few of the recipes, and have found one I really like.
Tanzanian Braised Cabbage
(serves at least 4 as an entree, 8 as a side)

1-2 Tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
1 large head of cabbage (2 lbs-ish), roughly chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp salt
cayenne pepper or red pepper flakes to taste
3/4 cup veggie broth or water
1/4 cup tamari
1 carrot, cut into matchsticks (optional)
1 handful of spinach or other such green, roughly chopped (optional)

In a large pan, saute the onion over medium heat in the oil until transparent. Add the cabbage, spices, and salt. Saute until the cabbage is slightly tender, about 10 minutes. Then add the veggie broth, tamari, and optional carrots. Cook until the cabbage is soft, at least 10 more minutes. Adjust spices to taste. Once the cabbage is at the tenderness you want (I like mine pretty darn soft), remove from heat and stir in the optional spinach.
(Pre-spinach. I made a half-batch because my cabbage was tiny.)

Serve over rice, millet, or, if you want it to be a one-dish meal, add a little extra water and serve it in a bowl with glass noodles! (aka bean threads, starch noodles, vermicelli, worm noodles, or cellophane noodles, available in asian food stores, natural food stores, or the specialty aisle of a normal grocery store)
I love these things because 1) they are made from bean starch (you can also get ones made from sweet potato starch, but they smell awful. Taste okay, smell awful), so they are pretty much free of EVERYTHING and 2.) all you have to do to prepare them is let them sit in hot water for a few minutes.

Okay, healthy food aside: HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! My coworker had a delicious vegan potluck dinner, and my contribution (surprise) was CUPCAKES! I really wanted to try the Red Velvet cupcakes from vegan cupcakes take over the world, but I don't believe in food coloring, and as I made them around midnight last night, I was too tired to bother to make my own. I used a bit of beet juice in the batter, but it wasn't strong enough to cover up the cocoa powder:
Though not red, they were a little paler than chocolate cupcakes would be. These cupcakes had a really light texture and rose quite a bit in the over.
Gorgeous! I made a little Earth Balance, Soymilk (colored with beets), powdered sugar glaze and topped them with pecans, which sort of resemble hearts, right?
OH but do you want to hear a cupcake-related (well, sorta) tragedy? I had a nasty nightshade reaction (ie, a rash)to something I ate in NYC this weekend, but I wasn't sure what. After reading my last entry, my mother asked, "didn't the babycakes desserts make you sick?"
"Of course not," I said. "Why would it?"
"There's potato starch in it."
"No there's not," I told her. "I asked the workers if there was potato starch in anything and they said no."
She pointed me to the babycakes website, where they say all of their frostings have potato starch. On one hand, it was good to know whence my rash came. On the other hand - the spacy hipster babycakes employee BETRAYED ME. So I rescind some of my babycakes review. Really good taste, slightly less allergy-friendly than they advertise, especially because the employees don't actually know what's in their products...

That's why I bake so many cupcakes of my own. Because NO ONE ELSE'S ARE SAFE. : /

potato-style sunchoke salad

My mother is mostly Irish. We had some form of potato - mashed, baked, boiled, friend - at least 4 nights a week when I was a kid. To mom, my nightshade allergy is a tragedy - what's worse, I got it from her! She's been able to tolerate nightshades pretty well for most of her life, except eggplants and peppers, but her allergy has gotten worse. Poor mom has had to cut back on potatoes!

I'm okay with this (sweet potatoes are soooo much tastier than their starchy nightshadey counterpart), but my mother misses her potato dishes. A customer of hers recommended Sunchokes (Jerusalem Artichokes), so we tried them on Thanksgiving. We mashed them and threw in a good deal of vinegar and dijon mustard - delicious! but not too potatoey. So the goal for Christmas dinner was to imitate all those mayonaise-drenched potato salads of my mother's childhood.

I washed 'em (aren't they cute?),
sliced 'em
and boiled 'em until tender (apparently I didn't wash 'em too well, though - look at the scuzz on the righthand side! ew).
the water turned a deep yellow color...
but they stayed pale!

With the addition of 2-3 large spoonfuls of Vegenaise, several TBSP apple cider vinegar, parsley, diced onion and celery, we had a delicious Potato-Style Sunchoke Salad:


Mom was very happy. After this, though, I want to try some sunchoke recipes that don't try to disguise the sunchokes. They're so tasty!

I've heard cassava/yuca/manoic is another really good - and convincing - replacement for potato. Maybe I'll give that a try soon...

What I Don't Eat: Part I

This is deadly nightshade. It's... deadly.

Nightshades are a family of flowering plants. Not all members of the nightshade family are deadly, but all contain varying amounts of a powerful alkaloids called Solanine. Solanine is poisonous, but occurs in such small amounts in edible nightshades that most people can eat them without experiencing any problems. I am one of those poor souls who can't eat nightshades. I'm too sensitive to the Solanine.

So what are edible nightshades? What can't I eat?
Potatoes.

Eggplants.

Peppers.

Tomatoes.

I KNOW. A vegan who's allergic to vegetables? It's a tragedy. I LOVE all those foods, too, and for a while I was able to tolerate them in small amounts... but now the smallest amount I can manage is when I have spicy (ie, contain hot pepper) foods. So no french fries, no tomato soup, no ratatouille or roasted red peppers... sniffle.

The recipes you will see on this blog (and I will put up recipes soon) will not contain nightshades... except maybe the occasional sprinkling of cayenne. I can't help it! I love spicy things.