About us

Welcome to our family recipe blog!

Welcome to Traditional Plant-Based Cooking. We are a Scottish family, living on a beautiful, misty but very rainy Scottish island, with two older kids, 3 dogs, 2 rabbits, a cat, and a mishief of pet rats!

Jump to:

• Welcome to our family recipe blog!
• 🍲 Our Mission
• 👩🏻‍🍳 Why Trust Us?
• 👪 Our Personal Journey
• 👪 Over to you
• 📚 Our Inspiration
• ☕ More About Our Food Journey
• 📋 FAQs
• 💭 How can a recipe be traditional and vegan?
• 💭 Why do some dishes have 'chicken' or 'beef' in the title, but are labeled vegan?
• 💭 Are these traditional recipes authentic?
• 📲 Contact Us
• Subscribe to our blog!
• 💬 Comments
• We'd Love to Hear From You

🍲 Our Mission

Our aim is to bring you easy, affordable, and delicious plant-based recipes that are adapted from traditional, old-fashioned, retro & vintage family favourites. Whether you're vegan, vegetarian, flexitarian, or an omnivore, or perhaps have dairy or egg allergies, our homely recipes are designed for everyone wanting to eat more plant-based & vegan meals in a homely old-fashioned way.

Our main focus is on traditional British recipes made vegan but at home we also enjoy a wide variety of meals inspired by other cultures such as American, Asian, Mexican, Australian, etc so we aim to share our favourites.

Old recipes often bring back many memories and can help keep alive our connection with loved ones. We believe we can capture that same nostalgia and recreate the same flavours with vegan-friendly everyday ingredients, so nobody has to miss out.

👩🏻‍🍳 Why Trust Us?

Jacq, the author, admin, recipe developer, home-cook and baker, and photographer, behind this blog, combines skills learnt during previous study & work, everyday family cooking experiences, as well as a passion for old-fashioned recipes and historical food research.

She holds degrees in Social Sciences [with health studies], an Honours degree in Psychology, and a MSc in Psychology. Currently, Jacq is training to become a psychotherapist. She has also completed two years in Professional Cookery and Hospitality at West Highland College. There, she earned the title of 'Cookery Student of the Year' [2016] and won a college-level MasterChef competition with an all-vegan menu [2017].

Her professional journey also includes employment as a baker & cook in a local Scottish Island bakery, specialising in vegan and gluten-free bakes, deli cooking, and soups. However, first and foremost, Jacq considers herself an everyday family home-cook focusing on good traditional home-cooking made vegan.

The above photo is the winning entry for the 2017 West Highland College [University of the Highlands & Islands] MasterChef competition for professional cookery students. Jacq's entry was the only vegan one! She prepared their own vegan puff pastry for a cheesy leek tart, along with caramelised roasted swede chips, salad & dressing, and a home-made vegan mayonnaise. Dessert was a vegan chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting, home-made honeycomb [cinder toffee], fresh Scottish raspberries, and a raspberry coulis. The stand mixer was the prize!

👪 Our Personal Journey

Overcoming personal challenges such as being a carer for her two autistic children and managing an autoimmune condition, Jacq focuses alot of her energy on this blog. It serves as both a virtual recipe box for family favourites and as a platform to help others enjoy traditional old-fashioned recipes.

For the past few years Jacq has been living with an autoimmune condition, that is life-long and progressive, and which makes it difficult to carry out everyday tasks including cooking for the family. But focusing on this blog provides ample opportunities to practice being an amateur food historian for those days when recipe testing is not possible. Which is a great distraction!

👪 Over to you

Our family recipe blog is also a means for rediscovering old traditional favourites that perhaps you enjoyed growing up but thought were off-limits due to a change in diet, or maybe you fondly recall your granny, parents, or family member baking or cooking a certain meal. Food, memories, emotions, and nostalgia are closely connected and just because we love plant-based and vegan foods doesn't mean we can't also experience that connection.

Our blog is also where you can discover new favourite recipes that would have sustained your ancestors throughout the centuries, and now you can feed your own family with the fun, interesting, and deliciously budget-friendly meal and baking recipes. We do find it so much fun researching old recipes and recreating them with vegan ingredients as it's very exciting when it works! And when it doesn't it's an opportunity to learn more and motivation to keep trying as we love sharing our recipes with all our lovely visitors.

📚 Our Inspiration

We draw from an extensive collection of old cookbooks, booklets, leaflets, magazine cutouts, war recipes, Great depression recipes, old recipe box cards, old school dinner recipes, as well as real family recipes that have been handed down through the generations. There is nothing wrong with modern recipes but we love the old recipes the best, and in a way we are creating modern recipes by recreating and updating old recipes into vegan-friendly versions that are more accessible and usable for todays home cooks.

However, maintaining the essence of the traditional dish, highlighting its history, origins and traditions, while appreciating the culture and perhaps also the folklore surrounding the recipe, is all very important and helps keep the traditional food alive.

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☕ More About Our Food Journey

Jacq decided to become vegetarian around the age of 10, as she loved animals and simply didn't want to eat them. For more than a decade now, her family has followed a plant-based lifestyle as they don't want to support factory farming and they just prefer eating lots of tasty vegetables instead.

Jacq's food blog aims to showcase that plant-based diets is not a modern concept as throughout history, plant-based meals have been commonplace as meat has long been an expensive ingredient for many cultures. Indeed almond milk dates back to medieval times!

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📋 FAQs

💭 How can a recipe be traditional and vegan?

Traditional recipes connect us to our past and to other cultures. Our adaptations maintain the essence of these recipes, only missing the meat which, in our opinion, you won't miss at all!

During medieval times, there were periods like Lent and specific days of the week, such as Wednesdays and Fridays, when the consumption of meat and dairy was restricted.

As a result, alternatives like almond milk, fake eggs, and veggie sausages, and a variety of vegetable ingredients were family staples. So, in many ways, plant-based eating is not a new fad but has been a necessity throughout history.

For example, during historical periods like the 1930s Great Depression and the wartime years of the 1940s, necessity led to the creation of egg-free, dairy-free, and meat-free recipes. These adaptations helped many frugal home cooks cope with rationing and food shortages. So, it's entirely possible for a recipe to be both old-fashioned and vegan-friendly!

💭 Why do some dishes have 'chicken' or 'beef' in the title, but are labeled vegan?

We aim to make traditional dishes accessible to everyone, regardless of dietary preferences, so the 'chicken' or 'beef' in the title refers to the flavour and experience you can expect, just minus the meat.

Many new vegans, vegetarians, and those adopting a plant-based diet often hesitate to abandon their traditional favourites because these dishes are familiar and comforting. Labeling a dish as 'vegan chicken pie' or 'vegan beef stew' immediately gives people an idea of what to expect in terms of flavours, textures, ingredients, and cooking methods.

This can make the transition to plant-based eating much easier and more appealing for many.

Furthermore, you don't have to rely on vegan meat alternatives like chunks, pieces, or crumbles although these products do have their place and can make dishes more interesting in terms of texture and flavours. Meat alternatives can easily be substituted with ingredients such as beans, lentils, tofu, tempeh, bulgur wheat, jack fruit, banana blossom, mushrooms, potatoes and vegetables.

By adding 'chicken' or 'beef' to a recipe title we are certainly not trying to dupe anyone into believing that there is actual meat in the recipe [we do receive comments suggesting this!]. We can safely and gladly confirm that all our recipes are 100% animal-based free!

💭 Are these traditional recipes authentic?

We aim to specialise in traditional British recipes that come from our family's own experiences and childhood. For recipes from other cultures, we offer our vegan adaptations, that are inspired by the traditional originals.

Our blog is dedicated to celebrating traditional dishes through a vegan, plant-based perspective. While we deeply respect and appreciate the authenticity of the traditional recipes we adapt, we believe in adapting them in a way that makes them accessible to everyone, regardless of their dietary preferences.

For example, we lived in Northern Ireland for many years, with two of our children born there, so we hold a special affection for traditional Irish cooking and want to share plant-based versions of family favourite Irish recipes, while ensuring that their rich history and flavour can be enjoyed by all, especially those who choose a vegan and plant-based lifestyle as well as those with allergies who require dairy and egg-free recipes.

Our mission isn't to diminish or alter the essence of these dishes, but rather to honour and prolong their legacy in a world that is increasingly conscious of ethical eating. By introducing plant-based alternatives, we aim to preserve these cultural gems while also making them relevant and inclusive for today's diverse global community.

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📲 Contact Us

We love hearing from you so if you have a question, want to leave a review, or suggest a traditional favourite recipe that you would like a vegan version of, just drop us a message and we will try our best to feature it on our blog.

We would be very happy and honoured to help.

Our email: [email protected] and our postal address: Traditional Plant-based Cooking, Unit 65109, PO Box 26965, Glasgow, G1 9BW.

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Subscribe to our blog!

💬 Comments

Our recipes are constantly being updated for accuracy and to make them a better and more useful experience for you. However, if you find a mistake or oversight, please let us know by dropping us a comment or posting an email. Your feedback is very important to us.

You can also post a comment below any of our posts and recipes, and even if we don't have an answer our community of lovely visitors may have one. So do feel free to chat within the comments about your cooking experiences.

We'd Love to Hear From You

If you've found your way here, chances are you enjoy good old-fashioned food made simple, with plant-based & vegan-friendly ingredients. We’d love to know more about your own kitchen journey especially what you find tricky or need help with, what you're searching for, what type of recipes you would like more of, and what would make cooking a little easier or more enjoyable for you.

We’ve put together a short 2-3 minute survey to help shape future recipes, blog content, and free resources around what really matters to you.

💬 Click here to take the survey – thanks so much your feedback means the world!